AHC: exactly flip Reagan and Carter.

And here's an example of the type of advancement for the Third World which we may have missed:

Angolan tail wagging the Portuguese dog
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...gging-the-portuguese-dog.319993/#post-9365594

Okay, as far as industry and natural resources in Angola, the Portuguese are going to pay lip service that they are quite willing and ready to promote Angolan engineers and managers 'as soon as they are ready.' So let's take a flight of fancy . . . the woman who's the leader of Angola in the 1920s realizes this is the key, and she skillfully and patiently takes Portugal up on the offer and matter-of-factly maneuvers the situation so that the Portuguese pretty much have to follow through. She also realizes the shelf life for a leader is about ten years, and so she works on the most important decision of her career which is getting a good successor. Plus, plenty of her ministers and deputy ministers are committed to the goal of Angolans running their own industries.

And then next . . . (and you write this part :))
That if the lion's share of the rivalry between the United States and Soviet Union had been on who can better trade with and assist Third World countries with genuine economic development, we'd live in a far different world. Many countries may have had trade deals with both superpowers. For starters, globalization would have come decades earlier.
 
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and more of what we missed . . .

DBWI: Kennedy cancelled Orion?
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...y-cancelled-orion.348065/page-2#post-10515330


I'd just add the economic development timeline that made the whole thing possible. For example, in Guatemala the United States supported memory chip manufacturing in the early '70s and the Soviet Union supported a successful and growing tractor factor. This is a small example I happen to know about because a member of my family worked in Guatemala, but these medium-scale projects were repeated over and over in the former third world.

Nigeria is a bigger and much better known example with the U.S. and USSR competing on infrastructue development for Nigeria's oil resources. At first the USSR seemed to be ahead, including admitting more Nigerian students to Soviet universities. Then the U.S. hit upon the idea of admitting significant numbers of older students with leadership and life experience. It was only one semester before the Soviets partially matched and two semesters before fully matching this effort, but that seemed to be enough time for the U.S. to pull ahead. The Soviets then kept their close second position and added pharmaceutics, building on their health efforts throughout Africa. And as a sidenote, it was about this time in the early '70s when activists first began questioning and exposing the former Nestle Corp. (now Gallitin) and their slick marketing of infant formula. This could have played out where Swiss citizens rallied round their company; instead, the majority seemed to rather feel that the company was embarrassing the nation.

From flirting dangerously close to nuclear war in '62, we have had quite a half century!
 
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