AHC: A Three-Way Cold War

Your challenge, with a POD after 1920, is for the world to be locked in a three-way "cold war". Bonus points if you manage to create such a "three-way cold war" with a POD after 1945 and/or the "third bloc" isn't a right-wing nationalist/fascist bloc. What would the dynamics and geopolitics of such a world be like and how powerful would such a "third bloc" be?
 

Bomster

Banned
Your challenge, with a POD after 1920, is for the world to be locked in a three-way "cold war". Bonus points if you manage to create such a "three-way cold war" with a POD after 1945 and/or the "third bloc" isn't a right-wing nationalist/fascist bloc. What would the dynamics and geopolitics of such a world be like and how powerful would such a "third bloc" be?
Maybe Britain and France become more independent of the US after the Suez Crisis?
 
Easiest solution is Fascist Italy sides with the WAllies in WW2, but I think you want to avoid that.

France could perhaps do it. They did a good job during the Cold War and beyond dominating their former empire in Africa. Have the split between the Americans and French after the war be more severe (let's say France unilaterally seizes chunks of Germany and Italy for itself) and the Americans (a) side with Ho Chi Minh against France in SE Asia and support decolonization there more aggressively (b) deny the French an occupation zone. France uses the Belgian Royal Crisis of 1945-1951 as a means to expand territory (Belgium splitting into a Kingdom/Grand Duchy of Flanders and a French Wallonia).

A greater France comprised of today's France, Wallonia, Saarland, Kehl, Aosta, Susa, Imperia, Algeria, Bizerte, Gabon, and Djibouti has a large population and economic base to challenge the US.

Israel, Lebanon, Yugoslavia, Spain, France's ex-colonies in Africa, DRCongo, Taiwan, and South Africa all end up buddy buddy with France too maybe. Biafra down the line ends up in the French sphere as well, and between Gabon, Spanish Guinea, Algeria, and Biafra the bloc has an abundance of oil wealth.



Meanwhile Britain, Netherlands, Flanders, Luxembourg, Italy, Denmark, W Germany, and Norway integrate more tightly into a mostly "North Sea" bloc.



What's the saying? France has neither friends nor enemies, just interests?
 
I suppose the potential third way forces are:

Franco-British block (See A Blunted Sickle as the main timeline on this board currently heading there. On their own neither would be capable of sustaining a superpower presence, but together have enough influence to do so)
The stereotypical Nazi Germany block
Imperial Japan (discussions have happened over whether it is possible, personally I'd say I'd give them a good shot of it: they had the economic potential, the settler potential, resource potential, military potential, and at least some ideological capability internationally)
China (they functioned as an essential third pillar of the Cold War originally, with greater economic strength to project influence they could become a full fledged third force)
India (underrated nation in my opinion, it has the population, territory, and potentially economy to do it: the main problem is how to get them to want to be a third force in the Cold War as opposed to isolationism. The same thing has popped up in Greater Japan discussions: what exactly would India have to offer to the rest of the world that would make it an influential nation or make it be involved in world politics? Hindi religious politics are not going to be internationally a great seller. A diplomatic third force, like what France succeeded at OTL, but on a much larger scale?)

My favorite however is the proposed European union proposals from the later 1920s which were put forth by Briand. Have those succeed and European economic and over time political union happens. It would still be right-wing nationalist to an extent, since the countries would be jealous of guarding their colonial empires, somewhat fascist (without Nazi Germany those ideas would not be taboo), but at heart it would be essentially a liberal conservative bloc which would be radically different than either the Soviet Union or the United States. It would have an economy and military/military capacity far larger than either, but an internal political cohesiveness significantly behind, making it fairly unique.
 
Imperial Japan (discussions have happened over whether it is possible, personally I'd say I'd give them a good shot of it: they had the economic potential, the settler potential, resource potential, military potential, and at least some ideological capability internationally)
China (they functioned as an essential third pillar of the Cold War originally, with greater economic strength to project influence they could become a full fledged third force)
India (underrated nation in my opinion, it has the population, territory, and potentially economy to do it: the main problem is how to get them to want to be a third force in the Cold War as opposed to isolationism. The same thing has popped up in Greater Japan discussions: what exactly would India have to offer to the rest of the world that would make it an influential nation or make it be involved in world politics? Hindi religious politics are not going to be internationally a great seller. A diplomatic third force, like what France succeeded at OTL, but on a much larger scale?)
All three of them (along with a larger and more successful United Arab Republic) could be possible leaders of a stronger alt-Non-Aligned Movement which turns into a full-on "third bloc" focusing on "anti-imperialism".
 
