World War I (1914–1918) changed the global balance of economic, military, and political power. Though the conflict started as a dispute between two small eastern European nations over a political assassination, a web of national alliances and long-suppressed hostilities over lost territory helped escalate it into four years of war that involved most major countries. The “Great War” led to a rise in Asian nationalism; the decline of Great Britain, France, and Germany as world powers and the ascent of the United States as a global force. People everywhere seized opportunities created by the war to effect change, and Russia was transformed by a social revolution at home. At the end of the war, the victors redrew the world map.