re: Was WWII the most pivotal event of the 20th century?

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Was WWII the most pivotal event of the 20th century?

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The answer is so obviously “yes” that the question doesn’t even need to be asked.

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The thing is, WW2 didn't happen in a vacuum. Hell, WW1 didn't, either.

Going back to the Boxer Rebellion- they were attacking Christians and non-Chinese. The rest of the world reacted with shock, and went to rescue their peoples. 6 European forces, the US, and Japan (first time an Asian nation was included with the European powers).

Lots of things happened that help shape the rest of the century...
The British and Americans got along well. Shared language and Anglo heritage, similar institutions within the military.

Everyone considered the Russians and the Germans as shockingly brutal.

The French and the Russians shared intel but withheld it from the British because of politics.

Nobody liked the Japanese at first, but they earned admiration from the Brits and "grudging respect" from the Americans, because they were the most disciplined force.

There was a battle where the Brits and Americans were stuck pinned in a swamp and the French were supposed to provide cover, but they retreated and left the US and Brit forces hanging out to die; they were able to fight their way through with heavy casualties.

The Italians and Austrians were professionally civil with each other, but the Italians hated Austria bigtime. They actually had a treaty with Germany before WW1, but chose to fight against them because of Austria. This meant nobody really trusted the Italians, which is why they felt slighted by the Treaty of Versailles, they didn't get much out of it. Which pushed them further back towards the Germans.

The Russians came in because they wanted to take Manchuria and this gave them cover; that alienated the Brits (threatened their Eastern monopoly), and the Japs (who wanted Korea and that was a major threat to that). The Russians did; and the Japs, based on how well they did in this conflict, went to war on Russia. And whupped their asses; which convinced them they could fight European powers and win, and fed their expansion dreams. We see how that went a few decades later.

There was a plan for the forces to take Peking together, but the Russians jumped the gun the night before to "steal the glory", got in a shite ton of trouble, and the other forces had to scramble off-plan to save them and take the city.

The Eight Nations Alliance took Peking (the Chinese capital), and then sacked and pillaged it. Chinese takeaway was extreme mistrust of the rest of the world, which we also see manifest over and over again later on.

That force was relatively small (a few thousands) against millions of more primitive Chinese, and massacred them with the new weapons. Machine guns mowed tons down. There were several rifles (Germany- Mauser 98, Russia- Mosin Nagant, Italy- Carcano, Britain- Lee Enfield) that remained the primary gun for their forces through WW2 in some shape or form. The Japanese had Arisaka's, which they upgraded. The Austrians had Mannlichers which they used in WW1, and those were still used in WW2 by a lot of the former Empire. The US was unhappy with their guns, the Krag Jorgensen, so they kept upgrading (we had different guns in both WW1 and WW2, and we kept upgrading ever since).

You see tendencies and patterns that get repeated over and over in the 20th Century. The US and Britain deciding they were linked at the hip because frick everyone else. The French trying to play both sides and not commit. Lingering political resentments undercutting the Central powers (Austria-Hungary and Italy, which we see going forward with the Baltics even today). Russian and German brutality (they were the primary pillagers) which continued afterwards. Japanese seeing they were more disciplined then the Europeans, and deciding they could take them head-to-head. 8mm Mauser, 303 British, 7.62 Russian, 6.5 Carcano being dominant ammo for decades to come (the Russians still today use 7.62x54R for their machine guns and sniper rifles).
European powers, combined with the US and Japan, exerting influence elsewhere in the world, and often not playing nice together.
Technologically advanced weapons providing huge advantages.

It's really a microcosm of what the entire 20th Century would become, and a lot still happening.

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all of that came out of WWI - the Sykes Picot agreement, the Balfour declaration, etc

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Yes, you are correct. However, it wasn't until after WWII that they became a nation. Israel getting their own country has been in play since like the late 1800's.