The second World War was just that: it involved 61 countries in Europe, Asia, America and Africa. Fifty-five million people were killed and many more wounded, including 27 million citizens of the Soviet Union and six million Jews.
The destruction of housing, industrial capacity and of social and economic infrastructure was on an unheard of scale. And the outcome of this huge conflict, including the crushing defeat of Nazi Germany, the fall of fascism in Italy and throughout Europe, the defeat of Japan, the renewed division of Europe and the world between two geopolitical blocs, and the end of colonial rule, laid down the parameters of a world political order for the following two generations.
All this makes the 60th anniversary of the war's end in Europe last weekend a momentous occasion, the scale of which is still difficult to grasp. It was a world war originating in Europe, reflecting this continent's centrality in the global system of power. But at its conclusion power shifted decisively to the United States, which crafted the succeeding world order according to its own values and interests. For the next 44 years the Cold War pitted the US and its allies against the Soviet bloc, soon joined - uneasily so - by the communist revolution in China. This conflict between the first and second worlds for years overshadowed the more numerous and disadvantaged third world's emergence from imperial and colonial rule.
Yesterday's ceremonies in Moscow amply reflected this global distribution of casualties, destruction and political outcome. Nazi Germany devoted its greatest efforts to defeating the Soviet Union. The gargantuan campaign there ended instead in Hitler's demise, a defeat co-ordinated with Stalin's American and British allies. The resulting division of the continent was agreed at Yalta to reflect these brutal military realities.
It is right to remember the huge human and material costs to the Soviet Union with gratitude and awe, along with all the war's other casualties. At this remove it is also right to reflect on the political price paid by all sides. President Bush has supported the presidents of Estonia and Lithuania, who refused to attend these ceremonies in protest against the betrayal of the Baltic states and Poland through the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact of 1939 which led to their conquest by the Soviet army and their absorption into the Soviet Union after the war. The European Union pointed out correctly last week that for many millions the end of dictatorship came only when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.
Ireland rightly remained militarily neutral to protect its independence, while Northern Ireland participated fully in it. This newspaper was harshly censored because of its support for the war against fascism, despite its respect for neutrality.
We now know that the wartime government shared intelligence fully with the Allies, a policy which reflected the fundamental political values of the Irish people in the confrontation with fascism.