World War II essay
World War II changed the life of the whole mankind, and though much time has past there is still much debate on its causes and impacts, there are still a lot of blind spots and controversies in its historiography and of course there are still effects sensed in many terms. In fact, there were numerous actions, conditions, and motives that defined the beginning of war. Having lost the World War I, Italy, Germany and Japan felt they had debts to pay to the other countries. As many of the conditions determined by international treaties seemed unjust, these countries searched for their own way to gain power. The Fascist movement in Italy, the Nazi regime in Germany and the militaristic regime in Japan gave birth to severe plans for revising the world order. One of the significant stimuli for international conflict was the Civil War in Spain in which both the Nationalist forces and the Spanish Republic supported by the USSR tested their new weapons and methods of warfare. Furthermore, there was a secret trade agreement between the Soviet Union and Germany, but the latter broke the Pact and invaded the USSR. That is how the World War II began.
It took six long years to end this disastrous international conflict, and the effects of it were really overwhelming. 80% of the earth population took part in the WWII. The figures are disputable, but on the whole the total casualties are estimated to make up about 60 million people, including 20 million of military men and the rest civilians. Almost half of that bechanced the Soviet Union. Apart from the military actions themselves, diseases, starvation, massacres, and deliberate genocide were among the strongest factors to take numerous lives away. Financial expenditures made up $4 billion, which is about 60-70 percent of national income in the participating countries. As a result of war the political role of the Western Europe was reduced. The United States and the Soviet Union became the leading powers at the world arena.
Accordingly, the world became bipolar, and each of the leaders tried to get ahead of another one. The confrontation between the USA and the USSR became known as the Cold War. The character of relations between these two states was determined long before even the World War I, first of all by the differences in political and economic systems and by different empire heritages. While the USA was a maritime power focused on trade and commerce, Russia was a centralized land-based power. After the Socialist Revolution in Russia, it became the threat for the capitalist world, and the Western democracies tried their best to control the USSR and to keep it from expansion. However, in the years of the WWII there was a vital need to unite forces against fascism. Still, as long as the war was over, it became obvious that there can be no friendship between the economic autarky and free trade, between socialism and capitalism, between the state planning and private enterprise. What is more, mistrust was intensified by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact’s secret protocol on the one hand, for example, and the delay of opening of a second front against Germany on the other hand. Such suspicions caused strong undercurrent of tension and hostility between the Allied powers. In this way, both countries, the United States and the Soviet Union coldly fought against each other for the world leadership as they had opposite ideals and principles for that.
