Challenge: The Six Powers

Another challenge of how the world's powers could be arranged, should history go somewhat different from our history......

As of 2010, the world must have six major powers:

1) United States of America
OTL Northern Borders, includes Cuba and Puerto Rico as states.

2) Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
OTL 1985 borders minus Sakhalin

3) United Kingdom of Great Britain, France and Northern Ireland
United Kingdom, France, Northern Ireland, Malta, Cyprus, Hong Kong, Falkland Islands and the two nations' various small territories around the world

4) United Nation of Japan and Korea
OTL Japan plus Sakhalin and the Kuriles, all of Korea up to the Yalu River, Taiwan, Hainan, Ryukyu and Senkaku Islands

5) People's Republic of China
OTL plus Mongolia and minus Hanian Island

6) Republic of India
All of British India if it was not partitioned (i.e. including India and Pakistan), plus the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Myanmar

Conditions:

- Must have been two World Wars (when and between who is up to you)
- USA and UK must be allied
- USSR and PRC must be at least friends (but don't necessarily have to be allies)
- Technological and social advancement can be any level you like (but please no nuclear wars, please)
- The unity of the nations can be by any way you wish
- POD is about 1880

Have at it, crew. :)
 
Why? You just need them to grab some stuff when Russia goes Red.
I meant in how back the POD has to be. Everything else can have a POD in the '40s, but a Japan with Korea implies it doesn't go to war with the US. Which is tricky with a POD then, but doable.
 
I meant in how back the POD has to be. Everything else can have a POD in the '40s, but a Japan with Korea implies it doesn't go to war with the US. Which is tricky with a POD then, but doable.

Yes, I have a way of how I figure it'll go. Remember that WWII has to happen......but it does NOT have to go as IOTL. ;)
 
All right...
Huey Long survives, Third Party challenge fails to dislodge FDR in '36. It succeeds in '40. POTUS Lindbergh keeps the US out of WWII and annexes Cuba. Oh and the Anglo-French Union happens. Japan makes peace with the Anglo-French after fearing a Soviet attack to get Sakhalin back (which they had nabbed during a Stalingrad or something).
 

Da Pwnzlord

Banned
Anglo-French Union happens during the Fall of France, and France fights on. Japan therefore never gets an easy ticket into Indochina and a springboard for its OTL conquests. Japan therefore never gets the chance to make its move in the Pacific. After being driven out of China it reforms and forms borders in OP. Everything else is butterflies.
 
I think an 1880s POD is too far back to get USSR and PRC. So, I'd have a POD in the 1920s. And so, in several parts:

At the 1922 Washington Naval Conference, the US fails to decrypt the telegrams between the Japanese delegation and their government. This gives the Japanese a much stronger hand in negotiations resulting in an arms ration more beneficial to them and a recommitment of British support for the Anglo-Japanese Alliance.
Subsequently, ideological militarists in Japan don't gain as much ground after the Red Scare as they do our OTL because Japan feels much more secure about it's place in the world. The reversal only lasts a short while, as the imposition of tariffs by the UK and US during the Great Depression fuel a lack of confidence in democratic government and international order in the military leadership. In 1934, officers in the Kwantung army attempt to start a war with China by conducting false flag operations in Manchuria, but the plot is uncovered at the last minute. The prime minister of Japan orders the arrest of Cols. Seishiro Itagaki and Kanji Ishiwara for treason and insubordination. The trials backfire for the government as nationalists riot in support of the imprisoned officers, and the military (with the tacit support of the Emperor) declares martial law and institutes a military dictatorship. A full scale invasion of Manchuria begins in the winter of 1936, followed by an invasion of China Proper in 1937. The war bogs down as Chiang Kai-Shek launches a surprisingly successful defense with informal support from the Soviets.
 
