eurofed
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Post by eurofed on Jan 18, 2017 19:13:42 GMT
Indeed. Interwar Germany and 2010s Russia are the obvious analogies for an hostile resurgent Russia, although without the Nazi racist madness in the former case and TTL Russian leaders acting in a more reckless and brutal way than Putin in the latter case because of different circumstances. Russia recovers from postwar chaos by a mix of brute-force suppression of internal enemies, shift to authoritarian crony capitalism, and ruthless exploitation of its natural resources. For China the pattern would be a radical nationalist succeeding Chiang after his early death and driving an expansionist-imperialist agenda as a cheap way to build consensus despite the KMT's flaws. Because of the lack of globalization postwar economic growth of China might be decent but nowhere so good as OTL post-Maoist China, and aggressive nationalism may well be a cheap substitute. Because of the apparent lack of enemies after WWII, the Americans might get complacent, keep Europe and Japan-Korea mostly disarmed and themselves partially so, and avoid establishing an equivalent of NATO, at least for a while. This might create an opening for the rise of aggressive revisionist powers. Russia starts by brutally suppressing dissent within its empire, then progresses to destablization and aggression in the Caucasus and Ukraine, eventually escalates to a large-scale attack on Eastern Europe to recover the 1941 borders and create a sphere of influence. China starts with occupying Tibet and the South China islands, then picks a border war with India and wins it (possibly with the assistance of Pakistan if the partition of the Raj occurs), eventually progresses to war with Japan-Korea to recover Taiwan and affirm its supremacy in East Asia (it may or may not make moves on Indochina as well). Despite their potential territorial conflicts, Russia and China establish an alliance of convenience out of their mutual interest to overturn the post-WWII order. The Eastern European nations and Japan-Korea are hard-pressed to resist the Sino-Russian aggressors, so they make an appeal for military assistance to the USA, UK, and EU, and the call is answered. Add to the mix a large swath of the Middle East falling into the hands of anti-Western Nasserite/Baathist Arab regimes that align with Russia and China, with the Western powers being driven to intervene to recover control of the Suez Canal and the Arab oilfields, and I think you have a good recipe for a conventional WWIII by the early '60s or so. After a while, of course, American, European, and Japanese-Korean superior industrial power, know-how, and ongoing mobilization overcome Sino-Russian numbers and early build-up, and the nationalist powers are pushed back into their borders and beyond. My main uncertainities about this scenario are whether the Americans and their Western allies would deem pushing the aggressors back into their pre-war borders (with or without a few territorial adjustments) and letting them stew into their juices and wither on the vine until their regimes collapse is enough for their security needs, or they would assume three world wars in a century are enough, and fight their way to Moscow and Beijing to impose a regime change. Also how to avoid the dystopic outcome of the Americans deciding to settle the issue for good by large-scale nuking of Russia and China. Would World War IV be fought with nuclear weapons. I'm not really sure if there would be room for a fourth world war ITTL, nor who might be willing to start one against the guys that won the first three ones, with the obvious exception of the Islamists. But even a much more large-scale War on Terror would hardly qualify as a world war, unless the radicals manage to seize control of most of the Umma (the Randomid Caliphate scenario). And I doubt it would turn nuclear, unless the Islamists pull something like a WMD 9/11. Otherwise, I see no other realistic scenario short of WWIII ending in a compromise peace, and the authoritarin powers stumbling to war again in the 1980s or so to try and prevent final collapse of their regimes. If instead you meant the WWIII scenario I described, I assume in the second interwar period the Americans (and maybe the British as well, to a lesser degree) might keep a sizable nuclear arsenal (say several hundred warheads) with a full nuclear triad but fail to build one as big as OTL because of post-war complacency and apparent lack of enemies. And they would prevent the EU and Japan-Korea from developing nukes. Russia and China may well build their first nukes and strategic bombers just before the war, although to a much less extensive scale than the Americans. During and after WWIII, of course, the USA, EU, UK, Japan-Korea, and the Dominions would quickly strive to build and keep conventional militaries and WMD arsenals as big as the OTL ones, with the EU growing into a full military equivalent of the USA, and Japan-Korea into a junior partner. They would surely establish a global version of NATO. In the late phase of the war, the Americans and their allies would likely get the option to nuke Russia and China until they stop moving, at the possible price of losing a few Eastern European and Far Eastern cities. |
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jan 18, 2017 19:19:07 GMT
Would World War IV be fought with nuclear weapons. I'm not really sure if there would be room for a fourth world war ITTL, nor who might be willing to start one against the guys that won the first three ones, with the obvious exception of the Islamists. But even a much more large-scale War on Terror would hardly qualify as a world war, unless the radicals manage to seize control of most of the Umma (the Randomid Caliphate scenario). And I doubt it would turn nuclear, unless the Islamists pull something like a WMD 9/11. Otherwise, I see no other realistic scenario short of WWIII ending in a compromise peace, and the authoritarin powers stumbling to war again in the 1980s or so to try and prevent final collapse of their regimes. If instead you meant the WWIII scenario I described, I assume in the second interwar period the Americans (and maybe the British as well, to a lesser degree) might keep a sizable nuclear arsenal (say several hundred warheads) with a full nuclear triad but fail to build one as big as OTL because of post-war complacency and apparent lack of enemies. And they would prevent the EU and Japan-Korea from developing nukes. Russia and China may well build their first nukes and strategic bombers just before the war, although to a much less extensive scale than the Americans. During and after WWIII, of course, the USA, EU, UK, Japan-Korea, and the Dominions would quickly strive to build and keep conventional militaries and WMD arsenals as big as the OTL ones, with the EU growing into a full military equivalent of the USA, and Japan-Korea into a junior partner. They would surely establish a global version of NATO. In the late phase of the war, the Americans and their allies would likely get the option to nuke Russia and China until they stop moving, at the possible price of losing a few Eastern European and Far Eastern cities. So the French and Germans are part of the EU and therefore do not posses their own nuclear arsenals. |
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eurofed
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Post by eurofed on Jan 18, 2017 22:15:55 GMT
The Western Europeans do not build nukes in the second interwar. During and after WW3, it is a wholly different matter. In broad strokes, this is how I expect the Western world to develop, before and after the war. After WWII, the Americans occupy Europe and Japan-Korea for a few years, then after their reconstruction and democratization are basically done, they go home, return to peacetime conditions, and bask in the huge power, prestige, and profits of being the one superpower. They keep a sizable military with global force-projection capabilities, but nowhere so big a military-industrial apparatus as OTL, because of the apparent lack of enemies. The British are nearly bankrupt and subservient, the Germans, French, Italians, and Japanese are cowed, defanged, and turned friendly, the Russians seem screwed and helpless, the Chinese are backward and apparently friendly. For the same reason, they don't establish anything like NATO or keep many military bases in foreign nations, although they stay dominant partners for the other Western nations.
