AHC: European hermit kingdom

So in this Alternate history challenge, how can North Korea esque hermit kingdom can be form in Europe post 1900?

Eastern Europe is fine but if possible I would prefer that the nation is in western Europe or central Europe.

Could such nation exist without too much change in history? Or is it outright ASB?
 
The UK, exhausted after 2 world wars and seeing Europe destroyed decides "no more" and effectively becomes an island fortress.
 
Romania as a Legionary State. Spain goes full blown Fascist under Primo de Rivera (not killed in 1936) or Serrano Suner. Germany and France are too central to Europe's economy to truly become hermit kingdoms.
 
Ceausescu makes better friends with the military and somehow has a slightly better economy in the 80s and brutally suppresses the Romanian Revolution and other uprisings against the state (i.e. Hama massacre, Tiananmen Square). He annexes Moldova following a pro-communist coup in 1992 and rigged elections and has a peaceful transition of power following his death in the 90s. Ceausescu's son Nicu doesn't drink as much so his cirrhosis holds off another 15-20 years, meanwhile, Nicu is surrounded by the right sort of people so his incompetence doesn't tank the state. Romania gets help from China, North Korea, and in the 2000s, Putin's Russia as a useful ally in the region. Romania continues its drift toward Juche-style policies economically and especially in terms of foreign relations, observing North Korea's "success". Like North Korea, they continue their nuclear program, attempting to get aid from ex-Soviet scientists and especially from North Korea. This is successful by the mid-2000s as the first Romanian nuclear test occurs several months after the first DPRK nuclear test.

Modern Romania is widely recognised as the most dangerous threat to Europe due to erratic leadership, nuclear weapons, and repeated violent rhetoric against neighbouring Ukraine and especially Hungary.
 

Vuu

Banned
Only Hoxha managed it, and that's because Albania has a nice geography for that and is sorta naturally isolated

Others would just end up as Belarus OTL pretty much no matter what. Serbia fits the bill if certain decisions weren't made, keeping Slobo in power and winning all the conflicts (though America was absolutely desperate to get pliable allies in the region, otherwise they wouldn't have kvetched so hard in the first place)
 
Ceausescu makes better friends with the military and somehow has a slightly better economy in the 80s and brutally suppresses the Romanian Revolution and other uprisings against the state (i.e. Hama massacre, Tiananmen Square). He annexes Moldova following a pro-communist coup in 1992 and rigged elections and has a peaceful transition of power following his death in the 90s. Ceausescu's son Nicu doesn't drink as much so his cirrhosis holds off another 15-20 years, meanwhile, Nicu is surrounded by the right sort of people so his incompetence doesn't tank the state. Romania gets help from China, North Korea, and in the 2000s, Putin's Russia as a useful ally in the region. Romania continues its drift toward Juche-style policies economically and especially in terms of foreign relations, observing North Korea's "success". Like North Korea, they continue their nuclear program, attempting to get aid from ex-Soviet scientists and especially from North Korea. This is successful by the mid-2000s as the first Romanian nuclear test occurs several months after the first DPRK nuclear test.

Modern Romania is widely recognised as the most dangerous threat to Europe due to erratic leadership, nuclear weapons, and repeated violent rhetoric against neighbouring Ukraine and especially Hungary.

Also they never get the idea to show the TV series Dallas to the people as a way of showing off the meaningless excesses of capitalism, a lesson that came across as “Americans have lots of cool shit and it sure would be nice to have some of that here.”
 
OTL Hoxha's Albania?
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Yes!
Read the first chapter in Judith Matloff’s book “No Friends But the Mountains, dispatches from the world’s violent highlands.” It describes how the modern Albanian gov’t (post Hoxha) is still too poor to send enough police to isolated northern villages. With no confidence in modern police and courts, Albanian mountain folk still use an ancient code of conduct and blood feuds to settle disputes between families.
 