Events continue to unfold as they do OTL in most of the rest of the world, however. Stalin wins the leadership struggle in the USSR, Hitler becomes Chancellor in 1933, and WWII starts in Europe in 1939 with the invasion of Poland. The major difference occurs in 1940, when Churchill rejects the French plan for a separate peace out of hand. French Premier Paul Reynaud uses the rejection to convince his cabinet to fight on, and the French government moves to Algiers to continue on the fight. The war from there is somewhat mixed, with the Allies driving the Italians from Libya but losing Crete. In 1941, China signs a pact with Germany and Italy to counter the perceived Anglo-Franco-Japanese entente. Chinese forces invade Burma and Assam but are driven from Assam in 1942.
Germany invades Russia in 1941 as per OTL. The war is longer and harder without direct US involvement, but the Soviets steadily gain on the Eastern front and a huge combined British, French, Canadian, Indian, Australian, New Zealand, and South African force invades Brittany and Flanders in late summer of 1944. Berlin falls to a prolonged siege and grueling urban warfare in the winter of 45/46, and Germany is divided into a German rump state, Austria and Prussia, in addition to various territorial concessions.
As part of the post-war settlement the French Union and British Commonwealth maintain a common reserve currency (the bancor) and customs union and become increasingly integrated as the decades pass.
 
In East Asia, the Japanese continue to be bogged down in China, despite the nationalist regime splintering into several smaller factions in 1943 following the defeat of the invasion of Assam. A counteroffensive by Muslim Chinese forces in 1944 results in several humiliating defeats for Japan, and public support for the war drops. Members of the imperial clan, including the Dowager Empress and Prince Higashikuni, begin clandestinely negotiating with dissidents and moderates in government. In late 1946, with the country bankrupt and fighting a hopeless war long after the rest of the world has achieved peace, bereaved widows, mothers, and orphans take to streets to demand the government resign. They are soon followed by many more, including a number of soldiers. Lord Privy Seal Koichi Kido, the Empress Dowager, and Princes Takamatsu, Yasuhiko, and Higashiku swiftly worked to remove the sitting government. A group of reactionary officers attempted to seize the Imperial palace and, in the confusion, shot the Emperor and Lord Privy Seal as they tried to escape. The murder of the Emperor shocked Japan and the world. The military government resigned en masse that day, and a number of the plotters committed suicide upon hearing the news. Prince Yasuhiko Asaka took over the reins of government as regent and began the withdrawal of Japanese troops from the mainland. A period of political and economic liberalization followed, with the militarists being permanently discredited. Korea was granted home rule within the Empire in 1965.
After the Japanese withdrawal, a number of warlords attempted to fill the power vacuum. Eventually, the Soviet puppet government established in Manchuria and Mongolia after the Japanese withdrawal first established dominance over the Yellow River Basin, and then spread south and west, finally uniting all the pre-Republican territories with the invasion of Tibet in 1959.
Oh, and Cuba votes to join the Union after a civil war and subsequent US intervention sometime in the 40s or 50s. And Viceroy Mountbatten prolongs negotiations between the INC and Muslim League until 1950, when Jinnah, faced with an internal challenge in the Muslim League, caves and agrees to an unpartitioned secular state. India later intervenes in the Sri Lankan civil war and annexes it.

And Voila, the US, UKFGBNI, USSR, PRC, Empire of Japan, and India become the new permanent members of the League of Nations, which is revived in 1964 by President Richard Nixon.
They all have nuclear weapons, but hide this fact from each other and the public. Not very well, though.
 

Rogov

Banned
Look at the Japanese miracle. Just have the UN forces win the Korean War, at great cost to the whole country, and the US there to stay in a big way having to rebuild the North as well as the South.

Rather than militant, grudge-holding South Korea you have big soft American peninsula united Korea - meaning closer relations between the super-duper sattelitzed Korean government with Japan, due to heavy US pressure on both sides.

More than that, more American involvement in East Asia gives the Japanese more opportunity for growth themselves, as the Americans can open doors for them bitter Asian nations might keep shut, and that the Japanese themselves might not open due to their OTL cultural isolationism.

More active American presence in the region could force changes in the behavior of Japan and the other countries involved, artificially forcing an East Asian treaty organization that includes Korea and Japan.
 
