Three Major Consequences of World War II

Edward C. Bohling Jr.

His 331

Laverne Peralta

October 11, 2010

There were many consequences of World War II which changed the dynamics of world politics, this paper will explore three. The outcome of the war saw the dismantling of the British Empire, the elevation of the United States to Super Power status, and the birth of the Cold War.

The winds of change within the British Empire were evident with the Indian independence movement and there had been some talk of granting total independence prior to the war. Britain had hoped that it would have in India a commonwealth loyal to the crown just as Australia and New Zealand would come to be, it was not to be so, none the less India gave Britain her sons and bases from which to support the Chinese and fight the Japanese. India under the Nehru government was inundated with the crisis of partition and would chart its own course. India was granted her independence on April 15, 1947 (Brendon, 2008, Ch13).

Britain thought it had a Gibraltar in the Island colony of Singapore, and after the alliance with Japan was ended in 1922 actions were taken to build defenses for it and staff it with troops to defend it. The Royal Exchequer spent £60 million on Singapore’s defensive embellishment which came in small amounts over time. According to Piers Brendon, post war (Great War) disarmament, depression and social reforms presented obstacles in Singapore’s defense preparations (Brendon, 2008, p422). Singapore was key to maintaining the British Empire in the Far East. If Singapore were to fall, the empire would lose prestige. Australia and New Zealand would lose faith in Britain’s ability to protect them. What the Philippines represented to the United States, Singapore represented to the British Empire (Brendon, 2008, p422).

Ironically it had been Britain’s alliance with Japan at the close of the Great War which diminished the naval assets required for an adequate defense of the Empire in the Far East and this is what would hasten the doom of Singapore and the other colonies (Costello, 1981, p30). The Dominions and the Malayan Union were providing a lot of revenue to the crown so that Britain would produce the ships required to project British presence in the area, however the British Navy made the choice to concentrate their ships in home waters which made Japan the defacto Lord of the Seas in the Far East. The British had built a large naval base in Singapore, but it had not been put to use by the time the Japanese began their expansion. The Japanese did not use the naval option in the taking of Singapore; they instead invaded Malaya via neutral Thailand and fought their way down the Malayan Peninsula (Costello, 1981, p30). Singapore fell on February 12, 1942 in the most humiliating defeat in British military history (Costello, 1981, p197).

Because Britain shirked from the responsibility of defending its own far flung empire, the colonials lost faith in British leadership over them. The Japanese occupiers did not have the man power to effectively administer the lands that they conquered and would set up puppet governments to act on their behalf. Although the Japanese proved harsher than their colonial masters, the fact that Britain lacked the sufficient military assets to protect them gave rise to nationalist feelings and a move for independence after the war (Plowright, 2007, p167). By 1997 Britain had lost its empire in the Far East.

Even today Britain lacks the means to float a Navy large enough to protect its interests; this had been one reason why Britain had been negotiating to hand over administration of the Falkland Islands to Argentina. It had been the Islanders themselves that preferred to remain under the British crown, the British Navy then had to take on Argentina’s forces to protect its citizens (Dodds, 2002, pp164-165).

The loss of Empire and the relinquishing of Super Power status was the ultimate price which Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s government paid to keep Britain from becoming a Nazi province. Churchill understood better than anybody that the United States would supplant Britain as the world’s foremost sea power. None of the dominions could provide the man power or material to aid in the fight as the United States could (Reynolds, 2006, p30).

The item which created the Cold War was researched during the years prior to World War II and the British had made significant strides in the development of atomic power. Research which began in England was freely shared with the United States and was the information incorporated along with the US Navy’s research into the Manhattan Project (Reynolds, 2006, p321). After Truman became president, he and congress ended the Anglo-American Atomic Alliance by shutting down Britain’s access to information; this was supposedly due to leaking of information by two of Britain’s scientists (Reynolds, 2006, p70).

Stalin had spies in the United States that had already penetrated the Manhattan project and this is how he learned of the Atomic Bomb although the British and U.S. participants did not disclose the matter to him. The primary spy was a supposed German pacifist that fled to Britain prior the war by the name of Klaus Fuchs, Fuchs was a member of the Communist Party in Germany (Haynes, Klehr, 1999, p289). Fuchs had been working with the British research team before he was deported from Britain to Canada and eventually employed by the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, New Mexico (Aiuto, 2010, Ch 2).

It is clear that Stalin’s distrust of the West and the West’s distrust of him sowed the seeds for the Cold War, and the acquisition of the Bomb became one of its focal points. The problem however became a fundamental issue of logistics and delivery. Pivotal to the issue of delivery was the acquisition of brain power; this brain power was located within Germany. It had been German scientists who initially thought about harnessing the power of the Atom and it was German scientists who had been successful in the creation of ballistic missiles. It was tantamount to both sides that those German scientists and engineers be acquired before the other side could get them, this is what had spurred the race to capture the brightest and best of the German scientists to keep them out of Soviet hands. (http://video.pbs.org/video /1235658337/program /1185782726).

No longer could the United States retire to an isolationist mentality, for better or worse the United States was the most powerful nation in the free world. It would fall to the United States to administer territories captured from Japan such as Saipan which would eventually become a commonwealth of the United States.

