Effect of world war 2

I may be mistaken, but the term 'good war' is a fairly recent title, to distinguish it from the messy wars that followed.

 

Adrielle...I am against all war...Simple as that...ironic that I am a member here then you would say. No not really..It needs to be understood. I served too and do not regret a day. My thoughts and opinions have changed over the years too. I dont support wars but also realise some are necessary evils. If any war can be called good and I dont call em good but understand the reasoning for it...2nd world war fits into that class...tyrants were met and sent to the winds..Many died. Many more were allowed to live and many more were allowed to be born when including myself probably would not have been...I call that a good thing in the long story of our planet. Even ww1 from my own social view can be called a good war in some respects...daft...stupid..unecessary..but ushered into my own world an end to the doff the cap and know your place attitude of my own country....was that worth millions of dead...Yes I'm afraid the massive changes to society it brought...was worth the millions of dead..The 2 bombs...I protest against nuclear weapons this side of the pond...A big change since I was involved in their projected use for years...But yes they were and had to be dropped...Ironic coming from me...Good wars? None I agree for war is not a glory gung ho experience...If we read war stories and come away feeling exhilirant...we have fell for the lie. But good wars...the folk who fought in ww2 have my unasuming admiration and thanks..Falklands...that rock that many Americans think was not worth the effort..a comedy opera...That too goes deeper than pride or comedy...It goes to the very core of what and who we are...A good war...terrible yes...necessary...shouuld not have been but was...I say if I am there..August 1945...Drop the bombs. Pandoras box maybe...November 2011...ban the bomb..

 

1) The many 'Bad Wars' that followed WW2 were often results of WW2. Belasar is correct that an effort has been made to distinguish WW2 from the resulting conflicts, but perhaps it is very wrong to do so. Korea had been a Japanesse possession that offered the Communist forces a 'dagger aimmed at Japan' that the Western Allies would not yield. The Dutch fought in Indonesia, the French in Viet Nam, Britian in Malaya to mention just a few of the messy colonial fights. The several Indian-Pakistani wars could not have happened without the Second World War setting the stage. The present world chaos just could not be imagined before WW2.

2) The Bomb. It does not compare to the Axis Crimes (and just 'regular' fire bombing raids for that matter). There can be no question that it helped save millions by incouraging the Japanesse to finally give up. After the first bomb there was no surrender. It took a second bomb and the threat of more to come, coupled with the Russian's entering the war, to fianlly reach an end. The Japanesse were starving from the sucessful blockade of the home islands, were planning to fight to the death, and were being crushed in Manchuria by the Red Army. Still they would kill tens of thousands of allied troops in sheer stubborn determination and then lose.

3) The Axis were bad. Hitler was so bad that the others are often overlooked. Concentration camps and murder of POW's and civillians just for starts. But the Japanesse did murder and kill POW's and civillians on a regular basis also. They bombed defensless cities in China, the 'Rape of Naking', releasing bubonic plague in China, various experiments on prisoners, the rampage in Manillia as the US close in on the city, the forced use of Korean women...no need to keep going. This was not war. It was a crime against us all. Oh, Mussolini was no good guy either. Didn't he use poison gas on the Ethiopians (who had no defense at all against it)? The war stopped all this; That is what makes it 'Good'.

 

I'm as too quick to criticize the current generation. I've read pieces from the late 1930s bemoaning the kids of the day and the dire predictions of the future of the United States with such decadent and disrespectful youth. The youth of the warring nations rose to the challenge, regardless of whether they were on the winning or losing side. Fewer in today's age have been presented with such adversity. There was a surge in volunteers after the attacks on 9-11; clearly we have those that will rise to the challenge. Barring a draft and the requirement for as many as in years past, there are a lot more who will escape service than in years past, so perhaps we've lost something there as well.

I think the "effect" changes a lot based on country. Talking to my grandmother about it a while ago and she said the biggest affect, other than the loss of friends and family, was that it moved so many people around and opened up new Horizons. The town she grew up in had a factory or farms for kids to aspire to and there really wasn't much change for more. Fast forward five or six years, and you have these same kids having been all over the US and world for training, manufacturing, or fighting, and having learned different skills, or having lived in different towns and regions while their husbands were off fighting. The farm or the factory weren't the best one could hope for, and if you recalled really liking a town you'd passed through or been stationed at, you could move and set up your family there.

She grew up in the upper peninsula of Michigan and followed my Grandfather. to Texas when he was stationed there. They started their family there, away from both of their families. They both returned to Michigan after the war but to the mainland, and she became a librarian. They later moved to Washington to be closer to their grand kids.... it was no big deal.

So in my mind one of the big effects on the US was that it made a large portion of the population a lot less provincial.

 

That's right! In the early 1920's, Poland defeated the young Soviet Union in a little-known war over territory (among other things). The Polish actually beat the Bolshevik field armies and invaded part of western Ukraine. They claimed they successfully defended their states, but it looks more like an intervention in the Russian civil war.

After the second world war however, the entire Polish nation was "shifted" a couple hundred kilometers west, replacing the eastern lands they conquered in the Polish-Soviet War with the vanquished eastern German lands, such as East and West Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia, and incorporating it into Poland's western border.
Check out the Curzon Line http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curzon_Line
There's a great photo of the territorial shifts of Polish lands througout the turbulent years between the beginning of WWI and the end of WWII.

 

This seems rather far from the thread but ...
With the Defeat of Germany in WW1 and the Russian Revolution, Poland was recreated as part of Wilson's 14 points (self-determination of peoples). The Poles pushed for the greatest possible boundaries. The Reds wished to spread their revolution into already turbulent Germany. Fighting started quickly. The Poles drove deep into the Ukraine, were driven back to the gates of Warsaw where they won, and advanced eastward again. The Treaty of Riga ended the fighting,in Poland's favor.
The Curzon Line was an attempt to end the fighting based on (self-determination) language of the peoples in the fought over area. A daunting task at best considering the mix of people in the region. The British proposed line was ignored by all, but the British, and the final border ended up about 200 miles east of it.

Perhaps the greatest signifance of all this was the effect on attitudes before WW2. The French opted for a series of defensive treaties with 'minor' East European states instead of with their traditional Russian ally. The Polish generals held political sway and opposed any dealing with the USSR. They refused any consideration of Russians troops in their territory to help defend the Czechs or themselves. Stalin must have been furious at the loss of 'Russian' territory; maybe it played a part in making the Nazi-Soviet Pact seem attractive to him. Heaven only knows how all this translated in Hitler's mind. (The Red Menance, the weakness in the East, living space ... opportunity?)

When the war ended Stalin insisted that the eastern border be the Curzon Line (approximately). Despite the pleas of Churchill, representing the London Polish government in exile) Stalin held firm, he had the boots on the ground. He did try to appear reasionable, however, by shifting the western boundary into former German areas (he had troops there as well). Who could speak for the Germans? And besides the Curzon Line was a British creation.

Perhaps this can all be seen as a great link from the end of WW1, the turbulent 20's, weakness of the 30's and the start of WW2, to the final partition of Eastern Europe and the 'Cold War'. It makes more sense to see it all as a flow of continous history than a few isolated events.

Also... How do you measure misery? It seems to me it depends if you're the one in misery. Poland and Belarius are clear canidates for most miserable, but what about the USSR? or China? The huge death totals can not be ignored. China had a 3-way war with the Reds, Nationalists, and Japanesse all fighting each other.
And then Yugoslavia. Pro-Nazi Croats and Muslims, Royalists, Red partisans, White partisans, German occupation, Wow.