Europe makes a very good recovery and transition to democracy, and European integration has a promising start that initially splits into three streams. The Western European states form the EU, with a common market, a supranational government, and a common army. The latter is kept to limited dimensions, an instrument to prevent future fratricidal wars, defend the borders, and keep order in the colonies, part because the Americans prefer it that way, part because they don't expect another war with Russia being apparently powerless. The Scandinavian and Baltic states form a Nordic Union, which largely becomes a sister analog of the EU. The Eastern European nations don't join either, part because of socio-economic divide, part because of a different WWII experience, and instead form an economic union and military alliance of their own, albeit a less integrated system than the other organizations. It rearms a bit because of its proximity to Russia, but not that much, because of limited resources. The UK stands apart as usual, and deals with the decline of its Empire. Japan-Korea develops much like Western Europe, including establishing a modest self-defence force, for pretty much the same reasons.
In a decade or so, Russia and China deal with their domestic issues, turn hostile and aggressive, and build up their power thanks to ruthless exploitation of their manpower and natural resources. Their extensive rearmament give them a serious advantage on their potential enemies, and they start using it to bully their neighbors. America, Europe, and the Far East have a 'uh-oh' moment and start seriously rearming, although they have to catch up. Eventually, Russia and China exploit their advantage to occupy Ukraine, the Baltic states, Taiwan, Sakhalin, and Tonkin, and invade Poland, Romania, Finland, Korea, Hokkaido, and Indochina. The Eastern Europeans, Nordics, and Japanese-Koreans cry for help to the USA, UK, and EU, and the Western powers intervene. Just before the war, Arab radical nationalists seize power in Egypt, Syria-Iraq, and Arabia and align with China and Russia, so the nascent NATO has to enter the Middle East guns blazing to recover control of the Suez Canal and the Arab oilfields. Turkey, Iran, India, and Pakistan may well get involved in the war as well. America, Europe, the Commonwealth, and Japan-Korea mobilize their resources and rebuild their armies to WWII levels, and gradually push back the aggressors. They might decide it is enough of a lesson, or they might think two world wars waged by the Russians is enough, fight their way to Moscow, occupy and reshape Russia in their image. They defeat the Chinese as well, although history shows to occupy modern China is terribly difficult, so probably global NATO tries to avoid it. During the war, the Western powers build up their nuclear arsenals as well, and perhaps use them in a limited way; however one way or another the dystopic tragedy of the Americans glassing Russia and China and causing a nuclear winter is averted. At the very least, global NATO disarms the aggressors and tells them if they misbehave again they shall bomb or nuke them into the Middle Ages. They may or may not inflict territorial losses depending on their strategic value and demographic feasibility - ITTL international law never established a prohibition of forced population transfers as a way to settle conflicts, if done in humane conditions.
Regardless of whether Russia and China are completely crushed or just beaten down, the Western alliance decides they have to be world's policeman for the foreseeable future. They establish a global NATO, which is just as integrated as its OTL equivalent, or even more so. During and after the conflict America develops and keeps pretty much the same vast military-industrial apparatus, huge conventional military, and large nuclear arsenal as OTL. It creates its own supranational union with and eventually absorbs the White Dominions, the Philippines, and the rest of North America. The EU federalizes and absorbs Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. It builds up its conventional military and nuclear arsenal into the equivalents of the American ones. Japan-Korea keeps a sizable army and a decent WMD arsenal (say a few hundred warheads), although they don't have the resources to make them as powerful as the US or EU ones. Flip a coin to decide whether the UK eventually joins the North American-Australasian USA or the Pan-European EU.
The Western world experiences pretty much the same social changes as our 1960s-70s, although delayed to the end of the war and in a form much less antagonistic to the system because of WWIII. There are still racial desegregation, sexual liberation, a drive for women's equality, the rise of youth as a separate identity and subculture, and a rejection of social conformism in favor of individuality but no anti-war dissent, rise of the far left, or distrust of the government because the Western democracies fought another 'just war' against brutal authoritarian aggressors and Marxism-Leninism was made a pariah since WWII. Because of the war, there may well be another Baby Boom in the 1960s-1980s, so the substantial decline of Western natality is delayed by a generation. For the same reason and perhaps also because of this demographic change, the developed nations build up their vast industrial and service base to an higher degree and keep it dominant on the global stage for much longer, so there is no economic malaise, crisis of the Keynesian consensus, or rise of neoliberalism in the 1970s-1980s, nor so much economic inequality and loss of good jobs in the Western world in the 1990s-2010s.
However energy issues, environmental problems, and the rise of Islamism (fuelled by the Arab world's humiliation during WWIII) are still serious emergent problems, perhaps even worse than OTL, unless they drive the developed world to turn its back on fossil fuels for good. However globalization eventually happens and industrialization spreads to part of the Third World because of trade with a strong and prosperous West. India, Southeast Asia, and South America benefit the most from the process, and one or two of them may become emergent great powers, although still much distant in power and wealth from the American and European superpowers. Depending on how the war ended for them, Russia and China might turn into stagnant backwater dictatorships or democratize and share in the benefits of globalization to a lesser degree, but they don't ever get a chance to rise again as great powers or superpower candidates. The West likely takes more of an hardline stance against rogue Third World dictatorships, WMD proliferation, and human rights abuses, trying to nip them in the bud. Islamism and climate change likely are the main global security problems of the new millennium, but the Western world is better prepared to deal with them, thanks to its greater strength and cohesion.
