AHC: Aromanian-Romanian Wars

The challenge is to have the Aromanian language be widespread enough for an entire country to exist and be called Aromania, and for this country of Aromania to be locked in a long-term cold war, replete with minor wars and both sides achieving nuclear weapon capabilities (like India/Pakistan), with Romania.

Bonus points if there are also hostile third-party nations involved with names unusually similar to either Romania or Aromania.
 
Well..........

Maybe an
Armãneashti Dynasty such as the Tarkaneiotes come to power in Rome, and uses their countrymen to resettle the Vardar/Axios Valley. Add that to a Bulgaria-screw, and we have ourselves a potentially nuclear border conflict.
 
Backstory--Aromanians migrate down from the mountains for whatever reason in the early Middle Ages and assimilate most of the coast of Albania and Epirus. Demographics of Aromania are mixed, but the largest minority is Greeks, with some remnant Albanians as well as a Romani and Jewish minority. Some butterflies will be killed for this scenario.

Second Balkan War - Newly independent Aromania battles Romania in support of Bulgaria. Denied "Greater Aromania" (consisting of the remainder of Epirus and bits of Montenegro and Macedonia), Aromania is Bulgaria's sole ally. Aromanian forces aren't enough to turn the tide, but in the Romanian entrance into the war, Romanian forces accidentally kill diplomatic staff from Aromania. Further, Aromania has decisively ended up as an ally of Bulgaria as a result of the war and prior Bulgarian support for Aromanian independence.
World War I - Aromania joins the Central Powers and once again fights against Romania. This time, Romanian forces directly battle the Aromanian Army (which has focused much of its campaign on Serbia). Like OTL, Romania loses by 1918. Aggressive occupation policies on the part of the Aromanians erode Romanian sympathies to their linguistic relatives. The war is over by 1919 with a Central Powers victory due to Italy staying neutral until joining the CP at the end of the war. Greater Aromania is created after the war.

Third Balkan War - 20 years later, Russian revanchism and a rapidly redeveloping Russian Republic has led to Russia proposing a treaty with Romania to return lost lands from Bulgaria in exchange for Bessarabia. Further, Russia seeks the return of the Caucasus from the Ottoman Empire, which looks weaker and weaker every day, and gives Greece aid too. This Third Balkan War sees Aromania on the Bulgarian side, although most of her effort is spent fighting the Greeks.
World War II - The war spirals into World War II within a year. Aromanian forces once again battle the Romanians, this time directly.

This monumentally expensive war lasting until 1946 with German nukes striking cities on the Volga is the collapse of Europe. Italy, Germany, and Austria-Hungary (Danubian Council Republic) become communist at the end, with Aromania following. Eastern Europe (minus Siberia) is also communist. However, splits in this communist bloc occur. Romania joins the Russian side in this split, while Aromania initially sides with Germany. However, Aromania eventually goes their own way, playing up themselves as the real Romans (who were actually Illyrians). Romanian communism also takes another route in this time, becoming inspired by the hypernationalistic communism of North Japan but not splitting from Russia.

Both Aromania and Romania despise each other for trying to steal each other's Roman-ness while mocking each other's claims to ancient Illyrian and Dacian heritage respectively. Romania is the first of the two to develop nukes, by 1999 (thanks to North Japan), while Italy, at this point a neutral player in the inter-communist squabbles, looks the other way as Aromania tests their first nuke in 2012 on the centenary of independence. The nuclear program has broken the Aromanian economy with its expense, but as its dictator scoffs, "what, should we have just built concrete bunkers everywhere instead?"
 
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