The Second World War was the largest-scale conflict in human history to date. From Europe to Asia, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, sixty-one nations and regions — over two billion people — were drawn into the fighting across a combat area spanning twenty-two million square kilometers. According to incomplete statistics, more than sixty million people perished and property losses exceeded four trillion US dollars. For many nations, it was a catastrophe.

Yet catastrophe also nurtures rebirth. The war gravely weakened the old colonial empires led by Britain and France. Numerous peoples won their independence, and the global colonial system that had been forged since the Western Age of Discovery finally and completely collapsed.

Another major consequence of the Second World War was the explosive advancement of science and technology. To win the war, nearly every belligerent nation entered the phase of total war. The war machine ran at full throttle. All industrial and agricultural facilities were prioritized for military use. The research of countless scientists received massive state funding. Innumerable scientific breakthroughs were applied and mass-produced. Technology made tremendous strides through war — which must be counted as a great irony.

There was, however, one exception among the nations.