DB: Challenge: Get the US involved with the West.

Crack Fortress Yank. End United isolationism. Fight the policy of no-interest in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Whatever you call it, do it.

Any POD after the turn of the century is valid, even as far forward as the USSR. Bonus points if economic integration with Europe in anyway comes close to inter-American trade, and if communism is still an active movement globally.
 
Well the problem is that the USA understandably does not want to endanger its relationships--it is said that the USA has three navies to protect itself--the Its own, the Japanese Navy, and the Royal Navy. Indeed, with this structure in place, the United States has never seriously needed to be worried foreign affairs. You might be able to get the USA and Japan to fight a war in the 1930s, but this overlooks the political structure at the time--Germany had fully supported China, and so the USA quietly supported Japan in the conflict. Its an arrangement that is still paying dividends to the present day.

In addition, the one time the USA really did get involved was in WW1--which I don't think really meets the challenge. They were stuck in that war for two years.

That's why the USA has been sitting on the sidelines--US Involvement doesn't create a better outcome for itself and just results in a lot of its own people dying.

So the USA saw no real reason to get involved in WW2 in 1938--besides, Poland, the UK and France crushed Germany and Italy, while China was given a change in leadership as a result.

And of course, WW3 in 1964-69, which was a REALLY NASTY war that has largely vindicated everything that makes the USA stay out of a war. Three Quarters of a Billion people died in that conflict. Why would the USA ever want Washington or New York to be among the victims of that conflict?

I think you'd need to butterfly the third world war entirely, and to do that you need to make sure that that Suslov character NEVER becomes general secretary of the Soviet Union--That man was trouble in any capacity.

And I've got to admit that the USA has been very snide and cold to the rest of the world in its time of greatest need. Something like President Robert Taft saying: "We do not have a problem with radical elements in the United States, and we have no wish to import one." Having Taft lose the Presidential election would be a good move.

There are lots of options, but at some level you have to make the rest of the world less scary and isolationism less attractive.
 
There are lots of options, but at some level you have to make the rest of the world less scary and isolationism less attractive.
While you bring up good points, don't you think you may be overlooking immigration? Though the US is (in)famuous in parts of the world for demanding strict adherance to various immigration proposals (no history of political radicalism, after the 1900's Red Riots, and a strict medical examination after the Influenze Pandemic of WW1), it has been relatively open to immigration from many countries, with large ethnic groupings across the US. Do you think that restrictions on Asian, East Asian, and indegenous American immigration could have tilted the racial balance for more towards Europeans, and that having any sort of effect? Fewer Congressmen and Governors like Representative Pancho Villa, who is remembered for his railings against the "Europe's War" and against American involvement in European affairs, would certainly have given more room to such factions as the Wilson-wing of the Democratic Party.
 
Well, it's not as it the US is absolutely isolationist... there are resources from abroad that must be imported (particularly oil). To be sure, the US has a very strong 'self sufficiency' attitude, but there are some minerals and chemicals that simply can't be obtained here, things that are vital for a modern industrial society. So, I'm going to assume you meant the USA's infamous political isolationism.

To break that, you have to ask "what's in it for us?" Just why would we suddenly take an interest in meddling with the political situation around the world? All the USA really needs is to ensure that those imports keep coming in... and frankly, governments come and go, but they all need money, and none are going to cut their throats by embargoing us. Particularly since the USA has a firm reputation for paying cash and not interfering with whatever abominable local customs you have. To put in bluntly, the USA is too strong for anyone to attack conventionally; is there anything wrong with 'we don't bother you, so don't bother us'? If the USA suddenly started throwing its weight around the world, well, that would likely mean that we wouldn't have our balanced budgets, our vaunted health care system, and a lot of other things that we take for granted now.

So, to get the USA out of it's (extremely advantageous) isolationism, you have to have a damn good reason for us to do so. The one tiny possibility I can think of is if the USSR had been led by that guy Stalin, who had everyone worried for a few years. From all accounts, he was a rather nasty sort who wanted to carry out Communist insurgencies everywhere he could do it. So, let's imagine that he actually came to power and ruled for a couple of decades... that just might actually get the US out of it's isolationism, if only out of self interest. But even I have to admit that this is kind of a long shot...
 
Well, it's not as it the US is absolutely isolationist... there are resources from abroad that must be imported (particularly oil). To be sure, the US has a very strong 'self sufficiency' attitude, but there are some minerals and chemicals that simply can't be obtained here, things that are vital for a modern industrial society. So, I'm going to assume you meant the USA's infamous political isolationism.

