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As per OTL, this would almost certainly result in a Pakistani decision to pursue a nuclear weapons programme. That said, a superbly successful India would really change the calculus in Pakistan and probably create an even more prevalent fear of being outmatched by India in every respect, which...

How could Congress pass this? This isn't even skirting the bounds, it's blatantly unconstitutional. And anyone who sponsored it could expect a nasty outcome in their next election campaign. Why? Although this premise is honestly inconceivable, there's no way this bill would stick. As @Carl...

But what is the "pull factor" here? Remember, white-collar criminals are usually more-or-less ordinary people who cheat others to get ahead. These aren't hardened fanatics with a firm ideology and a willingness to fight and die for it. North Korea has a justified reputation as a frightening...

It sort of reminds of the Business Plot. For anyone on the thread who is not aware what that is: basically, the Business Plot was an alleged scheme by influential businessmen and elites in the 1930's USA to lead a military coup to depose Franklin Delano Roosevelt and install a dictatorship led...

Political Islam isn't some new creation of the 20th-century. Every major religion throughout the world has been or is politicised to some degree. Though that is not germane to this exact discussion. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood under Said Qutb had existed for decades before Nasser himself...

This would be a complete repudiation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that the Soviet Union signed literally one month earlier and furthermore would be hugely detrimental to Soviet geopolitical interests. The United States would have really nothing to stand on: the US public mood was still heavily...

You're right, I should have more explicitly clarified that as "past a certain point" there was no replacing the ANC but thank you for sharing all of that, I legitimately didn't know about some of the organisations that you mentioned. Though, regarding the Inkatha Freedom Party, my assessment of...

Although that's not beyond the realm of possibility, I fear that's something of a departure from the original topic of this thread. That said, the Rivonia Trial resulting in a death sentence for Nelson Mandela is an interesting, albeit potentially very disturbing consideration.

Not possible IMHO. Apartheid was going to end, through one means or another. But there were a lot of long-term problems with the system, it wasn't just going to keep limping on forever. There were serious financial problems that, along with growing international sanctions, would have eventually...

It's not in the cards. South Africa was already pushed to its limit fighting the Border War in Southwest Africa and Angola. The South African Defense Force was really structured to be a small, effective and professional force, not a massive occupying army.

Past a certain point there's really no conceivable way for Portugal to continue the colonial war. Past a certain point it just turned into a stalemate where the only thing that the opposition had to do was not lose. They couldn't outright defeat the Portuguese, but the Portuguese were in a...

I don't see any way of avoiding it. There's really no one person or party that has the kind of appeal that the ANC commands that could conceivably have replaced them. Plus the ANC was the party that spearheaded negotiations with the Apartheid government for a peaceful transition of power...

Apartheid South Africa was a fundamentally oppressive and deeply-mismanaged state, especially towards the end of its existence. The increasingly unstable state of the South African economy and looming financial problems that would have critically endangered the Apartheid regime's ability to...

There was a peace process underway at several points during the regime of Hafez al-Assad though it often got interrupted by various regional crises and such. It would have been contingent on an Israeli return of the Golan Heights but that's a pretty low price to pay for peace with Syria and an...

If I may ask, which constituencies/regions/parties in Germany at the time tended to support the expulsion of refugees from the war? And did the recent reunification play any big role in the decision?

I am not an expert on German politics in this era but wouldn't something like this hugely complicate the process of German reunification? At this time, Germany was already dealing with the expensive and laborious process of integrating East Germany and its people into the economy of a new and...

Yeah, this is a scenario that, in the circumstances, just wouldn't happen. A Pope could resign, have some time to consider the merits of another faith and convert sometime after the end of his papacy, as you say.

Also, it should be noted that Japan wasn't always as vicious in its treatment of occupied populations and prisoners of war. Japan was actually internationally reputed for its humane and conscientious treatment of Russian prisoners-of-war during the Russo-Japanese War. What changed between the...

Although I haven't heard of this particular example, it's very consistent with Stalin's typical behavior. He was a deeply paranoid individual who obsessed over threats to his life and to his power in the USSR.

Sharia Law (which I will clarify is a huge umbrella term and hardly a monolithic thing) gave women rights they didn't have in Western countries until the 20th-century, particularly when it comes to rights of inheritance and owning property. Many Western countries, France in particular, had...