The Atlantic Charter

• The Atlantic Charter set goals for the post-war world and inspired many of the international agreements that shaped the world thereafter, most notably the United Nations.
• The Charter stated the ideal goals of the war with eight principal points:

• No territorial gains were to be sought by the United States or the United Kingdom;
• Territorial adjustments must be in accord with the wishes of the peoples concerned;
• All people had a right to self-determination;
• Trade barriers were to be lowered;
• There was to be global economic cooperation and advancement of social welfare;
• The participants would work for a world free of want and fear;
• The participants would work for freedom of the seas;
• There was to be disarmament of aggressor nations, and a post-war common disarmament.

• The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the post-war independence of European colonies, and many other key policies are derived from the Atlantic Charter

The United Nations

• As a replacement for the ineffective League of Nations, the United Nations organization was established after World War II to prevent another such conflict
• The United Nations Charter was drafted at a conference in April–June 1945; this charter took effect October 24, 1945, and the UN began operation
• The great powers that were the victors of the war—France, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States—became the permanent members of the UN’s Security Council

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a non-binding declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, partly in response to the barbarism of World War II.

• The UDHR urged member nations to promote a number of human, civil, economic, and social rights, asserting these rights are part of the “foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.”

Advances in technology and warfare

• During the War, Aircraft were used for reconnaissance, as fighters, bombers, and ground-support, and each role was advanced considerably

• Innovation included airlift (the capability to quickly move limited high-priority supplies, equipment, and personnel); and of strategic bombing
• Anti-aircraft weaponry also advanced, including defences such as radar and surface-to-air artillery
• Advances were made in nearly every aspect of naval warfare, most notably with aircraft carriers and submarines

• Land warfare changed from the static front lines of trench warfare of World War I, which had relied on improved artillery that outmatched the speed of both infantry and cavalry, to increased mobility and combined arms

• The tank, which had been used predominantly for infantry support in the First World War, had evolved into the primary weapon

• Most major belligerents attempted to solve the problems of complexity and security involved in using large codebooks for cryptography by designing ciphering machines, the most well-known being the German Enigma machine
• Other technological and engineering feats achieved during, or as a result of, the war include the world’s first programmable computers (Z3, Colossus, and ENIAC), guided missiles and modern rockets, the Manhattan Project’s development of nuclear weapons, operations research and the development of artificial harbours and oil pipelines under the English Channel