Saipan which is an island in the Northern Marianas chain was claimed for Spain by Ferdinand Magellan in 1521. In 1698 the native population was transferred to the island of Guam. The Germans purchased Saipan from Spain in 1899. In 1914 while allied to the British in the Great War the Japanese seized the island. The island had become a mandate under Japanese control with the League of Nations (Walden Publishing Ltd, 2006). On June 14^th 1944, the United States forces invaded Saipan along with the taking of Tinian and Guam during the Marianas Campaign (Costello, 1981, pp476-477). In 1947 Saipan became part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific administered by the United States by mandate of the United Nations. In 1975 the Islands became self governing with a bicameral legislature after a referendum. American civil and political rights were made available to the islands in 1984 and in 1986 following the end of the UN mandate the islands acquired commonwealth status (Walden Publishing Ltd, 2006). On May 8, 2008 President Bush signed into law Senate Bill 2739 which included the provision of having a delegate in Congress from the CMNI, on January 6, 2009 the first congressman from the CMNI was sent to the US House of Representatives (http://www.doi.gov/oia/). Like Puerto Rico and Guam the CMNI delegate has no vote on the floor of congress. These delegates have to approach other house members to sponsor bills relating to the federal issues pertaining to their territories. Citizens of these commonwealth status territories do not pay US federal income tax and do not vote in the National Elections except that they may vote in the Presidential nominating primaries ( https://www.cia.gov/library/publications /the-world-factbook/geos/cq.html)

As a result of its Super Power status the United States maintains air and naval bases throughout the world. It also maintains NATO fueling agreements with Britain’s Dominions. Until the Pinatubo volcano destroyed the viability of Clark Air Base and severely damaged the Subic Naval Base the Philippines was home to many Far East commands. The United States no longer maintains a permanent military presence in the Philippines except for the Embassy compound in Manila (Subic Bay, 2010). The Navy maintains bases on Guam, Japan, South Korea, Italy, Spain, Guantanamo Bay, and Bahrain, and Diego Garcia BIOT.

The clear aim in the Pacific at the close of the war was to provide the security framework for the reconstruction of Japan and of the former European colonies. John Foster Dulles said, “Our material might was exemplified by the atomic bomb; our moral might is exemplified by General MacArthur. I am confident that when the hour of decision comes, the Japanese people in the light of these exhibits will elect to become dependable members of the world that is free”. (John Foster Dulles, Tokyo, 22 June 1950) Under the tutelage of economic advisors brought in by General MacArthur the Japanese would learn the lessons of long term investment and other ideals that other countries would not abide by. Even our own former colony fell behind economically because it would not follow the example taught to the Japanese. The Japanese soon became a global economic power house which the former British Colonies would soon emulate. The reason for this occurrence was the role that the United States played in the global economy. Simply put, the United States had become the wealthiest nation on the earth and a great consumer economy was created to buy the goods which would aid in the reconstruction of the economies wiped out by war. It was not just the Marshall Plan that enabled our former enemies to rebound. Americans were buying cars and cameras from Japan and Germany, and electronic devices invented in the United States were improved upon in Japan. By the 1970’s Japan was the source for consumer electronics, if it was a top of the line stereo set it had to be made in Japan. In the meantime a new tourism sprang up aided by the development of aviation during the war. Many of the countries that suffered major battles now found a market for those who wished to return and visit the where their comrades had fallen or a ship sunk. Iron bottom sound in Guadalcanal is a big draw for ship wreck divers. Americans who returned from war were rewarded with the GI Bill so they could get an education and many bought homes under the GI Bill home loan guarantees (History Channel 2010)

A qualification on the Cold War needs to be stated, at the Teheran conference between Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt, there had not been a clear understanding of a permanent presence of US troops in Germany once the hostilities ceased. General Marshall plainly told President Roosevelt that an occupying force would only be needed for one to two years. The stated intent of the three leaders is that European matters would have been left between the Soviets and Britain (Reynolds, 2006, p239). Roosevelt would also say to Churchill that he would have nothing to do with policing France, Italy or the Balkans; France was after all Britain’s baby and it would fall to Churchill’s government to nurse her back to health (Reynolds, 2006, p239). This we know was not the outcome of the war. Just as the German Blitz into Poland threw the European continent into war against the Nazi’s so too did the Soviet occupation of Poland incite distrust of Stalin and the embers of the Cold War. The somewhat naïve cordial trust of Stalin by Churchill and Roosevelt that had existed at the beginning of the alliance eroded upon Stalin’s resistance to British diplomatic inquiries into the status of Poland. In the words of Churchill to Stalin, “a veil of secrecy” had been “drawn over the Polish scene” (Reynolds, 2006, p249). According to David Reynolds, Churchill had been taken aback by Stalin’s violation of the Yalta agreements, Churchill himself was exhausted and in dire need of rest prior to the Potsdam Conference for which he did not prepare (Reynolds, 2006, p253).

In conclusion the student learns that the collapse of the British Empire and the Cold War influenced the outcome of America’s super power status. The United States is now the defacto master of the seas. Through part of that might, the incentives of the American economy built a Naval and Air Force which the Soviet economy of state ownership could not compete with. Because of its Super Power status and naval power, America protects free trade and keeps potential adversaries in their own back yards.

References

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Brendon, P., 2008, The Decline and Fall of the British Empire 1781-1997, Vintage Books, New York

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