DBACH: Prevent the Collapse of Western Bloc

Somehow prevent the Western Bloc collapse. Bonus points if France still re-unifies.

You might want to go all the way back to World War I, just to be sure of it, but perhaps the bloc might stay together, to some extent, if the former (rather strongly liberal!) Democratic Governor of California, Teresa Maranello hadn't been elected in 1984(for two whole terms!), or if the Soviet Union hadn't undergone the critical Perestroika reforms of 1986-92, thus allowing it to turn into the Russian Democratic Confederation(modelled in part on Finland, New Zealand, and post WWII Japan); after that, there was no need for a Western defensive alliance.

Perhaps if the U.S.S.R.'s Politburo hadn't chosen Mariana Romanova as premier, and Vassili Gorbachev as Chairman in the April 1986 conventions, the country might have undergone a full collapse; and, by the way, no Perestroika would have also meant that the communist regime in North France might not have agreed to the Paris talks in '88, thus not allowing the two nations to begin to reunify in April, 1990.

OOC: Perhaps I can cook up at least a partial list of U.S. Presidents later? The POD I had in mind was before 1914(slightly different World War I, WWII with a semi-fascist Germany but no exact *Nazi equivalent, and with France undergoing a civil war in 1941.), and would likely involve butterflying President Wilson. North France, by the way, is kind of an East Germany expy, but in terms of military allegiance, might be more like how Yugoslavia was to the Soviets IOTL: usually friendly, but rather more independently minded as well.
 
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Yeah, preventing Perestroika is a necessity. The OPEC Depression of the 70s discredited free-market capitalism but that wasn't enough for the East to win the Cold War, the communists had to prove that they could offer not just good living conditions but that it could actually provide freedoms. As long as there was KGB, turnips, and the Amiens Wall, Russia couldn't win. Once it had that sorted out, people looked at the Western model and said "yeah, but what about Chile, Argentina, Britain, the Persian Gulf ect".

Even then, the Western Bloc could have won if it could've shown a capitalist/socialist compromise could work but President Maranello had too much powerful opposition to get more than a half-arsed job done on the US economy. Iran pulled it off in the late 1980s, they could have pulled it off after the People's Revolution if Iraq hadn't attacked & delayed things but the late 80s was too late for a nation that didn't have the US's global reach. So there's two potentials: Maranello's administration was better at internal diplomacy/more hardcore (depending on your POV) and Iraq had been discouraged from invading instead of told "yeah, go on, do it". But for the latter, you need Bob Dole to win in 1976 instead of Rumsfeld (as I can't see the Democrats winning in '76, the Republicans were all better at playing the "tough on crime" card).

I guess another POD would be no coup in Britain, because we were still an influential nation - especially in media and culture - and that whole affair didn't help the Western Bloc's hearts-and-minds one bit.

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OOC: The communist model doesn't have to be providing awesome living conditions and freedoms ITTL, just enough (and the Western Bloc bad enough) that a guy living in 2015 would say it does.
 
Yeah, preventing Perestroika is a necessity. The OPEC Depression of the 70s discredited free-market capitalism but that wasn't enough for the East to win the Cold War, the communists had to prove that they could offer not just good living conditions but that it could actually provide freedoms. As long as there was KGB, turnips, and the Amiens Wall, Russia couldn't win. Once it had that sorted out, people looked at the Western model and said "yeah, but what about Chile, Argentina, Britain, the Persian Gulf ect".

Even then, the Western Bloc could have won if it could've shown a capitalist/socialist compromise could work but President Maranello had too much powerful opposition to get more than a half-arsed job done on the US economy. Iran pulled it off in the late 1980s, they could have pulled it off after the People's Revolution if Iraq hadn't attacked & delayed things but the late 80s was too late for a nation that didn't have the US's global reach. So there's two potentials: Maranello's administration was better at internal diplomacy/more hardcore (depending on your POV) and Iraq had been discouraged from invading instead of told "yeah, go on, do it". But for the latter, you need Bob Dole to win in 1976 instead of Rumsfeld (as I can't see the Democrats winning in '76, the Republicans were all better at playing the "tough on crime" card).

I guess another POD would be no coup in Britain, because we were still an influential nation - especially in media and culture - and that whole affair didn't help the Western Bloc's hearts-and-minds one bit.

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OOC: The communist model doesn't have to be providing awesome living conditions and freedoms ITTL, just enough (and the Western Bloc bad enough) that a guy living in 2015 would say it does.

James Rumsfeld had his heart in the right place, in terms of social issues at least, but he was too timid in facing the Religious Right *and* the warhawks, which nearly cost him the 1980 elections(were it not for Joanie Davis's Peace and Justice Party taking just enough votes from James Carter), as it was-the Turkish Crisis in '84(this, only about a month after the Vostok incident; thank goodness for Roman Petrov!) pretty much destroyed Vic Romney's hopes of winning that year(and Willie Maddox's utter humiliation in '88 was something else!).

President Maranello tried to stay out of the Iraqi mess, but I agree with many other folks here when I say that she gave in too soon; it was her only significant foreign policy failure.

As for the emergency government in Britain under Will Whitelaw(the provisional P.M., until new elections could be held!) from September '83 until Mar. '85, I wouldn't call it a "coup", per se, and it was only thanks to the assassination of Baroness Thatcher and much of the Parliament(most of the Conservatives were wiped out, although Labour and the LibDems were the preferred targets) at the hands of the Islamist terrorists who ended up racking the country left and right, that it happened at all.

OOC: TBH, I did think an actual coup in G.B. went a little too far.....but significant civil unrest and terrorists killing the P.M. and half of her cabinet might do a similar trick; as far as I recall, even IOTL, there doesn't seem to be a clear line of succession, as far as I know: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/11/28/david-cameron-killed-nick-clegg_n_4356376.html
 
Whitelaw may have been Prime Minister but MI5 and Special Branch kept calling the shots - a lot of people got locked up for "security reasons", never mind the assassination gangs targeting suspected republican and Islamist terrorists[1]. The Conservatives were "re-elected" in 1985, if you get my meaning. Joke was on them in the long run, Labour's hard left wing and resurgent unions stormed it in 1990.

That's another POD, what if Islamist terrorism hadn't made it to Europe and stayed in the Middle East. It was a dumb moment to let the Islamists who lost in Iran to come here (to help us stop the "commies" there cos dumb), that didn't have to happen. South France loved us for that.


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[1] Real such groups were in Northern Ireland in OTL so here's an expansion.
 
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