The end of European empires in Africa and Asia was caused by distinctively strong forces of nationalism in the countries they had subjugated, with mass mobilization of the local peoples around the cause of their nations' independence.
The end of these European empires generated more new nation-states than had been seen before in other episodes of history.
These new nation-states immediately asserted an equal place among the nations of the world, due to the new patterns of international political equality connected to the creation of the United Nations.