You only need a deterrent if you fear one of two scenarios - one, being overwhelmed in conventional combat by an opponent (note the original US deterrent doctrine was not to deter Soviet attacks on the US, but on Europe) or two, being attacked in your homeland by an attempted decapitating first...
most likely scenario is the US intervening during the Chinese missile bombardment of Taiwan to prep the landing zones and shut down Taiwanese airstrips.
China might have as much as a brigade or two in the water - perhaps even a few platoons in the shore-zone before the first US assets are...
Upside - better alignment with local voters.
Downside, loose union manpower & $ (not neglible, by any means) and open to the danger that your locals would prefer 'a real Republican(Democrat/Whig/Tory/Labourite/etc)'.
It's a bluff, an attempt to scare off the US &/or decision makers in the US. Countries do this sort of thing all the time. The US does it too, heaven knows.
They would need an over-riding issue or issues which neither of the other parties was addressing.
Perot's reform party had the deficit for a while - but bringing that down is actually one of the current tea party drivers.
Find a strong wedge issue which divides these ATL moderate...
y'all do realize that the US has an actual doctrine on response to attacks on US forces with nuclear weapons, right?
And that said doctrine is to launch a full strategic strike on the launching nation's strategic assets and command and control infrastructure?
A 'tactical' strike on a US...
Simply put, barring ASB intervention, two major at least semi-rational nuclear powers are never going to have another WW2 style no holds-barred drag-out total war conflict.
Such a conflict would lead to the destruction of the command and control functions of both sides. In other words...
other problems -
Lots of those Irish might well have starved to death during the potato famine &/or provided the manpower for more nationalist violence. They didn't emigrate for shits and giggles, after all.
Higher population density (assuming famine issues somehow butterflied) => more...
I've always wondered what the impact would have been of American/European robber barons making their donations/foundation focused not on conditions in their home countries, but on colonies/third world. All those universities, hospitals, orphanages, libraries, etc showing up not in, say the US...
Are you aware of what glasnost and perestroika were? You know, the whole movement under Gorbachev where-in the Soviets came clean to themselves about what an appalling mess they had made of their own country? As for where exactly I read it - it has been nearly two decades. Would you care to...
That's a good one - people, location, resources.
You could also cite Persia/Iran - good resource base, young literate well educated population. Too bad they went from corrupt monarchy to fanatics clerarchy to corrupt clerachy, to what appears to be an evolving corrupt oligarchy.
The same europe with 10-20% of the population dead or displaced, the same europe that had undergone over half a decade of total war, focused on things like cities, industrial works, rails, bridges, and powersupplies. The same Europe that was incapable of feeding itself for several years after...
The same Europe that was a cratered mess from WW2? Oooh kay.
Actually, most of what I cited about the Soviet Union comes from the information publicized during the Gorbachev and Yeltsin administrations - from, you know, good Soviet sources. But that's ok - I'm certain they went back and...
Producing tons and tons of worthless crap doesn't make a country developed. Infrastructure that doesn't work, products that no-one wants, - that isn't creating wealth, but rather destroying it (or, more precisely, wasting the opportunities represented by the resources that went into such waste...