This is assuming that just because it has a tree now it won't collapse just as quickly. Knowing the skill of the AI, it will. Though, a player of course could extend the life of the Reichstaat for years on end. That would be a true horror scenario. Though, let's be honest, the Reichstaat isn't gonna be extending BurgSys to all of sub-Saharan Africa. Ostafrika barely has authority outside of its major cities. Imagine how much less land an even more fanatical, overstretched colonial monstrosity could possibly govern over.
The New Order: Last Days of Europe - An Axis Victory Cold War Mod for HoIIV
- Thread starter Lonely Knightess
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This is assuming that just because it has a tree now it won't collapse just as quickly. Knowing the skill of the AI, it will. Though, a player of course could extend the life of the Reichstaat for years on end. That would be a true horror scenario. Though, let's be honest, the Reichstaat isn't gonna be extending BurgSys to all of sub-Saharan Africa. Ostafrika barely has authority outside of its major cities. Imagine how much less land an even more fanatical, overstretched colonial monstrosity could possibly govern over.
I tried to start a TNO game today to play as Yeltsin, but couldn't get the mod to start even after I rolled back to 1.9.3. Ah well...
Glad to see an update is coming out soon, though for me unfortunately it is seemingly being released on Halloween; I'm having a Tonsillectomy and Palate Surgery being done on the 3rd or 10th of November, the 3rd being the aimed for date and the 10th being the tentative one. Considering how out of it I may be (I seem to be more tolerant of pain then most, never having needed to take oxycontin in the aftermath of prior surgeries, but I wouldn't be surprised if this proved the exception), it may end up being closer to mid-November before I can properly experience it and break it down.
This is very much going to happen yes, though it tends to happen in reality as well. I've seen examples of this kind of thinking when it comes to the Afghan and Iraqi Wars, where we shouldn't have bothered with the nation-building aspects and instead have pulled out once the main mission was complete.
Which doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Just as an example, the Eastern Congo has around 70% of the World's current reserves of Coltan, which is critical in the production of tantalum capacitors that were coming into wide use in electronics at this time. This is without taking into account the reserves of Cobalt, Uranium or Copper which would be eyed, not to mention the potential to create new Rubber Plantations (using Para Rubber Trees) or expanded access to Cotton and Sugar; that is all touching on the Congo exclusively, with much of former Afrika being rich in one strategic resource or another.
The difficulty will come in maintaining stability and thus in turn giving investors the confidence they need to participate in the Mandate(s) economically, and I freely admit that is a tall order given the sheer swathe of land that is being administered. The caveat to that for me though is that the South Africans (and by extension the Americans) will have already been developing doctrine aimed at countering asymmetric warfare in their war against the Schild, and I'd be hard pressed to believe they don't carry those lessons over in the aftermath. Africanization of the conflicts would continue with the various Armies and Militias supported by OFN Air Wings, akin to the late stages of the Vietnam War.
The major caveat to all of this would be ethnic tensions and the inevitable clashes, many groups wanting lands claimed or settled by others or out of simple rivalry, still others seeing the new government as nothing more than a "white man's puppet", or efforts to seek complete independence from whatever entity the OFN tries to form. Decentralization in some form is the only way I see of mitigating this, with the Swiss Confederation being the strongest model to draw from as it would enable a high degree of sovereignty to be passed to the States, and so assuage the concerns of smaller ethnicities being dominated by larger ones. Chances are that initial planning will revolve around adoption of something akin to the Westminster System as it exists in Canada or Australia with State-level devolution, with the possible addition of a quasi-United States Senate to guarantee equal representation of the States.
All and all it will still take a lot of effort, but I don't see it as a black-hole for OFN investment.
Which I don't totally agree with either, though it is dependent on how Huttig and his regime govern. If certain regions of the Reichsstaat become too difficult to keep under control, I don't see any reason why they wouldn't write it off and concentrate their efforts on the remaining regions, with this process continuing until it is deemed manageable. The caveat to that of course is that those same regions are ones rebels can operate safely from, and every success by the rebels is going to further embolden those Africans remaining under Huttig's tutelage.
