Was the United Kingdom still a world power in 1945?

Question

Can you give me either reasons for or against that argument?

I'm very grateful for your help on this matter, means a lot to me.

Answer 1

Ok, I may not be 100% with the exact details, but I'm sure that one of the conditions relating to the signing of the end of the war was that UK return a lot of it's colonies to their people (Such as India, Large parts of Africa, Hong Kong) etc.

In addition to that, UK was severely crippled after the war, both structurally & financially. So I would say that 1945 was the beginning of the end of UK being a super power in the sense it was in the early 1900's, but I think that UK still remains a superpower in many other ways. It's huge on the international field, and very influential on the world stage.

Answer 2

yes and it still is by definition of the word, it was its Empire that was in decline, within 20 years it was largely gone.

Answer 3

Not in my opinion.

Britain fell from grace after world war 1 and world war 2 just added to that. We had lost a lot of men to the war meaning our working population was small despite the women going into work and the fact we'd just lost more men in the war didn't help.

We didn't have enough money to make a difference really - superpowers need money, ours was spent paying back the Americans and trying to rebuild our industry.  Our exports were low due to the fact we needed the materials and the british empire was largely built on trade. We had lost our colonies so we therefore didnt have exports from those countries anymore (such as Gold).

Oh and the USA and USSR were much further ahead on the weapon front - both focusing on bombs which would give off loads of radiation.

Uhrm, that's all I can think of off the top of my head, I only learned the stuff for my history exam :D

Answer 4

We were then starting to retreat from Empire so realistically a world power in decline.

Answer 5

only just.

Decline was already underway due to being bankrupted by two world wars.

Answer 6

At the end of 1945, countries were ranked in this importance:  

The USA

The USSR

The United Kingdom

Canada

Australia

China

France

None of the African countries had much importance.  None of the South American countries made the list.

Answer 7

It had started to amalgamate with America, hence the start of the anglo-american world power

In 1945 therefore, the Uk was no longer a world power by itself.

The anglo-american world power is still a world power as major players in the united nations and G8