insect
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Post by insect on May 28, 2018 18:26:16 GMT
How would this affect history had the u.s.s.r had fallen sooner?in the ealry 80s or 70s??  |
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kyng
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Post by kyng on May 28, 2018 23:48:30 GMT
My initial thought was "Not too much: all the major world events just happen 10-15 years earlier".
However, I then realised that there may very well be no Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. So, perhaps the communist regime there simply collapses once the USSR goes, without the USA or any other foreign powers ever intervening on the side of the mujahideen. Consequently, Osama bin Laden never gets involved in this fight: he just works for his father's construction business empire. With him out of the picture, and with no US involvement in Afghanistan, perhaps this means no 9/11?
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on May 29, 2018 3:39:27 GMT
My initial thought was "Not too much: all the major world events just happen 10-15 years earlier". However, I then realised that there may very well be no Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. So, perhaps the communist regime there simply collapses once the USSR goes, without the USA or any other foreign powers ever intervening on the side of the mujahideen. Consequently, Osama bin Laden never gets involved in this fight: he just works for his father's construction business empire. With him out of the picture, and with no US involvement in Afghanistan, perhaps this means no 9/11? Could even be, and that is the wild card here that we see the survival of the Kingdom of Afghanistan, also i wonder what will happen with Iran, will we still see a Iranian Revolution happen if the Soviet Union had fall in the 1970s. |
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stevep
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Post by stevep on May 29, 2018 7:44:24 GMT
My initial thought was "Not too much: all the major world events just happen 10-15 years earlier". However, I then realised that there may very well be no Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. So, perhaps the communist regime there simply collapses once the USSR goes, without the USA or any other foreign powers ever intervening on the side of the mujahideen. Consequently, Osama bin Laden never gets involved in this fight: he just works for his father's construction business empire. With him out of the picture, and with no US involvement in Afghanistan, perhaps this means no 9/11? Could even be, and that is the wild card here that we see the survival of the Kingdom of Afghanistan, also i wonder what will happen with Iran, will we still see a Iranian Revolution happen if the Soviet Union had fall in the 1970s.
Might see the Afghani kingdom survive. With Iran and especially if the SU has collapsed without massive destruction and chaos I suspect the Shah will still fall simply because his regime had too narrow a support base and he doesn't seem to have been a particularly intelligent leader. There would probably still be a danger that any such revolt would after succeeding, be crushed by some Khomeini type counter-revolution and a theocratic dictatorship resulting as OTL.  The religious elements still had a lot of support then as they hadn't discredited themselves and Khomeini is simply too vicious and power mad to accept democracy and human rights.
I presume, going back to the original POD, that insect is assuming that the SU falls similarly to OTL, with a relatively peaceful collapse of the empire. This seems to me rather difficult to achieve given how strong it seemed to be and the greater apparent viability it appeared to hold at the time. As recently as 1968 there had been the suppression of reform attempts in Czechoslovakia and in the early 80's military intervention in Poland looked very likely until the Polish army stepped in to prevent it. Without the steady ossification of the state, declining living standards and the shock of the failure of the army in Afghanistan I fear it would be a violent fall, quite possibly dragging in many other parts of the world.
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kyng
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Post by kyng on Jun 3, 2018 1:04:40 GMT
Well, the Kingdom of Afghanistan was overthrown in 1973, when it was brought down by Mohammed Daoud Khan's coup (which I don't think would have required the Soviet Union to be present). So, if we want to save the Kingdom of Afghanistan, then I think we'd need to have the Soviet Union falling even earlier than "late 1970s"  . Although, this then raises the question of what might have happened had Daoud's regime survived. He was quite different from the leaders Afghanistan has had since: he modernised the economy and military, suppressed radical Islamism, helped the poor, and pushed for women's rights (although, before I give him too much credit, he also ran the country as a one-party dictatorship where previously there had been democracy). Perhaps those efforts would have continued into the 1980s - although, it would probably only have been a matter of time before Daoud did something to trigger a conservative/reactionary backlash, and got overthrown himself. I just hope whatever regime replaces him isn't as bad as the Taliban  ! |
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Post by TheRomanSlayer on Jun 6, 2018 6:23:33 GMT
Just how the Soviets could fall in the 1960s, when the decline hasn't started yet? If anything, having the USSR fall apart after World War Two might be more possible, either through an earlier death of Hitler pre-1944 or Valkyrie succeeding. Having a competent German military leadership that managed to create a successful defensive line in Ukraine and Belarus might allow the survival of the wartime collaborator regimes for a while.