POD: The Spanish, facing a nastier Cuban rebellion, decide that they'll accept William McKinley's offer of allowing Cuba to be sold to the United States for $300 Million in 1897.

Of course, things wouldn't work out well for Spain at any rate, with a Japanese invasion of the Philippines in 1898 and the subsequent Hispano-Japanese War, which saw the complete and total defeat of Spain at the hands of Japan. Though Japan would annex the Philippines and Guam, Spain would, in seeking to relinquish war debt, sell Puerto Rico to the United States in their quest to do so.

The 1900 Presidential Election as a result is closer, though McKinley still wins. Theodore Roosevelt never reaches national fame through the Rough Riders, and McKinley chooses Indiana Senator Charles W. Fairbanks as his running mate. McKinley is assassinated on schedule, and Fairbanks, a much more conservative man than Theodore Roosevelt, comes to power at the beginning of the progressive movement.

Though Russia and Japan go to war in 1905, Charles Fairbanks, having secured re-elected over Alton B. Parker in 1904, is in no mood to mediate the conflict as Roosevelt did OTL, mostly thanks to massive labor unrest in the United States. The Democrats take control of Congress in 1906 and attempt to force reforms on Fairbanks, who uses his veto pen to defeat them and the military to crush labor unrest, further alienating working class voters from the Republican Party. Japan defeats Russia and claims the southern half of Sakhalin, though it makes clear that its day in the Sun is not yet over.

In the developing imperial nation of Japan, Prime Minister Ito Hirobumi avoids assassinations and develops closer ties with Korea, building up infrastructure in the region before announcing the 'Japan-Korea Foundation Treaty of 1911', which legally incorporated the Korean peninsula into the Japanese Empire as an autonomous region. The 'Empire of Japan and Korea' is officially proclaimed.

Tensions rising in Europe lead to the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary. The war proceeds mostly as it did IOTL, though nearing the end of the war, Japan takes advantage of the Russian Civil War to annex Sakhalin completely and the United States manages to get into the League of Nations.

Though the 1920s are seen as a 'roaring decade' in much of the nations that had won the Great War, this was not the case in other nations, where fascism grew in strength and seized power. This was notably the case in Italy, which had by 1922 been taken under the leadership of Benito Mussolini, and in Germany, where Adolf Hitler rose to power in 1933. Japan avoided this period of fascism in and of itself, and expanded the vote under the auspices of 'Taisho Democracy', granting more rights to its imperial dominions and generally improving it's infrastructure and economic standing.

The Great Crash of 1929 set the stage for worldwide Depression and eventually, another European war. The early successes of Germany lead to the official federation of the United Kingdom and France in 1940, with the war having raged for two years following Germany's invasion of Czechoslovakia. The Soviet Union and the United States, largely wanting to avoid the war if possible, invoke a non-interventionist clause in the League of Nations charter, but both promise to aid the United Kingdom insofar as possible. Germany would fall in 1943, and the League mediated a peace that recognized Germany's borders as those of before 1938. Germany itself would stay in the leadership of conservative leaders of the army, which had themselves assassinated Hitler in 1943.

India is finally granted its independence by the United Kingdom in 1947, though it is given its independence as a unified territory. The United States grants statehood to Cuba in 1946. With the United Kingdom weakened significantly from the war, the United States and Soviet Union move into the orbit of 'superpower status', along with Japan, which has at this point done well enough to have avoided a costly war in China and has itself become more democratic.

In China, a civil war that raged for nearly a decade in the 1930s lead to the eventual victory of Chinese Communists under Mao Zedong. Mao, a key ally of Soviet Premier Bukharin, is given the go-ahead in annexing the relatively backward state of Mongolia, which had been until this point ruled by White Russian refugees. Mongolia is consolidated as a part of the new 'People's Republic of China' in 1948, though it is fully acquired in 1945.

