What Happens After ISOT American 2002 Ends?

You know me, Steve! Hopefully, future findings of mine don’t distract as much, though I make no promises that’ll be the case.

Anyhow, since you’ve shared your predictions, I think it’s time for me to list mine. Naturally, it’ll be another novella, mixing and matching both responses to your points and voicing my own, original thoughts. I have less specific knowledge than you in many arenas, so what I foresee will mostly be general, as well as prone to biased impressionism from time to time. For those who haven’t read the TL, though, do beware spoilers before reading my essay below.

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Given that it’s the titular faction of the story, I suppose I’ll start with the United States. Obviously, it has a mandate to dominate for decades to come and reshape the world into a capitalist, liberal-democratic one held together by American might. It is, for all intents and purposes, a hyperpower, though gradual tech and knowledge-sharing with the rest of the world will eventually reduce its once-insurmountable lead. I do, however, believe it’ll assume a “first among equals” position amongst the foremost powers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, since it’d still remain a key player in global affairs. I can think of a few candidates likely to become competitive in the future, but I plan to expound that downstream.

In the meantime, though, 2004—or rather, 1944, if you want to be technically precise about the year—is a GOP blowout. I suspect the Republicans had massive gains in the midterms, and with World War II won two years ahead of schedule, I see little reason to think that the general election would be much different. Despite a few bumps in the road he can hardly be blamed him for, President Bush maintains those ultra-high approval ratings throughout at least his first term. If his dad was able to hover around 90% during the Gulf War, it’s fair to say his son would not only enjoy similarly massive support, but also keep that momentum going for a fair bit longer.

Predicting which states would lean into which column is beyond my pay grade, but intuitively, my guess is that Bush’s electoral floor—however lowballed I still think it is—looks something like this alternate 2004, with Bush standing in for President McCain (meaning over 400+ electoral votes and a percentage point or two short of 60% of the popular vote). At the also-dubious high end, his ceiling is a Reagan-esque landslide where he wins forty-nine or fifty states, in large part due to normally Blue States having depressed turnout among partisan Democrats (exacerbated by disproportionately high conservative turnout, of course).

Exactly what happens depends on the Democratic nominee, which I’m also not too keen on crowning. Howard Dean is dead in the water, and perhaps even John Kerry, should he have the bad sense to run on the “competent Commander-in-Chief” platform he did IOTL. Honestly, the DNC might just resign itself to losing big-league this year and nominate a very bland and inherently unappealing “sacrificial lamb” candidate. Pretty impressionistic (and even silly), but one image that pops into my mind is Dennis Kucinich getting the nod—and then getting buried in a forty-nine state landslide by Bush, at best winning Hawaii and thirty-something percent of the popular vote. Which puts him in the same company as McGovern ’72 and Mondale ’84, who’d be there to comfort him, should the outcome I described actually materialize.

In any case, it’d be surreal for downtimer Americans to see a Republican crushing their Democratic challenger, when they’re normally used to the opposite happening. FDR’s wins were getting progressively narrower every four years, of course, but the GOP was nowhere close to truly overcoming him. Now, it’s the complete inverse of that, and while downtimer Republicans may be happy with that change, downtimer Democrats will simply have to suck it up.

First-term invincibility aside, Bush hopefully handles his second term reasonably well. For one, I’d think that various new financial regulations have been passed or reaffirmed, which—per a consensus I’m not sure I’m on board with, but whatever—would’ve prevented or reduced the severity of the Great Recession. I also know he tried (partially) privatizing Social Security, but with the country still reeling from severed trade links, I think it’d be unwise to rock the boat that much just yet. Besides, even discounting the clear pressures to stop unscrupulous profiteers from doing business with America’s enemies, it’s also likely that the US would’ve participated in a post-war global economic conference, with worldwide banking and bookkeeping standards being subjects of discussion, alongside trade and tech-sharing. Ditto with offshoring, since the US will want to maintain its industrial might beyond bringing manufacturing back, just to mitigate the immediate affects of the ISOT. That’s a critical area where America will want to maintain its paramountcy for years to come, I imagine.

Should Bush succeed and end his presidency on a high note in ’49, he’ll be remembered as among the upper tier of American presidents for ending World War II early and making the world a safer, more stable place than it was in the OTL aftermath. Indeed, I think his legacy will permeate the GOP for years to come, keeping the neocons large and in charge for far longer, while either butterflying or reducing the near-term size and impact of the anti-war movement.

Of course, I also think there’d be debate over whether America’s massive military is necessary anymore, now that the Axis is no more and no one else can challenge the US’s lead in every critical area. Unless we somehow get another Vietnam or two down the road, I think that any anti-interventionist sentiment that gains traction would screech less about Bush and Cheney being war criminals, and be more inclined to relaxed and civil debate over just how much defense spending is needed in the post-war world. Their more mainstream ranks would probably still concede that former Axis Powers will need a substantial occupation force and that there is a role for military bases across the world, never mind the US Military being the clear guarantor of trade and travel (which, though not said out loud, is another way for America to strong-arm everyone else). Nonetheless, I think they’d advocate a more “soft-touch” approach to cases where the US needs to put boots on the ground, in order to distinguish themselves from the defense hawks in Washington.

