World War One The Global Revolution

World War I’s legacy is most obvious in Europe, which it left with more small states dependent upon international organizations for their security. Wilson’s League of Nations – minus his own United States – failed to provide that security, leading many interwar Europeans to blame his compromised idealism for the rise of fascism and another world war. In the long run, however, Wilson’s ideals of self-determination, democracy, collective security, and an international rule of law were embodied in the European Union. Beyond Europe, the war transformed the Middle East by encouraging Zionism, Arab nationalism, and the Turkish model of secularism, along with the Islamist backlash against all three. Farther afield, it spawned communist movements that eventually took over in China and Vietnam, as well as the Indian and Pakistani nationalism that divided south Asia. For countries whose losses in World War II did not approach those of World War I – Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, along with France and Italy – the remembrance and commemoration of World War I remains a part of national life. For Germany, Russia, the United States, and Japan, World War II became the more historically significant experience, for its role in making or breaking those countries as world powers.