I've generally come to the conclusion that North Korea is Switzerland's evil twin, so... have Switzerland turn evil?
Switzerland turns into a communist dictatorship after the Soviet Union drives out the Nazis, which isolates itself from the rest of the block like Yugoslavia did. Swiss nuclear tests go as planned (OTL, the Swiss abandoned nukes). After 1991, the PRS is the only commie country in Europe left, and it is angry...
 
Ceausescu makes better friends with the military and somehow has a slightly better economy in the 80s and brutally suppresses the Romanian Revolution and other uprisings against the state (i.e. Hama massacre, Tiananmen Square). He annexes Moldova following a pro-communist coup in 1992 and rigged elections and has a peaceful transition of power following his death in the 90s. Ceausescu's son Nicu doesn't drink as much so his cirrhosis holds off another 15-20 years, meanwhile, Nicu is surrounded by the right sort of people so his incompetence doesn't tank the state. Romania gets help from China, North Korea, and in the 2000s, Putin's Russia as a useful ally in the region. Romania continues its drift toward Juche-style policies economically and especially in terms of foreign relations, observing North Korea's "success". Like North Korea, they continue their nuclear program, attempting to get aid from ex-Soviet scientists and especially from North Korea. This is successful by the mid-2000s as the first Romanian nuclear test occurs several months after the first DPRK nuclear test.

Modern Romania is widely recognised as the most dangerous threat to Europe due to erratic leadership, nuclear weapons, and repeated violent rhetoric against neighbouring Ukraine and especially Hungary.

I had a similar scenario in mind, with the addendum that (like North Korea) the government beings to increasingly epmphasize Romanian nationalism over communism as the state ideology (which OTL Romania was already doing in the 1980s) by emphasizing its Roman heritage, praising Vlad Tepes, and rehabilitating the Iron Guard. A particularly dystopian variant I have is Ceausescu managing to be stay alive even to the present at age 100 but acquiring various bizarre traits in his old age such as holing himself in an impregnable fortress out of paranoia, bringing back public impalement to punish dissidents, and even drinking human blood harvest from political prisoners to keep himself young.
 
So in this Alternate history challenge, how can North Korea esque hermit kingdom can be form in Europe post 1900?

Eastern Europe is fine but if possible I would prefer that the nation is in western Europe or central Europe.

Could such nation exist without too much change in history? Or is it outright ASB?
Would help If the nation was relatively homogenous. Which NK is extremly.
 
So in this Alternate history challenge, how can North Korea esque hermit kingdom can be form in Europe post 1900?

Eastern Europe is fine but if possible I would prefer that the nation is in western Europe or central Europe.

Could such nation exist without too much change in history? Or is it outright ASB?
Maybe Malta falls to some extreme regime and becomes a Mediterranian Cuba.
 
Brittany becames independent when nationalists collaborated with Nazis (they did it and Germany planned to create an independent Brittany after the war). During Overlond, Brittany changes side and helps decisively the Allies so survives with a referendum in post-war. The Nationalist Pro-Nazi Goverment, after a short democratic period to appease Allies, evolved in a semi-fascist and authoritarian nation until Jean-Marie LePen's election, that turned the country in a totalitarian state. Brittany can gain nuclear material from Libya or Iraq and create his arsenal. Today it's a sort of totalitarian and oppressive villain-nation with a major arsenal, completely dominated by the personality cult of LePen dynasty.
 
I had a similar scenario in mind, with the addendum that (like North Korea) the government beings to increasingly epmphasize Romanian nationalism over communism as the state ideology (which OTL Romania was already doing in the 1980s) by emphasizing its Roman heritage, praising Vlad Tepes, and rehabilitating the Iron Guard. A particularly dystopian variant I have is Ceausescu managing to be stay alive even to the present at age 100 but acquiring various bizarre traits in his old age such as holing himself in an impregnable fortress out of paranoia, bringing back public impalement to punish dissidents, and even drinking human blood harvest from political prisoners to keep himself young.

That would probably be inevitable, just like how North Korea is officially not a communist state. Ceausescu already called himself Conducator (like Antonescu), the whole protochronism thing, etc. Not sure about impalement though. DPRK isn't known to use traditional Korean methods of execution, they just shoot people with mortars and AA guns.
 
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