World War II, Essay Example

If World War I was the first and major test of U.S. force in international conflict, World War II would dramatically escalate that presence, and further alter the course of world politics and global relations.  As with the first, this was a war fueled by multiple issues, but the playing field was even more expanded here.  Causes of the second war were created, in a sense, by the increased interactions between nations following World War I.  At least equally significant was the new form previously “imperialist” ambitions were taking, certainly from German, Italian, Soviet, and Japanese forces.  If the ancient dynasties had collapsed, the nationalist aims generating them had not.  Furthermore, this time, while still greatly reluctant to involve itself, the U.S. would become the primary agent in the entire war.

The roots of World War II go back far before the actual conflict began, and may be traced to a variety of highly influential developments.  Most notably, 1922 and 1923 saw the respective rises to power of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, only then beginning to exert the mutual efforts that would mobilize Italy and Germany into fierce aggressors.  Equally importantly, two other elements shaped what was to come.  In 1928, 60 nations signed the Kellog-Briand Pact, which was a proactive, if ultimately weak, effort to forestall international war.  Clearly, there was a global sense that trouble was on the horizon.  Then, 1929 saw the Great Depression, which would devastate economies far beyond U.S. borders.  The trajectory of war had more definitive acts as well, as in Japan’s attacking of Shanghai in 1932, Hitler’s election to Chancellor in 1933, and Japan’s leaving the League of Nations that same year.  By 1935, likely fully aware of what was to come, Congress passed its first Neutrality Acts, even as Mussolini was invading Ethiopia.  By 1938, war was inevitable; Japan was steadily moving into China, Germany was moving into Austria sand Czechoslovakia, and in 1939 Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact protecting their mutual interests.  War officially commenced in that year, as Germany invaded Poland, Italy invaded Albania, and the Soviets attacked Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

In these few years, the U.S. was under great pressure to enter the war, but Americans were determined to remain apart.  Two immense factors changed this.  The Depression, which had been crippling American life since 1929, was greatly eased by the war effort.  In pragmatic terms, going to war helped to save the U.S. economy.  Then, there can be no underestimating of the impact of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.  This was American territory and, no matter how badly Americans wanted to distance themselves from a global catastrophe, national interests and pride were now directly challenged.  In a sense, this act of war echoed the German sinking of the Lusitania decades earlier, when the loss of American lives left the U.S. no choice but to commit to war.   By 1944, with the Allies freeing Paris from the Germans, the tide had changed, and Italy surrendered.  Germany would surrender a year later, but it would be the atomic bombing of Japan, forcing its surrender, that would finally close the war.

As noted, World War II provided an enormous boost to the U.S. economy, even as it created a nationalist spirit likely never to be recaptured.  America had “come to the rescue” and defeated what were perceived as forces of unrelenting evil, in the form of Germany, Italy, and Japan.  The position of the U.S. globally was also now unprecedented. It may be said that the war’s end marked the recognition of the U.S. as the premier world power, which would increasingly carry great weight in all matters of foreign policy.  At the same time, and in that final year of international devastation, the world saw the formation of the United Nations.  Unlike the earlier and largely ineffective League of Nations, this was and is an organization with a keenly practical approach to avoiding warfare in the future.  Finally, it may be argued that the largest consequence of World War II was President Truman’s decision to use atomic bombs on Japan.  If wars of the past, including World War I, resulted in the deaths of millions, this action revealed how radically the stakes of international warfare had changed.