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eurofed
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Post by eurofed on Jun 16, 2018 23:02:20 GMT
Just how the Soviets could fall in the 1960s, when the decline hasn't started yet? If anything, having the USSR fall apart after World War Two might be more possible, either through an earlier death of Hitler pre-1944 or Valkyrie succeeding. Having a competent German military leadership that managed to create a successful defensive line in Ukraine and Belarus might allow the survival of the wartime collaborator regimes for a while. Just let Stalin survive his 1953 stroke but become even more deranged, and survive another half-decade or so. His late blood-soaked rampages shall do the trick of exhausting what little life and legitimacy Communism still had in itself, massively accelerating its decline, and making its downfall even more catastrophic. He starts another major row of the purges, his own version of the Holocaust, and persecution of other assorted ethnic minorities perceived as insufficiently loyal. The purges get extended from the USSR to Eastern Europe, reaping an even bigger body count and disruption of society. Stalin's intransigence about peace negotations in Korea drives the frustrated Americans to end the Korean War with nuclear bombing of North Korea and Manchuria, forcing the Chinese to withdraw and allowing Korea to reunify under South Korean leadership. Stalin considers military retaliation but is eventuallty forced to back down because of massive US nuclear supremacy. Growing distrust and resentment between Stalin and Mao cause an early Sino-Soviet split, which drives Stalin to start a war with the PRC to punish a wayward vassal. The Red Army crushes the Chinese army and seizes big chunks of northern and western China, but soon finds itself in the same quagmire the Japanese experienced as it drives deep into China proper. Frustration goads Stalin to settle the war with massive WMD bombing of China, killing millions of Chinese and plunging the devastated country into another warlord era. The USSR seizes control of Xinjiang, Mongolia, and Manchuria. The rump PRC deposes Mao, submits to Stalin to survive, and keeps a shaky hold on North China. The rest of the country soon fragments between resurgent warlords, widespread banditry, ethnic separatists, seceding Tibet, and revitalized Nationalists starting reconquest of the mainland with Western support. Feeling his health decline and ever more determined to crush his enemies before ultimate confrontation with the West or his death occur, Stalin orders the Red Army to invade Yugoslavia and quash the Titoist regime as well, and causes East Austria to split as a Communist state. Soviet atrocities make everyone in the West but Stalinist stooges to come regard Stalin as a worse butcher and tyrant than Hitler, and Communism as even worse than Nazism. Yalta becomes another Munich. Communist parties in Western Europe collapse in favor of social democrats and libertarian left-wingers. Widespread fear of Soviet expansionism drives the Western powers to accept unification of West Germany and West Austria, and the Western European countries to ratify the triad of the European Defence Community, the European Political Community, and the European Economic Community. The European integration process is jumpstarted with full military and economic integration from the beginning, with a supranational parliamentary government to oversee it. Western Europe is sent down the path to quasi-federal unification in a few decades. Chaos in China allows pro-Western elements to take the upper hand in Indochina, ensuring pro-Western decolonization. Ongoing Stalinist purges and misrule and the burden of the Chinese and Yugoslav conflicts make living standards in Russia and Eastern Europe go to Hell, although totalitarian terror prevents any rebellion as long as the tyrant lives. Nasser causes the Suez crisis, Soviet support to Egypt makes America support the Anglo-French and the Israelis. Foreign invasion crushes the Egyptian army and topples Nasser from power. Although this humiliation later paves the way for a major rise of Islamism, Pan-Arabism is defeated and discredited. Outraged Stalin threatens WWIII but fortunately for the world, stress and declining health cause his death. Since only narrowminded hardliners and yes-men survive in the Soviet leadership after the late purges, they perpetuate Stalin's policies for utter inability of doing anything else and the resulting decline of Soviet economy and living standards accelerates. Massive rebellions explode across Eastern Europe soon after the tyrant dies. The Red Army tries to suppress them with much bloodshed but fails to quash the resulting widespread guerrilla insurgency, also because NATO smuggles a lot of support to the rebels across the border. After a few years, the military burden of counterinsurgency in Eastern Europe combined with declining living standards and lack of reform cause unrest to explode in the USSR itself. First the restive nationalities that survived Stalinist terror, then former gulag inmates and deportees in Siberia, and eventually the Russians themselves rebel against Soviet rule. Civil war at home forces a massive Soviet withdrawal from Eastern Europe and China. Communism swiftly collapses in Eastern Europe, East Germany and East Austria reunify with West Germany, the Eastern European countries get generous US and EU help to rebuild and soon join NATO and the aborning EU. France is able to settle decolonization of Algeria in a way acceptable to its interests, keeping De Gaulle from power. The Nationalists crush the CCP remnants, gradually reunify China under their leadership, and start reconstruction with generous US help. The Second Russian Civil War rages for a while but eventually ends in a victory of the anti-Communists. NATO makes a limited intervention in the Russian civil war to seize or destroy the Soviet WMD arsenal and indirectly help the anti-Communists win after the neo-Stalinists start using tactical nukes and chemical weapons in the conflict. Since Stalin turned vast swaths of China in a poisoned, irradiated wasteland for defying him, nobody in the West wants to take chances. It also provides some support to help the reconstruction of Russia although this can only go so far since the country is big, the Western powers already have their hands full helping Eastern Europe and China, and Russia has a terrible reputation after Stalin's atrocities. Europe gradually integrates as a federal union and the second Western superpower. It experiences some decolonization grief in Africa but it is usually able to manage it without excessive trouble thanks to lack of Soviet help for anti-Western radicals. America remains the strongest superpower and avoids any equivalent of the Vietnam war. It only gets some backlash for its imperialist hegemony in South America, but a manageable amount since local extremists lack any real foreign support. When the likes of Castro and Chavez raise their head, they are swiftly crushed. Communism is utterly reviled and Stalin is widely seen as the worst scourge of the 20th century, with Nazism and Hitler as close seconds. Politicians and (alt-)history buffs often debate if the West backed the wrong horse during WWII. India soon discards bureaucratic socialism because of its growing ties with the West, and eventually rises as the best candidate superpower getting close to developed world standards. China eventually recovers from the damage it suffered because of Communism and transitions to democracy under Nationalist leadership but it is still far from being a full match to India. Japan and Korea reconcile as equals and form the dual core of an East Asian Union, a looser equivalent of the EU with the Southeast Asian countries. Russia struggles painfully to rise to China's level. Only the growing global threat of Islamist extremism and terrorism in the Muslim world creates a serious threat to Western hegemony and its liberal democratic model, and the next challenge after the utter failures of fascism and communism. |
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Post by TheRomanSlayer on Jun 17, 2018 0:21:58 GMT
Wasn there a TL that almost describes your scenario in "Twilight of the Red Tsar"?
