Colonial Restoration and Nationalist Resistance
weakening the economies due to World War II, European states reduced their capacity to fulfil an imperial role, so they increased their determination to resurrect their overseas empires in order to compensate for injuries inflicted upon the wealth and the prestige of the nation. Colonial Planning for Postwar Southeast Asia, 1942-1945 Almost as soon as they had lost their empires, Europeans began to draw up plans for their recovery.