Following the 'Second Great War' of 1938-1943, the world's rising powers become chiefly concerned with imperialism and thanks to the decay of the United Kingdom's empire, got themselves in a position to take advantage of it. The Soviet Union preferred to stay 'above the fray', emphasizing 'socialism in one country' (which by this time under Premier Bukharin had become more or less the modern 'Market-Leninist' system of OTL China), though the People's Republic of China, more revolutionary than its socialist sister state, sough to undermine existing capitalist states, while the United States, under the leadership of the stridently anti-imperialist liberal Henry Wallace, sought to expand civil liberties and civil rights across the globe.

The first major flashpoint of this occurred in 1948 with the Hukbalahap Rebellion in the Japanese dominion of the Philippines, a communist uprising supported by the PRC. The Japanese, bogged down in guerrilla fighting that lasted until 1955, would eventually have to recognize the independence of the Philippines that year, which was united following a civil war under the People's Republic of the Philippines. An attempt at a communist uprising in Korea in 1950 was quickly put down by the Japanese as well.

Following this, the United States, fearful of the growth of Chinese influence in the third world, shifted its position to emphasize both generic anti-imperialism and capitalist democracy. Allying itself with the United Kingdom, the United States pushed its ally to allow independence for its colonies after significant investments had been made in each to allow for functioning democracies to emerge. This 'gradual emancipation' favored by the United States and the United Kingdom emerged as a counterweight to the revolutionary socialism of the PRC.

This period came to be known as the 'Cold War' and it lasts more or less to this day. Perhaps the most heated conflict in this period came in 1955, with a Chinese assault on Taiwan, then and now a Japanese territory, which brought the coming of the 'Second Sino-Japanese War' of 1955-1958. Japan employed the use of tactical nuclear weapons against China during the war, allowing the numerically disadvantaged Japanese to prevent Chinese invasion and to successfully bring the Chinese to the negotiating table at the League of Nations in 1958, which restored the status quo ante bellum.

The Soviet Union has continued along a reformist path, and in the 1960s began the implementation of policies that gradually democratize itself and its satellites, to the chagrin of the PRC, which saw deviation from the 'true path' of Marxism-Leninism everywhere. The first fully free and open elections in the Soviet Union took place in 1989. It's current Premier is a member of the CPSU. The Soviet Union possesses nuclear weapons.

The People's Republic of China was taken aback by the death of Mao in 1976, though his successor, the Lin Biao would maintain the Maoist state, though gradual reforms would be adopted to invigorate the Chinese economy in the late seventies and early eighties. By 1989, the Chinese economy was growing leaps and bounds, though its despotic government remains in power even to this day, with little to no reforms on the personal freedom scale having come through. It's current leader is Premier Ning Yao. The PRC possesses nuclear weapons.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain, France, and Northern Ireland is still a major political power, though its influence has significantly declined since the Second Great War. It's Head of State, King George VI, has been on the throne since the death of its previous sovereign, King Edward VIII, in 1972. Its current Prime Minister is Jeanne Fongemie, a member of the Conservative Party, she having first attained that position in 2007. The United Kingdom does possess nuclear weapons.

The Empire of Japan and Korea is also declining in terms of real influence, though it maintains a favorable trade relationship with most of the world's leading powers and is officially neutral, despite favoring the interests of the United States and the United Kingdom. It's current Emperor, Nobuhiko, took the position in 1989. It's current Prime Minister is Chiyuri Nagata of the Constitutional Democratic Party, and she has held that position since the General Election of 2009. The Empire of Japan and Korea does possess nuclear weapons and is as of 2010 the only nation that's actually used them, in this case having unleashed nuclear attacks against the People's Republic of China in the midst of a Chinese attack on the region in hopes of regaining Taiwan from the Japanese.

The Republic of India is a rising power today, with projections showing the India might exceed the growth of the PRC and even the United States at some point in the future. India, like Japan, is officially neutral, though it's better at maintaining that neutrality than is Japan, despite pro-British and pro-American sentiment pervading the country. India is also a nuclear weapons state, and considered a leader in the third world.

