Post by eurofed on Jul 11, 2018 22:06:22 GMT
Let's assume ITTL Jimmy Carter had a nasty accident in late 1993 or early 1994 and died or suffered serious injuries requiring lenghty treatment and rehabilitation. Hence, he was not in a position in middle 1994 to impose his last-minute mediation on the Clinton Administration in the ongoing North Korean nuclear-proliferation crisis, which IOTL allowed North Korea to defuse the crisis with insincere promises and ultimately kick the can down the road for a couple decades. As a result tensions continued to grow and Clinton eventually ordered a bombing of the Yongbyon reactor and other known or suspected sites of the NK nuclear program. The paranoid North Korean leaders took this as a sign a US invasion was imminent and reacted with an all-out attack on South Korea, Japan, and US bases in the region, as well as by sponsoring various terrorist attacks on Western targets across the world. Although the Western countries suffered some serious damage (especially from NK artillery bombing of Seul, use of chemical weapons on civilians, and state-sponsored terrorist attacks), the Western forces were able to contain the NK land invasion a few miles from the border, enact a massive bombing of NK military targets that crippled the invaders' war machine, and eventually staged a strategic counterattack that overrun North Korea and occupied it up to the Yalu border. Besides the USA, South Korea, and Japan, the Western coalition also included (but was not limited to) Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Canada, Turkey, the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Turkey, the Philippines, Thailand, Australia, and New Zealand.
The USA was able to defuse the possible threat of a Chinese intervention by negotiating a deal that bargained Chinese acceptance of South Korean-led reunification of Korea and its continued alignment with the Western world in exchange for the guarantee no US forces would be stationed North of the 'neck' of the Korean Peninsula. Other reasons for Chinese acquiescence included China still feeling insecure of its domestic stability after the Tienanmen event and fearing Western military superiority and massive damage to its economy, the Chinese leaders being reluctant to suffer serious damage to their own country because of the recklessness of the Kim Dynasty, their awareness NK was beyond salvation after its all-out attack and war crimes, and realization China would eventually benefit from a stable and prosperous united Korea. A few NK leaders were able to escape to China or bribe Russian officials to travel through Russia to anti-Western rogue states, others were captured, put on trial in an international tribunal, and received harsh sentences for their extensive list of war crimes. Russia under President Yeltsin mostly took a pro-Western neutrality stance during the crisis. The Northern portion of reunified Korea got an extensive, lenghty, and expensive reconstruction, rehabilitation, and reeducation program subsidized by a pool of several Western countries that gradually integrated it in the Western world and brought it up to speed with developed-world standards.
What I'm curious about is the global and long-term effects of this scenario. A few possible ripples I've thought of myself:
- The 'Republican Revolution' is prevented or at least substantially delayed. A 'rally-round-the-flag' effect allows the Democrats to keep control of the Congress in the 1994 midterm elections. Although Clinton loses the image of being a peace president, and the USA suffers somewhat more extensive (but entirely bearable) casualties in the Second Korean War than in the Gulf War, decisive victory, successful removal of a dangerous and reckless rogue state, and much improved US security in the Pacific earn him the laurel of a victorious war president. As a result, he wins a landslide victory in the 1996 election and his coattails allow the Democrats to extend their control of the Congress. Therefore, Clinton is eventually able to get health care reform passed, and welfare reform, tax reform, and copyright reform also take a more liberal character. Distraction and stress from the war prevents him from having a sexual affair with Monica Lewinsky, for similar reasons awareness of sexual misconduct allegations from Paula Jones is almost entirely drowned out, and all right-wing attempts to stir up scandals against Bill and Hillary largely fall flat. Despite the costs of the war, the USA and the Western world at large remain remarkably prosperous and stable during the 1990s. Clinton builds up the reputation of being one of the best US Presidents of the 20th century and a public image basically free from scandals. As a result, Al Gore gets a comfortable victory in the 2000 election without any real difficulty, more or less the same way H.W. Bush did in 1988. At some point, ongoing long-term political trends in US society and incumbent fatigue are bound to yield the GOP control of the Congress and the Presidency, but given the circumstances this is not any really likely to happen before the early-mid 2000s at the very least. Republican comeback might be somewhat enhanced by anti-big government political backlash to health care reform if reaction to Obamacare is anything to go by, although TTL different circumstances may well make such backlash substantially less violent than OTL.
- The Western world gets somewhat more serious about snuffing out threats to international stability and bids for WMD proliferation from rogue states. Although this is likely not enough for various reasons to prevent the Rwanda genocide, it might well be enough to motivate the Western powers for effective peacekeeping intervention in the post-Yugoslav conflict (unless possibly an antagonistic Russia intervene to provide its strategic umbrella to Milosevic's Serbia). Rogue nations with ambitions for a WMD deterrent such as Libya and Iran might either be cowed into disarmament or driven to double down on their proliferation efforts by the example of North Korea. If Qaddafi learns the wrong lesson, he is likely brought down by a Western military intervention like OTL, only earlier. Things may get rather more troublesome with Iran if its regime is driven into paranoid defiance. Saddam was basically cowed and shackled after the Gulf War, and with longer Democratic control of the White House, the USA is likely to acknowledge this and leave him alone. The world may avoid an Iraq War, but it may well get an Iran War if things go the wrong way.
