Challenge: 4 way cold war

USA, USSR, British Empire, and a Germany I think?

Is this possible?

Could there be a four way cold war between anyone else?

Government in Britain completely ignores BoP, switches sides to Germany to scoop up French colonies, thereby controlling most of Africa (not giving German colonies back is where the cold war tension is)

Enlarged germany gets continental control it wants.

USA needs something to kick start it's production to be cold war material. Unsure what.
 
That seems implausible, the British Empire and USA would be too similar to not be natural allies. A Nazi-USA-USSR-China cold war would be more likely.
 
That seems implausible, the British Empire and USA would be too similar to not be natural allies.
Quite the opposite, they were natural foes.
It is quite easy to see possible frictions e.g. on the matters of influence over Canada and over Australia.
OTL was not an alliance but rather a surrender.
It could be that it was the best option at the time, but this does not change the fact that UK basically abdicated to his power, passing the sceptre to USA
 
Quite the opposite, they were natural foes.
It is quite easy to see possible frictions e.g. on the matters of influence over Canada and over Australia.
OTL was not an alliance but rather a surrender.
It could be that it was the best option at the time, but this does not change the fact that UK basically abdicated to his power, passing the sceptre to USA

The UK never surrendered, it merely faced strategic and economic realities.

If the two superpowers of the world were only the Empire and the USA then this could be possible. However with two other superpowers in the mix, it's common sense that the two superpowers with the same ideology and language unite to form one bloc.
 
UK&USA-USSR-France-China
UK and USA were natural allies of course.
Assuming a PoD after WW2, then France could be lead by an isolationist DeGaulle and the USSR and China were enemies after the spilt, resulting in a four way cold war.
 

Typo

Banned
This doesn't really work

Once you have 4 powers, then it's traditional great power diplomacy rather than cold war
 
UK&USA-USSR-France-China
UK and USA were natural allies of course.
Assuming a PoD after WW2, then France could be lead by an isolationist DeGaulle and the USSR and China were enemies after the spilt, resulting in a four way cold war.

France won't have the umph after the end of WWII to be counted in the same tier as all of the above. Their colonies will be slipping out of their hands and they would have had a nasty war to rebuild from, with all of that on their plate it won't happen. You'd need a PoD somewhere in the 18th century for France to reach Superpower status by the 20th.
 
This doesn't really work

Once you have 4 powers, then it's traditional great power diplomacy rather than cold war

Then we need them all to be opposing ideologies.

Communism/Facism/Democracy/somethingelsegoeshere (Stupid Dictator?)
 
Then we need them all to be opposing ideologies.

Communism/Facism/Democracy/somethingelsegoeshere (Stupid Dictator?)

Stupid dictator won't do it. Plenty of stupid dictators happy enough to ally with the US or USSR when it was advantageous. Anyway, it really can't work unless all four have real power, or the weak one is just a side issue (China was hostile both to the US and USSR circa 1964-1972, but we don't talk about there being a "three-way cold war" in that period).

With Fascism, Communism, and Democracy we see enough of a three -way ideological split for a triangular hostile relationship: but a fourth gets harder, since we need something which will be hostile to all three rather than just two.

Theocracy? I don't really see a powerful theocratic Ottoman Empire with a post-1900 POD...hm. Fascist China hates Soviet Russia and Christian Fundamentalist USA (which is a big challenger for influence in the west pacific) and doesn't like democratic European Federation. Christian Fundamentalist USA hates decadent Europe, heathen (and competing for influence) China, atheist and anti-capitalist Soviets. Communists hostile to all, check. But does Democratic Europe dislike the US enough to not enter into an alliance of convenience against the Soviets? Hm - US doesn't want to get drawn into quarrel USSR by conniving Europeans - US fiercly competing for economic influence with Europe in latin America, also vigorously supporting evangelization of South America... maybe.

Technocratic dictatorship? Pisses off commies by claiming Marxism is "unscientific", fascists by claiming they're a bunch of total cranks and Race Science is equivalent to astrology or flat earth theory...

Bruce
 
Wrap it up in diplomatic words and you have that.
But it is a surrender, nevertheless.

