...The crunch is going to happen once things start getting better, probably in the early 1950s. That also starts to line up with a number of other problems - for instance, the UK was struggling with full employment causing a shortage of labour and issues with defence spending crowding out other parts of the economy. In OTL a large part of the solution to this was Sandystorm and eventually the withdrawal from East of Suez.
The US alliance which they don't have ITTL was crucial to this - and the ongoing colonial commitments means that they can't go down the purely nuclear weapons route. Manpower is going to be a severe limitation, leaves them with a conundrum which can only be solved by some combination of finding additional manpower and outsourcing a lot of their manufacturing. Using German made B-vehicles, tank engines, etc. is an easy win, as is recruiting Germans into the Foreign Legion. Anything else is a lot harder to get agreement to.
More importantly it has two larger and traditionally hostile powers on it's borders. As one of the occupying powers of Germany, Poland is going to feel in a much better position than before.
In any case, the logic of the OTL Cold War is going to come in: everybody has lots of nuclear weapons, and that means the war goes nuclear very fast if they end up being unable to hold a Soviet attack by themselves.
In regards to the the labour shortage and defence spending crowding out other parts of the economy, I would imagine that as in OTL there would have been some amount of recruiting and immigration from the West Indies, India and other parts of the Empire/Commonwealth which would then become restricted, but I do wonder in the absence of the alliance with the United States if they wouldn't consider recruiting soldiers from one part of the Empire to serve in another? Or look at more local recruitment of forces to maintain the Empire?
regarding recruiting Germans, the French I could see recruiting Germans into the Foreign Legion, whereas for the British they would probably take inspiration from their own foreign legions, the Gurkha Brigade and the Napoleonic era King's German Legion. Perhaps we might see the formation of a British German Brigade or Royal German Regiment?
EDIT: I also stumbled across these two resources which might be helpful:
British Interest in the Division of Germany after the Second World War on JSTOR
Josef Foschepoth, British Interest in the Division of Germany after the Second World War, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Jul., 1986), pp. 391-411
www.jstor.org
The first refers to some amount of planning for the post-war occupation of Germany in OTL stretching back to December 1941. It also gives some pointers as to where further information of that particular planning might be found ( the Combined Chiefs of Staff Committee). It gives outlines on the British, American, Soviet and French planning. The American and Soviet sections might even be useful to see how they impacted on British and French planning in OTL and what their absence would mean for British and French planning in TTL.
The second looks at British interest in the division of Germany after the Second World War in OTL. You have to register to read the full article but registration is free (registration lets you read 100 articles per month).
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