Bush vs. The Axis of Evil - TL

[MagicalPhantom345]

This is roughly the word count I wanted when I started writing the timeline, so iI'm relatively happy with that. I'll add a little bit in the book, yes. We'll be heading very close to current politics after 2012, so adding those details in book format would be the best bet. If I have a lot of Pre 2012 US election material to get through, I may decide to add another chapter on the site here to spread things out - I wouldn't want to add a 10k word chapter.

Then I hope it sells. And I will be sure to purchase one

 

[Whiteshore]

Brought along to the American negotiation team was honorary member of the Harlem Globetrotters, Henry Kissinger [1], summoning all the good will he had left in China to try and calm the Politburo down. This greatly angered many of Wellstone’s base given Kissinger’s involvement in some of America’s darkest actions during the Cold War, but Wellstone was conscious of the upcoming election and was desperate to continue his mandate of keeping America at peace. Wellstone was also angry at Seoul, however, as not only had the ROK undermined its reputation by refusing to give a path to citizenship for the North Koreans, but they had picked an otherwise suicidal fight against China in the expectation of American support. American appetite to defend Korea was deeply divided, with polls suggesting a partisan split with Republicans eager to defend the Koreans and Democrats not wanting to send more Americans to die, let alone against a nuclear power. Wellstone would pointedly relay this fact to Seoul and would refuse to publicly commit to defend South Korea anywhere north of the former DMZ, implying he might be okay with Chinese actions to seize the rest of the former North Korea. Wellstone was hardly over the moon at this (he would later claim outside of office that he probably would have intervened even if the fighting was just in the former North) but Wellstone thought it necessary to calm the South Koreans down, especially when their nightly news was dominated by videos of lynchings and flag burnings in China. Mercifully, Wellstone’s Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, had structured his campaign entirely around Wellstone’s economic policies, leaving him ill-equipped to strike on foreign policy. Romney even cancelled campaigning during the height of the crisis, a fact Wellstone would hit back on Romney in subsequent debates as it implied Romney was confident in what he was doing. Unfortunately for the Romney-Palin ticket, the truth about Jon Edwards would not come out until the election was over.

On August 25th, one day after the Olympics concluded, the athletes worried all the while that they were about to be at ground-zero of a war between the West and China, South Korea and China would make an official de-escalation pledge, with both parties rescinding their troop numbers in North Korea while South Korea pledged to be ‘more objective’ about the claims coming out of the mouth of Kim Jong-Il in relation to China. No agreement was reached on a return of ambassadors - to this day, the two countries have not exchanged ambassadors since the 2008 Olympics. South Korea was also forced into a half-hearted apology for violating Chinese sovereignty while still keeping Kim in his cell for trial. To the anger of many in the Politburo, Hu did not insist on no death sentence being placed on Kim. Hu was furious at Kim for accusing him of orchestrating the War and actually wanted Kim to die for the slander he’d smeared him with (in addition to exposing the real collaboration between China and North Korea), while the rest of the Politburo felt it utterly emasculated China on the world stage. This, ultimately, would be the last straw for the hardliners when it came to Hu, and the world was about to enter a monumentally more dangerous phase.

Exceedingly rare Henry Kissinger W, for he might have saved the world from WW3 ITTL.

 

[arrowiv]

I forgot we did not mention Jeb Bush in this TL. After what happened to his older brother Junior, the best we can see for Jeb would be something like baseball commissioner. As for the Neocons, let's hope they never again work in government, especially a future Republican administration. Any thoughts?

 

[Whiteshore]

I forgot we did not mention Jeb Bush in this TL. After what happened to his older brother Junior, the best we can see for Jeb would be something like baseball commissioner. As for the Neocons, let's hope they never again work in government, especially a future Republican administration. Any thoughts?

Well, be careful what you wish for. And speaking of which, I am betting that aside from the 2012 Elections, TTL’s Arab Spring would very much be a big thing this TL would discuss.