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jan 19, 2017 4:39:02 GMT
The Western Europeans do not build nukes in the second interwar. During and after WW3, it is a wholly different matter. In broad strokes, this is how I expect the Western world to develop, before and after the war. After WWII, the Americans occupy Europe and Japan-Korea for a few years, then after their reconstruction and democratization are basically done, they go home, return to peacetime conditions, and bask in the huge power, prestige, and profits of being the one superpower. They keep a sizable military with global force-projection capabilities, but nowhere so big a military-industrial apparatus as OTL, because of the apparent lack of enemies. The British are nearly bankrupt and subservient, the Germans, French, Italians, and Japanese are cowed, defanged, and turned friendly, the Russians seem screwed and helpless, the Chinese are backward and apparently friendly. For the same reason, they don't establish anything like NATO or keep many military bases in foreign nations, although they stay dominant partners for the other Western nations. Europe makes a very good recovery and transition to democracy, and European integration has a promising start that splits into three streams. The Western European states form the EU, with a common market, a supranational government, and a common army. The latter is kept to limited dimensions, an instrument to prevent future fratricidal wars, defend the borders, and keep order in the colonies, part because the Americans prefer it that way, part because they don't expect another war with Russia being apparently powerless. The Scandinavian and Baltic states form a Nordic Union, which largely becomes a sister analog of the EU. The Eastern European nations don't join either, part because of socio-economic divide, part because of a different WWII experience, and instead form an economic union and miitary alliance of their own, albeit a less integrated system than the other organizations. It rearms a bit because of its proximity to Russia, but not that much, because of limited resources. The UK stands apart as usual, and deals with the decline of its Empire. Japan-Korea develops much like Western Europe, including establishing a modest self-defence force, for pretty much the same reasons. In a decade or so, Russia and China deal with their domestic issues, turn hostile and aggressive, and build up their power thanks to ruthless exploitation of their manpower and natural resources. Their extensive rearmament give them a serious advantage on their potential enemies, which they start using to bully their neighbors. America, Europe, and the Far East have a 'uh-oh' moment and start seriously rearming, although they have to catch up. Eventually, Russia and China exploit their advantage to occupy Ukraine, the Baltic states, Taiwan, Sakhalin, and Tonkin, and invade Poland, Romania, Finland, Korea, Hokkaido, and Indochina. The Eastern Europeans, Nordics, and Japanese-Koreans cry for help to the USA, UK, and EU, and the Western powers intervene. Just before the war, Arab radical nationalists seize power in Egypt, Syria-Iraq, and Arabia and align with China and Russia, so the nascent NATO has to enter the Middle East guns blazing to recover control of the Suez Canal and the Arab oilfields. Turkey, Iran, India, and Pakistan may well get involved in the war as well. America, Europe, the Commonwealth, and Japan-Korea mobilize their resources and rebuild their armies to WWII levels, and gradually push back the aggressors. They might decide it is enough of a lesson, or they might think two world wars waged by the Russians is enough, fight their way to Moscow, occupy and reshape Russia in their image. They defeat the Chinese as well, although history shows to occupy modern China is terribly difficult, so probably global NATO tries to avoid it. During the war, the Western powers build up their nuclear arsenals as well, and perhaps use them in a limited way; however one way or another the dystopic tragedy of the Americans glassing Russia and China and causing a nuclear winter is averted. At the very least, global NATO disarms the aggressors and tells them if they misbehave again they shall bomb them into the Middle Ages. They may or may not inflict territorial losses depending on their strategic value and demographic feasibility (ITTL international law never establishes a prohibition of population transfers as a way to settle conflicts, if done in humane conditions). During and after the conflict America develops and keeps pretty much the same vast military-industrial apparatus, huge conventional military, and large nuclear arsenal as OTL. It creates its own supranational union with and eventually absorbs the White Dominions, the Philippines, and the rest of North America. The EU federalizes and absorbs Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. It builds up its conventional military and nuclear arsenal into the full equivalent of the American ones. Japan-Korea keeps a sizable army and a decent WMD arsenal (say a few hundred warheads), although they don't have the resources to make them into full equivalents of the US or EU ones. Flip a coin to decide whether the UK eventually joins the North American-Australian USA or the Pan-European EU. Regardless of whether Russia and China are completely crushed or just beaten down, the Western powers decide they have to be world's policeman for the foreseeable future. They establish a global NATO, which is just as integrated as its OTL equivalent, or even more so. The Western world experiences pretty much the same social changes as our 1960s-70s, although delayed to the end of the war and in a form much less antagonistic to the system because of WWIII. There are still racial desegregation, sexual liberation, a drive for women's equality, the rise of the youth as a separate identity and subculture, and a rejection of social conformism in favor of individuality but no anti-war dissent, rise of the far left, or distrust of the government because the Western democracies fought another 'just war' against brutal authoritarian aggressors and Marxism-Leninism was made a pariah since WWII. Because of the war, there may well be another Baby Boom in the 1960s-1980s, so the substantial decline of Western natality is delayed by a generation. For the same reason and perhaps also because of this demographic change, the developed nations build up their vast industrial and service base to an higher degree and keep it dominant on the global stage for much longer, so there is no economic malaise, crisis of the Keynesian consensus, or rise of neoliberalism in the 1970s-1980s. However energy issues, environmental problems, and the rise of Islamism (fuelled by the Arab world's humiliation during WWIII) are still serious emergent problems, perhaps even worse than OTL, unless they drive the developed world to turn its back on fossil fuels for good. However globalization eventually happens and industrialization spreads to part of the Third World because of trade with a strong and prosperous West. India, Southeast Asia, and South America benefit the most from the process, and one or two of them may become emergent great powers, although still much distant in power and wealth from the American and European superpowers. Depending on how the war ended for them, Russia and China might turn into stagnant backwater dictatorships or democratize and share in the benefits of globalization to a lesser degree, but they don't ever get a chance to rise again as great powers or superpower candidates. The West likely takes more of an hardline stance against rogue Third World dictatorships, WMD proliferation, and human rights abuses, trying to nip them in the bud. Islamism and climate change likely are the main global security problems of the new millennium, but the Western world is better prepared to deal with them, thanks to its greater strength and cohesion. So is this universe better than OTL regarding stability ore more dangerous. |
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eurofed
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Post by eurofed on Jan 19, 2017 19:18:36 GMT
TTL world is more secure and prosperous than OTL, to the degree its inhabitants would likely deem our world mildly dystopic. World wars are never pleasant, but TTL was able to deal with the threats of Commie-Nazi totalitarianism and Eurasian nationalist authoritarianism in a more effective way than OTL, w/o screwing up the world or committing large-scale genocide with nukes. The Western world is stronger, more prosperous, and more united. Thanks to the long-term effects of the last conflict, neoliberism and globalization never went out of control and impoverished the Western middle and lower classes. Therefore, the Western mainstream political spectrum remains bound to a center-right/center-left consensus, the likes of Trump, Farage, Le Pen, and Orban belong to the lunatic fringe and it is unthinkable for them to get elected. The Russians got their sense of entitlement at being a great power bully beaten out of them, and Chinese aggressive nationalism was suppressed. One way or another, both nations probably turned into democracies and productive members of the international community by the 21st century - even if they were able to escape occupation at the end of the war, they would have been defanged and cordoned off, and eventually revolution would have happened once the promises of nationalism and authoritarianism proved false and hollow. They are unlikely to survive for too long as isolationist backwaters like OTL North Korea or Burma. At the very least, anyway, they have been neutralized. After seeing the cycle of revanchism playing out two times with Germany and Russia, the Western powers are very careful to prevent its re-occurence, and nipping potential rogues in the bud. In any case, the Western triad of North American-Oceanian USA, Pan-European EU, and Far Eastern Japan-Korea is more than enough strong, cohesive, and vigilant to prevent other states from going seriously rogue or doing too many human rights abuses. The most likely great power candidates are democratic India or a South American union. The global environment is surely a serious potential concern, but a more united and politically moderate world probably has better chances of enacting effective counter-measures about it. Likewise, Islamism might become a serious headache as usual, but the worst I can see TTL great powers doing about it is to occupy the Middle East to suppress it and bungling the nation-building task like GWB and the neo-cons did. And even this is unlikely, since they would have many more resources available to do a better job.
I have given some thought to the most likely peace deal Russia and China would get after WW3. I assume the combo of America, Commonwealth, Europe, and Japan-Korea would have enough resources to occupy the settled parts of Russia for 5-10 years and implement the same kind of reconstruction Europe and Japan-Korea got after WWII. The Western powers may well decide to do so to earn lasting peace after Russia waged and lost two world wars in a row, and the Russians would easily be too demoralized to try and resist them for the same reason. China is more difficult to treat this way, so maybe NATO would adopt the 'disarm and keep under tight survelliance' strategy for them, and wait until the Chinese decide to embrace democracy and rejoin the international community as productive members on their own.
