Question

With reference to the Second World War, explain the impact on the following:

1. The Axis powers.
2. Origin of the Cold War.
3. The formation of the UN.

Answer 1

1. The Axis nations (Germany, Italy, and Japan) were vanquished during the Second World War. In November 1942, the Allied troops (Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States) retook African territory lost by France. Victories over Germany and Italy followed this. Following Germany's surrender, the Allies focused their attention on Japan. Japan had won and occupied the majority of Southeast Asia. The British army liberated Myanmar, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore. At the Potsdam Conference on July 26, 1945, the Allied Powers asked Japan to surrender, but Japan refused. Consequently, America dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan offered to surrender under the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, and the war came to an end. Following the war, one of the Allied Powers' armies controlled each zone in Germany. Japan and Italy also weakened significantly. Unlike Germany, they were not split into zones that could be ruled by conquering forces. The US army was to occupy Japan until 1952. All lands conquered and occupied by Japan since 1895 have been taken away.
2. Towards the end of the war, the seeming unity between the United States and the Soviet Union faded, and old suspicions and ideological divisions resurfaced.
   1. Despite the fact that the two countries did not fight each other, there was a high level of political tension between them.
   2. This state of tension between countries, in which each side implemented strategies aimed to strengthen itself and weaken the other without resorting to armed war, is known as the 'Cold War.'
   3. The Cold War also included an arms race that entailed the stockpiling of nuclear and conventional weapons, the development of military alliances, economic warfare and trade embargoes, propaganda, and proxy conflicts, particularly those involving superpower assistance for opposite sides in civil wars.
   4. As a result, the United States and the Soviet Union maintained diplomatic contacts and avoided open conflict, but they treated each other with hostility.
   5. This resulted in the world being divided into two power blocs.
3. The atrocities of two World Wars, as well as the failure of the League of Nations, prompted the Big Three Rossotto (President of the United States), Churchill (Prime Minister of the United Kingdom), and Stalin (Premier of the Soviet Union) to convene in Yalta in February 1945. They determined to hold a convention of representatives from all nations in San Francisco to draft the 'Charter of the United Nations. This resulted in the foundation of the United Nations Organisation on October 24, 1945.