World War II and European Power

World War II and European Power

Introduction

This paper will be discussing the important changes that took place in Europe since 1945 that made a mark on the end of European power. Examples will be provided to support this argument. At the end of World War II, vast swaths of Europe and Asia had been reduced to wreck, borders were being redrawn, homecomings, expulsions, and burials were under way, and the massive efforts to rebuild had just begun. When the war began in the late 1930s, the world's population was 2 billion. The growing tensions between Western powers and the Soviet Eastern Bloc developed into the Cold War, and development and proliferation of nuclear weapons raised the very real specter of an unimaginable World War III if common ground could not be found.

Discussion

After the end of World War II, the economies of the countries of Europe left critically injured, which put an end to the traditional European hegemony in the world. The two new superpowers - the United States and the Soviet Union - had an economic, political and military set higher than the European states. In this situation, many political trends intended to rebuild Europe as a new unified nation, to avoid return to a clash between European states. The two world wars had begun as a European conflict, and thus, the continent had been the main battlefield.

Due to the rising tension in Europe and concerns over further Soviet expansion, American planners came up with a contingency plan code-named Operation Dropshot in 1949. It considered possible nuclear and conventional war with the Soviet Union and its allies in order to counter a Soviet takeover of Western Europe, the Near East and parts of Eastern Asia that they anticipated would begin around 1957. In response, the U.S. would saturate the Soviet Union with atomic and high-explosive bombs, and then invade and occupy the country.

The sphere of influence of the EU increases significantly with the addition of Austria, Finland and Sweden . In 1995, the union extended the EU-15. However, Norway has been involved with Iceland and Liechtenstein in the European Free Trade Association to enter the European Economic Area, created in 1993. The following year, the Schengen Agreement, which shall enter into force among the seven members, expanded to include almost all the others before the end of 1996. This decade also saw the further development of the euro.

The interests of European countries are heterogeneous, resulting from their different history.  At that time Britain and France were former world powers that were trying the opposite way, from their traditional status as much as possible to save. While the UK is committed since 1945 to win by a demonstrative reference to the U.S. superpower (special relationship) has some influence on their policy, France tried to bring the countries of Europe under his leadership as a counterforce against the U.S. position. The French elites are traditionally anti-American set, but the handling of the French policy is quite ...