The United States of TTL's 2010 is a bit more like OTL Canada. Marked by a history of liberalism in the 20th Century, the United States has a well developed welfare state, low public debt, and relatively strong industrial and military sector, though its military is smaller than OTL's. Cuba was admitted to the union in 1946, followed by Puerto Rico in 1950, and Alaska and Hawaii in 1959, and thus, the United States has 52 states as of 2010. The current President of the United States is Richard A. "Dick" Galvin of Tennessee, a Republican elected to that position in 2008.

Other nations that are of note include the Argentine Republic and the Federative Republic of Brazil, the so-called 'Latin American tigers' (which also notably include the Republic of Chile and the Republic of Peru) which rose to prominence as a symbol of third world pride and economic achievement in the 1980s. Among these, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile operate a 'nuclear sharing program' under the 'Unión del Sur', an economic and political union in Latin America. The Republic of Australia is also a growing economic powerhouse, as is Canada, two former members of the United Kingdom that also possess nuclear weapons. Canada is a relatively conservative world power, while Australia's working class roots have made it into one of the more left-leaning members of the former British Empire, along with the United States.

Germany's right-wing military leadership was in charge of the country until 1986, which saw the 'German Revolution of 1986' get the military government to open up and provide for democratic reforms. Germany is the leading industrial power on the European continent as of 2010, and is one of the largest economies in the world. It has since the Cold War been allied with the United Kingdom and the United States, though it maintains positive relations with the Soviet Union. It's current Chancellor is Ann Fleischer, a member of the Christian Democratic Union.

Italy too eventually moved from fascism to democracy, with the abrogation of the dictatorship by the National Fascist Party in 1977. Despite a fascist coup d'etat attempt in 1981, Italians maintained their democracy, and even did themselves one better at it by voting into power the Italian Communist Party in the 1982 General Election. Despite predictions of an Italian soviet state, the Italian Communists pursued a relatively reformist program that sought to integrate the state more fully within the global economy and establish a more generous welfare state. Currently, the head of state of Italy is King Vittorio Emanuele III and its Prime Minister is Benito Iadanza of the Italian Communist Party.

The world of TTL's 2010 is more anarchic that that of OTL. The League of Nations is very weak, and attempts to reform the system have largely met with yawns from the world's Great Powers. Protectionism is more widespread and free trade is mostly a non-starter, aside from some of the more developed nations. Former colonial states are for the most part more developed, and technology is a little more developed than in our 2010. Space technology, first employed by the Japanese in attacking Chinese positions during the Second Sino-Japanese War, is more militaristic than that of OTL, and many nations have national space programs. The United States became the first nation to land a man on the Moon in 1971, though the Japanese followed in 1973. The Moon of 2010 is relatively well developed, but serves mostly as a base for industrial and military bases, with League of Nations mandates granted to most nations. A joint US-UK-Japan mission landed the first men on Mars in 1989, and the PRC landed its own taikonauts on the surface of Mars in 1995.

Socially, the world is a bit more complicated. The United States is more or less as socially liberal as Canada is IOTL, with nationwide legal same-sex marriage and not such a muck about abortion rights going on. The United Kingdom of Britain and France is about the same, though same-sex marriage is not yet legal. The Empire of Japan and Korea is more conservative than the Japan of OTL, though it's loosening up with the decline of its great power status and the rise of Christianity within the Empire; it's also a lot less xenophobic owing to the large number of Koreans, Taiwanese, etc. in the Empire.

The Soviet Union is about as culturally and socially liberal as France, and the PRC is a tad more conservative than IOTL. India is more or less the same, while Canada is about as socially conservative as the United States of OTL (!!!), Australia is more socially liberal than it's OTL counterpart, Germany is a proper social democracy, and Latin America is less dominated by the Catholic Church.

Economically speaking, the world is leftier than OTL. Most states are actively interventionist in the economy, and nearly every state has a well developed welfare state.