I say this without having touched the Don't Surf demo however, so I admit it is entirely possible that Huttig may have taken a chainsaw to his own legs.
Hutting is a full nazi believer that was disgusted with the other reichskommissars using black SS regiments and is still thinking of Germanization.
He is insane.
Not gonna happen,the US will create dump artificial states and collaborate with horrible people and the white minorities to get what they want.
The US does not in fact give a shit about African democracy as long as the nazis are out.
A pro-OFN ceasefire is viewed as the 'best' outcome because the Nazi regime in Africa was always going to be deleted in such a scenario, as you've written, & if I remember correctly (could be wrong).
Now, if the Nazi regime will remain in a pro-OFN ceasefire, I would see a total OFN victory as the 'best scenario' out of a truly evil environment and bad choices, from far before the start of the game.
The OFN Mandates and nation-building, while having their own moral issues for the US and the rest of the OFN, is a far better outcome than death camps and Nazis controlling half of Africa for at least another decade (& it could be theoretically far more than an additional decade).
Gotta say, no way is the Reichstaat lasting anything close to a decade, and the Reichstaat doesn't control anything close to half of Africa. A reminder, Ostafrika cannot extend its authority outside of its major cities. Imagine how much less territory a fanatical, overextended and bloated Reichstaat could possibly govern over.
You are correct, more like a third of Africa from a world map I just saw. I didn't play the game for quite some time.
Even if Ostafrika completely does not control areas outside the major cities, it's still Nazi rule in the major cities.
We don't know about what the writes of the mod will decide on when the Nazi rule of Africa will end, only that some people speculate about it continue to exists post-African war.
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I'm still struggling with why US rule over the mandates will end up so horrible. Even with total victory....why would the OFN, especially an OFN that is the battered underdog rather than an OTL global Hegemon, try or want to set up massive mandates without a clear independence timeline. That's not how the OTL Japanese occupation was handled, doesn't really jive with any historical US occupations post Phillipines, and really doesn't make sense in the context of areas liberated from Nazi control. Yeah they might be irritated by the OFN racism....but the OFN is way better than the Nazis and BEAT the same Nazis the rebels had been fighting impotently.
There's no reasons for thr atrocities and supposed moral ambiguities of the OTL Vietnam War (seeing as 99.9% of the native population would be at worst indifferent to the OFN occupation) and so there's no real reason for there to be serious ill-will against the OFN.
Maybe there can be bad paths for the mandates....but it really doesn't make sense why the OFN default path wouldn't be a rapid transition to independence for local authoritaties with lesser or greater degrees of influence depending on how much they care about the region rather than continent spanning military dictatorships. Especially if OFN involvement is early and limited to volunteers. SAF will absolutely not try to control the whole thing and it's quite dubious that an OFN that sends only a few divisions will suddenly escalate to a continent spanning occupation hundreds of thousands strong.
I get the idea but narratively the south African war, especially the mandates, really doesn't make sense. And the overall message to the player is that people should liberate themselves from the Nazis because helping them yourself is actually evil imperialism somehow (like...why would a Johnson Presidency battling for the Great society go full McKinley out of nowhere).
There's no reasons for thr atrocities and supposed moral ambiguities of the OTL Vietnam War (seeing as 99.9% of the native population would be at worst indifferent to the OFN occupation) and so there's no real reason for there to be serious ill-will against the OFN.
Maybe there can be bad paths for the mandates....but it really doesn't make sense why the OFN default path wouldn't be a rapid transition to independence for local authoritaties with lesser or greater degrees of influence depending on how much they care about the region rather than continent spanning military dictatorships. Especially if OFN involvement is early and limited to volunteers. SAF will absolutely not try to control the whole thing and it's quite dubious that an OFN that sends only a few divisions will suddenly escalate to a continent spanning occupation hundreds of thousands strong.
