AH Challenge: By 1950, have THREE superpowers or potential superpowers n the world.

Nationalist China is a major possibility. I'm not sure about ideology, but it could be a major anticolonial power. It would give an alternative to Communism for all those nationalistic Latin Americans pissed off at the US for its long history of interventions in Latin America. That would be a good source of global reach.

The big challenge is its disunity and the massive war with Japan that's coming. I would have Chiang be more successful in unifying the various warlords in the early to mid 1930s and get a sizable industrial base started. The Communists would probably have to be destroyed during the Long March for this to be successful.

That last part's easy enough -- have the Fifth Encirclement Campaign succeed by failing Zhao Enlai's spy ring -- Long March is over before it begins.

True, Japan still invades -- but without the Civil War or disastrous Maoist economic policies, and with KMT China being a pretty good contender for leading a neutralist movement, they will be well on their way to superpower-dom by 1950...
 
That last part's easy enough -- have the Fifth Encirclement Campaign succeed by failing Zhao Enlai's spy ring -- Long March is over before it begins.

True, Japan still invades -- but without the Civil War or disastrous Maoist economic policies, and with KMT China being a pretty good contender for leading a neutralist movement, they will be well on their way to superpower-dom by 1950...

More German aid earlier on would also help greatly, both industrial and military, combined with the elimination of the Communists early on. They could also get more Soviet aid, since they did get aid IOTL. Maybe Stalin is more distrustful of Japan and wants to build up China as a friendly counterweight to keep Japan from turning on him? Assuming the Japanese invade at roughly the same time as IOTL, you could then parley something like the Panay incident into a full-blown war between the US and Japan around 1938. Chiang manages to stop the Japanese in front of Nanjing and inflict a serious defeat on them with luck and German-trained divisions that get withdrawn from Shanghai. The infustion of US aid allows Chiang to slowly drive the Japanese back, and the Japanese are forced to surrender by 1943. The war in Europe goes largely as OTL, but with greater US forces freed up by the lack of war with Japan, the boundary between East and West is slightly farther east. Token Chinese forces fight on the Western Front.

After the war, Chiang implements all those anti-corruption and democratic reforms he promised OTL during the war. As the Cold War starts, he maintains a neutral stance, promoting aggressive anti-colonialism combined with democracy and nationalism. A non-aligned movement with teeth, so to speak. They won't be a superpower by 1950, but they can certainly be there by 1960-1970 or so.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Chiang's best choice is to listen to Marshall and the rest of his advisers and not launch the disastrous Liaoshen Campaign.

Stalin supports a Maoist puppet state in Manchuria, which means North Korea remains Red. Xinjiang is probably going to go to the ROC, which I see wasting no time in gobbling up Tibet.

Whichever its alignment, China isn't going to become a superpower by 1950: it's just not developed enough, and we all saw what crash industrialization caused. Also, none of its immediate neighbors are very friendly. To get around that, you'll need a pre-1900 POD.



Unless you're Hendryk, of course ;)
 
Er, no. He said "or a potential superpower", which doesn't make too much sense. (See my previous post)

Bruce

Let me clarify - when I say a "potential superpower", it basically means a given state has the ability to achieve superpower status within a generation, i.e, 20-30 years. So China in OTL 1950 is not gonna be a superpower in the next 30 years, but China in OTL 2011 can be.
 
Let me clarify - when I say a "potential superpower", it basically means a given state has the ability to achieve superpower status within a generation, i.e, 20-30 years. So China in OTL 1950 is not gonna be a superpower in the next 30 years, but China in OTL 2011 can be.

Gotcha -- then my suggestion still stands, b/c with the KMT ruling China from the get go after Japan's defeat in 1945, it's China can certainly become a superpower by 1970.
 
I think this might go better if I made the end-date for the scenario 1970. 1930-1950 is too short a POD. In fact, let's change it from 1920-1970.

Sorry, this was one of my first posts here so yeah.
 
1923: Hitler killed in the Beer Hall Putsch. The analogue to the Nazi party is very different, but many familiar characters appear in it.


