AHC: The United States and the Soviet Union both collapse

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to make the United States and the Soviet Union collapse at the end of the Cold War. This can be done in any way aside from global nuclear war and can happen at anytime after Japan surrendered in 1945.
 
How about this? For whatever reason, no New Deal happens, and the US elects a President who only makes things worse. Thus eventually leads to a mass public uprising in the spirit of 1789 France and 1917 Russia. You end up with a Communist or Socialist US.

An alternate version of World War II happens, but takes a bit longer to finish due to US economic inefficiency. It could well last up to 1950. Nukes come later than they did OTL. An alternative Cold War results similar to the Soviet-Chinese dispute, where the US and Soviet Union each argue over whose version if Socialism/Communism is best.

The Soviet Union falls first, but the US also stagnated, and a dire economic situation, up to a possible economic crash, forces capitalist reforms.
 
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Redcoat

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How about this? For whatever reason, no New Deal happens, and the US elects a President who only males things worse. Thus eventually leads to a mass public uprising in the spirit of 1789 France and 1917 Russia. You end up with a Communist or Socialist US.
Didn't Britain not go through an equivalent New Deal and do fine?
 
Didn't Britain not go through an equivalent New Deal and do fine?

Britain already had a very advanced welfare system by the standards of the time. A major New Deal reform was retirement pensions, which Britain had introduced in 1909. The population was better cushioned.

Besides, this timeline has poor economic policies make the Depression even worse in the US.
 
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Short of nuclear war, it's not plausible fr the U.S. itself to really collapse in a cold war scenario where the Soviets do too.
 
The Chinese argue the US has effectively collapsed and the 21st Century is theirs. Its just the old edifice is still standing, but rotten & hollow inside. The streets inhabited by drug addicts, millions without employment, the remnants of the middle-class barricaded in little enclaves, no effective public healthcare, absurdly incompetent politicians at the top, bloated rich sucking away the remaining wealth... I'll leave others to judge how accurate that PoV is.
 
The Chinese argue the US has effectively collapsed and the 21st Century is theirs. Its just the old edifice is still standing, but rotten & hollow inside. The streets inhabited by drug addicts, millions without employment, the remnants of the middle-class barricaded in little enclaves, no effective public healthcare, absurdly incompetent politicians at the top, bloated rich sucking away the remaining wealth... I'll leave others to judge how accurate that PoV is.
Even so, it's not a remaking of the map the way the fall of the USSR was.
 
Every time a question like this comes up, I always have a devil of a time imagining how the US could collapse.

That said, I've just spent the last few years or so trying to understand how the heck the USSR collapsed. Even when you take stock of all the weaknesses of the Soviet system, right up to the very end there were pathways to successful reform. When it comes right down to it, the Soviet system collapsed because Gorbachev and Yeltsin chose for it to collapse (though neither knew their choices would be so damaging).

So what is a plausible situation for the US where a leader would rather take a door that led to collapse than choose a door that led to the continuation of the Union?

fasquardon
 
From the PoV of many Chinese it has.

I think one can make a good case that the US is in as much of a mess as the Soviets were in the 70s. But even if the US follows up with a complete economic collapse in the next decade, if there is no break up of the Union itself, the US would still be a superpower. In economic terms, the collapse of the USSR was as bad as the great depression was for the US. But if the union between the USSR's component republics had remained under a Soviet regime or a successor regime, we'd probably still consider the state to be a superpower.

So for me at least, looking at things from a Chinese perspective doesn't meet the challenge. To meet the challenge, we'd need Texas and California succeeding from the Union, or the like.

fasquardon
 
I guess theres a fundamental difference. Or two. I can't see the US as a superpower if it can't sustain a cutting edge navy. With economic change on the same scale as the USSR/Russia experienced the USN as it needs to exist could not. That is the ability to dominate any ocean outside the US home waters would rapidly cease.

Also I don't see in the OP any requirement or implication changes in national boundaries is a requirement.
 
Well, it could be argued that one thing driving the breakup of the Soviet Union was indeed the union construct with individual national republics clamouring for independence. I mean why would e.g. the Estonian SSR not seek independence at the earliest opportunity given that the general sentiment was that they were invaded and occupied by the Russian dominated USSR?

Thus, in order for something similar to happen to the United States, you would need to have very strong independence movements in several states, maybe in combination with a corrupt and oppressive central regime. The idea of the US going communist in the 1920-1930's isn't actually a bad way to get there, though I guess a fascist movement could work as well, especially one that would emphasize the superiority of one region of the US over others. Changes in migration patterns leading to stronger regional identities or earlier attempts at statehood, like e.g. an independent Deseret or California having a spell as an independent state like Texas before joining the USA would also be helpful, but note here that we are talking about PODs in the 1800's.

I honestly find it difficult to engineer a breakup of the USA with a POD after September 1945 before 1989, because, beyond a general social malaise / economic stagnation, you would also need a weakening of the central authority and a regional drive for independence. Especially the last is difficult to do on short notice.
 
So what is a plausible situation for the US where a leader would rather take a door that led to collapse than choose a door that led to the continuation of the Union?

fasquardon

Here's my take. The Little Rock 5 are viciously attacked by a racist mob and the National Guardsmen/US Marshals with them are overwhelmed. Race relations devolve from there and things like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the VRA are never passed. The 1960s become even more violent than they already were and large scale riots rock major US cities. Disgruntled African-American Vietnam vets return home and become guerilla fighters and sections of the United States become mostly lawless. By this point (1970s), the United States has become a dictatorship and it's reputation as a bastion of freedom is in tatters.
 
The Chinese argue the US has effectively collapsed and the 21st Century is theirs. Its just the old edifice is still standing, but rotten & hollow inside. The streets inhabited by drug addicts, millions without employment, the remnants of the middle-class barricaded in little enclaves, no effective public healthcare, absurdly incompetent politicians at the top, bloated rich sucking away the remaining wealth... I'll leave others to judge how accurate that PoV is.
The Chinese aren't in that great of shape themselves. Their GDP growth is already beginning to slow and the highest echelons of the Party are extraordinarily corrupt.
 
The Chinese aren't in that great of shape themselves. Their GDP growth is already beginning to slow and the highest echelons of the Party are extraordinarily corrupt.

No argument there. I was presenting a PoV popular among many present day Chinese. They are proud of what progress their nation has made and like to think they have or can replace the US as the exceptional state for the 21st Century.
 
No argument there. I was presenting a PoV popular among many present day Chinese. They are proud of what progress their nation has made and like to think they have or can replace the US as the exceptional state for the 21st Century.

I have no doubt this will happen to some degree since the US has ceded it's world leadership position unnecessarily (Thanks, Trump!). We're moving towards a multi-polar world.
 
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