What were the political effects of World War I?

It would
be difficult to overstate the political effects of . It was, after all, a world war, and one
that fundamentally transformed much of the existing international structure while planting the
seeds of another, more devastating war that would follow. For one, the old
empiresAustro-Hungarian, Ottoman, German, and Russianall collapsed, although the Russian Empire
would be painstakingly and bloodily rebuilt by the regime that replaced the monarchy. In their
place emerged the international order that would remain largely intact for the next 70
years.

Borders shifted as the Great Wars victors seized territories from the
losers. The modern Middle East was forged out of the remnants of the Ottoman Empire, although
the French and British diplomats who drew the map of the newly-reconfigured region planted the
seeds of future conflicts among Arabs, Kurds, Persians, Jews, and others.

The formation of the Soviet Union (in effect, a reassembling of the old Russian
Empire...