I get the idea but narratively the south African war, especially the mandates, really doesn't make sense. And the overall message to the player is that people should liberate themselves from the Nazis because helping them yourself is actually evil imperialism somehow (like...why would a Johnson Presidency battling for the Great society go full McKinley out of nowhere).
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Honestly, a fix for all of this would be to make the Boers the Vietcong analogue. The native Africans are generally indifferent to the Americans and often greet them as liberators, but the Boers fanatically resist, with the American response making the British seem humanitarian. I think it would be a very uncomfortable thing. Yes, these people are white supremacist Fascists working with like the third worst guy in the world. Does that make it alright to napalm them, spray them with agent orange, rape their women, and massacre their villages? I think it would be in keeping with one of the mod's main themes- that people in Fascist systems are still people, and it's still evil to visit extreme violence on them.
Hell, the right could be opposed to the SAW openly, and more than the left. You'd have Wallace talking about slaughtering our white brethren while the damn Japs still have Hawaii, and stuff like that. This could especially be the case if South Africa works with the ANC.
Hell, the right could be opposed to the SAW openly, and more than the left. You'd have Wallace talking about slaughtering our white brethren while the damn Japs still have Hawaii, and stuff like that. This could especially be the case if South Africa works with the ANC.
What bothers me is that there's no player agency or really any explanation of why the mandates were set up or what they actually are in the game. Especially given that a good player can actually beat the RKs fast enough that the ceasefire event never actually fires, it feels more like you're being punished for playing than anything else.
It was never my suggestion that it would be otherwise, just that Huttig would probably be willing to amputate or cut away the gangrenous parts so as to preserve the remainder of the Reichstaadt under his Administration, with the intention to deal with said parts after things have stabilized. He'd never get that chance of course, but it would make logical sense at the time. That being said it would be dependent on his state of mind as I'm fully aware that he has..... issues, and they could get worse and result in him trying to hold everything down, practical or not.
This is actually rather unlikely. At a minimum you are going to see something akin to what existed when the Allies occupied Germany, where many of the German settlers and administrators would be barred from any positions of influence and only allowed to work as laborers, barring of course those cases where they've been executed or imprisoned. Other settlers or mercenaries wouldn't have escaped notice or attention either if the purges following the Second World War are anything to go by, though many might be able to slip through the cracks on the basis of necessity to replace voids left by the Germans.
There is also the issue that it actually will be necessary to provide representation for the disparate groups in each of the OFN mandates, which in turn would largely preclude support for any kind of strongman figure as it would risk, if not guarantee, provoking ethnicities or tribes that feel sidelined. It also doesn't seem possible that the mandates could be subject to the same kind of political chaos as South Vietnam, to use an example, if only because it would be nigh impossible for any individual to curry favor among a military that was effectively a petri dish of different cultures, though flareups between different units and commands certainly would be possible. Iraq in the aftermath of the invasion in '03 might be closer to what would be witnessed, the political situation chaotic and fluid but remaining in civilian hands.
The Johnson, Kennedy and Bennett Administrations would also be under immense pressure at home to ensure the birth of new Democracies under majority rule, which would fit in with their programs regardless as they'd both be moving or had moved forward on Civil Rights legislation. Wallace is the only caveat to this, but that is because it would entirely depend on which faction within the NPP he choose to bend his ear towards, and even then as I said it may not be particularly practical to set up even sham Democracies Burma-style.
In both cases I suspect it is more because the content simply isn't there yet rather than an oversight by the Dev Team, and once it comes out on Halloween we might get a better idea as to why the mandates are not all they are cracked up to be. I'm on my guard, but there isn't enough out yet for me to have a hard opinion.
chankljp
Donor
I absolutely agree. What bothers me the most is the part when the US will always automatically declare war on Angola when Schenck releases it during the SAW, instead of either allying with them to push out the Nazis, or at least, you know.... NOT declare war against a native independence movement that they share a common enemy with (And most likely funded themselves via the CIA if South African took the 'Support everyone' focus). The justification of this at the moment is that the Americans wants control, not allies. They are not interested in African democracy or freedom, but an Africa that is under them thumb of American economic interests and political dominance...