As it concerns territorial changes, I assume the Western powers would give East Belarus and the Voronezh, Belgorod, Kursk, and Rostov areas to Poland-Ukraine (the Donbas and the Kuban having been already gained after WWII) to improve its strategic security, and kick Russophile Russian-speakers out of the state. I doubt they would want to have much to do with the ethnic mess of North Caucasus unless events force their hand so this area might go various ways. Russia rebuilt its strength after WWII also thanks to extensive exploitation of the resources of Siberia and Central Asia, and this likely implies serious Russification of these regions. For this reason, the position of Central Asia, and historically lackluster enthusiasm of its peoples for independence, I doubt the Western powers would bother to detach the area from Russia. More or less the same reasoning would apply to Xinjiang; given its position and degree of Sinification I am skeptical the Western powers would care to make it independent. Theoretically speaking, the Americans might claim a rather bigger piece of eastern Siberia besides Kolyma and Kamchatcka they already got after WWII, but I doubt they would get too greedy. At most they would likely claim economic rights. Tibet would in all likelihood become independent thanks to lobbying from India and the Dalai Lama. In order to improve the strategic security of Japan-Korea and Southeast Asia, I assume the Western powers would give Outer-Inner Manchuria and Hainan to Japan-Korea, kick out the Sinophile Han, and replace them with non-Han minorities and Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese settlers. I am uncertain about Mongolia.
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eurofed
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Post by eurofed on Jan 22, 2017 17:47:03 GMT
The post-war period was an era of great stability, prosperity, and self-satisfaction for the USA. The global economic, political, military, and cultural hegemony and rise into superpower status America had won thanks to WWII got entrenched, and the American people enjoyed the highest living standards in the world. During the war, the Red-Brown Scare made all known or suspected fascists or communists and their sympathizers subject to imprisonment and internment, or at least aggressive investigations and questioning, loss of employment, destruction of their careers, legal harassment, and social ostracism. With the end of the conflict patriotic mobilization and vigilance against potential spies and traitors relaxed and a drive to return to normalcy became dominant after the upheavals of the Great Depression and WWII. This led to a time of conservative mores and social conformity that often felt quite oppressive for women and minorities. Nonetheless, the American socio-economic model typically looked quite progressive and very desirable for the Europeans and the Far Easterners. They perceived it through the filter of dominant US pop culture and zealously strived to imitate it.
1950s conformism however could not stop the beginning of racial desegregation for Southern Blacks. Despite the fierce resistance of Dixie White segregationists, the movement took wing thanks to the combination of a sympathetic federal government, anti-segregation rulings from a progressive-leaning SCOTUS, growing mobilization of the Black masses, and a supportive Northern public opinion. The movement won important successes in this period, such as desegregation of education and the armed forces, although its complete success was to occur in the future. Much the same way, powerful social forces were incubating across the Western world that were to stage a radical critique and transformation of the conservative norms of the time in the following decades. Industrialization was bringing more and more women in the workforce, and the post-war demographic boom was paving the way for the rise of youth as a separate and powerful counter-culture.
The Americans occupied Europe and Japan-Korea for a few years, enough to get their political and economic stabilization and rehabilitation to liberal democracy well established. Then the American forces were gradually pulled out and redeployed home. The lessons of WWII and their new superpower role made the Americans mindful of the necessity to keep a fairly large and efficient standing army with global force-projection capabilities. However they did not bother sustaining too large a level of rearmament despite their huge potential, because of the apparent lack of enemies. All other powers seemed too friendly, cowed, powerless, or backward to threaten American security or interests. For the same reason America did not expand its nuclear arsenal too much beyond a few hundred warheads nor established formal alliance bonds with foreign powers. However they kept close political and economic ties in a dominant role with Britain, the Dominions, Europe, and the Far East, in addition to their traditional sphere of influence in Latin America. The USA settled down into enjoying the power, prestige, and profits of being the one superpower in the world.
The experience of WWII and the post-war recovery process under American influence triggered the onset of the European integration process in the late 1940s and early 1950s. A widespread consensus arose across the war-torn continent that European integration would be the best way to deal with the lessons of the World Wars, achieve lasting reconciliation between the European peoples, and prevent a recrudescence of nationalism and the destructive conflicts of the past. However, different economic and geopolitical conditions and divergent perspectives hailing from the war initially caused the process to split into three different streams.
The Western European states (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, and Portugal) established the Western European Union (WEU) with a common market, a pan-European military divided into national components at the battalion level with centralized military procurement and a common budget, arms, and institutions, and a supranational parliamentary government to give democratic oversight to the various components of European integration. The latter included a directly elected assembly ("the Peoples’ Chamber"), a senate appointed by national parliaments, and a supranational executive accountable to the parliament.
The common army was established and kept at good efficiency but relatively modest dimensions because the USA discouraged extensive rearmament of formerly defeated powers and, much like the Americans, the Western Europeans did not think of future wars as a clear and present threat. The Western European army was conceived as a tool to prevent future fratricidal conflicts, an instrument to provide border defence and keep order in the colonies, and an adequate way to reconcile the need for adequate continental defence with the controversial character of rearmament of the former Axis countries. For similar concerns the WEU countries shunned the development of a nuclear deterrent of their own. Creation of a single-market area considerably boosted the post-war economic boom triggered by reconstruction and US aid.
The shared experience of WWII, post-war prosperity, and later the resurgence of the Russian threat supported consensus for the Western European integration process until its apparent benefits caused it to develop a strong, self-sustaining momentum. By the 1960s, the process grew successful enough to start including movement of people between member states; police, judiciary, and intelligence integration; an economic, monetary, and fiscal union; and a European Court of Justice. This second-stage development got finalized in the 1970s. At the same time, the originally distinct component organizations of the process, the European Economic, Defence, and Political Communities, were merged into a single organism. It took the name of European Union (EU) and an increasingly explicit federalist character once events drove its expansion to the rest of the continent and caused an overwhelming drive for complete fulfilment of the 'ever closer union' end goal of European integration.
The Nordic and Baltic countries (Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia) opted out of the Western European integration process and instead chose to pursue a parallel effort of their own. This grew into the Nordic Union (NU), a confederation that managed security, economic, and foreign policy matters of member states while leaving them autonomy in domestic affairs. Despite being formally separate and distinct, the WEU and the NU developed a cordial relationship and over time economic, security, and judicial cooperation between the two organizations intensified, and a joint single market and open borders area were established. The main issue that justified their separation was a different foreign policy perspective: the Western European states established a close bond with the USA, while the Nordic countries preferred to stick to official neutrality. Much like the WEU, however, the NU established a small but efficient common army.
