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  1. What if Russia didn't take Outer Manchuria and Haishenwai/Vladivostock?

    I do think that if you keep greater Manchuria under the Qing, that could plausibly lessen the geopolitical pressure on Korea. A country not under imminent threat of Russian occupation might well be less of a Japanese target.

  2. Can a South Nigerian state survive after Arewa (North Nigeria) breaks off?

    The north would have a majority of the Nigerian population, but it would be quite poor.

  3. What does a Finlandized Eastern Europe look like?

    Continuing this discussion, the question becomes how much rapprochement between this central/eastern Europe and western Europe becomes possible. I would suggest that we might be able to look towards southern Europe, with the Iberian republics and Yugoslavia and Greece being mostly outside the...

  4. Saddam Hussein Does Not Invade Kuwait

    80% of infinity is still infinity. Given how dysfunctional the non-oil sectors of the Iraqi economy war, since understandably no one in business wanted to make big decisions in case they got purged, counting on agriculture or tourism to replace oil would be a terrible idea. Hell, even if he was...

  5. Saddam Hussein Does Not Invade Kuwait

    Saddam retained that position of prominence, despite his many failures as a leader, precisely because he was coasting on his proclaimed record and Iraq's prior successes. He was a persistent threat despite that. He was a monstrous failure as a leader, but I think it is a mistake to understand...

  6. Saddam Hussein Does Not Invade Kuwait

    That is the wrong way to view it. Yes, of course he caused huge suffering, but he did legitimately imagine that he would be able to make Iraq a real power. He was incompetent but that is a separate issue. $10 billion would not begin to cover the debt, which was close to $40 billion to the Gulf...

  7. Saddam Hussein Does Not Invade Kuwait

    He actually does. His whole credibility came from him positioning himself as a great Arab leader, the heir to Nasser who would make Iraq a world power. How would it look if his legacy was to leave a wrecked country?

  8. Effects of greater European emigration to North America 1600 - 1800?

    Another big reason why you did not get a colonization of North America by northwestern Europeans is because most of these counties were locked in different sorts of wars, civil wars or wars of independence or dynastic conflicts or straight up political repression or simple international wars. If...

  9. Saddam Hussein Does Not Invade Kuwait

    Um, what time frame are you talking about? If we are talking about 1990, then the only option facing Iraq if not a Kuwaiti adventure would be economic catastrophe. Trying to default on debt would lead a massive collapse in Iraq consumption, cratering Iraqi living standards even as the massive...

  10. Saddam Hussein Does Not Invade Kuwait

    The thing to keep in mind is that Iraq arguably needed to absorb Kuwait with its oil wealth because it has no other options. Iraq had not only been ravaged by the war with Iran but plunged deeply into debt to pay for its conflict. The costs of reconstruction and debt repayment were huge, the...

  11. AHC: Large, more creolized American states like South Louisiana or Acadiana

    Enduring creolization between colonizers and the colonized is only really possible when the local rate of immigration by colonizers is slow enough not to overwhelm the populations of the colonized. If that happened, rather than having a new synthesis you just end up reproducing the culture of...

  12. Effects of greater European emigration to North America 1600 - 1800?

    It is worth noting that mass European settlement in North America was only made possible by mass death among indigenous populations. It is not a coincidence that the Pilgrim settlements of New England succeeded after epidemics had radically depopulated their chosen territories. Are we going to...

  13. AHC: Large, more creolized American states like South Louisiana or Acadiana

    I think we could start by asking the question of whether or not English migration to the colonies might follow the slower dynamics of the French and the Dutch.

  14. Effects of greater European emigration to North America 1600 - 1800?

    Wouldn't the Dutch do this for themselves?

  15. Effects of greater European emigration to North America 1600 - 1800?

    There is a timeline here where the French start colonizing Canada immediately after the voyages of Jacques Cartier in the 16th century. An earlier start strikes me as necessary.

  16. Effects of greater European emigration to North America 1600 - 1800?

    The problem I have with this idea is that I do not understand how, or why, mass settlement on this scale would take off. The economic incentives for migration—the affordability, even—did not come about untill relatively late in time.

  17. Effects of greater European emigration to North America 1600 - 1800?

    But what would be the problem into of that? Why would such massive settlement of North America be desirable? Why would other countries not follow suit, there and elsewhere? Lots of questions need to be answered.

  18. Effects of greater European emigration to North America 1600 - 1800?

    What would happen to increase the volume of British migrants so hugely? How is it even affordable? That has to be answered, first, before we can come to any conclusions. A TL where early Stuart England blunders into the Industrial Revolution and booms will be very different from one where...

  19. How would a modern 21st century Nazi Germany look like?

    How did it do that? Why are you assuming that Dutch and Scandinavians would assimilate, at all? How? You are making sweeping assumptions here that are not justified. Why are resettled German populations supposed to thrive so in rural areas? How is the German government going to maintain...

  20. What if China's transition from a centrally planned economy to a Free market one lead to it's Collapse, like in Russia?

    The states that survived intact were not multinational states, though. In Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, differences rooted in deep regional divergences and local identities did end up rupturing federations. There is no reason to think the Soviet Union, far more diverse than either country and...
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