Imperial Japan plus Manchuria, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand in a Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere Bloc probably would be enough to be a third pillar - especially when you account for Japan's historically good ties with Ethiopia and willingness to trade with South Africa. The East Asian states alone have nearly 650 million people.

I can't see Japan and PRChina getting buddy buddy ever. Japan and India, maybe. Issue is, if Japan tries to extend its influence to East and South Africa that likely means sticking its nose in Indian waters.


France plus Algeria, Gabon, Fezzan, Saarland, Wallonia, Djibouti, and Italian border bits along with Spain as junior partner is ~94 million in 1960. Not a bad base for a country with big ambitions.



What about France and Japan as a bloc? They're on the opposite sides of Eurasia so there's little butting of heads and neither is too happy with Anglo-American dominance or the USSR.
 
What about an earlier radicalization of Islam? If you have fundamentalist regimes throughout the Middle East, they're going yo dislike the West but they're also going to dislike the godless commies.
 
What about an earlier radicalization of Islam? If you have fundamentalist regimes throughout the Middle East, they're going yo dislike the West but they're also going to dislike the godless commies.

Islamic radicalism was largely driven by the failure of secular arab socialism in the arab world and by the radicalization of the clergy in Iran due to a mix of the Shah's secularization policies and the clerics being in the same cells as the communists and coming to the conclusion that the Quran needed to be a revolutionary book in the same fashion as the communist manifesto. I can't see such a bloc emerging before the 1970s.
 
Islamic radicalism was largely driven by the failure of secular arab socialism in the arab world and by the radicalization of the clergy in Iran due to a mix of the Shah's secularization policies and the clerics being in the same cells as the communists and coming to the conclusion that the Quran needed to be a revolutionary book in the same fashion as the communist manifesto. I can't see such a bloc emerging before the 1970s.

Maybe a different sequence of events in 1953? The Mossadegh coup triggers a civil war and the USSR invades to expand communism. Islamsts eventually win and recognize Communism as a threat (but can't align with the West because we started the war by backing the coup).
 

Puzzle

Donor
Why not just the West vs USSR vs China? Maybe Nixon doesn't go to China and tensions never lesson.
 
Imperial Japan (discussions have happened over whether it is possible, personally I'd say I'd give them a good shot of it: they had the economic potential, the settler potential, resource potential, military potential, and at least some ideological capability internationally)
Japan could barely sustain a war economy while going throhgh oil and steel embargoes (as OTL shows), and its Roman-Republic-esque militaristic political clusterfuck didn't help, either. For Japan to become a more pragmatic power, we'd need a Taisho period PoD, before 1926.
And, since the OP asked for a PoD after 1920, the window is small.
 
What about an earlier radicalization of Islam? If you have fundamentalist regimes throughout the Middle East, they're going yo dislike the West but they're also going to dislike the godless commies.

Assuming they could get to work together, how do you suppose countries with rent-based economies and guided by fundies could develop their industries to become even a soft power?
 
Japan could barely sustain a war economy while going throhgh oil and steel embargoes (as OTL shows), and its Roman-Republic-esque militaristic political clusterfuck didn't help, either. For Japan to become a more pragmatic power, we'd need a Taisho period PoD, before 1926.
And, since the OP asked for a PoD after 1920, the window is small.
Japan's historical economic growth, but as a function of pre-war growth, and post-war growth, demonstrates an easy capability to put Japan into a much higher rank, while the political disaster was unique to a certain time. It isn't difficult to create a TL where Japan either avoids the same deleterious effects, or where it gets away with it.
 
Instead of Baathism, have Nasserism take hold over the middle East. Maybe a timeline in which the British didnt lie to the Hashemites could lead to a later rebellion fueled by Egypt. Because a United Middle East would probably be enough to preempt Zionism, the alt Egyptians would never be weakened by the 6 day war. The break between them and the west could be the Suez crisis while the break between them and the Soviets could be their suppression of communist movements in places like South Yemen.
 
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