 

[Judge Dredd34]

@Sorairo Why is Paul Wellstone being blamed for the John Edwards scandal when he didn’t want or ask for this vice president? He was basically saddled with a second choice pick by the Democrats, and told that he had to take him despite reservations. This just vindicates my belief that if he picked an ethnic minority as a vice president, it would have saved him a lot of grief. Also what if he didn’t have John Edward as a vice president, would he still be a lame duck president in his second term?

 

[AlgarveChuro]

What is this scandal anyway? Is this the guy who faked a purple heart and did a little trolling on Vietnam civilians or am I thinking of someone else?

Also I wouldn't say that the US went full Isolationist after the GWOT here. More like a partial isolationism, which is why they are coming back so soon.

Regarding Poland and Nukes, maybe they just built a really shitty nuke just so they can say they technically have nukes? For a deterent to scare off a possible invasion even a nuclear firecracker of 5kt would do. They can use the time it would buy to make a actual decent nuke later.

 

[TickTock The Witch's Dead]

Putin's successful invasion of Ukraine is really going to set up something really nasty in Europe for sure. Especially if Putin is emboldened to do something like, for example, stop Kosovo's secession.

 

[Whiteshore]

Regarding Poland and Nukes, maybe they just built a really shitty nuke just so they can say they technically have nukes? For a deterent to scare off a possible invasion even a nuclear firecracker of 5kt would do. They can use the time it would buy to make a actual decent nuke later.

Especially as the 2006 North Korean nuclear test was around this same yield.

 

[Lalli]

What is this scandal anyway? Is this the guy who faked a purple heart and did a little trolling on Vietnam civilians or am I thinking of someone else?

In OTL Edwards cheated his wife who was dying on cancer and got child outside of marriage.

Also I wouldn't say that the US went full Isolationist after the GWOT here. More like a partial isolationism, which is why they are coming back so soon.

Yeah. Saying that USA is isolationist is pretty much. It is just lesser interventionist.

Regarding Poland and Nukes, maybe they just built a really shitty nuke just so they can say they technically have nukes? For a deterent to scare off a possible invasion even a nuclear firecracker of 5kt would do. They can use the time it would buy to make a actual decent nuke later.

Poland indeed got nuke pretty quickly.

 

[Sorairo]

@Sorairo Why is Paul Wellstone being blamed for the John Edwards scandal when he didn’t want or ask for this vice president? He was basically saddled with a second choice pick by the Democrats, and told that he had to take him despite reservations. This just vindicates my belief that if he picked an ethnic minority as a vice president, it would have saved him a lot of grief. Also what if he didn’t have John Edward as a vice president, would he still be a lame duck president in his second term?

That Edwards was a compromise pick would only really be known to political aficionados - to the low-info voter, Edwards was the guy who was always seen beside Wellstone, tarring him by association.

 

[Sorairo]

Putin's successful invasion of Ukraine is really going to set up something really nasty in Europe for sure. Especially if Putin is emboldened to do something like, for example, stop Kosovo's secession.

I'm not really sure how he could do that, seeing as he'd have to go through NATO states to do it.

I'll have to make sure there's an update on Kosovo and Transnistria anyway in the next update.

 

[TickTock The Witch's Dead]

I'm not really sure how he could do that, seeing as he'd have to go through NATO states to do it.

I'll have to make sure there's an update on Kosovo and Transnistria anyway in the next update.

I can see him fund Serbian military forces, though I wasn't aware that there's a UN/NATO mission there so I agree that Putin might not be able to do shit because of it.

 

[Cascadiawank]

With all due respect, no, not both. First of all, the author seems to have already mentioned that the nuclear program began after the occupation of Ukraine. Plus, no matter what costs it would incur, it could and would be suspended by the reluctant Polish government. This was already the case with nuclear power plants in the 1970s, shipyards and coal mines.

Okay, yeah, fair enough.