Eastern Europe chose yet another path, as its own war experiences shaped a wish to keep a close relationship with the USA but avoid too close a bond with Germany and its former Western European allies (especially in the regional leader, Poland-Ukraine). The socio-economic divide between the region and the Western and Northern areas of the continent also played a role into preventing integration between the two halves of Europe. However, Western Europe mostly shared a common wartime experience since all the most important states (including France after 1940) had been Axis countries defeated, occupied, and 'rehabilitated' by the Americans. Eastern Europe on the contrary was split by serious differences between the countries that had cooperated with the Axis and/or the USSR and the ones that had been their victims. This difference lingered in a regional division between the area (most Central European states) that feared a resurgence of the Bear and favoured an anti-Russian foreign and security policy, and the one (most Balkan countries) that supported a good neighbourhood policy and a friendly attitude towards Russia.
As a result of these latent divisions, Eastern European cooperation and integration turned out less extensive and efficient than the Western and Northern European models. The Eastern European states (Poland-Ukraine, Czech republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Croatia) were only able to establish the Eastern European Community (EEC) with a free trade area and a non-integrated military alliance. Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece joined the EEC as observers and the free trade area but not the military alliance. The EEC states engaged in a moderate amount of rearmament to protect themselves from Russia but were not able to make it too extensive due to limited resources and lack of integration.
Russia stayed on the brink of complete collapse into a failed state for a while after the war, being beset by political instability, economic depression, a difficult transition from Stalinist command economy to capitalism, ethnic conflicts, and the appearance of warlords. Gradually and painfully it pulled back together and into shape thanks to the efforts of a coalition of members of the security forces, nationalist politicians and militiamen, and emergent businessmen that enriched themselves with privatization. This clique entrenched its power and established an authoritarian regime by crushing opposition, suppressing ethnic insurgencies, and crushing or co-opting warlords. They were able to stabilize and bring some growth to Russian economy by enacting a privatization program and more importantly extensive exploitation of the agricultural and mineral resources of Siberia and Central Asia. Although Russia regressed to dictatorship and remained poor and backward in comparison to America, Europe, and the Far East, recovery of political and economic stability represented a definite improvement and brought popularity to the regime. Exploitation of the resources of the Asian regions caused a substantial degree of colonization and Russification of Siberia and Central Asia.
The new regime embraced a nationalist ideology that called for a strong Russian state, supported a recovery of Russia’s lost territories and its rightful role as a great power, and blamed America and Europe for pretty much all the suffering and misfortunes of the Russian people. Towards the Tsarist and Soviet past they took a stance that glorified the successes of the past regimes regardless of the means employed, blamed their flaws and foreign malice for their failures, and took an apologist stance towards their human rights abuses. Economic recovery allowed Russia to invest into extensive rearmament. Increasing military power in turn allowed the regime to assert an increasingly bold and aggressive agenda of reasserting Russia’s status as a great power and recovering its lost territories and sphere of influence.
After crushing all domestic resistance, the first big step to enact Russian ambitions was encroachment in South Caucasus. The Russian government exploited political instability, ethnic conflicts, and the alleged mistreatment of minorities to foster rebellions in the border areas of the South Caucasus Federation and northwestern Iran. When the governments intervened to suppress the uprisings, the Russians picked it as an excuse to invade Georgia-Armenia and northwestern Iran. The rebuilt Russian army easily crushed Georgian-Armenian and Iranian resistance and occupied the region. Rigged elections ratified the annexation of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan (including the pre-WWII Iranian portion) to Russia. Emboldened by this success, the Russian regime soon started to apply the same strategy elsewhere by stirring up instability and agitation in the Russophile minorities and border areas of Finland, the Baltic states, and Poland-Ukraine through infiltration of paramilitary operatives and feeding support to local nationalist radicals. When incidents ensued and the local governments tried to restore order, the Russians blamed them for their ‘provocations’, ‘aggressions’, and ‘oppression’ of Russophile minorities.
In China, the Nationalist government was able to win the civil war and crush the Communists by the end of the 1940s. It co-opted or forced to submit all the warlords. For a few years after the war the regime focused on nation-building and kept a moderate, pro-Western foreign policy. The course changed radically when supreme leader Chiang-Kai-shek died in a plane accident and after a succession struggle a radical nationalist leadership seized power. The new leaders increased the authoritarian and centralized character of the regime and pursued a ruthless effort to build up the power of the Chinese nation and restore its past greatness. Much like Russia, they engaged in extensive rearmament and exploited the manpower and natural resources of China to develop its economic strength with a focus on areas and projects with military dual applications. To defuse potential popular malcontent for the authoritarianism, corruption, and cronyism of the regime, they increasingly embraced an hard-line nationalist stance and propaganda that blamed foreign powers for almost all the past and present problems of China.
This included the Europeans for their 19th century colonialism, the Japanese for their 20th century aggressions, and the Americans for their friendship with both and imperialist hegemony. Despite their basically xenophobic attitude and potential territorial conflicts with their northern neighbor, however, they sought an alliance with Russia out of similar ideology and strategic convenience. The Russians, too, saw the benefits of this partnership and accepted the Chinese offers since they privileged their claims in Europe. The combination of Russian resources and know-how and Chinese manpower turned to the economic benefit of both powers and fuelled their rearmament. The Chinese, and by extension the Russians, took the pose of being a champion and protector of the peoples oppressed by Western colonialism and imperialism. Chinese expansionism first manifested with the invasion of Tibet, which had been de facto independent since the fall of the Qing dynasty. Tibetan resistance was brutally crushed and the area brought under total control of China.
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eurofed
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Post by eurofed on Jan 22, 2017 17:49:25 GMT
Soon after the end of the war, India and Southeast Asia underwent decolonization and achieved independence. Wartime Japanese and Soviet invasion of northern India initially toned down the Muslim Indians’ calls for a separate homeland of their own, but the defeat and apparent powerlessness of Russia after the war drove the Muslims to renew them. In the end, a partition scheme prevailed that split the British Raj and the princely states between India, Burma, and Pakistan. India got the vast majority of the Indian subcontinent, including Ceylon. Pakistan got the western, Muslim-majority regions, including Baluchistan, the north-western frontier areas, Kashmir, Sind, and most of Punjab, as well as eastern Bengal. The partition took place with massive migrations and population exchanges, violent ethnic clashes, and armed conflicts between India and Pakistan about contested border areas in Kashmir, Punjab, Sind, and Bengal. This created a legacy of antagonism, suspicion, and resentment between the two states.
Independent India established a secular, socialist, federal republic with a multi-party democracy, strived to establish a mixed economy with an agrarian reform and rapid industrialization, and sought to abolish the caste system and increase the legal rights and social freedom of women. Its foreign policy sought to balance neutrality, peaceful coexistence with the great powers, and a fierce criticism of colonialism and imperialism. After a few years of experimentation with instable parliamentary democracy, Pakistan became a military dictatorship. Chinese occupation of Tibet and contested borders heightened tensions between India and China that exploded into war. The well-armed Chinese army decisively defeated the ill-prepared Indian forces, allowing China to conquer all the contested border areas. Pakistan exploited the opportunity to intervene in the war, defeat the Indians with Chinese help, and annex part of eastern Punjab and western Bengal. The war drove India to tone down its neutralist stance, align closer to America, and intensify cooperation with the Western powers. Pakistan joined the Sino-Russian bloc.