Early 1930s: A party characterized by economic populism, irredentism, antisemitism, and mass popular appeal takes power and establishes a fascist dictatorship in Germany. They improve the economy through a massive military buildup.

Late 1930s/Early 1940s: Germany, through a series of agressive diplomatic maneuvers, annexes Austria and gains ethnically German territories in Central Europe. There may be some military action, but World War II as we know it is averted.

1940s: Germany begins to be seen as the the lesser of two evils, a buffer zone protecting the West from Communism. Alarmist voices urging the Entente powers against appeasing Germany's dictator are dismissed. War breaks out between an aggressive Soviet Union and a Germany with no choice but to protect its buffer states in Eastern and Central Europe. The Entente powers stay neutral, but support the anti-Communist powers.

Late 1940s/Early 1950s: At the peace settlement, Germany and Russia have partitioned up the East once more. Research begun into the war on the possibilities of atomic weapons is continued feverishly. When the United States tests the first nuclear weapon and drops one on Kyoto during its separate war with Japan, the dangers of these weapons are clearly established and deterrence is developed. The United States, Germany, and the Soviet Union are all superpowers or soon to attain that status.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
Of all the problems with this TL, I'll just address the most blatant. First, you have either completely misjudged what kind of man Smedly Butler was, or you blatantly insulted him. Secondly The Nazi's weren't in power until 1936. I realize you're new and all, but c'mon, do a little bit of research before posting some kind of TL.
Actually Hitler rose to power in '33. But with a 1930 PoD it could be butterflied. The TL was pure ASB though. The Business Plot was as real as the plan for World Revolution I had with a few friends over some pints of beer last week. Chile a super power? WTF??
 
China

Merge the Chinese Nationalist and Communist into a single "third way" entity. Have them take over China in the late 20s, develop the country, defeat Japan as the USSR defeats Germany, and you come out of a different WW2 with China Vs the USA Vs USSR in a three player game.
 
Actually Hitler rose to power in '33. But with a 1930 PoD it could be butterflied. The TL was pure ASB though. The Business Plot was as real as the plan for World Revolution I had with a few friends over some pints of beer last week. Chile a super power? WTF??

>smedley butler
>leading the business plot putsch
>not being the guy who testified about it to congress

ohgodmysides

Though, I'm not sure there was an actual, concrete plan in terms of logistics and execution for it.
 
Gotcha -- then my suggestion still stands, b/c with the KMT ruling China from the get go after Japan's defeat in 1945, it's China can certainly become a superpower by 1970.

Ah. So China in 25 years will do all the economic growing OTL China does in 82? (1949-2031, if we accept the estimate of China becoming the second superpower in 20 years)

Yeah, and monkeys fly out of my ass every Thursday, singing Brahm's Requiem in perfect harmony.

Bruce
 
Ah. So China in 25 years will do all the economic growing OTL China does in 82? (1949-2031, if we accept the estimate of China becoming the second superpower in 20 years)

Yeah, and monkeys fly out of my ass every Thursday, singing Brahm's Requiem in perfect harmony.

Bruce

Hm - let me rephrase that, since it's nonsensical as it stands. What I should have said is that this implies the Chinese can grow fast enough to catch upwith the US in 25 rather than 82 years - which still implies growth rates of the musical monkeys level of probability.

Bruce
 
Here's an India WANK. Maybe not very realistic but it's fun to imagine:

Britain, anticipating an eventual challenge from Japan, decides in 1930 to grant India dominion status and to build up Indian defense industries rapidly that can manufacture tanks, war planes, submarines, etc. By 1939 the Dominion of India has even begun construction of its first aircraft carrier. One result of these defense industries is a self-confident capitalist class that rejects the London School of Economics theories that would hamstring India in OTL.