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eurofed
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Post by eurofed on Jun 17, 2018 1:00:39 GMT
Wasn there a TL that almost describes your scenario in "Twilight of the Red Tsar"? Great minds think alike.  Twilight of the Red Tsar is exceedingly well-written AH fiction, and I acknowledge it as inspiration, although there are bits of it I deem unrealistic (e.g. failure of America to achieve full victory in Korea after it nukes Manchuria, survival of an East Austrian remnant after Communism's fall, America destroying all its welfare systems because Randism gets counterculture popularity) and most of what it predicts is IMO fairly predictable developments of Stalinism getting more leeway to express the worst extremes of its nature, which I found fairly easy to devise on my own. I'm not persuaded Russia getting permanently split from the 2nd Civil War is that likely, and I expect NATO would intervene to seize or destroy the Soviet WMDs, so eventually something would wipe out the neo-Stalinist entity, be it its own failures (North Korea-style totalitarianism does not fare well on its own for long w/o foreign supporters subsidizing it like China did with the Kim dynasty), a resurgent China, or White Russia itself. It has been some time since I read TotRT so I'm not mindful of how it describes events after the start of the 2nd Russian Civil War. I mostly replaced it with my own speculation about the long-term effects of the scenario. If you want an alternative, entirely original alternative scenario of mine about how Communism may destroy itself by the mid 20th century, check "WWII ends with Allied-Soviet fight" on this very forum, here. No, it is not the tiresome cliché of "Unthinkable happens in 1945 for no good reason", rather it is the entire course of WWII that unfolds in a three-way Axis-Allied-Soviet conflict because of a few key PoDs. It sees the early, fiery end of Communism and total victory of the West in the late phase of WWII, although the free world later faces the major challenge of a WWIII being started by a hostile nationalist coalition of Putinesque Russia and xenophobe China and I never got to write the end of the conflict and its aftermath (although the NATO good guys ultimately reap a decisive victory). |
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Post by TheRomanSlayer on Jun 17, 2018 4:26:35 GMT
I also wrote a TL on an earlier destruction of communism called "How We Define Paradise or Desolation", which has a PoD of Stalin dying in October of 1945, leading to a power struggle that ends in Mikoyan becoming Premier of the USSR. Mikoyan's tenure would be extremely short, as a border incident between Yugoslavia and Hungary, plus another incident involving Otto Ernst Remer leads to WWIII, with the Allies having a success with arming the Eastern European anti-communist resistance movements to fight the communist regimes. A botched attempt at de-Stalinization leads to Mikoyan getting shot. The Allies in this scenario would cancel Operation: Keelhaul, leading to the re-emergence of certain WWII collaboration movements that are rabidly anti-communist, including the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the Russian Liberation Army. I haven't really finished the TL completely, but the spoiler is that most of the former USSR is liberated, but a communist version of the Far Eastern Republic arises as the successor to the USSR, which in reality is a puppet state of a Communist China that is led by Liu Shaoqi.
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steffen
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Post by steffen on Jun 18, 2018 13:18:40 GMT
I also wrote a TL on an earlier destruction of communism called "How We Define Paradise or Desolation", which has a PoD of Stalin dying in October of 1945, leading to a power struggle that ends in Mikoyan becoming Premier of the USSR. Mikoyan's tenure would be extremely short, as a border incident between Yugoslavia and Hungary, plus another incident involving Otto Ernst Remer leads to WWIII, with the Allies having a success with arming the Eastern European anti-communist resistance movements to fight the communist regimes. A botched attempt at de-Stalinization leads to Mikoyan getting shot. The Allies in this scenario would cancel Operation: Keelhaul, leading to the re-emergence of certain WWII collaboration movements that are rabidly anti-communist, including the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the Russian Liberation Army. I haven't really finished the TL completely, but the spoiler is that most of the former USSR is liberated, but a communist version of the Far Eastern Republic arises as the successor to the USSR, which in reality is a puppet state of a Communist China that is led by Liu Shaoqi. Well, from a personal egoistic motive this would be very bad - beeing german (born in the 70ties) my chances are very low in that scenario. What saved the butts of the FRG (western germany) was the cold war and the need to establish a strong central european economy, that ALSO could finance and defend the interests of the former western allies against the red "hordes". With Stalin dying in october 1945 and the decline of the USSR this would not replace the hard plans of the US government, so lots of germans dies by hunger or diseases, also the recovery of german economy (that lead to the miracle of the rebuild but also was the ignition of the european recovery) would not happen. With the communist idea not dead like a dodo (because Stalin was a "right-winger"-excuse would be used even more often as OTL) you could see western states fell into socialism/communism more often, esp. after the US government withdraws from the mess that is called europe (without german recovery in economic terms the european countries would suffer much worse in economic terms - so the US government either has to withdraw (my bets) or spent even more billions of US-Dollars, a real net drain for "nothing". The eastern european countries, also devasted by the war (even worse as the western europeans) could recover, but still lack the financial ability to buy american goods or the need of large numbers of US forces in their countries Also the fame of the USA would suffer seriously, after a dozen or three million germans had died by the harsh and (modern sight) very brutal treatments... so other countries, even if partly happy for the punishment of the evil huns would be very distant to the USA. OTL was for (Western) europe quite efficent, because with the recovery of western germany the whole western europe recovered and got the impulses it needed to grow strong. Also the many billion dollars worth of weapons and troops were a present for the US armed forces, because again western germany paid for that. If red russia isn´t existing