In Southeast Asia, the defeat of Communism in Russia and China cut off the support for Communist and leftist nationalist elements across the region. This allowed the Western powers to crush them and manage decolonization of the region in a manner convenient for their interests. This was achieved through a mix of deal-making with moderate nationalist leaders and military and economic support to conservative forces. However elimination of Communist sympathizers in certain cases escalated to large-scale purges that caused considerable loss of life, such as in Indochina and Indonesia. After decolonization, the region got divided in the states of Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, the Malay Union, the Indonesian Federation, and the Philippines. Thailand formed a confederation with Cambodia, Vietnam absorbed Laos, and Indonesia formed from the fusion of the Dutch East Indies, British Borneo, and Portuguese Timor. The anti-Western and expansionist turn of Chinese foreign policy however brought new problems to the region. The Chinese exploited political instability in Vietnam to send support to the remaining radical nationalist elements, revitalizing their faction. Chinese-backed destabilization ensured into an attempted coup and a civil war that gave China a pretext to intervene. The Chinese forces occupied Vietnam, turning it into a client state. Chinese-sponsored unrest of Chinese minorities also became a serious security problem across Southeast Asia.
Post-war reconstruction and development of Japan-Korea largely followed the successful European pattern, although it was significantly slower because of the damage caused by the American conquest. Nonetheless US aid and the drive of reconstruction fuelled a gradual but robust postwar recovery and economic boom that established the Far Eastern state as the third industrialized powerhouse of the Western world after the USA and the WEU. In perspective, Japan-Korea seemed poised to eclipse declining Britain. Despite some bad blood from the colonial past, democratization, economic growth, and federal reform helped the Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese peoples bury resentment and achieve a friendly and productive coexistence within their union. Much like Western Europe, the Americans allowed Japan-Korea to rebuild a small but efficient army, but not extensive rearmament or a nuclear deterrent.
Russian and Chinese rearmament and repeated acts of destabilization and aggression eventually woke up America, Europe, and the Far East about the potential threat and the realization the outcome of WWII did not necessarily mean eternal peace. The Western powers had to acknowledge Russia was coming back strong and bellicose, China had turned from a friend into a potential enemy, and both powers had formed a rather threatening compact. America and on a lesser scale the Dominions reacted by staging an extensive rearmament effort and encouraging their Western partners to do the same. The WEU and Japan-Korea underwent ambitious expansion programs of their armies with the blessing of America, all previous concerns about rearmament of the former Axis countries being forgotten. The Eastern European countries and Britain tried to do the same, although with more difficulty because of economic constraints.
The Western countries were struggling to shake off the effects of post-war complacency and catch up with military preparedness. In the long term, they were bound to be successful, thanks to the vast economic and industrial power of America and Western Europe. Their superior know-how would also give them an important quality advantage. In the brief term, however, the early rearmament and vast numbers of Russia and China gave them a serious advantage on their neighbors. This and confidence for their early successes gave the Russian and Chinese leaders the determination to exploit their advantage to the fullest to fulfill their ambitions.
After the Arab world got liberated from Axis and Soviet occupation during WWII, the victorious Allies decided to discard the post-WWI political status quo of the Arab lands and enact their extensive reorganization in a few stronger states. Their motives included creating a check against possible Russian threats, a wish to give some satisfaction to rising Pan-Arab nationalism, and dissatisfaction for the ambiguously collaborationist stance of the Saudis during the war. Turkey annexed the Kurd and Turkmen areas of northern Syria and Iraq. Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the Trucial States, Bahrain, and Qatar were merged in the United Arab Kingdom, ruled by the Hashemite family. Egypt annexed North Sudan. The Maghreb lands (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya) were returned to the control of Spain, France, and Italy due to the presence of a sizable European settler community. Morocco was reunified, joined with Western Sahara, and turned into a French-Spanish condominium; Tunisia was likewise turned to joint Franco-Italian administration.
The Nazi Holocaust and Stalin’s paranoia turning to anti-Semitism during the war claimed the lives of a large number of Jews during the war. However the early fall of the Nazi regime and the defeat of the USSR stopped the Final Solution and the Stalinist purge of Jews early enough to leave a sizable number of European Jews alive. Widespread sympathy for their plight provided strong international support for the Zionist cause. This persuaded the Western governments to allow free Jew immigration to Mandatory Palestine, ensuring the vast majority of surviving Jews resettled there, despite the fierce hostility of the Arabs. The Arab-Zionist conflict soon reignited and escalated into a bitter armed conflict with the forces of the Arab states. The Zionist militias won a decisive victory, and the vast majority of the Palestinian Arabs were expelled or fled to Egypt and the UAK.
The European Jew immigrants, soon joined by their expelled Middle-Eastern kinsmen, established the Zionist state of Israel as a Jewish homeland across all of Mandatory Palestine plus southern Lebanon, the Golan Heights, the eastern bank of the Jordan valley, and the border areas of the Sinai peninsula. The shock of defeat in the Arab-Israeli War, resentment for European colonial domination, and Russo-Chinese support were among the factors that fuelled the rise of the Pan-Arab nationalist movement across the Arab world. Prevalent ideology in the movement (sponsored by the Baathist party and nationalist cliques of officers in Egypt and the UAK) combined radical Pan-Arab nationalism with authoritarian nation-building broadly based on the Sino-Russian model. As Russia and China increased their strength and turned to an expansionist-imperialist agenda, they sent generous support to the Pan-Arab revolutionaries.
In the Maghreb the movement took the form of an anti-colonial insurgency, while in Egypt and the UAK (renamed United Arab Republic) there were Pan-Arab nationalist coups and revolutions that overthrew the monarchies and set up Baathist regimes. The new Arab regimes aligned with the Russo-Chinese bloc, nationalized the Suez Canal and the Middle Eastern oilfields, and sent support to the insurgents in the Maghreb. They also blocked transit in the Suez Canal and the Tiran Strait to Israeli shipping and supported guerrilla raids against Israel as they prepared for war against the Zionist homeland.
By the early 1960s, Russia and China built their first nukes and felt strong and confident enough to fully deploy their expansionist-imperialist agenda against their neighbors. Picking the excuse of mistreatment of Russian minorities, Russia invaded Poland-Ukraine, Finland, and the Baltic states. At the same time, China and Vietnam attacked Japan-Korea and Thailand, with their claims on Taiwan and Cambodia and supposed mistreatment of their ethnic kinsmen in Southeast Asia as the casus belli. The other states of the NU and the EEC joined the fight to stop the aggressors. However the Eastern Europeans, Nordics, Japanese-Koreans, and Thai were hard-pressed to stop the Russian and Chinese forces that occupied Karelia, Ukraine, Taiwan, Sakhalin, and Cambodia. The Russians invaded Poland, Finland, and Romania, while the Chinese did with same with Korea, Hokkaido, and Thailand. Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece left the EEC and backstabbed their neighbors by picking pro-Russian neutrality and providing logistical support to the Russians. In the Middle East, Egypt and the UAR attacked Israel, while Kurd nationalist insurgents started an uprising against the Turks and the Iranians. The Russians invaded Turkey and Iran to link with their Middle Eastern proxies. Russian and Chinese forces also occupied Afghanistan to link with friendly Pakistan.
