ASBs in the real World

Ok, so use&misuse of the term ASB aside, I'm pretty sure this thread is meant to be about (seemingly) very unlikely events that have occured in OTL anyway.

On that note:

- Obama (I can't believe I'm the first one to say this)
- The relatively peaceful fall of the Soviet Empire- there were signs, sure, but very very few have actually foreseen a total collapse of communism & the dissolution of the Soviet Union
- America losing the Vietnam War- who would've thought, really?
- Partition of India- this one's just a shot in the dark, I don't know much about the subject, but it was a pretty close call
- The State of Israel- it might have been inevitable long before ww2, but imagine politicians in mid-19th century seriously accounting for the possibility
 
- Obama (I can't believe I'm the first one to say this)

Especially if you brought him up in either 1996 (before he was ever in politics) and described him as an 'author and university constitutional scholar' or in 2001 when you described him as a 'unknown state legislator with the middle name Hussein who had trouble even getting to the 2000 Democratic National Convention'.

His actual presidency (one catastrophe after another in his first year in office) and the 2012 re-election campaign would just elicit further calls of "Oh, come on now!". ;)
 
Just consider the basis behind most conspiracy theories: "That CAN'T have possibly happened like that!"

The president is riding along in a parade and he gets plinked by a disgruntled ex marine?

Nineteen guys armed with boxcutters - BOXCUTTERS - hijack four airplanes and destroy the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center?

Tensions are high. War could break out at any moment, and we've mislaid the entire Japanese fleet. Ah hell, it's Sunday. Everybody stand down, nobody would attack on a weekend.
 
MAny occurances COULD be influenced by aliens - just NO one has seen them, so ANY historical event COULD be ASB by definition of ASB :rolleyes:

You might call AH himself ASB. A madman who (as politician) meddles directly in military decision. Wins a few insignificant campaigns (in the long run insignificant) - his generals who were first reluctant begin to think he is a military genius, but he blunders every time it really counts ;) - if you had told this story BEFORE it came true everyone would have considered it ASB...
 
.....snip.....
Tensions are high. War could break out at any moment, and we've mislaid the entire Japanese fleet. Ah hell, it's Sunday. Everybody stand down, nobody would attack on a weekend.

No! As far as the Japanese were concerned it was Monday and they wanted to get to work early.
 
Here are other interesting Real World ASBs in military history:

1. Bolsheviks took power in Russia and founded a communist superpower in the following decades
2. World War One ended suddenly in 1918 while Germany was still occupying all Eastern Europe, Belgium and Northern France
3. A failed painter and former Nco called Adolf Hitler took power in Germany
4. Hitler's Germany invaded Norway despite North Sea was controlled by an overwhelming British fleet
5. Hitler's Germany invaded France and defeated it in just few weeks
6. Hitler's Germany invaded Crete without a fleet in the Mediterranean Sea
7. Japan destroys the 2/3 of US Fleet in Pearl Harbour using only airplanes
8. US won a protracted naval conflict against Japan, despite Pearl Harbour
9. US incinerated two cities using only two bombs, whose mechanism was just a theory in physics 4 years before
10. Two rival superpowers, Ussr ad Usa, menaced each other for 40 years, but war never broke out and then Ussr fell peacefully

All those events were considered ASBs. Until they happened.
 

hammo1j

Donor
Ok, so use&misuse of the term ASB aside, I'm pretty sure this thread is meant to be about (seemingly) very unlikely events that have occured in OTL anyway.

Thanks. That is a completely objective description that perhaps I should have used, but I agree with posters who point out that the term of ASB has evolved over the life of the forum to have 2 meanings.

1. Requiring powers that are not available in this universe eg Time Travel.
2. That a scenario is so reliant on co-incidence or fortune that, though possible, the probability of occurrence is so low as to render further discussion fruitless. There is the implicit message that AH forum deals only with plausible scenarios.

I was thinking about building an alternate history simulator that works on the lines of the game 'Risk'.

ASB scenario would be you have 10 armies left on Kamchatka and your opponent occupies the remainder of the world.

The computer would play 1,000,000 of simulations throwing an internal die and find out how many times Kamchatka triumphed.

Less than 10,000 times would be improbable.

Of course the real world is more complex but this type of modelling could be applied to battlefield warfare and perhaps a figure calculated for Kursk.
 
The most ASB scenario IOTL that i have seen is "Texas defeats Mexico and earns the independence because the Mexican leader was sleeping the 'siesta'"...

Farther back, the conquest of the Inca empire is quite ASB. The conquest of the Aztec empire only looks like ASB if you only look at the numbers, but the disaffection of the subjected peoples made it very possible.
 

hammo1j

Donor
Here are other interesting Real World ASBs in military history:
10. Two rival superpowers, Ussr ad Usa, menaced each other for 40 years, but war never broke out and then Ussr fell peacefully

All those events were considered ASBs. Until they happened.


Great point: Gorbachov was once asked what would have happened if he hadnt been in power. "The USSR would still be there"
 
All German monarchies fall within a matter of days, and no member of the royal, ducal etc. pp. families is harmed at all.
 

hammo1j

Donor
A band that couldnt even play before they went to Hamburg

A band that George Martin took pity on. (He didn't think they were any good but he liked them)

A band that released "Love Me Do 50 years ago" which most commentators regarded as a dirge.

Going on to become the greatest band of all time...
 
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