this money will not be spent, esp. because the weak, agrain and depopulated germany would not recover at all (no interests or plans to do so till mid 1946) The eastern europeans were "punished" a second time, because instead of liberty they got another brutal regime that supressed the people in these countries. But if no USSR exists and the USA "liberate" em, who knows about the treatment of the countries by the american interests. OTL showed that the USA often acted if a government (free elected) of a country did not what they, the USA wanted them to do. I have my doubts that they would - without USSR as another superpower with nukes - act not much more interventionistical in this case. So we have - depopulated and still destroyed german areas, a net drain for the three western allied states, also the morale aspects and high ground-things of them have vanished with time, starving millions to death has this effect on people, esp. if they sit at the fence and look at this. The economy of europe, esp. western europe is much weaker, because without the strong engine in central europe (germany) that can´t be replaced the whole structure may recover, but only much slower and less effective. So they fell out as customers of US products - that will have serious negative impact on the american market, too. With not so many weapons bought in the USA (why? Nobody threatens them, with the exception of the USA itself, against them you can´t defend, so keep the army budget low) they cannot finance their arms development as easy as in the cold war. Eastern europe could see a better political system, but only insofar they act the way the USA want em to act. If for example poland want an independent politics, that could collide with US interests my bets are that such governments would be replaced the same way as in Chile or Iran. With all negative consequences such actings would have. Basically these countries could fell into anarchy and civil wars, with red "liberation forces" fighting the american figures who were placed for US companies interests.. fill in a few million german refugees, who would try to escape the hell called germany, that would could create problems the way the palestines created in egypt or jordan. any unipolar world could have this effect - until the day that superpower run into their own problems (here - the racist problem in the dep south in the 60ties). With no communism and war to move interests away, this could create another "near civil war"-like event in the southern states, with brutal KKK-bands mass killing blacks, black "terrorists" killing as much whites as possible, with federals who either try to support one or the other group. Dystopia? maybe, but it has some serious downs |
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Post by TheRomanSlayer on Jun 19, 2018 5:24:55 GMT
steffen: Yikes, that is something that not even Morgenthau would cook up, and he was the one who came up with the appalling plan for German de-industrialization. Europe plus Russia after the fall of communism in the 1940s as I have written in this TL, would be economically bankrupt, and they might not recover that quickly. This would mean no EEC, therefore no EU. It would also mean that Asia might become the richest continent instead of Europe. Communism, unfortunately, would survive in China, and in a weird sense of irony, it would be the Chinese who might offer the better economic aid to Europe and Russia instead of the US, though that would depend on whether or not Europe plus Russia is willing to accept any Chinese help. Of course, without a Cold War, the US might also retreat back into isolation, creating a nasty effect for the world economy in the long run.
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steffen
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Post by steffen on Jun 19, 2018 8:17:28 GMT
steffen : Yikes, that is something that not even Morgenthau would cook up, and he was the one who came up with the appalling plan for German de-industrialization. Europe plus Russia after the fall of communism in the 1940s as I have written in this TL, would be economically bankrupt, and they might not recover that quickly. This would mean no EEC, therefore no EU. It would also mean that Asia might become the richest continent instead of Europe. Communism, unfortunately, would survive in China, and in a weird sense of irony, it would be the Chinese who might offer the better economic aid to Europe and Russia instead of the US, though that would depend on whether or not Europe plus Russia is willing to accept any Chinese help. Of course, without a Cold War, the US might also retreat back into isolation, creating a nasty effect for the world economy in the long run. Hi, sorry - that is wrong. Morgenthaus plan made crystal clear that he wanted to "reduce" the german population to 30 million, who could fed themself in an agrarian country. There is no mistake in that. If you de-industrialize a 1st world country that cannot fed its population by agricultural areas alone you commit genocide. It is a different kind of genocide - so no factories of death - like the nazis planned (after they found out that their killers could not hold their sanity with all the mass murderings) but the result is the same. Do not misunderstood my intention with this. I do not try to make nazi crimes smaller - they actual mass murdered millions and millions, but the plan of morgenthau - later the "same" way done by the morgenthau-boys (look at wikipedia about the JCS1067-order) is genocidal. If you starve a population who is "enslaved" to death it is normally called genocide. Nothing else was the american plan of 1945-46. Only two things changed that. Most important was the cold war/conflict between the USA and the USSR (something that is removed here) and the need to restart the european economy (to buy american goods). No humanitarian aspect was involved. Esp. in the USA the idea was to kill enough huns, to reduce the problems they made in 4 wars (as they had painted it in the propaganda). In france that was partly done (work/starve germans to death (but they did it with POW only)), the british tried to counter it - they even kept their regulations of food distribution active to feed german civilians they had the responsibility for - but the US government did activly starve their germans to death - as Hoover made clear to the public, after he had gone to germany. Just read the history of the morgenthau-plan and the directive JCS1067, planned by "morgenthau-boys" and established by the US government. There was a need to survive that prostituted so many german wimen in 1945-1947, not the "love to have sex with americans". Any scenario that remove early after the war the USSR is also a scenario of genocide (in that case one of germans). At last if the scenario is realistic. So