On a separate note, the US will enter into its “peacetime diplomacy” phase with the rest of the world. The British Empire, while its closest ally, will be pressured to undergo decolonization and other twenty-first century reforms, just as you’ve said. Inevitable uptimer support for colonial rights will be a sore spot in Anglo-American relations for a bit, I’m sure. As is its unwillingness to share nuclear technology right off the bat, given how Churchill’s temperature—both in-story and in real life—make Britain unfit to have such capabilities until the man himself has vanished from politics completely. Even if Atlee knocks him off his perch like IOTL, though, there’s also the possibility Churchill runs again down the line. A possibility that the US, despite lauding him as a heroic fellow wartime statesman in public, won’t have the patience to entertain. Perhaps some covert “election interference” could remedy that, but it may be more benign than conventional methods of doing so, to avoid too much fallout if the press latches on to any leaks (such as privately meeting with Churchill to voice their concerns about someone with his temperament having the nuclear codes, and for that reason, “strongly encouraging” him to permanently retire).

Considering how badly decolonization ended IOTL, the US might have the Brits give their colonies equality, rather than have them cut everyone else loose ASAP. White dominions notwithstanding, since downtimer minorities will eventually get wind of uptimer equal-rights legislation and want some of that for themselves, I can see a massive “Colonial Rights” movement picking up steam throughout the later Forties and into the Fifties. It’ll have mixed success, of course, but given what a mess OTL decolonization was, I can see pragmatic uptimers and terrified downtimers acquiescing to such a half-measure for now. The details of what they hash out is debatable in many respects, however.

France will face similar pressures, with the US demanding they grant Indochina independence and funneling money into friendly governments that will open up trade and travel with American businesses in return. I don’t know as much about what they have to offer, but my impression is that there are raw materials they can export, in exchange for US security guarantees and finished goods. I doubt it’d be perfect, but just about anything is better than the series of wars we got IOTL. Successfully preventing the Khmer Rouge and informing Cambodia as to what happened in the other history would do much to butterfly OTL hatred of the US, though eventual admissions that the US covertly supported Pol Pot won’t go down well. They might play the deflection game by pointing out how Red China also supported him (along with other repressive regimes in the region), but that’s a separate issue.

The Soviets will try to compete, of course, but I doubt they’d be as well-positioned as IOTL, thanks both to being outright hamstrung by American firmness and high-ranking insiders who’ve gone behind Stalin’s back. Sure, it may be one specific guy now, but if he’s not joshing everyone, he also has other elements of the Soviet government either backing him or looking the other way. Short of America pulling its own version of Operation Barbarossa, I don’t see it giving up on communism. I can, however, see it siding with “Soviet reformers” in the mold of Deng Xiaoping who plan to oust Stalin and institute market reforms. How likely they are to gradually democratize is still up in the air, but given the examples set by South Korea and Taiwan IOTL, I’d think that many a Western policymaker will want to see the Soviets replicate that. Not that it’s likely, but an interesting thought that occurred to me just now is President Bush having his own “Nixon visits China” moment towards the end of his presidency, just to cap off his various achievements by showing that even the evil empire that tyrannized the Eastern Bloc IOTL can turn a new leaf. Again, no guarantees of that, but still quite a mental image.

Speaking of China, that’ll be another gigantic basket-case to deal with. In addition to Japanese occupation, I believe uptimer Chinese diplomats sent along for the ride floated assassinating both Mao and Chiang, neither of whom were upstanding people, as the history books can attest. The problem, at least from my end, is I’m not sure what consequences this would have, and part of me fears they’d do more harm than good (e.g. galvanizing the Communists and/or alienating the Nationalists, or causing them to blame each other and fight it out some more). For obvious reasons, the US will do its damnedest to stop Mao from taking China, and barring the plot proposed by those diplomats coming to fruition, I can very well see Bush supporting the Kuomintang and recognizing them as the legitimate government of China (with various preconditions that ensure free and fair elections once he wins). He had no problem doing so with the Free French, though—despite Chiang’s excesses IOTL—the US would have the leverage to keep the Nationalists from being too brutal in the aftermath, I think. If all goes well, then a reunited Nationalist China that becomes the world’s largest democracy is bound to surpass Red China (which is already the second-strongest world power as is, even with Mao having set it back as much as he has).

