One change
was that the nature of the war dealt a serious (but not fatal) blow to American isolationism as
a mainstream political view. American public opinion in the wake of the war was far more
friendly to involvement in geopolitics, particularly participation in alliance systems (like
NATO) and international organizations (like the United Nations. Part of this was due to the war
itself, which was won by the Allies in no small part due to the efforts of the United States,
especially in the Pacific. Part was due to the obvious need for global leadership in the
devastation and turmoil wrought by the conflict. Yet another reason was the outbreak of the Cold
War, itself a legacy of .
The war, as well as the Great Depression, also
altered Americans' views of the role of government in the economy and in people's everyday
lives. The New Deal had been the single largest expansion of the federal government in American
history, but the war effort dwarfed Roosevelt's peacetime programs both in expense and in
extent. Massive investments in industry during the war were not totally abandoned in its wake,
and the postwar period saw some continuity in government social programs, most conspicuously the
GI Bill of Rights.
Finally, the war, fought as it was against a totalitarian
regime that based its rule on racial tenets, helped to accelerate the discussion about civil
rights in the United States. Black soldiers who had served abroad chafed under Jim Crow at
home, and many white liberals changed their thinking about white supremacy. Of course, this
sparked a massive backlash from whites, especially in the South, but historians widely consider
the war as a watershed moment in race relations in the United States.
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