please explain why the morgenthau-plan would not be a genocide - i hear that sometimes, but not with any facts that support that (false) claim. And yes, directive JCS1067 was nothing else as the morgenthau-plan, not in the name but in the spirit of it, planned and done by the morgenthau-boys. I know that neonazis use these plans to appologize the nazi crimes. That is NOT my intention. But to not know the history would cause us to repeat it. So i have to decline your idea of a fall of the USSR shortly after ww2 and then these moves would NOT happen. It is just like the interest of some in a nazi victory in ww2 without the holocaust on steroids. Can´t happen because some situation had been the way they were. Nazis -> Holocaust is a given. If they have more time and "people", they do more damage to human mankind, commit more crimes. Unfortunatly, if you remove the USSR and the "cold war", you also cause the death of a few dozen million people by the US government by reducing 60 million germans to 30 million by hunger. Reduce the food a human needs to a level that is below the needed numbers and at some point he dies. What happened in the KZs would happen in an even larger dimension in germany - if you follow JCS1067, no fictional mad idea but legal orders of the US government, who also tried to press the british to follow their line. As a german i am happy that the USSR existed - because without it i would propably never had been born, because my parents would have been starved to death by the us armed forces and the military organisation that controlled the western occupation zones. Also, even after the stuttgart-speech, the us government blocked any try to restart the german economy for some serious time. These are just the facts - just as the huge casulty rate of german kids in winter 45, but more so winter 46 as a consequence of the Directive orders of JCS1067. The negative consequences of this genocide - next to my personal interest in just been born  - would be a.) europe do not recover from the devastions of ww2 - again no historican deny the needed effect of the german "boom" onto the european economy b.) the US lack billions of US-Dollar, if they keep their forces in germany. THe FRG paid billions and billions of USD to the occupation forces, even long after WW2. If they leave that hellhole because they do not waste money they have no influence about what could happen in that germany. For sure there would be no "love" for the USA or the west, killing 20-30 million people cause this. I have no clue if that is possible, but if the surviving germans would be able to build biological weapons, i bet they will smuggle them into the USA and do some retaliation. But even if not, the negative fallout for the USA in the world - even the loyal partners will see the USA as morale scum (again, nobody had an interest in surviving germans in 1945, but a genocide is a different thing, esp. if done by a nation that had nil suffered by the nazis - in opposition to their european neighbours or UK (remember, the british did fed their germans and did not follow the US demands, even if bombed by the german airforce) The whole plot changes if the USSR fell in 1956 or 1960... but as you described with a autum45-scenario you have to include a genocide on germans caused by hunger throught the USA. Personally i think the germans should build monuments from hoover, he was the final nail in the morgenthau-plan-follow up, because he got the chance (by some other "cold-war-fearing-consequence"-forces) to make the thing public. |
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eurofed
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Post by eurofed on Jun 19, 2018 21:40:42 GMT
Steffen,
At least in my "WWII Ends with Allied-Soviet Fight" TL (purposefully written to give a more pro-Western, Europhile, and German/Japanophile outcome to WWII than OTL), none of the dreadful events you fear thankfully take place for Germany and Europe, despite the USSR and Communism collapsing in the late stage of (extended) WWII. This because the effects of divergence keep the £$%& "Morgenthau boys" well away from having any real say about the treatment of postwar Europe. FDR dies in 1939 and his Administration that was riddled with Germanophobe loonies, Soviet spies, and Communist sympathizers gets replaced by one with a much more sensible and pragmatic attitude about fighting a general war against totalitarianism. The Allies are at war with Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia at once since their botched attempt to intervene in Scandinavia and bomb Baku backfired; the USSR joins the Axis together with Germany, Italy, Japan, Vichy France, and Spain, and even if Hitler later backstabs Stalin and turns WWII into a three-way fight, the Allies continue to treat the USSR as an enemy power. De Gaulle dies early, there is no Free France, pretty much all of Europe joins the Axis before Barbarossa, and the Anglo-Americans get accustomed to think of it as enemy territory, yet they are aware after the war they shall need to keep trading with a continent in decent shape for their own livelihood and they have to apply it a lenient treatment.
When things start to turn bad for the Axis, anti-Nazi generals start planning a coup and wishing to negotiate moderate peace terms with the Allies (no territorial losses, forced deindustrialization, or collective punishments for civilians or the regular army) in exchange for their surrender. The Anglo-Americans prove receptive to such feelers because of ATL circumstances and since they know they still have to fight even when Germany and its allies surrender, especially once the USSR and Japan form an alliance of convenience and keep fighting in the hope to exhaust the Allies with a war of attrition. The anti-Nazi coup occurs, the Euro-Axis surrenders in exchange for guarantees of lenient treatment, and the Allied armies cross its territory unopposed to fight the Red Army in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The Allies are true to their word and being lenient suits their short-term (a shortened, less exhausting war effort) and long-term interests (keeping Europe intact to be a trade partner after the war) so they let Axis nations keep their prewar territories and industrial base. They punish the fascist leaders and authors of war crimes but leave civilians and regular soldiers alone. They are satisfied with being able to occupy Europe and rebuild it according to their standard, so they aren't really interested in enacting major ethnic cleansing, forced political division, mass-starving deindustrialization, or anything else of the draconian Morgenthau stuff. Their occupation policy almost immediately crosses into rebuilding Europe into an ally and trade partner of America Plan Marshall-style the moment the Axis armies lay down their weapons.
