The memory of WWI was quick to fade, a short two decades later many of the same antagonists were at each others throats once more.  There is no doubt that the lunatic Hitler was the prime mover in this debacle ( although a war with Japan may have been inevitable for the US even without him).  For the most part, the USA tried to stay out of trouble while still supporting it's traditional friends.  But the world was getting smaller all the time and the two great oceans that separate us from the majority of the world proved to be no barrier to attack.  Captain America and Bucky went off to fight Nips and Nazis and so did many of our fathers, uncles, and grandfathers - many never to return.

Only after the landscape of Europe and the Far East were scorched by V-2's, Blockbusters, Buzz Bombs, and Fat Man and Little Boy would the dust settle over the blood soaked ruins of Normandy, Anzio, Dresden, London, Berlin, Krakow, Stalingrad, Hiroshima - the list is long, perhaps too long to remember.  And war is always the perfect excuse for atrocities; from forced death marches to mass executions of "undesirables" and "impure races".  The lowest level that humanity could sink to had reached new heights.  After it was all over, the estimates of the death toll ranged from 30 to 50 million people worldwide.  While WWI saw soldiers as the majority of those killed, less than half of the dead in WWII were from the armies of the world.

The aftermath of this carnage was a renewed resolve to prevent future catastrophes on a world scale.  The US committed to rebuild Europe under the Marshal Plan.  Japan was stripped of it's teeth, but also rebuilt.  However, eastern Europe fell under Stalin's Iron Curtain as he attempted to exact retribution from newly conquered lands like the medieval warlord that he truly was.  China, ravaged by internal conflicts, was abandoned to Mao and the communists except for Taiwan.  Later on, the United Nations was created to allow a venue for all countries to voice their opinions and plead their cases.  Although the devastation was great, inflation did not play an important role in hindering recovery.  Maybe some lessons were still remembered.  Hungary suffered because the Nazi's had confiscated the entire gold holdings of the government.  Romania also became embroiled in an inflationary spiral in an attempt to rebuild after occupation by the Nazi's.  Greece had its greatest inflation under occupation by the Axis powers.  China, because of the civil war, saw great inflation produced by both warring camps until the communists gained firm control over all the mainland.  Indonesia, torn apart by a colonial war with the Dutch, produced some localized inflation issues rarely encountered.

So finally after two great wars, the "civilized" world started to wake up somewhat and mend their ways ( or at least their fences).  But all over the world, in former colonies and forgotten kingdoms, other people began to wake up and try to sort out their destiny from the industrialized West.  The rise of the so-called "Third World" in the 50's and 60's brought new challenges, conflicts, and confusion that had repercussions into the second half of the century...  and beyond.