To break that, you have to ask "what's in it for us?" Just why would we suddenly take an interest in meddling with the political situation around the world? All the USA really needs is to ensure that those imports keep coming in... and frankly, governments come and go, but they all need money, and none are going to cut their throats by embargoing us. Particularly since the USA has a firm reputation for paying cash and not interfering with whatever abominable local customs you have. To put in bluntly, the USA is too strong for anyone to attack conventionally; is there anything wrong with 'we don't bother you, so don't bother us'? If the USA suddenly started throwing its weight around the world, well, that would likely mean that we wouldn't have our balanced budgets, our vaunted health care system, and a lot of other things that we take for granted now.

So, to get the USA out of it's (extremely advantageous) isolationism, you have to have a damn good reason for us to do so. The one tiny possibility I can think of is if the USSR had been led by that guy Stalin, who had everyone worried for a few years. From all accounts, he was a rather nasty sort who wanted to carry out Communist insurgencies everywhere he could do it. So, let's imagine that he actually came to power and ruled for a couple of decades... that just might actually get the US out of it's isolationism, if only out of self interest. But even I have to admit that this is kind of a long shot...

Stalin would probably be better than the world than Suslov...man was like a Fundamentalist--and that's what triggered the war, even though Stalin seems like a monster instead of a fundy idiot.

Alternatively, someone who could really bring out a real ideological challenge instead of a military one could force the US out of its shell. But a lot of this the world being too dark and too scary to mess with. It was a private fear expressed by then President FDR that someone could dominate Eurasia, but that threat of Eurasian Domination never came to be. Hitler/Chiang, and later Suslov, would never be able to dominate Eurasia, so North America can leave well enough alone.
 
\. The one tiny possibility I can think of is if the USSR had been led by that guy Stalin, who had everyone worried for a few years. From all accounts, he was a rather nasty sort who wanted to carry out Communist insurgencies everywhere he could do it. So, let's imagine that he actually came to power and ruled for a couple of decades... that just might actually get the US out of it's isolationism, if only out of self interest. But even I have to admit that this is kind of a long shot...

I thought it was that other fellow Trotsky who wanted to start insurgencies everywhere? Stalin was the one who wanted to concentrate on building socialism in the Soviet Union.
 
Well one thing that has to happen is a sudden change in the nature of race relations in the United States after the Red Riots of the 1900s. Just consider that President William Gibbs McAdoo (D-GA), 1924-1928, was backed by the Ku Klux Klan, in an effort to combat the assimilation of "Catholics and Wetbacks" after the annexation of Mexican states, citing their loyalty to Papal authority. The sexual misconduct of Klan Grand Dragon D.C. Stephenson (D-IN) in 1925 is considered the only reason McAdoo wasn't able to win a second term. If you doubt the influence of Ku Klux Klan in creating an isolationist sentiment in America, I can certainly just point to the list of Democratic presidents from Strom Thurmond (D-SC), 1948-1952; Harry F. Byrd (D-VA), 1960-1963; George Wallace (D-AL) 1968-1976; Lester Maddox (D-GA), 1976-1980; and Howard Philips (D-VA), 1992-2000.
 
Well one thing that has to happen is a sudden change in the nature of race relations in the United States after the Red Riots of the 1900s. Just consider that President William Gibbs McAdoo (D-GA), 1924-1928, was backed by the Ku Klux Klan, in an effort to combat the assimilation of "Catholics and Wetbacks" after the annexation of Mexican states, citing their loyalty to Papal authority. The sexual misconduct of Klan Grand Dragon D.C. Stephenson (D-IN) in 1925 is considered the only reason McAdoo wasn't able to win a second term. If you doubt the influence of Ku Klux Klan in creating an isolationist sentiment in America, I can certainly just point to the list of Democratic presidents from Strom Thurmond (D-SC), 1948-1952; Harry F. Byrd (D-VA), 1960-1963; George Wallace (D-AL) 1968-1976; Lester Maddox (D-GA), 1976-1980; and Howard Philips (D-VA), 1992-2000.

OOC: This is blatantly contradictory to the OP's own posts in this thread. I will disregard it.
 
I thought it was that other fellow Trotsky who wanted to start insurgencies everywhere? Stalin was the one who wanted to concentrate on building socialism in the Soviet Union.

oops... you might be right... I never could keep those obscure Russian rebels straight...
 
oops... you might be right... I never could keep those obscure Russian rebels straight...
Considering how many leaders they went through, I expect few will hold it against you. What's that German jokeabout communist leaders?

Bah, I'm sounding like a USAmerican, aren't I? Not only do I not know foreign leaders, but I can't even remember famous foreign sayings. :p
 
Okay, let me see if I get this right...