Unfortunately, the short-term downside of China’s situation brings us to Japan. The US may now have Emperor Hirohito and can have him speak on their behalf once he returns, but there’s bound to be at least a few Japanese downtimers who refuse to bow before the “Western barbarians” and put up a bloody resistance. True, a Japan that signs a peace agreement and reluctantly democratizes may not be sore over two nuclear attacks, but if the Kyujo incident is any indication, I think the country’s in for a rough next decade or two. Even if it doesn’t devolve into another Japanese Civil War, with particularly stubborn Japanese forces currently occupying the Asia-Pacific turning it into a multinational conflict that’ll spill into neighboring countries, terroristic pro-empire elements perpetrating their own version of The Troubles or the Years of Lead sounds like a real possibility (as sad as it sounds). In which case, maybe we get a revived War on Terror, albeit more to deal with militaristic insurgents in Japan, rather than religious extremists from the Middle East.

An unfortunate implication, but certainly not the only thing that could go horribly wrong. For most of this post, I’ll concede that I’ve painted a rather rosy picture of what the rest of the century might look like. For all I know, 2002 America’s arrival could solve one problem, but unleash others that didn’t take off IOTL. I mentioned another Kyujo incident as something that destabilizes Japan, or a critical mass of Japanese forces occupying East Asia refusing to step down and return home (forcing the US to support undesirable Chinese factions, like Chiang’s Nationalists, in an effort to liberate those territories). However, I’d also like to turn my attention back to the US—not just with regards to heated domestic issues, but also foreign-policy ones that risk overlapping with the aforementioned issues.

I’d have to think more carefully about it before going all-in, but one (rather imaginative) scenario I’ve been entertaining is Dick Cheney running in 1948, riding the extremely popular Bush’s coattails and winning the presidency in a either a 2008 Obama or 1988 Bush Sr.-sized victory. His first few months or so in office make it seem as if his predecessor never left—and then, Cheney being Cheney, everything goes downhill for him. Maybe he figures that privatizing Social Security will be more palatable to the American people, only to be brutally disappointed as the Democrats flip him off and cut him down to size in the 1950 midterms. Maybe he eyes Siberia’s oil fields and mineral deposits greedily, as assuming the USSR doesn’t oust Stalin and enact market reforms, Cheney may want to do the job himself and gear the country up for the next war. If not that, maybe he over-commits to restoring order in Asia and sends lots of troops to flush out resistance Japanese forces in what mutates into a Vietnam-style quagmire. Whatever he does, some combination of war abroad and a signature domestic policy getting shot down makes him unelectable come 1952, which—in another bout of impressionism—results in a Hillary Clinton victory. She probably runs again if she can successfully repair the damage Cheney’s done, though she’ll be quite a “curiosity” to the patriarchal bigwigs of the global community at this time.

Like I said, though, don’t take my last paragraph too seriously unless you think there’s actually something to it. Even if I got the general situation surrounding the next few election cycles right, I very well could’ve gotten the specifics wrong—maybe John McCain gets the nod and wins in 2008, for example. Hopefully, everything else seems like a reasonable outline for how the next few decades go.

If anyone has thoughts they’d like to share on what I wrote above, feel free to reply. It may have been a leviathan to write, but I certainly don’t mind continuing the conversation for many more posts to come.

Thank you in advance,

I made a thread for this exactly scenario last year LOL.

More or less we have the same thoughts.
The USA can stream roll the Axis but also the same time keep Stalin in check. Probably push for Britain and France to decolonize faster thus avoiding the wars of independence for this world.

Something else worth thinking about, regarding the post-war situation- the ISOTed USA's definitely going to want resources ITTL, and they know precisely where to find them too. Bearing this in mind, how radically different do you reckon that the situations will wind up being in Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, the UAE, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar and Brazil (the ten nations with the world's largest proven oil reserves, with the exceptions of Canada, constituents of the Soviet Union, China and the USA itself)? Even in China, for that matter- could an independent Xinjiang/Ugyhuristan be on the cards, given the support for it in the uptime ISOTed USA? And the same goes for the countries with the world's largest uranium reserves; with those in the ISOTed USA knowing that (excluding the Soviet Union, China and presumably still puppetized Mongolia), uranium can be found in greater abundance in downtime Australia, Canada, Namibia, South Africa, Niger, Brazil, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Greenland and India than it can be in their own country.

How much could this, and the far higher prices that the USA'd be willing to pay for these and other strategically vital resources, supercharge the economies and HDI levels of the downtime nations in question? And with regards to the Greenland question- if the USA did indeed decide that it wanted to take Greenland for itself ITTL, and attempted to purchase it from Denmark in the immediate aftermath of the war in order to monopolize all of its resources for itself, would the Danish be in a position to turn them down? Or the British be in any position to try and block it by securing a right of first refusal, as they tried and failed to do back in 1917? And if (/when) the uptime USA did effectively purchase Greenland as its first downtime colony, how much would this weaken their moral high ground with regards to decolonization, and make Bush's America come across as unabashed hypocrites when they try and pressure the British, French and other European colonial powers to relinquish their own remaining colonial holdings?