By this logic, when in OTL the inmates of the Buchenwald concentration camp managed to liberate themselves by storming the watchtowers and killing the remaining guards as the American forces were closed in, as soon as the U.S. Third Army arrived, General Patton would have ordered the GIs to machine gun all the inmates on the spot because 'The US is not interested in European democracy or freedom, but a Europe that is under them thumb of American economic interests and political dominance'. As things are presented now, it just doesn't make sense.
If they really want to push the 'The United States are like the Tau in 40K, in that in any other setting, they would be the villains' angle, a much better and in my opinion, logical, way for them to do this will be by giving the newly independent Angola the 'Unionist Wales' treatment: In that the Angolans would look up to the Americans and OFN as their liberators after they were released by Schenck. and the US, for their part, will fight along side them throughout the rest of the SAW.... The moment the war ends, however, the Americans will start demanding stuff like exclusive economic access to the country's resources, unequal trade deals, permanent military basing rights, 'advisors' to be appointed to oversee their government, etc. With the Angolans realizing that the West never saw them as equal partners, but as just a stooges at worst or second-rate junior partners at best. And at this point all they can do is to either quietly sulk and try to make the best of their situation as America's puppet.... Or to put up a doomed fight that will see them crushed.
That would at least make much more sense compared to the way that things currently are.
From my end, "Americans would be villains in any other setting" could be done via making the Americans be very enthusiastic about backing left-wing dictators who are big into killing "enemies of the people", "landlords", "reactionaries", and "fascist collaborators", even if such purges become a naked excuse to kill anyone who criticizes the regime.
In the words of Panzer:
"The US forms a quasi-neo colonial regime and gives large sectors of teh countries over to corporate interests to exploit the area and then has to begin warring against anti-occupation forces belonging to the African natives who want to be fucking free for once, while putting in a 'democracy' friendly to their interests and with a president from a tribe that everyone else hates because the US doesn't understand how Africa works. Half the administration is even the same as the German one. At least unless they get purged, which might be an even worse idea since the Germans are the only ones who at least have experience doing what the US is trying to do. Also ban all members of teh African SS and collabs which is even more genius since there were thousands in Zentralafrika alone."
The only purpose of the mandates is extending free markets and American-led neo-colonial exploitation to Africa, all over half of sub-Saharan Africa and 200 million natives who want nothing more than legitimate freedom. "True, free democracries" are not in US interests. What is in America's interests are pro-US strongmen. Take Nobusuke Kishi, who the US set up as PM of Japan post-WWII, an active collaborator of Unit 731, architect of Manchukuo's mass-industrial slave system and infamous war criminal. This is a cold war, all of the superpowers are going to be knee-deep in horrific practices if it means the support of their interests. I think its great that TNO doesn't portray the US as Africa's white saviors, when they weren't anything close to that. I know some South Americans who would have... strong opinions about the US being portrayed as a completely benevolent and freedom-loving force, and I can't disagree.
"The US forms a quasi-neo colonial regime and gives large sectors of teh countries over to corporate interests to exploit the area and then has to begin warring against anti-occupation forces belonging to the African natives who want to be fucking free for once, while putting in a 'democracy' friendly to their interests and with a president from a tribe that everyone else hates because the US doesn't understand how Africa works. Half the administration is even the same as the German one. At least unless they get purged, which might be an even worse idea since the Germans are the only ones who at least have experience doing what the US is trying to do. Also ban all members of teh African SS and collabs which is even more genius since there were thousands in Zentralafrika alone."
