WW II was probably the last big colonial war - where the objective of the warring parties&#x2F;world powers was to gain or defend direct control over territories and natural resources. I find it is such a pity that the world did not figure out a couple of decades earlier that it is cheaper to buy raw materials rather than to kill dozens of millions in a war over those damned resources; so many lives would have been saved;<p>What have the Americans ever done for us? Post WWII American leadership brought us decolonization; i think that this was a really significant change; one of the biggest changes of the twentieth century...