How did WW2 effect the modern world?
I know the UN was created and nuclear weapons were introduced but what effect did they have?
I know the UN was created and nuclear weapons were introduced but what effect did they have?
1 Answer
The Second World War remains mankind's most devastating conflict, but the August 1941 meeting between Churchill and Roosevelt defined the post-war world.
Explanation:
The Second World War has a most complex history, but the driving engines behind it reflect 1) Romantic Ideologies that arose in the 19th Century -- particularly the idea that an individual can submerge themselves in an ideology and transform the world; and 2) Fundamental insecurities about food supply (See Lizzie Collingham's "A Taste of War: World War 2 and the Battle for Food").
Fascism, Nazism, Marxism-Leninism and Militant Nationalism were all romantic ideologies, with a common belief that the future was defined by them, and that the Enlightenment Ideologies of the 18th Century (chiefly classical liberalism) had had their day. Exciting revolutionary transformations would bring in a new world. The results of the war largely vanquished three of the four, and deprived Marxism Leninism of much of its earlier vitality.
Food security was central to Germany and Japan, even to Italy, and millions died in their attempt to achieve it. The war probably killed 76.8 million people (3.9% of the World's 1940 population), and perhaps half of them died as a consequence of hunger and its related effects. The Third Reich's Hunger Plan to starve tens of millions of people and the Japanese attempt to secure rice supplies were especially pernicious.
By contrast, even before the United States entered the war, Churchill and Roosevelt met in August 1941 and laid out the fundamental objectives of the war, and a plan for the post-war world. That plan hinged on fair international trade (with access to resources for all), self-determination, and measures (such as the UN) to inhibit warfare between nations. In fact, the term 'United Nations' entered use during the war as the descriptor for the nations fighting the Axis powers.
Since 1945, there have been no wars even close to the scale of WW2. A war on the scale of the Second World War today would kill almost 300,000,000 people and nothing like that has happened. Churchill and Roosevelt's plan is still working.