The only purpose of the mandates is extending free markets and American-led neo-colonial exploitation to Africa, all over half of sub-Saharan Africa and 200 million natives who want nothing more than legitimate freedom. "True, free democracries" are not in US interests. What is in America's interests are pro-US strongmen. Take Nobusuke Kishi, who the US set up as PM of Japan post-WWII, an active collaborator of Unit 731, architect of Manchukuo's mass-industrial slave system and infamous war criminal. This is a cold war, all of the superpowers are going to be knee-deep in horrific practices if it means the support of their interests. I think its great that TNO doesn't portray the US as Africa's white saviors, when they weren't anything close to that. I know some South Americans who would have... strong opinions about the US being portrayed as a completely benevolent and freedom-loving force, and I can't disagree.
I don't really have much of a problem with the US being like this postwar, I just don't think it makes much sense that the US would face Vietcong levels of resistance from the natives while the Nazis are still in the equation. Plus, what they do with Angola makes them come off as stupid evil.
With the exception of Hutting the transition from RK to Mandate will not improve anything,the guerrillas will still be guerrillas and the US will also crush and burn all the politicking made by Muller and Schenck while working with the local elites(SS,Whites,collaborators) to entrench pro-US influence.
Also an Angola not under US debt is a useless Angola if you want the straight answer,the Americans also have the perfect excuse with them being supported by Schneck.
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The argument is not being made for a some sort of flawless America. But
1. The OFN just liberated them from literal Nazis and the better the player does it the more they're punished
2. There is NO option to not turn into the second coming of McKinley. In a world that has Taboritsky's Russia, Burgundy, a Nazi America, and a successful suppression of the Indonesian revolt....that just feels remarkably spiteful. Not only is not good, it can't ever be good. You didn't want the Africans to be run in a continent wide death camp? Screw you you're actually no better than them. You should have let them suffer and die until they managed to liberate themselves
3. There is literally NO REASON any but the most insane US presidency would try this. Set up local countries ruled by pro-us dictators maybe, but the colonial (and the mandates as set up are NOT neocolonial) juntas to rule half of Africa? What American leaders are pushing for this. Backdoor support for unpleasant regimes that is essentially completely out of the public eye are not remotely the same.
4. The US of TNO is anti-right wing the way the OTL one was anti- left. If it sets up local strongman they should be left wing dictators or socialist resistance.
5. The idea that America doesn't understand how Africa works just feels dumb. It could be like Iraq where they badly underestimate the forces required or that they genuinely don't know how to stop genocides in progress, but there's zero reason for them to not have a base understanding of various groups (they did in the OTL cold war after all....why would they be so much worse TTL.?).
6. The US use of former Nazi members fordlocal government in OTL was predicated on the situation with the Soviet Union, a desire to rapidly demobilize, and the fact that it was GERMANY. It seems incredibly unlikely that any American administration would use NAZIS, and colonialist Nazis who are essentially all there by choice at that, as administrators.
7. The consistent reference to US misdeeds in OTL Cold War is annoying as it basically rewrites what actually happened. US misdeedsin supporting neocolonial activities or brutal regimes, particularly in South America was invariably limited support to primarily local movements and forces. US on the ground involvment hould be consistently super limited in such cases even if TTL they were backing a left wing strongman. A good example being Operation Condor where the US facilitated it....but all the killing and horror was planned, led, organized, and conducted by local actors with their own motivations. The one instance where the US public became aware of substantive support (the Contras) it immediately became extremely political and divisive. As suggested having the US back, for example, a left wing Ost Africa group that is slaughtering every last german down to the last child, would make sense and get it's hands dirty if that's the point. But fundamentally the idea is trying to twist misdeeds conducted in conjunction with existing local actors in the Cold War into something that is in the grey area when compared with a NAZI colonial superstate
8. The US is not part of a massive global market TTL. It is tied to a handful of close partners it trades with and then the Americas. The US wouldn't set up massive resource extraction in Africa because there's 0 reason too. US TTL is essentially an autarky, there is no push from the right to dismantle leftist thought in favor of corporations (in fact there's the literal opposite), and there is no benefit to it. What is the market for the resources coming from Africa? Now a US forcing the independent states into a free trade zone as part of the conditions and preventing local industries from emerging IOT to capture the area as a consumer market? That sounds plausible and neocolonial. But that would still result in local states, would take decades to matter given where the local states are starting from, and wouldn't make the US grey-grey with the NAZIS so clearly not on the table.
