Having been one of the greatest bloodsheds in human history and costing a tremendous number of lives, WWII will remain a tragic mark on the legacy of international relationships. Although WWI could theoretically be seen as the first global conflict that could have prepared the humankind to another war of the same scale, the outcomes of WWI and the extent thereof are nowhere near the violent and devastating force that WWII represented (Grimsrud 1). While being spatially distanced from the military conflict that grasped the entirety of Europe at the time, the United States also experienced the drastic effects of WWII, including the tremendous number of human lives devoured by the war, as well as the economic wasteland that WWII left. Although the war is long over, the effects thereof still echo in the modern political and sociocultural setting, being a grim reminder of the tragic past. Despite often being labeled as the “good war,” namely, the fight against the epitome of evil that Nazism represented, WWII cannot be seen as morally good but, instead, should be viewed as one of the alternatives to addressing tyranny of the Nazi propaganda.
Taking the implications of WWII a bit further, one may concede that it may have created a justification for other military confrontations as the methods of resolving political and social conflicts. After WWII had been termed as the “good war,” one could infer that violent actions against an opponent could be morally justified and preferred over more peaceful actions when performed for the sake of the ostensible greater good and the idea of “redemptive violence” (Grimsrud 2). As a result, the possibility of war as a tool for achieving political, economic, sociocultural, or any other kind of goals may be ultimately seen as possible, which is an entirely inadmissible course of development for global politics.
However, considering the effects that mobilization had on the U.S. and especially on the state economy, one will have to admit that the rapid response toward the threat and the efficient use of resources made it possible to prompt economic growth and manage the problem of unemployment. According to Foner, “As during World War I, but on a larger scale, the wartime mobilization expanded the size and scope of government and energized the economy” (862). Given the massive economic upheaval that could be observed in the U.S., the boost that the U.S. economic development received could be attributed to one of the side outcomes of the war.
Nonetheless, the slight rise in industrial growth could not possibly justify the loss of millions of lives. For example, the Soviet Union alone “lost more than 20 million dead and suffered vast devastation during the war” (Foner 952). Moreover, the legacy of WWII involves the creation of massive contradictions on political and social levels between nations, causing vast controversies in the global setting. The idea that something as horrendous as war could be ethically justifiable and even supported as the method of resolving a conflict seems to be the violation of every principle of diplomacy and the principles of peaceful relationships and negotiation as the basis of intercultural relationships. Moreover, the fact that WWII could become the leeway into using war as the method of resolving a confrontation would nullify the value of human life, driving the significance of a person to that one of a battle unit.
Thus, the ethical legacy of WWII is highly questionable, which suggests that it should not be lauded as the ultimate triumph over the blatantly obvious evil. While the victory obtained in the course of WWII allowed minimizing the threat that the emergent Nazi power posed to the entire world, the legacy of WWII remains a somber and grim reminder of how political relationships can easily go awry once wrong choices are made (Grimsrud 244). Although WWII “produced a radical redistribution of world power,” it ultimately caused unsurmountable harm to all states involved (Foner 944). The loss of millions of lives will always be seen as the main outcome of WWII, souring the victory and reminding that no war can be ethically good and be seen as the right decision to make. Although WWII was justified, it was not an ethical or, worse yet, “good” war. Instead, it was a mess of global proportions and a distortion of the global concept of political relationships.
Although WWII is usually seen as morally good and ethically positive, the battle was far too much of bloodshed to warrant this title; instead, it needs to be recognized as an inevitable evil that allowed meeting the goal of defeating the Nazi regime. While other alternatives existed at the time, the choice of military actions was admittedly a legitimate response, yet the number of lives that it took and the extent of social, economic, and political devastation that it brought onto nearly every country in the world signified that WWII was at the very least morally problematic. Thus, the notion of WWII being the “good war” ultimately implies misrepresenting the complexity of the actual conflict that took place at the time. While the presence of the obvious evil in the form of Nazism during WWII could not be denied, the legacy of WWII is still filled with inherent tragedy as the disaster that could have been avoided if appropriate precaution measures had been taken and different decisions had been made.
Works Cited
Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty! 3rd ed., W. W. Norton & Company, 2016.
Grimsrud, Ted. The Good War That Wasn’t – And Why It Matters: The Moral Legacy of World War II. Cascade, 2014.