India asserts itself during the war, playing the leading role in defeating the Axis in the Western desert, crushing the Italians in East Africa, and seizing the Vichy French colonies in and around the Indian ocean (and France never gets back those which have strong independence movements, e.g. Vietnam, Madagascar). A Japanese attempt to seize Indochina is fiercely rebuffed. The Indians then win even greater prestige on the world stage by crushing the Japanese invasion of Singapore, keeping the Japanese out of the DEI and launching the successful Bataan Air Lift. Their subs plus the American ones then start to sink every Japanese merchant ship they can find. Far higher success rate of Indian subs causes the Americans to discover the flaws in their own torpedos much earlier than in OTL. Japan, with no access to oil and raw materials, and no merchant marine left, sues for peace in early 1944. Indian troops then switch their efforts to Italy, and join with British, American and ANZAC troops to drive the Germans across the Po river by the fall of '44.

After the war, India develops very close relations with Australia, which welcomes Indian immigrants, and with the new Indonesia. India intervenes in South Africa to crush the apartheid regime; South Africa thus retains its dominion status but is now closer to India economically than to Britain. In the early 1960s, Britain allows a referendum on the island of Mauritius which votes to become an Indian state. India guarantees the independence of Tibet in the early 1950s and causes the KMT government to back off from invading. The communists never take power in China in TTL because the war against Japan was won so much sooner, before the Soviet Union was in a position to invade Manchuria.

India explodes its first atomic bomb in 1951. In 1962 India votes to become a republic but simultaneously adopts a policy of building up the Commonwealth as a democratic power bloc, an effort that is only moderately successful.

Note: this India includes Ceylon as a state, but not Pakistan. What is now Bangladesh (but in OTL was originally East Pakistan) remains part of India. Its form of Islam proves much easier to assimilate into a multi-religion society than West Pakistan ever would have. India does not allow a military dictatorship to emerge in Burma, which develops normally and becomes a relatively prosperous country closely linked to India economically.
 
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@ASB Sweet Mother of India-wank!
My biggest problem with that tack is that you've got progressive-minded politicians in the UK and India with ordoliberal economic development schemes doped out and adhered to thirty years before OTL independence all primed to avoid OTL economic problems preventing India from industrializing and contributing much more military muscle during WW2 and playing a much grander post-war role. IIRC India had a peasant economy geared around plantations and resource extraction.
Trying to do so from 1930 to WW2 would trigger a groundswell of political backlash that make the 1979 Iranian Revolution look tame mostly from culture shock. Miilions of displaced farmers and other people without modern skills getting crammed into slums bemoaning centuries-long traditions being made into cole slaw due to modernization to suit whom, exactly?
Any people can do anything well given time and work, but they need a good set-up, good feedback about what works and continuing to tinker and make things better, motivation, and a social consensus it's the best thing to do.
The OTL crew that made independence happen were excellent activists but not engineers, economists or businessmen that were savvy about what made modern economies work. Even if they were, they were outvoted by the political extremists. Plus, they knew they were in no position to rattle sabers with developed countries for a couple of decades.
Your scenario would make sense say in 1970 with a lot of economic development, no License Raj and boneheaded Fabianism that gummed up the works economically.
However, this more muscular India would have created a lot more resentment and suspicion if that were possible.
The LAST thing the UK wanted in the 1930's was Indians moving up the value-added manufacturing ladder as they didn't have enough to keep folks in Sheffield, Belfast, and so forth busy, and you want to make a titanic development scheme in India to create a formidable economic competitor during the Great Depression?!? :eek::eek::eek:
Politically it would've been suicidal in the 1930's to suggest such a thing with nationalism being the order of the day.

I personally like India, warts and all. I'd like it to have done even better than OTL.


If we're talking potential superpowers, Brazil always seem poised to do great things. The movement toward Mercosur from 1950 on could have had interesting economic and political knock-on effects, but that's only after attempts at fascism produced nothing but economic malaise and political strife. Getting South America to act as a common market, where folks could move back and forth as they wish, with Brazil, Colombia, Chile, and Venezuela being the principal actors, Argentina getting on board once it's clear Britain isn't going to invest in them like the Brazilians will. Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Paraguay might need some convincing or be on board from the start. Possible, but around 1980.
 
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