It refused to recognize the new Chinese regime and focused on Japan as its main ally in Asia.
All of these. King Louis XVI made the poor serfs pay expensive taxes while nobility and clergy got an easy break. He let them starve, and accumulated a massive debt funding the American Revolution and the construction of his palace.
After world war two our knowledge of what we could do with science changed because we then knew formulas and ways to make nuclear weapons
The namib desert is the answer