First Lenin leads the revolution. (1919-1930)

Then you have Nikolai Bukharin as his successor, as a compromise leader between Leon Trotsky and Grigory Zinoviev. Trotsky was a hardcore internationalist and Zinoviev wanted to perfect socialism at home. (1930-1959)

Then Mikhail Suslov, the fundamentalist communist attempts to radicalize Europe and the Soviet State itself into a hardline camp, provoking what becomes a nuclear war, and is killed in the all-out salvo that results. (1959-1965)

Georgi Zhukov takes over control of the post-nuclear Soviet Union, and attempts to win an unwinnable war fought heavily with nuclear weapons and ultimately sues for peace in the wreckage of a ruined world. Assassinated by internal enemies. (1965-71)

Alexander Shelepin would be the second postwar leader of the Soviet Union, and would find that the fabric of the Soviet State had been wracked out in the fighting. He would lead the country for only 18 months (1971-1973)

1973+ Although the fiction would be continued for another decade, most historians understand that by this point the "Soviet Union" is little more than a collection of rebuilt and relocated cities in the Transurals Region, with little power to ever reunite the Soviet Union.

Okay, so then:

Stalin was a bit player who got kicked out of the Communist Party in 1924; how exactly is he supposed to rule?

Trotsky and Zinoviev were possible opponents for political leadership of the Soviet Union, and both could have ascended with small butterflies.

Have I got this about right?

So if Trotsky or Zinoviev come to power, we could butterfly the third world war?
 
I think the list is right, but I'm not sure those last two would have butterflied the third war away. Wasn't at least one of them a rather hyper-aggressive guy? He would have gotten in a war at some point, though I suppose that war might as well have been the Second European War.
 
I think the list is right, but I'm not sure those last two would have butterflied the third war away. Wasn't at least one of them a rather hyper-aggressive guy? He would have gotten in a war at some point, though I suppose that war might as well have been the Second European War.

That would have made things interesting..could the Allies attempted to pit that wacktard Hitler against this possible Soviet Leadership? I don't think its likely--the Czechs and Poles were too important to France and the UK. But disgraced PM Stanley Baldwin would have been willing to concede those nations to Hitler if it meant peace.

I imagine if the Soviet Union was embroiled in a Second World War--perhaps ones with a far more limited number of nuclear weapons--their willingness to fight a third world war would have been greatly reduced. Now if Trotsky attempt to launch a global war without fully industrializing the Soviet Union, as Bukharin did before Suslov went bonkers with it, perhaps this could have been an "easier" resolution to Communism.

WW3 was a unparalleled disaster for humanity, and its behind the current sentiment that the USA should never leave fortress yank militarily or politically. Could there be some kind of Socialist War instead of both a Fascist and Communist war?

I might be a bit of an idealist, but I would hope that active US intervention could stop the third world war. Who knows how this counter factual world would look? Europe might have hundreds of millions of people instead of roughly sixty million today--and the Ukraine would remain arable farmland instead too irradiated to grow foodstuffs.

In any case, I must admit the USA has been at least levelheaded in its neutrality--If we had wanted to dominate the world, we could have easily done so in 1973. That said, I suspect that economic ties will gradually increase with the rest of the world--but think about it this way: The USA is the world leader of R&D and skilled production; Mexico and Brazil have emerged as serious heavyweights in skilled labor as well.

Much of the rest of the world has been forced into the position of unskilled labor--US Corporations run things like clothing factories in Bavaria and Slavia, where the workers are paid something like $.50/hour. Religious figures in the US have been attacking these arrangements and its possible that companies like Nike and American Apparel might simply pull out of Europe entirely.

I think we'd have to address US Cultural values if we want a PoD after 1973--we kind of have this "Unjust Enterprise" mentality that keeps US investment from maturing globally these days--because some parts of society thinks this kind of work is exploitive, while I suspect that there are few good alternatives for these people in home.
 
I think that the only way for Stalin to be the leader of the Soviet Union would be to have Lenin die before Stalin was kicked out of the Party. Perhaps the small stroke that left Lenin without being able to use his leg back in the twenties might have killed him?
 
I think that the only way for Stalin to be the leader of the Soviet Union would be to have Lenin die before Stalin was kicked out of the Party. Perhaps the small stroke that left Lenin without being able to use his leg back in the twenties might have killed him?

Interesting...

I think I have an idea about that--Lenin was nearly assassinated and escaped injury earlier in the revolution. If Lenin was somehow injured in the attack, its possible that the combination of the two injuries could have killed him.

That said, even if Lenin did die in the early 1920s instead of 1930, it would Leon Trotsky who would likely to succeed him. OTL's Bukharin's ties to the NEP would be weaker and he probably would get beaten by Trotsky. As for Stalin--the man made NO ideological contribution to Communism, he was basically a heartless bureaucrat. If he took over the Soviet Union I'd suspect that he'd be invisible and simply enforce policies others created. He's remorseless but he's also more of an empty container than an actual leader.
 
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