[otto2]

Western powers didn't give up their doctrine easy. There was entire movement of anti-colonialism and non-alignment, sometimes followed by the wars for liberation - French Indochina, Vietnam, Algiers, just to mention few. If there were no wars, I doubt that western powers would give up on their colonies on their own.

[nwiswell]

I disagree, it simply would've taken longer. The West is democratic, and attitudes changed. In the mid-to-late 1800s, the prevailing philosophy justifying colonialism was rooted in racism, e.g. Kipling's "The White Man's Burden".

75 years after that was written, it was well outside the political mainstream.