Secondly, you probably have less knowledge about Polish politics than me and certainly too much optimism if you think that SLD would stay in power until 2010. Factors in the Rywin affair were already in motion, so it had to leak out.

No, I didn't mean that SLD stays in power for that long. For one, that's just directly against the stated facts of the timeline, and for two, I agree that they wouldn't be able to hold on to power that long. I expressed hope that they retake power in a later election. But I am willing to acknowledge my naïveté.

And honestly? Currently, it seems to me that Law and Justice was more democratic and law-abiding than today's Tusk government. But this is only the observer's vision.

I regret to inform you, that vision is wrong. I'm not sure how much I can divulge without admins yelling "GO TO CHAT", but having lived through the 8 years (from 2015 to 2023) of systematic dismantling of the rule of law, ceaseless propaganda and hate speech pouring out of government-owned media, complete ruination of our military and diplomacy, and corruption that puts the 1990s to shame, all under Law and Justice, I am confident in saying that Tusk is, and has always been, the lesser of two evils.

 

[arrowiv]

This is one amazing TL I have been enjoying and I see the potential for similar spin-offs in the form of short stories/small TLs similar to the Protect and Survive universe here. One short story could be on the Second Greatest Generation, which would examine the post-war lives of those who fought in the Wars on Terror and another one on the lives of the Kims in Cuba, one of the last-true believers. I wonder how their life would be like living in a beach-front villa?
As for the trial of Kim in Seoul, there would be many prosecution witnesses, especially from the North and Japan. I can include former commando turned Presbyterian minister Reverend Kim Shin Jo, who took part in the 1968 Blue House raid fiasco (which resulted in the capture of the USS Pueblo immediately thereafter), former abductees from the South and Japan, and other ordinary NK folk. What about on the murder of Kim's brother in law as well?

 

[Whiteshore]

One short story could be on the Second Greatest Generation, which would examine the post-war lives of those who fought in the Wars on Terror and another one on the lives of the Kims in Cuba, one of the last-true believers. I wonder how their life would be like living in a beach-front villa?

Kim Yo-Jong supposedly has a degree on Computer Science IOTL, so that could be something she could pursue further in Cuban exile, with a possible cursed image being of her as a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Havana.

 

[Asasyn13]

I regret to inform you, that vision is wrong. I'm not sure how much I can divulge without admins yelling "GO TO CHAT", but having lived through the 8 years (from 2015 to 2023) of systematic dismantling of the rule of law, ceaseless propaganda and hate speech pouring out of government-owned media, complete ruination of our military and diplomacy, and corruption that puts the 1990s to shame, all under Law and Justice, I am confident in saying that Tusk is, and has always been, the lesser of two evils.

Apart from all the other matters that I cannot honestly comment on due to lack of knowledge, what do you mean about the ruin of the army and diplomacy? From where I'm sitting and from the information I have, it's a bit inconsistent and debatable. The Polish army began to modernize under the Law and Justice party, while its predecessors destroyed it (withdrawal of units from the east, purchase of ill-fated equipment like H225M Caracal), and foreign policy saw a turn in favor of America and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe at the expense of the EU, France and Germany ( something that will probably also happen in this TLL and much earlier, looking at the last chapter).

 

[Whiteshore]

With the rise of the Moonies to such new heights, what could be an interesting question to ponder would be how Falun Gong is doing ITTL, @Sorairo, especially with the Second Cold War and all that? While nothing good is probably happening to those members of Falun Going in Mainland China, what I am interested in would be its position amongst "diaspora" Chinese and perception in the West (and Japan/Korea/Southeast Asia) here with their persecution of the CCP and all that.

 

[Sorairo]

With the rise of the Moonies to such new heights, what could be an interesting question to ponder would be how Falun Gong is doing ITTL, @Sorairo, especially with the Second Cold War and all that? While nothing good is probably happening to those members of Falun Going in Mainland China, what I am interested in would be its position amongst "diaspora" Chinese and perception in the West (and Japan/Korea/Southeast Asia) here with their persecution of the CCP and all that.

