EDIT:
Context: This is an archived article from 1939 by “Foreign Affairs”.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/germany/1939-04-01/will-hitler-save-democracy
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I think I get the point they’re trying to make, democracy had become complacent and Hitler gave it a common threat and enemy, but in retrospect… Didn’t work out that great now, did it
It’s difficult to quantify, but I think there is a compelling argument to be made - just off of my head, WW2 led to:
- the fall of German autocracy/restoration of German democracy (though Hitler did kinda break that one in the first place)
- Italian and Japanese democracy
- redistribution of wealth/power in Britain
- the 4th french republic
- alignment of the European democracies
- establishment of the UN
Italian and Japanese democracy
And, albeit on a longer timeframe, Taiwanese and South Korean democracy.
- end of the British empire
- eventual formation of the EU to replace the League of Nations
But also
- invention of the nuclear bomb
- by extension, escalation of the cold war
- numerous coups against democratic leaders and proxy wars due to it
It worked fine at the time, the problem is that all of that motivation to defend democracy was artificial, and slowly faded from the public as the war faded into the past.