Last thing....is no change for a scenario where 90% of the liberation was by SA and the OFN only gave a few divisions (which is basically how it works anytime the player is THE US or SA). The mandates would require a OFN that was barely involved to suddenly create an invasion force and then conquer africa ( the South Africans certainly aren't going to try to rule the area even if they go the apartheid rather than AFN route). This ties into the lack of agency. The point of the African war is to show the US is bad bad no good that's really not that different from the Nazis despite it not making sense narratively, physically, or historically. It railroads the player into being a colonial overlord in a game that allows a reformation path for NAZI GERMANY.
So yes...
Issues with the mandate system as portrayed.
Edit. Saw the mention of Angola....there's a major difference between a US that will not support or work with Angola (which feels like mustache twirling reading of US foreign policy during the cold war but ok, still plausible) and a US that INVADES and conquer and anti-Nazi resistance movement so it can set up a colonial government.
1. The OFN just liberated them from literal Nazis and the better the player does it the more they're punished
2. There is NO option to not turn into the second coming of McKinley. In a world that has Taboritsky's Russia, Burgundy, a Nazi America, and a successful suppression of the Indonesian revolt....that just feels remarkably spiteful. Not only is not good, it can't ever be good. You didn't want the Africans to be run in a continent wide death camp? Screw you you're actually no better than them. You should have let them suffer and die until they managed to liberate themselves
3. There is literally NO REASON any but the most insane US presidency would try this. Set up local countries ruled by pro-us dictators maybe, but the colonial (and the mandates as set up are NOT neocolonial) juntas to rule half of Africa? What American leaders are pushing for this. Backdoor support for unpleasant regimes that is essentially completely out of the public eye are not remotely the same.
4. The US of TNO is anti-right wing the way the OTL one was anti- left. If it sets up local strongman they should be left wing dictators or socialist resistance.
5. The idea that America doesn't understand how Africa works just feels dumb. It could be like Iraq where they badly underestimate the forces required or that they genuinely don't know how to stop genocides in progress, but there's zero reason for them to not have a base understanding of various groups (they did in the OTL cold war after all....why would they be so much worse TTL.?).
6. The US use of former Nazi members fordlocal government in OTL was predicated on the situation with the Soviet Union, a desire to rapidly demobilize, and the fact that it was GERMANY. It seems incredibly unlikely that any American administration would use NAZIS, and colonialist Nazis who are essentially all there by choice at that, as administrators.
7. The consistent reference to US misdeeds in OTL Cold War is annoying as it basically rewrites what actually happened. US misdeedsin supporting neocolonial activities or brutal regimes, particularly in South America was invariably limited support to primarily local movements and forces. US on the ground involvment hould be consistently super limited in such cases even if TTL they were backing a left wing strongman. A good example being Operation Condor where the US facilitated it....but all the killing and horror was planned, led, organized, and conducted by local actors with their own motivations. The one instance where the US public became aware of substantive support (the Contras) it immediately became extremely political and divisive. As suggested having the US back, for example, a left wing Ost Africa group that is slaughtering every last german down to the last child, would make sense and get it's hands dirty if that's the point. But fundamentally the idea is trying to twist misdeeds conducted in conjunction with existing local actors in the Cold War into something that is in the grey area when compared with a NAZI colonial superstate
8. The US is not part of a massive global market TTL. It is tied to a handful of close partners it trades with and then the Americas. The US wouldn't set up massive resource extraction in Africa because there's 0 reason too. US TTL is essentially an autarky, there is no push from the right to dismantle leftist thought in favor of corporations (in fact there's the literal opposite), and there is no benefit to it. What is the market for the resources coming from Africa? Now a US forcing the independent states into a free trade zone as part of the conditions and preventing local industries from emerging IOT to capture the area as a consumer market? That sounds plausible and neocolonial. But that would still result in local states, would take decades to matter given where the local states are starting from, and wouldn't make the US grey-grey with the NAZIS so clearly not on the table.
