Right now me and a couple of other modders are beginning to put plans together for a Reich American Cold War mod for the upcoming game, East vs West. Right now, though, we are having a lot of trouble deciding on a timeline, what would be realistic for the Axis and Allies to hold, what would allow the countries to be roughly evenly matched? This is a very debatable topic, so I want to get it going now, the plan for the mod is to get a semi-realistic campaign between 1945 and 1991 for the two countries with tons of events and the like. I know butterflies would be everywhere, but what are some possible crisis that could happen in a scenario where Germany wins the second world war.
Even better, is there a realistic tripolar world that could emerge (liberal democracy, socialist, fascist) that could emerge post ww1?
There are a lot of questions about what would emerge, given the questions over PoDs used to lead to a successful Third Reich; I'm going to gloss over that in particular, and see what I come up with:
Nazi Germany never faces the United States at war. Perhaps its because Robert Taft is president; perhaps its because the UK has opted to sue for terms instead of fighting on its own (with non-Churchill leadership), almost certainly the USA has been asleep at the switch.
With the UK either Finlandized or potentially hostile but unable to do much (A Cuba writ large), Europe can be divided into three parts: The Reich, the Vassals, and the Atrocities.
Nazi Germany is top dog. While no one who replaces Hitler is going to be as insane, no one is going to be a particularly nice person either. Even the likes of Albert Speer would be analogous to Lazar Kaganovich and the likely military men are likely to be head deep in war crimes of their own.
If an Ideologue follows Hitler, the Holocaust switches to Poles after it runs out of Jews and then moves on to Ukrainians. If a more pragmatic figure takes over, perhaps the outcome is mass enslavement. In Either Case, Germany stretches from parts of France into the Baltic States and Crimea.
Germany's relationships with the rest of Europe are probably heavy handed, if not abusive. Germany might not install puppet regimes in nations that openly allied with them, but there is little room for disagreement and little that can be done if Germany opts to squeeze them. If Germany is sated by abusing Slavic peoples and annexing their lands, perhaps the result is similar to the Warsaw Pact. More likely, Nazi Germany is much more brutish and mean than the Soviets and does things like demanding quotas of resources, labor, and other materials.
Germany has killed an appreciable portion of the population of Europe. There will be no ending the Holocaust, and I think there is no stopping the Holocaust from turning on Poles next. At this point, Hitler could fall over and someone else decide that there are other answers to dealing with the Polish Question, but it's not going to be a good situation.
The Former Soviet Union is governed by various Governors; people who are either masters of the slave system that's emerged or are attempting to make good on the Hitlerite Vision to wipe out these people. Whether abusive control is a ends or a means, this is a particularly dystopian place. Most of the natives are dead via overwork, massive retaliation for perceived wrongs, or simple neglect.
A less assertive USA means that Japan is probably the Second player in a multiplayer world. The key to Japan's Empire is China, a still unhappy place where decades of war has entirely failed to gain the submission Japan has wanted. Japan has outlasted the poorly run KMT and the defeat of the Soviet Union has done a major blow to Communist Ideas, but the Chinese continue to demand independence based on Nationalism.
A lot of White Russians fled to China after the Bolshevik Revolution. A lot of Soviets fled to China after Germany's occupation of the country up to the Ural Mountains. And while Japan would like very much to pacify China, it is unable to occupy the nation and unable to win hearts and minds to make it much easier. Their solution has been a staggering multitude of puppets and collaborators, turning the China conflict into a decades long civil war. Despite these efforts, it is difficult to say that Japan has done very well.
The United Kingdom has been a declining nation, to say the least. India has gone independent and most of Africa is restive and unprofitable. Canada may have openly broken with the UK if it moves too close to Germany and the Axis probably expand into UK colonies if the UK moves too close to the states. This sort of monkeying in the middle makes the UK and much of Africa a bloc of nations. As the years roll on, the UK will probably find it has lost most of the worlds' respect.
And the USA is the emerging player. A whole Hemisphere is its sphere of influence; and that Sphere of influence is growing at the expense of the UK. Canada has probably openly allied with the USA, and Australia and New Zealand have to accept the reality that the USA is more likely to help them than the UK would.
Gone from the Map is the Soviet Union and most "Free" movements. The Soviets no longer care about anything except survival of their people, even if the situation would otherwise be described as warlords. Other areas that resisted Nazi Domination far from home are either independent nations or UK colonies. Interestingly, this means that places like Tahiti are likely to see themselves as the "Real French" and probably throw in with the United States.
Nazi Germany isn't as technologically advanced as the Soviet Union and has a less competent spy apparatus. The USA is the world's first nuclear power and likely to win a WWII whenever it happens.
