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World War II was the second global military conflict that
is considered to be the most devastating war in human history. Never before had a military conflict caused so many
deaths and so much material destruction. It all began in 1939 as a European conflict between Germany and an
Anglo-French coalition. Eventually the conflict widened to include most of the nations of the world including the United
States, China, and Japan. World War II ended in 1945, leaving in its wake a new world order that was dominated by the
United States and the USSR.
More than any previous war, World War II involved the commitment of nations' entire human and economic
resources, the blurring of the distinction between combatant and noncombatant, and the expansion of the battlefield to include
all of the enemy's territory. The most important determinants of its outcome were industrial capacity and personnel. In the
last stages of the war, two radically new weapons were introduced: the long-range rocket and the atomic bomb. In the main,
however, the war was fought with the same or improved weapons of the types used in World War I. The greatest advances were
in aircraft and tanks.
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World War II's basic statistics qualify it as by far the most costly war in history in terms of
human casualties and material resources expended. In all, 61 countries with 1.7 billion people, three-fourths of the world's
population, took part. A total of 110 million people were mobilized for military service, more than half of those by three
countries: the USSR (22 million to 30 million), Germany (17 million), and the United States (16 million). For the major participants
the largest numbers on duty at any one time were as follows: USSR (12,500,000); United States (12,245,000); Germany (10,938,000);
British Empire and Commonwealth (8,720,000); Japan (7,193,000); and China (5,000,000).
Most statistics on the war are only estimates. The war's vast and chaotic sweep made uniform record
keeping impossible. Some governments lost control of the data, and some resorted to manipulating it for political reasons.
A rough consensus has been reached on the total cost of the war. The human cost is estimated at
55 million dead—25 million in the military and 30 million civilians. The amount of money spent has been estimated at
more than $1 trillion, which makes World War II more expensive than all other wars combined.
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