AHC: An Orwellian Superpower

In recent fiction, there has been something of a boom in the idea of a Super North Korea; a North Korea which becomes a major power with economic and military strength, conquers the South, and maybe goes on to invade the United States. Such is, of course, silly for anyone who knows even the slightest about the realities of North Korea. North Korea is an extremely poor state, locked eternally on the brink of famine and only kept alive on the charity of foreign nations. The reason it still stands is not because of any reasons of its own, but because the Chinese both fear change and would take military action as a threat against it since that would put the US on its border, and even the Chinese are getting sick of the North Koreans at this point. Everything of North Korea is for show, with skyscrapers and hotels built to show the modernity of the DPRK, which are left empty or nearly empty and dilapidating, roads left empty because most North Koreans don't have a car, villages abandoned, hotels in the middle of nowhere occupied by one person who waits every few months or few years for some tourist to actually come through, food put out in banquet halls to show the western visitors that there is plenty in Korea even though no one is there but that one visitor and that food is picked up and taken back, etc. North Korea is the Orwellian state which no one likes, which is why it is so good on that hand as the great bad guy, but it is totally incapable of being anything but ridiculous. Every view of North Korea as this potential great power or great enemy is a projection of our "Next Nazis" tropes onto a nation which doesn't deserve it and isn't capable of it.

The challenge here is to create a World Power or a Superpower which is an Orwellian state actually capable of exerting its will on the world and presenting a threat.
 
For All Time's USSR comes close to this after Kaganovich (who basically continues Stalin's work en masse but with less anti-semitism) falls from power and Suslov, followed by Chikatilo, take over, I believe. It's been a while since I read it, though.
 
For All Time's USSR comes close to this after Kaganovich (who basically continues Stalin's work en masse but with less anti-semitism) falls from power and some true nutters take over, I believe. It's been a while since I read it, though.

The difficulty of that with the USSR, which is what helps the DPRK, is the geographic position. North Korea is locked in and only has to worry about two borders. To the north is China, which is an ally and wouldn't rock the boat, and to the South is the Republic of Korea, and that one border is manageable and is managed to their purposes. East and west is water.
The USSR was the largest nation on Earth, and had a massive, massive border as a result. The only thing keeping that border possibly manageable for dystopian, Orwellian purposes was the primitiveness of the population and infrastructure the closer you got to the border in places, and perhaps those areas where it was small enough to be manageable. To the west, you have a border with all of western Europe if you take the Warsaw pact as one unit with the USSR. And even if you don't, they have a border with Western Europe, they had at least some independence (albeit as client states of the Soviet Union and under the eye and directive of the Soviet Union), and they bordered the USSR. To the South, you have the Middle East, Mongolia and China. That makes it far more difficult to insulate.
 
The difficulty of that with the USSR, which is what helps the DPRK, is the geographic position. North Korea is locked in and only has to worry about two borders. To the north is China, which is an ally and wouldn't rock the boat, and to the South is the Republic of Korea, and that one border is manageable and is managed to their purposes. East and west is water.
The USSR was the largest nation on Earth, and had a massive, massive border as a result. The only thing keeping that border possibly manageable for dystopian, Orwellian purposes was the primitiveness of the population and infrastructure the closer you got to the border in places, and perhaps those areas where it was small enough to be manageable. To the west, you have a border with all of western Europe if you take the Warsaw pact as one unit with the USSR. And even if you don't, they have a border with Western Europe, they had at least some independence (albeit as client states of the Soviet Union and under the eye and directive of the Soviet Union), and they bordered the USSR. To the South, you have the Middle East, Mongolia and China. That makes it far more difficult to insulate.

One of the (sick, sick) ways that For All Time handles this is having AIDS become so, so much worse (and be called the much more sinister SPIDS) and break out in the USSR first, which is then ravaged by the disease. The bordering countries are therefore the ones who set up the tight border controls. Much easier to have your border guarded for you by lots of little countries than to build a huge wall yourself.
 
In recent fiction, there has been something of a boom in the idea of a Super North Korea; a North Korea which becomes a major power with economic and military strength, conquers the South, and maybe goes on to invade the United States. Such is, of course, silly for anyone who knows even the slightest about the realities of North Korea. North Korea is an extremely poor state, locked eternally on the brink of famine and only kept alive on the charity of foreign nations. The reason it still stands is not because of any reasons of its own, but because the Chinese both fear change and would take military action as a threat against it since that would put the US on its border, and even the Chinese are getting sick of the North Koreans at this point. Everything of North Korea is for show, with skyscrapers and hotels built to show the modernity of the DPRK, which are left empty or nearly empty and dilapidating, roads left empty because most North Koreans don't have a car, villages abandoned, hotels in the middle of nowhere occupied by one person who waits every few months or few years for some tourist to actually come through, food put out in banquet halls to show the western visitors that there is plenty in Korea even though no one is there but that one visitor and that food is picked up and taken back, etc. North Korea is the Orwellian state which no one likes, which is why it is so good on that hand as the great bad guy, but it is totally incapable of being anything but ridiculous. Every view of North Korea as this potential great power or great enemy is a projection of our "Next Nazis" tropes onto a nation which doesn't deserve it and isn't capable of it.

The challenge here is to create a World Power or a Superpower which is an Orwellian state actually capable of exerting its will on the world and presenting a threat.

The problem is that if a superpower tried it, they would quickly drop to great power, if a great power tried it, theyd end up as a minor one.

So, basically to get a great power with that strength it would have to have started as a superpower. Which reqires it to be the ussr/russia with a pod after 1900, imo.
 
America is possible, but it requires a bunch of insane rolls of the dice all the around the world to happen in perfect order.

To solve the inefficiency problem, just make the whole entire rest of the world really, really suck.
 
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