What treaty was it that they surrendered themselves? Was it Versailles? Nope not there. What about maybe the Yalta Conference? Nope fraid not. Wait let me look at the United Kingdom's Wikipedia. Hmm they seem to have a Parliament and a Queen! Wow, good God I don't know how they kept those after America invaded them. Ripped down the tower of London and razed cities like Manchester and Birmingham.

Look my friend. Britain speaks the same language as America. They were both democracies and they both didn't like Communists or Facists dominating the entire world. Allies? I think so.
 
I don't think Britain can develop the metropolitan muscle to become a superpower, and uboats showed twice and the Japanese in WW2 what can happen to a far flung empire. I think that if Britain had a very close strategic relationship with France the imerial pairing could become a superpower.
 
What treaty was it that they surrendered themselves? Was it Versailles? Nope not there. What about maybe the Yalta Conference? Nope fraid not. Wait let me look at the United Kingdom's Wikipedia. Hmm they seem to have a Parliament and a Queen! Wow, good God I don't know how they kept those after America invaded them. Ripped down the tower of London and razed cities like Manchester and Birmingham.

Look my friend. Britain speaks the same language as America. They were both democracies and they both didn't like Communists or Facists dominating the entire world. Allies? I think so.

Couldn't have put it better myself.
 
OK - Democracy/Fascism/Communism/Islamism

WWII goes like this: POD comes in April of 1941 when Hitler dies from tripping over a rug and splitting open his head.

There is a mini-power struggle with Hess taking over over nominal control, but with Himmler and Goering as advisors.

Barbarossa is cancelled. Much greater German effort against the British in North Africa (handwaving the port capacity issue) results in grinding battles through Egypt, Palestine and the Mid-east. Many Muslim civilian deaths to Hobbesian lanscape.

Japan goes in the Dec as OTL, but Hess et al decline to DOW America. Butterflies cause a worse Pearl (the IJN gets YORKTOWN), and despite British entreaties, US declines to go to war against EuroAxis.

In 1944, USN wins several smashing victories against IJN. Writing on wall as US productivity buries Japanese productivity. Stalin DOWs Japan, grabbing Manchuria, and linking up with Mao. Japan sues for peace after US (Very leery of Soviet advances, and wanting this Pacific thing wrapped up quickly) guarantees Emperor's position.

Also in 1944 Churchill government falls. New UK government sues for peace. Result is Status Quo Ante with Brits conceding Crete to Italy and the Germans allowing Vichy to govern all of France (sans Alsace-Lorraine which goes to the Reich.

Battles in Mid East were so devastating that a shared identity is developed amoung Sunnis. With the British and French exhausted, revolts spring up spurred by a charimatic Egyptian calling himself the new Mahdi. Formation of the Dar al-Islam state, a fundemantlist Sunni Calpihate. Includes OTL Turkey, the Sunni MidEast, Israel (never formed in this TL), the Arabian Peninisula and the Magreb of North Africa - all the way to and including Morocco. The Dar is propped up at various times by the other power as a counterweight to the others.

By 1960, there are four atomic superpowers - the USA (allied with the UK), the Fascists (Germany and Italy), the Communists (USSR and Commie China - whatever that turns out to be) and the Dar, rich on oil revenues, and with a shared memory of WWII.

Mike Turcotte
 
just to mention a few:
Destroyers-for-Bases Agreement (1940), Atlantic Charter (August 1941), Bretton Woods (1944)

How hard is it to realize that Britain didn't surrender to the US? All that happened was that the British Empire had to face the Geopolitical and Economic reality of the post-war world. They can no longer act as the world's superpower and policeman. What the UK did is more like a "retirement" than a "surrender". The UK had become small potatoes compared to the United States and Soviet Union. They realized this and made sure the United States would come out on the world stage to fight the USSR once WW2 was over, instead of going Isolationist. Your first two examples could be perfect examples of this because one gives the US bases all over the world for Military power projection while giving the UK needed ships for its Navy and the other would get the United States to have a sizable presence on the world stage after WW2, while securing an agreement for the nature of the post-war world when the war was going through uncertain times.

Your last example is getting Economic cooperation between the US and the western world for after the war
 
I understand the argument has irked an exposed nerve.
I apologize.

I understand you have failed to support your argument in the face of the facts, and then chose to withdraw from debate with a passive-aggressive false apology.

Your apology is accepted in the spirit that you had not intended.
 
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