- Russia and China may be driven to see Western success in the Far East as a strategic setback that requires a more antagonistic stance. For China, this probably means than an acceleration of its rearmament programs and a more hardline nationalist stance about its claims in the South China Sea. If things go well, probably nothing more than that, given the pragmatic stance of the Chinese leadership and its awareness of the necessity of continued decent relations with the West to keep their economy afloat and their regime tolerated by the people, but if things go really bad, it might mean the PRC taking military action against Taiwan. Russia is going to stay relatively pro-Western as long as Yeltsin stays in power, and Russia rebuilding its strength after postcommunist chaos is still going to take some serious time and effort. However, backlash from the fall of NK might accelerate or worsen the takeover of an anti-Western hardliner nationalist like Putin or another Silovik officer, or if things go really bad, a neo-Communist like Zyuganov or an ultra-nationalist like Zhirinovsky. They would act earlier and more forcefully to restore Russian control of post-Soviet space and restore a confrontational stance with the West. This would mean earlier and greater trouble in Ukraine (or if things go really bad, in the Baltic states) and Russia coming back to a confrontational stance vs. the West earlier and more forcefully. Depending on the schedule of this, it may or may not mean Russia shelters Milosevic's Serbia with its strategic umbrella. If it happens, the Serbs are able to complete their ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and Bosnia, and absorb them, and nationalist Serbia survives as a dictatorship and a source of regional tensions in the Balkans. If on the other hand, Milosevic's Serbia, Qaddafi's Libya, and/or the Islamist regime in Iran are taken down by NATO military action, this probably only enhances the nationalist backlash in Russia and/or China.
- Evidence of the security threat from rogue nations, and quite possibly the antagonist turn of Russia and/or China shake the Western countries out of their post-Cold War "end of history" complacency, and their cooperation to take down North Korea (and quite possibly other defiant rogues) persuades them of the opportunity of greater security integration. The European Constitution is ratified, enhancing and accelerating the pace of European integration and diminishing the legitimacy and popularity of Euroskepticism. The EU (or possibly just its continental Western European core, with Britain, Ireland, and Scandinavia opting out, and Eastern Europe later joining because of its fear of Russia) develop a worthwhile military integration aspect that interlinks with NATO. NATO itself gets reformed, given a new mission as a global security organization, and enlarged with the admission of Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Korea, especially if China and/or Russia turn hostile, or the West has to take further military action to take down rogue states besides North Korea. Germany, Italy, and Japan expunge or tone down post-WWII pacifist clausles in their constitutions to allow greater participation in international peacekeeping missions, especially if they happen under a UN or NATO mandate.
- Although the negative economic effects of the dominant neoliberal model cannot be entirely escaped nor indefinitely deferred in the long term, greater Democratic political dominance in the USA and supranational integration in Europe in all likelihood substantially mitigate them when they eventually turn out. Therefore, the Great Recession isn't anywhere so brutal or damaging for North America and Europe, and its political consequences to give a major boost to right-wing populism and nationalism nowhere so strong.
The USA was able to defuse the possible threat of a Chinese intervention by negotiating a deal that bargained Chinese acceptance of South Korean-led reunification of Korea and its continued alignment with the Western world in exchange for the guarantee no US forces would be stationed North of the 'neck' of the Korean Peninsula. Other reasons for Chinese acquiescence included China still feeling insecure of its domestic stability after the Tienanmen event and fearing Western military superiority and massive damage to its economy, the Chinese leaders being reluctant to suffer serious damage to their own country because of the recklessness of the Kim Dynasty, their awareness NK was beyond salvation after its all-out attack and war crimes, and realization China would eventually benefit from a stable and prosperous united Korea. A few NK leaders were able to escape to China or bribe Russian officials to travel through Russia to anti-Western rogue states, others were captured, put on trial in an international tribunal, and received harsh sentences for their extensive list of war crimes. Russia under President Yeltsin mostly took a pro-Western neutrality stance during the crisis. The Northern portion of reunified Korea got an extensive, lenghty, and expensive reconstruction, rehabilitation, and reeducation program subsidized by a pool of several Western countries that gradually integrated it in the Western world and brought it up to speed with developed-world standards.