The Soviet-Japanese alliance keeps fighting for a while but things turn from bad to worse for them, as they come to face invasion, starvation, economic collapse from Allied bombing, and eventually nukes. The Russian generals and the moderate elements in the Japanese ruling elite overthrow the Soviet regime and the Japanese militarists and beg for the same peace terms Axis Europe got. Since that worked nicely once, the Anglo-Americans are willing to grant similar terms again for the sake of ending the war. The European nations basically get their pre-war or ethnic borders, whatever seems to work best for stability's sake, with a few ad hoc territorial adjustments. E.g. Germany loses Danzig and East Prussia but keeps Pomerania, Silesia, Austria, and the Sudetenland; Belgium, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia are split or partitioned since there is not much interest in reviving them; Italy and Spain keep 1938 borders; Japan keeps Korea, Taiwan, and Sakhalin with a federal reform of the state and cultural autonomy for the overseas territories. Russia gets a somewhat harsher peace deal since it was the last to surrender, it is the most powerful enemy nation, and it gets spared military occupation because of its size. So it gets a 1992/Brest-Litovsk kind of peace, with independence for the Caucasus and Ukraine, a few extra border corrections in favor of Eastern European nations, and the Far East going to China and the USA. Yet they keep the bulk of Russia proper, Siberia, and Central Asia.
Europe and Japan-Korea get pretty much the same postwar experience as OTL except for the absence of defeated and destroyed communism, or post-Cold War for Eastern Europe. American-driven reconstruction turns them into prosperous and stable liberal democracies and reliable members of the Western world. The European integration project jumpstarts into a promishing path to quasi-federal unification. The shared experience of defeat and reconstruction forms the cement for reconciliation. Past a point, resurgence of an hostile Russia and China adds even more incentive for intra-Western cooperation. The big failures of the postwar settlement are Russia, China, and the Muslim world. Since the Americans already have their hands full with the reconstruction of Europe and Japan-Korea, they seriously neglect the stabilization of Russia and China, also because they have a direct involvement in the management of defeated Axis countries but not of the latter nations.
The Russians and the Chinese eventually rebuild themselves as great powers and form an alliance of convenience under the leadership of hostile nationalist or xenophobe ruling elites that take an increasingly anti-Western stance. Basically in the second interwar things go even better than OTL for Europe and Japan-Korea thanks to the absence of Communism, but history rhymes and Russia and China more or less go the same way as first-interwar Axis nations, or post-Cold War Putin's Russia. The Russo-Chinese form an hostile nationalist bloc with anti-Western Third-World radicals (especially in the Arab world where nationalists are resentful of European colonialism and Western support for Israel's creation) and stumble into starting WWIII against the global NATO of US, UK, EU, Dominions, and Japan-Korea. Thankfully it becomes a conventional conflict since Russia and China have not managed to build much of a WMD arsenal yet, and the Western powers are reluctant to make first or large-scale use of nukes unless forced to. Overconfident Russo-Chinese leaders mistake Western postwar complacency for decadent weakness and gamble they can win if they strike first hard enough thanks to their early rearmament and presumed superior will to fight.
Initial Russo-Chinese strategic offensive does claim some ground and strains Western defenses, but thankfully global NATO in the last years of peace rearmed and rebuilt a conventional military powerful enough to absorb its impact and prevent a military collapse. Once North America, Europe, and Japan-Korea properly mobilize their vast industrial power, Western victory is inevitable, although it is gonna take some time and a few serious sacrifices. Instead of the divisive and antagonizing experience of the Vietnam War, the Baby Boomer generation gets the unifying and uplifting experience of fighting a just war to save the free world and liberal democracy from brutal aggressors, just like their parents. Alt-WWII was about defeating fascism and communism, WWIII is about defeating authoritarian nationalism.
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steffen
Ensign
Posts: 300
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Post by steffen on Jun 20, 2018 7:47:43 GMT
Steffen, At least in my "WWII Ends with Allied-Soviet Fight" TL (purposefully written to give a more pro-Western, Europhile, and German/Japanophile outcome to WWII than OTL), none of the dreadful events you fear thankfully take place for Germany and Europe, despite the USSR and Communism collapsing in the late stage of (extended) WWII. This because the effects of divergence keep the £$%& "Morgenthau boys" well away from having any real say about the treatment of postwar Europe. FDR dies in 1939 and his Administration that was riddled with Germanophobe loonies, Soviet spies, and Communist sympathizers gets replaced by one with a much more sensible and pragmatic attitude about fighting a general war against totalitarianism. The Allies are at war with Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia at once since their botched attempt to intervene in Scandinavia and bomb Baku backfired; the USSR joins the Axis together with Germany, Italy, Japan, Vichy France, and Spain, and even if Hitler later backstabs Stalin and turns WWII into a three-way fight, the Allies continue to treat the USSR as an enemy power. De Gaulle dies early, there is no Free France, pretty much all of Europe joins the Axis before Barbarossa, and the Anglo-Americans get accustomed to think of it as enemy territory, yet they are aware after the war they shall need to keep trading with a continent in decent shape for their own livelihood and they have to apply it a lenient treatment. When things start to turn bad for the Axis, anti-Nazi generals start planning a coup and wishing to negotiate moderate peace terms with the Allies (no territorial losses, forced deindustrialization, or collective punishments for civilians or the regular army) in exchange for their surrender. The Anglo-Americans prove receptive to such feelers because of ATL circumstances and since they know they still have to fight even when Germany and its allies surrender, especially once the USSR and Japan form an alliance of convenience and keep fighting in the hope to exhaust the Allies with a war of attrition. The anti-Nazi coup occurs, the Euro-Axis surrenders in exchange for guarantees of lenient treatment, and the Allied