China is moving into its totalitarian turn earlier, and the Falun Gong itself is making alliances with the Moonies given they support similar politics, especially for the United States.

 

[Whiteshore]

China is moving into its totalitarian turn earlier, and the Falun Gong itself is making alliances with the Moonies given they support similar politics, especially for the United States.

Speaking of China, with how Bo Xilai's downfall was in 2012 IOTL, maybe he could be someone who ITTL has more prominence than he had IOTL?

 

[Cascadiawank]

Apart from all the other matters that I cannot honestly comment on due to lack of knowledge, what do you mean about the ruin of the army and diplomacy? From where I'm sitting and from the information I have, it's a bit inconsistent and debatable. The Polish army began to modernize under the Law and Justice party, while its predecessors destroyed it (withdrawal of units from the east, purchase of ill-fated equipment like H225M Caracal), and foreign policy saw a turn in favor of America and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe at the expense of the EU, France and Germany ( something that will probably also happen in this TLL and much earlier, looking at the last chapter).

So, on the topic of military: first off, about the Caracals, the main grievance was, from what I have heard, that Macierewicz breaking off the deal resulted in costing Poland a lot more money, and getting new helicopters much later and fewer than if we had just continued on with the deal. I'm not a military expert, so I have to admit I don't know how good they actually are. Secondly, in probably one of the more infamous moments of his tenure as Defence Minister he ordered what was essentially a break-in into a NATO counterintelligence center in Warsaw back in 2016, hurting the trust between Polish gov't and NATO. IIRC he also released the names of at least some of our military intelligence agents, which obviously had a very damaging effect on what used to be one of the best intelligence forces in Eastern Europe. Also there are accusations of him being tied to Russian interests, but I will not make a comment on those as I am underinformed about them (I mean, I believe them, but it's not a hill I want to defend).
Błaszczak was better, there at least no accusations of being a Russian asset made against him, and army modernization did pick up under him, but he was not free from the general corruption that slowed it down. And, because I can't be seen giving him too much praise, I have to mention the incident when in late 2022 Russia sent a dummy missile (i.e. one with no explosive charge) that landed near Bydgoszcz, and the government failed to inform anyone about it, and they failed to find the missile too until months later it was randomly found by a civilian. So, in summary, while perhaps total ruination was a hyperbolic statement on my part, I stand by the opinion that it was not a good time for our military until around 2022.

As for diplomacy: It was not a pivot towards America, it was a pivot towards the Trump administration. When Biden won our relations with America markedly worsened (did you know it took weeks for our President to actually congratulate Biden on his victory? And that after the Trump-appointed ambassador to Warsaw left, we wouldn't approve a replacement until February 2022?), and to this day Law and Justice is very much more friendly with the GOP than the Dems, when the previous governments got along with DC just fine regardless of if the White House or Congress was red or blue. What you call a turn in favor of East and Central Europe at the expense of EU I call burning bridges, but more importantly major figures from the party, including Prime Minister Morawiecki, met with openly pro-Russian politicians like Marine Le Pen, Matteo Salvini, Santiago Abascal, and Viktor Orbán as late as December 2021 when our gov't had already received American intel that Russia was going to invade Ukraine. Fundamentally, that government did not care about diplomacy, and all actions taken on the foreign front were performative, meant to shore up domestic support. We can have a fruitful discussion about the merits of the diplomatic pivot you have described, but fundamentally that's not what Law and Justice did. What they did was buddy up to fellow Putinists in hopes of building a block that will defend them from EU scrutiny and excite their base. And now we have finally returned to a diplomatic policy that is interested in doing actual diplomacy, rather than securing the interests of one party.

At least I can console myself with the idea that the changes in TTL are so far gone, Lech Kaczyński's disastrous flight to Smolensk will not happen. At least he had a conscience, unlike his twin brother, so maybe in TTL he will temper Jarosław's worst instincts. I hope.