The challenge is to make the United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal hold their post-WW2 empires (at least with the same extent as OTL 1960s, as seen in the map below) to the 21st century, with the POD no earlier than 1939.
Well, I said the POD could be as early as 1939.All of it? With OTL's WWII, that might be rather difficult, probably impossible.
I've been thinking about this. How about a somewhat more successful Barbarossa, but in the end the Nazis were still kicked by Red Army...but the Soviets have been weakened enough so that it collapsed in 1950s...?But vast tracts of territory populated by people who hate them and who now see they're vulnerable, with the Soviets willing to stir the pot?
Kuwait and the Trucial States were, I don't think, ever ruled directly, but rather as protectorates, so its fairly easy to keep them under the umbrella as it were.
Well, at least we don't have to pay for it now.The only thing you need to keep Suriname Dutch is having someone else then that idiot Den Uyl be Prime-Minister. Suriname was basically kicked out of the Kingdom.
You missed one colonial empire Belgium.
Well, at least we don't have to pay for it now.
This is ASB. There is no reason and no money to do this if the Second World War goes even remotely like that of our timeline.
This is somewhat easy for the Dutch. You need either a PoD that weakens the cohesion of Indonesia after 1949 (so that Indonesia isn't a threat to West Papua) or a POD that butterflies away the Pacific War or atleast the occupation of the DEI.
The only thing you need to keep Suriname Dutch is having someone else then that idiot Den Uyl be Prime-Minister. Suriname was basically kicked out of the Kingdom.
How about the "Soviets collapsed much earlier" TL and then United States somehow supports colonialism...?
Err, what?The surviving colonial empires will increase Soviet influence, not diminish it
American help might be useful, and like wietze suggested, having an American president who in favor of European countries keeping their colonies might be even more helpful.so you'd have to end the USSR during the war. However, if that happened, the costs involved would only speed up decolonization anyway.
As for Suriname, supposedly the vote for independence was even rigged so the outcome would be a yes. (thanks to American pressure).
Err, what?
My theory is the other way around: the lack of Soviet influence would be resulted into surviving colonial empires.
American help might be useful, and like wietze suggested, having an American president who in favor of European countries keeping their colonies might be even more helpful.