Being hard-pressed by the Russo-Chinese onslaught, the attacked countries appealed for help to America, Western Europe, and the Commonwealth, and the Western powers answered the call. The USA, the WEU, the UK, and the Dominions declared war to Russia, China, and their allies, expanding the Eurasian War to WWIII. America quickly rebuilt the Allies coalition with Britain, the Dominions, the WEU, the EEC, the NU, Japan-Korea, Israel, Turkey, Persia, and Thailand. The resistance movements that formed in the areas occupied by the Russians and the Chinese supported the Allied war effort. India, too, joined the alliance out of its fear of renewed aggression from China and Pakistan and its wish for revenge on the same. So did the Malay Union, Indonesia, and the Philippines because of their ties with America and fear of Chinese expansionism. However they experienced some serious trouble with uprisings by their Chinese minorities that China strived to stir and support. Russia, China, Egypt, the UAR, Pakistan, Vietnam, and various nationalist insurgent groups formed the enemy coalition. Burma picked pro-Chinese neutrality.
The Americans, Europeans, and Japanese-Koreans enacted total national mobilization of their manpower and industrial resources which they used to stage a massive expansion of their armed forces to WWII levels. The Americans also started a vast build-up of their nuclear arsenal, and the WEU, Britain, and Japan-Korea strived to follow their example by developing their own nuclear deterrents. However the American government decided to try and win this war by conventional means, and not to stoop to nuclear genocide, as far as possible. It pledged not to use nukes unless attacked first or in extreme circumstances, and the other Western governments followed its example.
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jan 22, 2017 18:02:14 GMT
By the early 1960s, Russia and China built their first nukes and felt strong and confident enough to fully deploy their expansionist-imperialist agenda against their neighbors. Picking the excuse of mistreatment of Russian minorities, Russia invaded Poland-Ukraine, Finland, and the Baltic states. At the same time, China and Vietnam attacked Japan-Korea and Thailand, with their claims on Taiwan and Cambodia and supposed mistreatment of their ethnic kinsmen in Southeast Asia as the casus belli. The other states of the NU and the EEC joined the fight to stop the aggressors. However the Eastern Europeans, Nordics, Japanese-Koreans, and Thai were hard-pressed to stop the Russian and Chinese forces that occupied Karelia, Ukraine, Taiwan, Sakhalin, and Cambodia. The Russians invaded Poland, Finland, and Romania, while the Chinese did with same with Korea, Hokkaido, and Thailand. Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece left the EEC and backstabbed their neighbors by picking pro-Russian neutrality and providing logistical support to the Russians. In the Middle East, Egypt and the UAR attacked Israel, while Kurd nationalist insurgents started an uprising against the Turks and the Iranians. The Russians invaded Turkey and Iran to link with their Middle Eastern proxies. Russian and Chinese forces also occupied Afghanistan to link with friendly Pakistan. Being hard-pressed by the Russo-Chinese onslaught, the attacked countries appealed for help to America, Western Europe, and the Commonwealth, and the Western powers answered the call. The USA, the WEU, the UK, and the Dominions declared war to Russia, China, and their allies, expanding the Eurasian War to WWIII. America quickly rebuilt the Allies coalition with Britain, the Dominions, the WEU, the EEC, the NU, Japan-Korea, Israel, Turkey, Persia, and Thailand. The resistance movements that formed in the areas occupied by the Russians and the Chinese supported the Allied war effort. India, too, joined the alliance out of its fear of renewed aggression from China and Pakistan and its wish for revenge on the same. So did the Malay Union, Indonesia, and the Philippines because of their ties with America and fear of Chinese expansionism. However they experienced some serious trouble with uprisings by their Chinese minorities that China strived to stir and support. Russia, China, Egypt, the UAR, Pakistan, Vietnam, and various nationalist insurgent groups formed the enemy coalition. Burma picked pro-Chinese neutrality. Do the Russian and Chinese work together ore are they going their own way. |
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eurofed
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Post by eurofed on Jan 22, 2017 18:19:03 GMT
Do the Russian and Chinese work together ore are they going their own way. They work together, although geography mostly forces them to fight separately in many theaters. They don't completely trust each other, but they decided to ignore their potential reasons for conflict (e.g. in the Far East) and cooperate to fulfill their respective expansionist-imperialist agendas in Europe and East Asia and affirm their great-power status against the Western powers. It is a fairly efficient alliance of convenience. They recruit some allies (mostly the Arabs) for their cause by pretending to be the champions of peoples downtrodden by Western colonialism and imperialism, and Western-aligned states. Of course, it is a pose, since in practice they are as rapacious and brutal imperialists as Western colonialism, if not more. |
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jan 22, 2017 18:20:16 GMT
Do the Russian and Chinese work together ore are they going their own way. They work together, although geography mostly forces them to fight separately in many theaters. They don't completely trust each other, but they decided to ignore their potential reasons for conflict (e.g. in the Far East) and cooperate to fulfill their respective expansionist-imperialist agendas in Europe and East Asia and affirm their great-power status against the Western powers. It is a fairly efficient alliance of convenience. They recruit some allies (mostly the Arabs) for their cause by pretending to be the champions of peoples downtrodden by Western colonialism and imperalism, and Western-aligned states. Of course, it is a pose, since in practice they are as rapacious and brutal imperialists as Western colonialism, if not more. So it is a close alliance. |
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eurofed
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Post by eurofed on Jan 22, 2017 18:32:33 GMT
They work together, although geography mostly forces them to fight separately in many theaters. They don't completely trust each other, but they decided to ignore their potential reasons for conflict (e.g. in the Far East) and cooperate to fulfill their respective expansionist-imperialist agendas in Europe and East Asia and affirm their great-power status against the Western powers. It is a fairly efficient alliance of convenience. They recruit some allies (mostly the Arabs) for their cause by pretending to be the champions of peoples downtrodden by Western colonialism and imperalism, and Western-aligned states. Of course, it is a pose, since in practice they are as rapacious and brutal imperialists as Western colonialism, if not more. So it is a close alliance. Indeed. They are very powerful together. But for that matter, so it is the Western/Allied coalition. The Russians and the Chinese misinterpreted American, British, European, and Japanese-Korean post-WWII disengagement and disarmament for weakness and lack of spine, while it is was just complacency and lack of foresight. Because of that, they thought they could win, grab what they wanted, and establish their supremacy in Eurasia thanks to their strategic cooperation, brute-force nation-building, early rearmament, and sheer nationalist-authoritarian determination. Indeed, they have been very successful in their initial drive against their neighbors, but their rampage awakened the sleeping giant of the Western world, and they are in for a rude awakening. |
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jan 22, 2017 18:34:19 GMT
