AHC: Make "The Grasshopper Lies Heavy" happen

As many of us know, the Third Reich never had the sort of industrial power or logistics to launch Sealion successfully, let alone a trans-Atlantic invasion, nullifying the plausibility of The Man in the High Castle, which isn't even its point.

But that's not what this thread is about.

In-universe, a (banned) novel, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, propounds what the inhabitants of conquered America interpret OTL would be like. To quote the Wiki article:
The Grasshopper Lies Heavy postulates that President Roosevelt survives an assassination attempt but forgoes re-election in 1940, honoring George Washington's two-term limit. The next president, Rexford Tugwell, removes the Pacific fleet from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, saving it from Japanese attack, which ensures that the US enters the conflict a well-equipped naval power. The United Kingdom retains most of its military-industrial strength, contributing more to the Allied war effort, leading to Rommel's defeat in North Africa; the British advance through the Caucasus to fight alongside the Soviets to victory in the Battle of Stalingrad; Italy reneges on its membership in the Axis Powers and betrays them; British tanks and the Red Army jointly conquer Berlin; at the end of the war, the Nazi leaders—including Adolf Hitler—are tried for their war crimes; the Führer's last words are Deutsche, hier steh' ich ("Germans, here I stand"), in imitation of Martin Luther.

After the war, Winston Churchill remains the UK's leader and because of its military-industrial might, the British Empire does not collapse; the US establishes strong business relations with Chiang Kai-shek's right-wing regime in China, after vanquishing the Communist Mao Zedong. The British Empire becomes racist and more expansionist post-war, while the US outlaws Jim Crow, resolving its racism by the 1950s. Both changes provoke racial-cultural tensions between the US and the UK, leading them to a Cold War for global hegemony between the two vaguely liberal, democratic, capitalist societies. Although the end of the novel is never depicted in the text, one character claims the book ends with the British Empire eventually defeating the US, becoming the world superpower.

To what extent are these conclusions plausible, and how would we get around to such an outcome?
 
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Highly unlikely to see it come to fruition, especially as described in the book. By World War II, the British Empire was already lagging well behind the US in many areas and several colonies and dominions were already looking to establishing themselves away from British influence. You'd need a very different 20th century to get anything resembling this.
 
If there's no fleet in PH, why would Japan attack it? If there's no reason to attack PH, what do the Japanese do?

British going up the Caucasus? Becoming racist after a war against a racist regime?
 
well quite. A sucessful surviving british empire would have to be less racist or less powerful, both can not be achieved as the structure could not remain a front rank power if maintained by force.
 
Highly unlikely to see it come to fruition, especially as described in the book. By World War II, the British Empire was already lagging well behind the US in many areas and several colonies and dominions were already looking to establishing themselves away from British influence. You'd need a very different 20th century to get anything resembling this.
Is there any way of preventing the degeneration of British power with a PoD of 1933?

well quite. A sucessful surviving british empire would have to be less racist or less powerful, both can not be achieved as the structure could not remain a front rank power if maintained by force.

If there's no fleet in PH, why would Japan attack it? If there's no reason to attack PH, what do the Japanese do?

British going up the Caucasus? Becoming racist after a war against a racist regime?

Well, just because one goes to war with a racist power doesn't mean that racism is somehow instantly cured at home. There were definitely paternalistic strains and lobbies in postwar Britain, and xenophobia's still a big problem in some parts. Could there not be factors to drive up paranoia and the perceived need to hold on to their colonial resources?
 
Is there any way of preventing the degeneration of British power with a PoD of 1933?

Avoid World War II. Even then, India's going to want out sooner or later and that was the lynchpin of the British position in the East. Canada, Australia and New Zealand are probably going to lean more towards US if it ever came down to a Cold War scenario anyhow.
 
So we're basically saying that the sketched-out backstory by a guy who wasn't a military expert, writing 17 years after WW2 when some colonial empires still existed and with less historical knowledge than we do, isn't entirely plausible? ;)
 

Ryan

Donor
rough outline (probably unrealistic)

ww2 goes the way of blunted sickle, with Germany being defeated by Britain and France alone with the two essentially becoming joined at the hip.

tube alloys succeeds giving Britain (and by extension France) sole (for now) control of nuclear weapons in the world.

the soviets get rowdy in eastern Europe, leading to a war with Britain and France who use nukes to subdue the soviet union and win a quick victory.

a Franco-British led EU is created (which include a democratic Russian state) with European colonies gradually gaining independence but with euro-friendly regimes and also joining the EU preventing any American influence to penetrate Africa/Asia
 
Off the top of my head though, Grasshopper takes place in the "present" (i.e. 1962) so Britain's victory might not last too long. Was it specifically said to be a beat-em-up victory or vaguely that we won? If the latter, maybe we come out ahead by reducing the US's overseas trade. Bribes, dirty dealing, and MI6-backed coups* mixed with protectionist tariffs within the Empire/Commonwealth, bottling up America in the short term.

It doesn't have to be sustainable, just the status quo in '62.

* And MI6 would have the edge over the nascent CIA (or whatever it's called here) in experience and reach
 
What if the war in the East goes devolves into a bloody stalemate in 1942; the Germans don't have the strength to win a decisive victory, and massive attrition is causing the Soviet officer corps to deteriorate? The Soviets slowly push the Germans back, but they haven't reclaimed all their prewar territory by the time the second front opens, so their position at the negotiating table after the war isn't as strong; if Britain could extract a good indemnity, would they have the strength to stabilize the imperial situation after the war?
 
Thing with Caucasus: that seems doable. Commonwealth forces could march up from Iran. In this timeline, we have more industrial force after all.

That brings us back to how the hell we do!
 
Thing with Caucasus: that seems doable. Commonwealth forces could march up from Iran. In this timeline, we have more industrial force after all.

That brings us back to how the hell we do!

EdT's fantastic timeline: A Greater Britain?

It seems like that doesn't quite match up to Post-WW2 expansionist UK eventually defeating the USA, though...
 
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