ABSTRACT
The most important shift in global power after World War Two was the fall of the Western empires (with the exception of that of the USA which still remains in its Pacific territories). This was a shift that involved a large amount of conflict, although much decolonization, especially in Oceania, the West Indies, and French sub-Saharan Africa, was accomplished without warfare. Decolonization, however, fuelled both the Cold War, providing it with a series of battlefields and areas for competition, and provided the context, and often cause, for struggles within newly independent states.