So it is a close alliance. Indeed. They are very powerful together. But for that matter, so it is the Western/Allied coalition. The Russians, Chinese, and Arabs misinterpreted American, British, European, and Japanese-Korean post-WWII partial disengagement and disarmament for weakness and lack of spine, while it is was just complacency and lack of foresight. They thought they could win thanks to their strategic cooperation, brute-force nation-building, early rearmament, and sheer nationalist-authoritarian determination. Indeed, they have been very successful in their initial drive against their neighbors, but their rampage has awaken the sleeping giant of the Western world, and they are in for a rude awakening. How is the relation between the Japanese-Korean. |
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eurofed
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Post by eurofed on Jan 22, 2017 19:04:25 GMT
Indeed. They are very powerful together. But for that matter, so it is the Western/Allied coalition. The Russians, Chinese, and Arabs misinterpreted American, British, European, and Japanese-Korean post-WWII partial disengagement and disarmament for weakness and lack of spine, while it is was just complacency and lack of foresight. They thought they could win thanks to their strategic cooperation, brute-force nation-building, early rearmament, and sheer nationalist-authoritarian determination. Indeed, they have been very successful in their initial drive against their neighbors, but their rampage has awaken the sleeping giant of the Western world, and they are in for a rude awakening. How is the relation between the Japanese-Korean. Fairly good. There are some traces of lingering bad blood from the past, just like there are in Europe about World Wars baggage, but post-WWII democratization, federal reform of the Japanese Empire, and cultural equality largely buried past resentments and laid the basis for friendly and productive co-existence between the two peoples, and with the Taiwanese, who form the third leg of the union, albeit one of lesser importance. Also because due to the effects of the war (that damaged Japan more than Korea), post-war democratization and economic development, and industrialization of the Korean peninsula, Japan and Korea are coming reasonably closer and closer to political, demographic, and economic balance within the union. The Japanese and Korean royal families more or less fused and formed a new symbol of national unity and reconciliation. This doesn't mean there aren't some Korean nationalists who advocate separation and Japanese nationalists that look down on Koreans, but both belong to the fringes of the political spectrum. The Chinese are trying their best to co-opt Korean nationalists as collaborationists to turn Korea to their side as a client, but their efforts are largely falling flat, since the brutality of Chinese invasion is acting to foster resistance and cement Japanese-Korean partnership. More or less the same is happening with Taiwan. The Chinese like to pretend by occupying Taiwan they are liberating a Chinese land from foreign oppression, but in practice most Taiwanese prefer democracy in a federal bond with the Japanese and the Koreans to dictatorship as a Chinese province. ITTL Taiwan kept its original degree of pre-WWII Japanization and there was no KMT repression to undo it nor any large influx of Nationalist Chinese refugees from the mainland, so the appeal of Chinese nationalism on the island is limited. To a good degree, Japanese-Korean reconciliation in the Far East mirrors European integration in Europe, and vice versa. Both are a testament to the success of American-sponsored reconstruction and rehabilitation of the Axis states after WWII. Too bad the Americans and their allies didn't have the foresight to prevent the rise of Russo-Chinese revanchism one way or another, but WWIII is acting as a powerful stimulus for European and Far Eastern regional/continental and Western global solidarity. |
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jan 22, 2017 19:06:03 GMT
How is the relation between the Japanese-Korean. Fairly good. There are some traces of lingering bad blood from the past, but post-WWII democratization, federal reform of the Japanese Empire, and cultural equality largely buried past resentments and laid the basis for friendly and productive co-existence between the two peoples (and the Taiwanese, who form the third leg of the union, albeit one of lesser importance). Also because due to the effects of the war (that damaged Japan more than Korea), post-war democratization and economic development, and industrialization of the Korean peninsula, Japan and Korea are coming reasonably closer and closer to political, demographic, and economic balance within the union. The Japanese and Korean royal families more or less fused and formed a new symbol of national unity and reconciliation. This doesn't mean there aren't some Korean nationalists who advocate separation and Japanese nationalists that look down on Koreans, but both belong to the fringes of the political spectrum. The Chinese are trying their best to co-opt Korean nationalists to turn Korea to their side as a client, but their efforts are largely falling flat, since the brutality of Chinese invasion is acting to foster resistance and cement Japanese-Korean partnership. More or less the same is happening with Taiwan. The Chinese like to pretend by occupying Taiwan they are liberating a Chinese land from foreign oppression, but in practice most Taiwanese prefer democracy in a federal bond with the Japanese and the Koreans to dictatorship as a Chinese province. ITTL Taiwan kept its original degree of pre-WWII Japanification and there was no large influx of KMT refugees from the mainland, so the appeal of Chinese nationalism on the island is limited. To a good degree, the Japanese-Korean reconciliation mirrors the parallel development of European integration in Europe, and vice versa. Both are a testament to the success of the American-sponsored reconstruction and rehabilitation of the Axis states after WWII. Too bad the Americans and their allies didn't have the foresight to prevent the rise of Russo-Chinese revanchism one way or another, but WWIII is acting as cement for European and Far Eastern regional/continental solidarity, and of course, Western global partnership. So the Koreans hate the Chinese more than they hate the Japanese for what they did during their Korean occupation. |
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eurofed
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Post by eurofed on Jan 22, 2017 19:30:15 GMT
So the Koreans hate the Chinese more than they hate the Japanese for what they did during their Korean occupation. Despite what the Korean nationalists like to pretend, Japanese rule of Korea wasn't all bad nor most Koreans opposed it all the time. It brought modernization and socio-economic development, and a sizable portion of the Korean people cooperated with the Japanese and went along with Japanization. Up to WWII, the Japanese Empire was an authoritarian state, but the Japanese rulers didn't treat loyal Koreans much worse than loyal Japanese. It was a more complex situation than classic colonialism, since a genuine attempt to assimilate Korea in the Japanese Empire was underway. ITTL the Americans didn't turn over Korea to Korean nationalists and give them free rein to impose their narrative that Japanese rule had been entirely horrific and all Koreans hated it. They chose to re-establish the Japanese-Korean-Taiwanese union as a federal democracy, with the three peoples sharing an equal relationship, so a narrative of reconciliation and a new beginning prevailed, fostered by democratization and economic growth, much like it happened in Europe. Nearly two decades later, the Chinese came in guns blazing, imposed a brutal occupation and their authoritarian rule in the areas they conquered, and recruited the likes of Kim-il-Sung to act as collaborationists. So their attempts to foster Chinese nationalism in Taiwan and Korean nationalism in Korea largely fall flat, because Far Eastern democracy and prosperity looked like a better deal than authoritarian nationalism as a part of China or China's puppet. In the long term, it might turn differently if the Chinese were to win, but if the Western coalition wins, the war is going to act as further stimulus for Japanese-Korean-Taiwanese solidarity. |
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