The Cold War in Global Context, 1945–1991

Millions of Westerners look back on the year 1945 with a sense of accomplishment and pride. For many who were alive during the 1940s, and especially for those who participated in World War II, the hard-fought military victory over fascist Germany and imperial Japan signaled a resounding affirmation of Western-style democracy, individual freedom, and the rule of law. In the case of Nazi Germany, state-sponsored bestiality on a scale never before witnessed had been decisively eradicated, while in the Pacific theater the insatiable territorial ambitions of the Japanese military had been thwarted. During the war, two major ideological adversaries, the US and the Soviet Union, played down their many differences in order to defeat a common enemy. The scale and tenacity of the fighting on numerous fronts around the globe guaranteed that millions of people were directly involved in the conflict, while the sacrifices of colonial peoples in Africa and Asia suggested to many in the West that empire could no longer be justified. Although the cost in human lives and physical destruction had been enormous (approximately 60 million soldiers and civilians lost their lives between 1939 and 1945), a colossal scourge had been lifted. Soon, it was hoped, a peaceful world would be restored, civilian pursuits again taken up, and a new international order established on the solid foundations of shared experience in battle. The formation of the United Nations Organization (UN) by 50 states in San Francisco in the summer of 1945 augured well for a new era of international cooperation, one where the mistakes made after the close of World War I would be avoided.