How did WWII pave the way for global decolonization?

While
global decolonization was already under way by the timebroke out, the devastation suffered by
colonial powers during that war made their ability to sustain colonial holdings far from their
capitals increasingly difficult. While France infamously attempted to reclaim its pre-war
colonies in what had been called French Indochina, its ignominious defeat at the hands of the
Viet Minh served to illuminate the extent of the former colonial powers weaknesses. Indeed, the
United States also would learn the lesson that small less-developed countries with bountiful
natural resources were not as weak as they might have seemed. The reason for that was the rise
of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a world powera development that stemmed directly
from World War II.

Following the Russian Revolutions of 1917, and despite its
own vast colonial empire around its borders, Russia represented a political counterweight to the
imperial powers of Western Europe. The incalculable effort sustained by Russia to push large,
well-equipped and well-trained German armies from its land and all the way through Eastern and
Central Europe resulted in the establishment of a new world power hostile to the old Western
empires. The end of World War II resulted in the establishment of a new global structure that
pitted East against West, with the Soviet Union considered a major military threat to those
former colonial powers. With the political and military support of this new global power,
existing and former colonies of the West had a new and powerful ally. Soviet (and Chinese)
support to the North Vietnamese was instrumental in the latters ability to ultimately prevail
over the American effort at preventing the subjugation of South Vietnam to the North.

As the Soviet Union grew in military and economic strength over subsequent decades, the
ability of anti-colonial militias in Africa, especially in Angola and Mozambique, to fight
European colonialism increased considerably. The economic devastation suffered by Great Britain
and France during World War II left them too weak to sustain overseas empires. The rise of the
Soviet Union meant less-developed countries occupied by former Western powers now had a powerful
and determined ally. That is how World War II contributed to global
decolonization.