Presidents of the United States, 1897-Present
1897: William McKinley (Republican)
1901: William McKinley (Republican)
--1901: Charles W. Fairbanks (Republican)
1905: Charles W. Fairbanks (Republican)
1909: William H. Taft (Republican)
1913: Woodrow Wilson (Democratic)
1917: Woodrow Wilson (Democratic)
1921: Leonard Wood (Republican)
1925: Leonard Wood (Republican)
--1927: William S. Kenyon (Republican)
1929: William S. Kenyon (Republican)
1933: Franklin D. Roosevelt (Democratic)
1937: Franklin D. Roosevelt (Democratic)
1941: Franklin D. Roosevelt (Democratic)
1945: Franklin D. Roosevelt (Democratic)
1949: Henry A. Wallace (Democratic)
1953: Henry A. Wallace (Democratic)
1957: Elliot J. Pearson (Republican)*
1961: Elliot J. Pearson (Republican)*
1965: Christopher R. Reuther (Democratic)*
1969: Alexander I. "Alex" Holmes (Democratic)*
1973: Alexander I. "Alex" Holmes (Democratic)*
1977: Alexander I. "Alex" Holmes (Democratic)*
1981: Alexander I. "Alex" Holmes (Democratic)*
--1984: Michael B. Reynolds (Democratic)*
1985: Timothy M. Simms (Republican)*
1989: Timothy M. Simms (Republican)*
1993: Leland D. Clevenger (Democratic)*
1997: Leland D. Clevenger (Democratic)*
2001: Leland D. Clevenger (Democratic)*
--2003: Sylvia P. Morrison (Democratic)*
2005: Richard A. "Dick" Galvin (Republican)*
2009: Richard A. "Dick" Galvin (Republican)*

Monarchs of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, France, and Northern Ireland, 1940-Present
King Edward VIII (1936-1972)
King George VI (1972-Present)

Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, France, and Northern Ireland, 1940-Present
Neville Chamberlain (Conservative): 1940
E.F.L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax (Conservative): 1940-1943
1943: Clement Attlee (Labour)
1949: Clement Attlee (Labour)
1950: Georges Bidault (Conservative)
1954: Anthony Eden (Conservative)
--1956: Joseph Laniel (Conservative)
1958: Joseph Laniel (Conservative)
--1962: Joshua P. Lloyd (Conservative)
1963: Yvon Laboissonnière (Labour)
1965: Yvon Laboissonnière (Labour)
1969: Bailey H. Russell (Conservative)
1973: Yvon Laboissonnière (Labour)
--1975: Jude S. Hinton (Labour)
1978: Mignonette Brochu (Conservative)
1982: Mignonette Brochu (Conservative)
1986: Mignonette Brochu (Conservative)
--1989: Ray M. Johnson (Conservative)
1991: Ray M. Johnson (Conservative)
1996: Talbot Goguen (Labour)
2000: Talbot Goguen (Labour)
2004: Talbot Goguen (Labour)
2007: Jeanne Fongemie (Conservative)

Monarchs of the Empire of Japan and Korea, 1911-Present
Yoshihito, Emperor Taisho (1912-1926)
Hirohito, Emperor Showa (1926-1989)
Nobuhiko (1989-Present)

I'm going to add more stuff to this later. Hope I got everything done right with the POD. :p
 
I suspect that Japan isn't an Empire - otherwise, wouldn't it be referred to as the Empire of Japan (or perhaps the Dual Empire of Japan-Korea)? Some sort of populist revolution to overthrow the Empire in the early '20s might work - perhaps after a prolonged, increasingly pointless Siberian expedition (which would also perhaps explain Sakhalin being retained).
A more prolonged Asian campaign for the Russian Communists in the early '20s might allow for a Chinese Mongolia as a base for the ChCP, and would allow for (potentially) greater friendship between the PRC and the USSR.

Anglo-French Union is the most likely path for #3; arguably, if one wanted to do something different, one could try restoring the French monarchy, having them marry into the British royal family, and having an inheritance.

#1 isn't too hard, though getting Cuba as a state rather than independent isn't going to be easy. One possibility might be to have Spain sell Cuba to the US, though I'm not sure when that would've been possible.
 
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