For Afghanistan, who would be better to off early to provide for a more developed Afghanistan? Nur Muhammad Taraki or Mohammed Daoud Khan?
Best monarch or head of state to kill off early for a more prosperous future
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I wouldn't put really much of blame on Willy. WW1 was going to start even without him. And even if you manage to avoid that in 1914, it probably would break out later.
And even killing Willy and avoiding WW1 not mean world peace. We should either change human nature completely or wipe humanity off during Ice Age.
Perhaps Mohammed Daoud Khan but not sure if killing him avoids revolution and throwing Afghanistan to endless misery.
? I thought Vietnam was about stopping communism.
It took place in the same time the USA was supporting random dictators all over the world in the name of stopping communism after all...
As an American, this is actually tricky since bad Presidents almost always have terrible Vice Presidents, so I'll suggest Bill Clinton of natural causes in late 1999 or early 2000, Gore becomes President and the pseudo-incumbency is enough to make him win the general election in 2000.
Not particularly? The problem is that despite Edward II's poor performance, the plausible alternatives aren't appreciably better no matter when you kill him off. He didn't die naturally OTL to begin with. Before Edward III was born, the heir was Thomas of Brotherton, who was supposedly ill-tempered and exercised poor judgement in marriage politics.
Once Edward III is born, there's a chance at a regency, but... Isabella doesn't exactly inspire confidence. Her regime with Mortimer was almost as bad as Edward II's was OTL. Moreover, there's no guarantee Edward III ends up as competent as he was OTL without his OTL upbringing. An Edward III raised without the influence of his father could be a completely different person. Despite being somewhat complicit in the coup to usurp his father, Edward II was writing to his son quite frequently, asking him to obey his father. Whether Edward III's proactivity in deposing Mortimer and Isabella comes down to guilt/loyalty to his father, or just frustration at being left out of governance is hard to say. Could be a little of column A and a little of column B.
It's possible things could turn out better, but I'm not confident about it.
OTOH, Taraki IMO would be better to kill off early with how his Khalq regime was notable for how its repressive policies and radical break with the past led to large-scale insurrection that would produce the mujahideen.
Not a monarch or head of state, but I would pick Robert Clive. Kill him, and there is no successful East India Company, which means India does not become a colony of Britain, which again means a diminished British Empire in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Had James Buchanan died in office, Breckenridge was probably a man of greater ability, though on the wrong side of history. I'm not sure it's better or worse, but certainly interesting.
One of the cool facts about him, was that one of his pre senate drinking buddies was an Illinois lawyer by the name of Lincoln.
raharris1973
Gone Fishin'
Cixi was a three years dead corpse by the time of the double-ten Republican uprising of 1911. You would need an earlier uprising to catch fire to force Sun Yat-sen and Cixi to be co-workers.
Well Im not opposed to necromancy but since this isnt ASB I guess Ill have to agree
As an American, probably Andrew Jackson. Was his VP Martin Van Buren a good president? Not really. But at least he didn't try and destroy the national bank and attempt genocide on Native Americans.
As bad as the relocations were, one could argue that the other viable option at the time (doing nothing) would have just resulted in the Indians being chased out anyway, but in a more disorganized fashion, with the individual states taking charge of the effort instead of the national government.
Being proactive was in the cards. Jackson showed himself to be fine with heavy-handed measures in the Nullification Crisis (and also using the army to round up Cherokee), and it's not like Jackson had to pass a law through Congress, just do his duty and enforce Worcester v. Georgia.
Admittedly, Calhoun would also be horrible, and van Buren was Jackson-lite, albeit with a better stance on slavery.
Edit: That's an issue with a lot of these proposed deaths. In many cases, the replacements will be people politically and ideologically similar to the original head of state, barring actually insane or uniquely incompetent leaders.
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I find that doubtful, the "indians" won in the court and so long there was a president who was amicable or at very least neutral it's very unlikely the states would have been as belligerant as Jackson was without support from either the courts or the Federal Government
It was Jackson completely disregarding the decision and not only siding with the states who wanted to do it but going there himself - "Let the judge enforce his rule" - that led to it being as bad as it was
wel no Daoud no coup against the monarch wich managed to balance us/ussr and stay neutral and turn afghanistan into a fairly modern constitutional monarchy at the time.
and probably no communist coup since he repressed the left and tryd to reduce dependence on the USSR when he took over
no USSR in afghanistan would be a pretty big butterfly to for the rotw
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Wouldn't this lead the US to try to encourage Zia Ul-Haq to invade Afghanistan with some idiotic excuse to force the King to be pro-USA?
This would have the advantage (for the US) that it would appear to be just a Pakistan-Afghanistan conflict (and would naturally allow Zia to ask for American support and the US to provide it while preventing the USSR from talking about the US as the aggressor for this.
Seems really counterproductive idea. Better to keep the country as somehow friendly neutral nation than make that enemy even if USA is not directly involved.
I agree that would be a very bad idea, but in the Cold War climate it was common to make those kinds of shitty decisions. In order to "win" the other it was considered right to do the kind of nonsense that in other circumstances would make you say "God, we are NOT going to do that, are you crazy?". After all, the USSR invaded Afghanistan even if was a bad idea too.