Last thing....is no change for a scenario where 90% of the liberation was by SA and the OFN only gave a few divisions (which is basically how it works anytime the player is THE US or SA). The mandates would require a OFN that was barely involved to suddenly create an invasion force and then conquer africa ( the South Africans certainly aren't going to try to rule the area even if they go the apartheid rather than AFN route). This ties into the lack of agency. The point of the African war is to show the US is bad bad no good that's really not that different from the Nazis despite it not making sense narratively, physically, or historically. It railroads the player into being a colonial overlord in a game that allows a reformation path for NAZI GERMANY.
So yes...
Issues with the mandate system as portrayed.
Edit. Saw the mention of Angola....there's a major difference between a US that will not support or work with Angola (which feels like mustache twirling reading of US foreign policy during the cold war but ok, still plausible) and a US that INVADES and conquer and anti-Nazi resistance movement so it can set up a colonial government.
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I mostly have problems with point 3 and 5. First of all America not understanding Africa is perfectly realistic, it is after all what actually happen in post colonial Africa. If America can't do a proper nation building like a democratic iraq in otl, what are the chances of them to actually build a country from scratch in Africa, as the territories that are carved out has never been a nation state and are made of many different complexities....
For point 3 i think the colonial junta is not going to be permanent, its going to feel more like Iraq after Iraqi freedom. On paper they are there to help to build a democracy, but instead they are there to insure American cooperation interest, also see banana Republic.
Of course they are. Inserting a pro-U.S. dictator might be beneficial in the short run, but in the long run it erodes any claim to moral superiority and repels potential allies and partners aside from useless weak dictators. Moreover, (actual) democracies tend to be better run and more effectual than dictatorships, meaning that they will grow to become more capable and useful partners over time. If you look at the actual Cold War, the countries which democratized or maintained democracies through the period were far more useful as allies than all the dictatorships that the CIA supported, which were mostly just useless resource drains that had to be continuously propped up instead of any kind of "asset".
More to the point, who is Panzer to decide what the player thinks U.S. interests are? Maybe I don't think that U.S. goals are best served by setting up expansive mandates or creating a colonial regime in Africa. Why should I have to set them up if I happen to be a good player, instead of acting like I'm NATO in Libya in 2011, celebrating the defeat of the Nazis, and going home to let the Africans sort their own shit out? I mean, that offers plenty of opportunities for problems too, especially for South Africa but also for the United States--just different problems than the mandates. Or an intermediate option, along the lines of what @Konev1897 outlined, where you allow the locals to form their own states but force them to join OFN and its free trade zone. This could then generate a lot of problems down the line without being blatantly colonial the way that the mandates are (and would be much more similar to what the United States actually did during the Cold War)
Of course the United States should not be portrayed as inevitably totally benevolent and freedom-loving. But besides the fact that it's opposing the actual Nazis, not just Communists, the way things are set up completely denies player agency or the ability of the player to steer American policy in any direction other than the one the developers chose. As it stands, in domestic policy the United States has a huge range of options--even leaving aside the Yockleys and Hall, since they basically destroy the country, you can arrange for anyone from a democratic socialist to an arch-segregationist to gain power and enact their favored policies. But then suddenly when it comes to foreign policy you only have right-wing options straight out of the Dulles brother playbook no matter who is actually running the country, no matter what you might think about their idiocy. It's a very jarring shift that really ruins the experience of playing as the United States.
It's also odd in light of the fact that supporting Free Indonesia works exactly like this, that is you support the libration movement, help them win, and then go home. You don't even get anything economically out of it, since Free Indonesia has closed economy and won't import rubber (so it's better for you if they lose, in economic terms).
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