armies cross its territory unopposed to fight the Red Army in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The Allies are true to their word and being lenient suits their short-term (a shortened, less exhausting war effort) and long-term interests (keeping Europe intact to be a trade partner after the war) so they let Axis nations keep their prewar territories and industrial base. They punish the fascist leaders and authors of war crimes but leave civilians and regular soldiers alone. They are satisfied with being able to occupy Europe and rebuild it according to their standard, so they aren't really interested in enacting major ethnic cleansing, forced political division, mass-starving deindustrialization, or anything else of the draconian Morgenthau stuff. Their occupation policy almost immediately crosses into rebuilding Europe into an ally and trade partner of America Plan Marshall-style the moment the Axis armies lay down their weapons. The Soviet-Japanese alliance keeps fighting for a while but things turn from bad to worse for them, as they come to face invasion, starvation, economic collapse from Allied bombing, and eventually nukes. The Russian generals and the moderate elements in the Japanese ruling elite overthrow the Soviet regime and the Japanese militarists and beg for the same peace terms Axis Europe got. Since that worked nicely once, the Anglo-Americans are willing to grant similar terms again for the sake of ending the war. The European nations basically get their pre-war or ethnic borders, whatever seems to work best for stability's sake, with a few ad hoc territorial adjustments. E.g. Germany loses Danzig and East Prussia but keeps Pomerania, Silesia, Austria, and the Sudetenland; Belgium, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia are split or partitioned since there is not much interest in reviving them; Italy and Spain keep 1938 borders; Japan keeps Korea, Taiwan, and Sakhalin with a federal reform of the state and cultural autonomy for the overseas territories. Russia gets a somewhat harsher peace deal since it was the last to surrender, it is the most powerful enemy nation, and it gets spared military occupation because of its size. So it gets a 1992/Brest-Litovsk kind of peace, with independence for the Caucasus and Ukraine, a few extra border corrections in favor of Eastern European nations, and the Far East going to China and the USA. Yet they keep the bulk of Russia proper, Siberia, and Central Asia. Europe and Japan-Korea get pretty much the same postwar experience as OTL except for the absence of defeated and destroyed communism, or post-Cold War for Eastern Europe. American-driven reconstruction turns them into prosperous and stable liberal democracies and reliable members of the Western world. The European integration project jumpstarts into a promishing path to quasi-federal unification. The shared experience of defeat and reconstruction forms the cement for reconciliation. Past a point, resurgence of an hostile Russia and China adds even more incentive for intra-Western cooperation. The big failures of the postwar settlement are Russia, China, and the Muslim world. Since the Americans already have their hands full with the reconstruction of Europe and Japan-Korea, they seriously neglect the stabilization of Russia and China, also because they have a direct involvement in the management of defeated Axis countries but not of the latter nations. The Russians and the Chinese eventually rebuild themselves as great powers and form an alliance of convenience under the leadership of hostile nationalist or xenophobe ruling elites that take an increasingly anti-Western stance. Basically in the second interwar things go even better than OTL for Europe and Japan-Korea thanks to the absence of Communism, but history rhymes and Russia and China more or less go the same way as first-interwar Axis nations, or post-Cold War Putin's Russia. The Russo-Chinese form an hostile nationalist bloc with anti-Western Third-World radicals (especially in the Arab world where nationalists are resentful of European colonialism and Western support for Israel's creation) and stumble into starting WWIII against the global NATO of US, UK, EU, Dominions, and Japan-Korea. Thankfully it becomes a conventional conflict since Russia and China have not managed to build much of a WMD arsenal yet, and the Western powers are reluctant to make first or large-scale use of nukes unless forced to. Overconfident Russo-Chinese leaders mistake Western postwar complacency for decadent weakness and gamble they can win if they strike first hard enough thanks to their early rearmament and presumed superior will to fight. Initial Russo-Chinese strategic offensive does claim some ground and strains Western defenses, but thankfully global NATO in the last years of peace rearmed and rebuilt a conventional military powerful enough to absorb its impact and prevent a military collapse. Once North America, Europe, and Japan-Korea properly mobilize their vast industrial power, Western victory is inevitable, although it is gonna take some time and a few serious sacrifices. Instead of the divisive and antagonizing experience of the Vietnam War, the Baby Boomer generation gets the unifying and uplifting experience of fighting a just war to save the free world and liberal democracy from brutal aggressors, just like their parents. Alt-WWII was about defeating fascism and communism, WWIII is about defeating authoritarian nationalism. Hi, sorry -even in that "asb-near"luck-event this can´t happen. Why? because many people ignore the fact that OTL they had not seen "the nazis" as the evil but "the german hun". Infact the leading politicans and miliary rulers thought that Hitler and the nazis were puppets of the military. Basically they run into Catch22.. they belived their own lies about the "evil kaiser"-propaganda - for the western allies germany was plain evil, every german was a hun who want to eat babies. So the idea of morgenthau - and later his "boys" was sane - if we accept that starting point. They were forced by external things (the cold war, economic needs) to change that attitude - think about Eisenhower, how promised never to even talk to nazi officers - and then gave the wehrmacht a blanco check because he wanted - after the shock of the korean war - german cannon fodder. The western allies were - if we look from a modern point on it - plain racists and ready to genocide millions. IN that they did no differ from the nazis, just their ideology was different. Here the evil hun, there the evil jew. Both utterly wrong, but the leadership heartly belived that. Churchill - with his nasty character was different. He allways used things for his interests or purpose, he had no problems with die-hard-nazis as long as they were useful. But in the US government of 1945 you will find nobody who cared a second about "hun kids". let em all die, so we have no 4th reich soldiers. That was the attitude of them - all sides. Roosevelt was just the tip of it, he hated all german things and germany with passion. That hitler was scum, that the fight against the nazi ideology was necessary and right is just an "accident" in this. I bet, if the nazis hadn´t existed, if weimar germany would have defended itself against a french-polnish attack, Roosevelt would still have tried to "crush the evil hun", because of his personal antigerman bias. He still would - after a german defeat and (in that theoretical scenario with nil german war crimes) punish the evil huns in the worst way he could have done. Killing huns was a positive effect for him and his "crew". That doesn´t make the nazi crimes a jota "better" - no. But if you write an ATL-story of post-war you have to include such effects. The european neighbours, after their suffering by the nazis had rightfully also no love for germany or germans. So any US government will find at last neutral if not open suportive countries for "hardship = genocide" against germans. Your idea of a "tamed" nazi-regime can´t happen. Sorry - the nazis were 100% evil, they can´t be tamed. If you start to think you have to "clean" the blood from hostile effects (mental ills, crippled, jewish "blood"), you have lost any sense. And the core of the nazi ideology was plain evil. Myself have written that stalin and his communism killed much more people as Hitler and his mignons, but that is ONLY true because they had only so much time compared to him. The ideas of the eastern area the nazis had could give you nightmares, even if you love horror movies or brutal stories in books. A country that achive it that common soldiers (even if in the SS) put 3year-old kids into firepits, because the gas chambers have an defect - is beyond "help". Nazism is like Ebola - nothing positive on it. Still - a scenario in that the western countries win ww2 alone - would make the nazi OTL crimes a holliday trip - if you count numbers. For sure - and unfortunatly i belive even here exist users who would see it that way - supporters of this "make nazi germans small"-idea would explain why it is necessary for the world peace that you starve 20-30 millions to death - just like the nazis explained why it was "necessary" to kill jews, but if you look at the facts it would have been the propably greatest genocide in human mankind. And don´t think that a replacement of the roosevelt-boys would change that. The british would have a bit problems with it - but not for german people dying but for their "prestige". The Royal Navy had no problem to kill 450-700.000 civilians by hunger-blocade, even after 1918-11-11, even today pro-british people appologize that crime or try to apologize it with "belgian rape". Humans act that way - because they don´t want to accept facts if they are not the way they like them. If the USSR fell apart in that war scenario you described, the nazis would get the chance to kill 10-20 million people more, that will rise the hate against germans in the east and - after the german defeat- the "killing of krauts" would be raised more. You can´t solve that problem, only in a "1939-nazis invade poland, but get crushed by the Allies"-scenario - and again i don´t see this happen without asb-support - you could avoid most hardship. But even here you can´t be sure that the french-polnish methods to "control" germany would not lead to a few million dead german civilians. Because there exist no "nice countries"... countries have interests, if they have to "reduce the german population by 10 millions" they would have done it without hesitation. Just like the nazis or the communists in russia. If you give em a point why they "have to do it", they will do it. Maybe not the nazi way (gassing and working them to death), but separate parts, force them out and ignore the supply of these refugees could do the trick. Blame the evil hun for not beeing able to feed them, so you get double points (you massacre them and you blame them for beeing dead). Such things quite often happened in human history, nothing new. Sometimes you have no "clean" solution for a problem. Any "ww2-scenario" is nasty, brutal and dirty. Sorry... Think about the colonialism - even in 1958- in algeria the french used methods we modern people would be "shocked", still a lot french sing their anthem and belive in the "grande nation". If they really dig in algerian sands, they should be ashamed and shocked. But if an algerian native in france commit a crime the millions of killed algerians in algeria are forgotten. Belgium and the congo - another story of a few millions who get killed for the profit of a western european country... It is funny that the Kaiserreich get so much bad press - esp. for their Herero fighting - if you look into the huge outcry in german newspapers and the reaction of the germans about that crime - you could get the idea that the kaiserreich was - from their home people - the BEST colonial regime (but that is again not good - because colonialism allways is a crime). But because of "good propaganda", movies like Africa queen are an example - the hun in the kaiserreich are just wearing different mustaches... that make crimes commited by germans in that time not less criminal, just the perspective of these things could get lost. |
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The religious elements still had a lot of support then as they hadn't discredited themselves and Khomeini is simply too vicious and power mad to accept democracy and human rights.
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Twilight of the Red Tsar is exceedingly well-written AH fiction, and I acknowledge it as inspiration, although there are bits of it I deem unrealistic (e.g. failure of America to achieve full victory in Korea after it nukes Manchuria, survival of an East Austrian remnant after Communism's fall, America destroying all its welfare systems because Randism gets counterculture popularity) and most of what it predicts is IMO fairly predictable developments of Stalinism getting more leeway to express the worst extremes of its nature, which I found fairly easy to devise on my own. I'm not persuaded Russia getting permanently split from the 2nd Civil War is that likely, and I expect NATO would intervene to seize or destroy the Soviet WMDs, so eventually something would wipe out the neo-Stalinist entity, be it its own failures (North Korea-style totalitarianism does not fare well on its own for long w/o foreign supporters subsidizing it like China did with the Kim dynasty), a resurgent China, or White Russia itself. It has been some time since I read TotRT so I'm not mindful of how it describes events after the start of the 2nd Russian Civil War. I mostly replaced it with my own speculation about the long-term effects of the scenario.
- would be