Two global superpowers, the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US), rose in the aftermath of World War II. The war's aftermath was also defined by the rising threat of nuclear warfare, the creation and implementation of the United Nations as an intergovernmental organization, and the decolonization of Asia and Africa by European and east Asian powers, most notably by the United Kingdom, France, and Japan.
Once allies during World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union became competitors on the world stage and engaged in the Cold War, so called because it never resulted in overt, declared total war between the two powers. It was instead characterized by espionage, political subversion and proxy wars. Western Europe and Asia were rebuilt through the American Marshall Plan, whereas Central and Eastern Europe fell under the Soviet sphere of influence and eventually behind an "Iron Curtain". Europe was divided into a US-led Western Bloc and a USSR-led Eastern Bloc. Internationally, alliances with the two blocs gradually shifted, with some nations trying to stay out of the Cold War through the Non-Aligned Movement. The war also saw a nuclear arms race between the two superpowers; part of the reason that the Cold War never became a "hot" war was that the Soviet Union and the United States had nuclear deterrents against each other, leading to a mutually assured destruction standoff.
As a consequence of the war, the Allies created the United Nations, an organization for international cooperation and diplomacy, similar to the League of Nations. Members of the United Nations agreed to outlaw wars of aggression in an attempt to avoid a third world war. The devastated great powers of Western Europe formed the European Coal and Steel Community, which later evolved into the European Economic Community and ultimately into the current European Union. This effort primarily began as an attempt to avoid another war between Germany and France by economic cooperation and integration, and a common market for important natural resources.
The end of the war opened the way for decolonization from the great powers. Independence was granted to India and Pakistan (from the United Kingdom), Indonesia (from the Netherlands), the Philippines (from the US) and a number of Arab nations, from specific mandates which had been granted to great powers from League of Nations Mandates. Independence for the nations of Sub-Saharan Africa came later.
The aftermath of World War II saw the rise of communist influence in East Asia, with the People's Republic of China, as the Chinese Communist Party emerged victorious from the Chinese Civil War in 1949.
Immediate effects of World War II
At the end of the war, millions of people were dead and millions more homeless, the European economy had collapsed, and much of Europe’s industrial infrastructure had been destroyed. The German people as a whole, but its Youth in particular, ended up being deeply scorched psychologically by the ordeal which they went through during the previous decade, from the time when the Nazis took power promising them a Thousand Years of world dominance, until their major cities were destroyed, turned to rubble by the Allied bombardments. The trauma caused to them was multifaceted as it permeated all levels of society, by means of the systematic Nazification of the country with the strategic creation of the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda which tookover the media and all institutions, and put in place the systematic indoctrination of the very young via the creation of the Hitler Youth, the Deutsches Jungvolk, the League of German Girls and the Jungmädelbund. Then by the end of the war, once their major cities were devastated, ensued a widespread famine, which was followed by the wave of Denazification which swept throughout their humiliated country, ending with the pervasive shame of their parents who believed in the illusive promises of their defeated Führer.
The Soviet Union, too, had been heavily affected. In response, in 1947, U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall devised the "European Recovery Program", which became known as the Marshall Plan. Under the plan, during 1948–1952 the United States government allocated US$13 billion (US$ billion in dollars) for the reconstruction of the affected countries of Western Europe.