Frivolous ASB thread

‘Recep Erdogan Becomes A Talking Turkey’.

'ASB Dictates That Cookies Always Come With A Glass Of Milk'.

'Nickelodeon Only Hires People Named Nick Or Nikki'.

'All Plumbers Develop A Craving For Plums'.

Agreed it will be a big shock.

And yes I think the French will seek to hold on to their claim and exploit its resources. People sent there would reside mainly on the coast, but they would probably prospect for mineral, and later oil and gas resources, even in the interior desert areas.  You could and would get conflicts from nomads ignoring the border.  But actually, at the moment they are all French subjects. 

I was going to talk about neighboring countries and conflicts upon those lines, but actually, the Algerian war, drove the independence timeline of all French Africa, and possibly Africa overall.  The war, 1954-1962, pressed the French to first give in to independence pressures, less violent ones, in Morocco and Tunisia (1956), then independence within French Union status for all of former French West Africa, Equatorial Africa, Madagascar, and Djibouti in 1960. The 1960 move only came after De Gaulle used the threat of civil war and a coup within France to constitutionally grab power for himself, sort of winking at the coup supporters, and then betraying them and their colonial objectives, finishing with the final betrayal of ending the Algerian war and conceding Algerian independence in 1962.

If there is no war to divide and civilly disturb French society like Algeria, France could try to keep its colonialism for the long-haul, like the Portuguese, until 1975, or into the 1980s. Probably not in Tunisia and Morocco, but pretty likely in Sub-Saharan Africa.

So you don't see France fighting over French Indochina.  Is that because you see France abandoning a Vietnam turned into an unpopulated jungle wilderness as worthless? Or because the French could hold on to their claim and occupation of an unpopulated Vietnam, without having to fight any Vietnamese people for control of the land?  I think the French instinct would be to try to hold on to the land without people, even if it is a glorified nature reserve.  And the French I think would paternalistically try to keep control over the Lao and Khmer people, and manage that fairly easily in the immediate postwar period.  And the mountain border people of those countries, like the Hmong, would wander over to the unspoiled Vietnam area for game-hunting, fishing, and gardening.  The Khmer ethnic people and their royalty would definitely, under the thumb of France, or not, move to reclaim lost historic lands down the Mekong and resettle them. Han and minority Chinese peasants and opium growers would almost certainly squat on Vietnamese land in Tonkin.  The threat of Chinese armies invading would be an ever present possibility.  But unless the Chinese want to commit to a campaign of conquest, which could risk US nuclear retaliation, France stands a chance of holding the land, and basically with game wardens, border guards, and park rangers, instead of a major counterinsurgency war.  

So France gets to miss out on two exhausting 8 year, back-to-back counterinsurgency wars.  It might take a long time for it to lose its taste for colonialism under these circumstances.

Mr. Potato Head still feels the agony......even if he CANNOT SCREAM!!!