A Red-Green, leftist-pro third world EC (initially dominated by France but increasingly a French-German-Italian triumvirate) has split up the act with the US & UK and now a three-way struggle for political influence troubles international politics. The EC is close to a federal Europe, rather more closely integrated than OTL, somewhat poorer and rather more militarized with the US no longer shouldering the burden of keeping off the USSR: the nuclear arsenal (west Germans and Italian now have their own bomb factories) is larger than it ever was OTL, and there is universal military service (nowadays for women as well as men). The USSR, which nowadays runs Eastern Europe as essentially parts of the USSR proper (although maintaining the fiction of their independence) finally managed to arrest the seemingly inexorable slide of the economy in the late 90’s, but remains relatively impoverished and strife-ridden. A tank on every corner and an informer in every apartment has kept things from falling apart: with the USSR finally feeding itself (admittedly to some extent on synthetics), the West split into hostile and recriminatory parts, and US big business being even more dominant (and therefore disliked) in the poorer countries in their sphere of influence than OTL, the Party and Secret Police aren’t quite ready to give up the ship yet. China has had a bad stretch, with a show of force in the Taiwan straits having spiraled out of control and the Soviets dog-piling on, and currently the US and USSR occupy large chunks of Chinese territory as leverage to prevent the Chinese from rebuilding their destroyed-on-the-ground nuclear arsenal. (Truck bombs go off regularly: Soviet and US rhetoric is…predictable). Europe is currently China’s biggest trade and investment partner.
The Soviets and the US may have a common interest in China, but they clash elsewhere, especially in the Middle East, where Soviet support for the now nuclear-armed Iraqi dictator is a running sore in US-Soviet relations. An Israel feeling even more threatened than OTL remains convinced than only through a pose of extreme and uncompromising toughness can they survive, and the US has massive forces in place in Iran, which aside from deterring the USSR also help keep the Shah on his throne. Third-world struggle and unrest are common, “progressive” (anti-US) movements are supported by both the EC and the USSR (especially if there are sweetheart deals for EC companies or Soviet for-profit combines involved. Hey, the Revolution has to eat). The African Unificationist movement has actually had some success in its long-term program of unifying sub-Saharan Africa, with EC help: unfortunately, this has spooked some other EC clients uninterested in being someone else’s province, which have defected to the US or Soviet side. The Soviets have their own difficulties in Ethiopia, where EC and US backed insurrections have made the place so ungovernable that it is now pretty much run by the Red Army, which increases the patriotic fervor of the revolutionaries: in retrospect, giving the Ogaden to their North Somali allies as a reward for their assistance was probably a bad idea. The US is also busy in various parts of the third world, and is increasingly embarrassed by its continued alliance to still-Apartheid South Africa. At least they managed to successfully fence in and keep “free” a small chunk of Vietnam, it would have been really embarrassing to lose the whole thing (although it does tie down quite a few troops). The US is fiercely pro-business (the US fights economic battles with the EC like military campaigns) more militarist than OTL (it maintains conscription), while being a bit less shreddy-shreddy with the US constitution (with a more “citizen” army, treating civilians like knaves and children is politically riskier: for one thing, liberal protestors are likelier to shoot back).
There is considerable near-earth space development, with the EC solar power satellite program now several billion Euros in the red, and providing some useful object lessons for US space enthusiasts: meanwhile, the Soviets, using their new extra-mongo booster rockets, have put something large in orbit. What it is, they aren’t saying.
Bruce