What I'm curious about is the global and long-term effects of this scenario. A few possible ripples I've thought of myself:
- The 'Republican Revolution' is prevented or at least substantially delayed. A 'rally-round-the-flag' effect allows the Democrats to keep control of the Congress in the 1994 midterm elections. Although Clinton loses the image of being a peace president, and the USA suffers somewhat more extensive (but entirely bearable) casualties in the Second Korean War than in the Gulf War, decisive victory, successful removal of a dangerous and reckless rogue state, and much improved US security in the Pacific earn him the laurel of a victorious war president. As a result, he wins a landslide victory in the 1996 election and his coattails allow the Democrats to extend their control of the Congress. Therefore, Clinton is eventually able to get health care reform passed, and welfare reform, tax reform, and copyright reform also take a more liberal character. Distraction and stress from the war prevents him from having a sexual affair with Monica Lewinsky, for similar reasons awareness of sexual misconduct allegations from Paula Jones is almost entirely drowned out, and all right-wing attempts to stir up scandals against Bill and Hillary largely fall flat. Despite the costs of the war, the USA and the Western world at large remain remarkably prosperous and stable during the 1990s. Clinton builds up the reputation of being one of the best US Presidents of the 20th century and a public image basically free from scandals. As a result, Al Gore gets a comfortable victory in the 2000 election without any real difficulty, more or less the same way H.W. Bush did in 1988. At some point, ongoing long-term political trends in US society and incumbent fatigue are bound to yield the GOP control of the Congress and the Presidency, but given the circumstances this is not any really likely to happen before the early-mid 2000s at the very least. Republican comeback might be somewhat enhanced by anti-big government political backlash to health care reform if reaction to Obamacare is anything to go by, although TTL different circumstances may well make such backlash substantially less violent than OTL.
- The Western world gets somewhat more serious about snuffing out threats to international stability and bids for WMD proliferation from rogue states. Although this is likely not enough for various reasons to prevent the Rwanda genocide, it might well be enough to motivate the Western powers for effective peacekeeping intervention in the post-Yugoslav conflict (unless possibly an antagonistic Russia intervene to provide its strategic umbrella to Milosevic's Serbia). Rogue nations with ambitions for a WMD deterrent such as Libya and Iran might either be cowed into disarmament or driven to double down on their proliferation efforts by the example of North Korea. If Qaddafi learns the wrong lesson, he is likely brought down by a Western military intervention like OTL, only earlier. Things may get rather more troublesome with Iran if its regime is driven into paranoid defiance. Saddam was basically cowed and shackled after the Gulf War, and with longer Democratic control of the White House, the USA is likely to acknowledge this and leave him alone. The world may avoid an Iraq War, but it may well get an Iran War if things go the wrong way.
- Russia and China may be driven to see Western success in the Far East as a strategic setback that requires a more antagonistic stance. For China, this probably means than an acceleration of its rearmament programs and a more hardline nationalist stance about its claims in the South China Sea. If things go well, probably nothing more than that, given the pragmatic stance of the Chinese leadership and its awareness of the necessity of continued decent relations with the West to keep their economy afloat and their regime tolerated by the people, but if things go really bad, it might mean the PRC taking military action against Taiwan. Russia is going to stay relatively pro-Western as long as Yeltsin stays in power, and Russia rebuilding its strength after postcommunist chaos is still going to take some serious time and effort. However, backlash from the fall of NK might accelerate or worsen the takeover of an anti-Western hardliner nationalist like Putin or another Silovik officer, or if things go really bad, a neo-Communist like Zyuganov or an ultra-nationalist like Zhirinovsky. They would act earlier and more forcefully to restore Russian control of post-Soviet space and restore a confrontational stance with the West. This would mean earlier and greater trouble in Ukraine (or if things go really bad, in the Baltic states) and Russia coming back to a confrontational stance vs. the West earlier and more forcefully. Depending on the schedule of this, it may or may not mean Russia shelters Milosevic's Serbia with its strategic umbrella. If it happens, the Serbs are able to complete their ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and Bosnia, and absorb them, and nationalist Serbia survives as a dictatorship and a source of regional tensions in the Balkans. If on the other hand, Milosevic's Serbia, Qaddafi's Libya, and/or the Islamist regime in Iran are taken down by NATO military action, this probably only enhances the nationalist backlash in Russia and/or China.
- Evidence of the security threat from rogue nations, and quite possibly the antagonist turn of Russia and/or China shake the Western countries out of their post-Cold War "end of history" complacency, and their cooperation to take down North Korea (and quite possibly other defiant rogues) persuades them of the opportunity of greater security integration. The European Constitution is ratified, enhancing and accelerating the pace of European integration and diminishing the legitimacy and popularity of Euroskepticism. The EU (or possibly just its continental Western European core, with Britain, Ireland, and Scandinavia opting out, and Eastern Europe later joining because of its fear of Russia) develop a worthwhile military integration aspect that interlinks with NATO. NATO itself gets reformed, given a new mission as a global security organization, and enlarged with the admission of Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Korea, especially if China and/or Russia turn hostile, or the West has to take further military action to take down rogue states besides North Korea. Germany, Italy, and Japan expunge or tone down post-WWII pacifist clausles in their constitutions to allow greater participation in international peacekeeping missions, especially if they happen under a UN or NATO mandate.
- Although the negative economic effects of the dominant neoliberal model cannot be entirely escaped nor indefinitely deferred in the long term, greater Democratic political dominance in the USA and supranational integration in Europe in all likelihood substantially mitigate them when they eventually turn out. Therefore, the Great Recession isn't anywhere so brutal or damaging for North America and Europe, and its political consequences to give a major boost to right-wing populism and nationalism nowhere so strong.
