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The Cold War: Postwar Tensions

The Factor of the Third World.

Alone of all the belligerent nations, the United States emerged from the war with its home soil unscathed and richer for having developed its wartime economy. Roosevelt and the internationalists knew that the other great powers of Europe were going to be severely weakened by the war, that the collapse of the European world empires was virtually inevitable, and that the United States alone was in the position to take economic advantage of this situation, especially in the Third World colonies of European nations. Even as the Japanese were signing the formal documents of surrender on 2 September 1945, the Vietnamese in Southeast Asia were declaring their independence from France. Before long Great Britain, once the largest empire in the history of the world, was forced to grant independence to many of its colonies—including India, Burma, Malaya—and mandates such as Palestine France, the...

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