How long could Europe dominate the world?

ccdsah

Donor
Assuming Germany, British Empire, France and Russia realize how devastating a war would be (given the number of people involved and the large industrial capabilities they could extrapolate from American Civil War), if they reach some sort of understanding and maybe co-opting USA and Japan, how long could Europe dominate the rest of the world, delaying decolonization?
Maybe they could co-opt USA by allowing free-trade zones for US in their colonies; also stopping arms races between the great powers and diverting the money spent there towards social welfare would go a long way to increasing the quality of life in Europe.
A big question mark is Russia, but I think with no WW1, and no threat of conflict with Germany and Japan, Russia can industrialize quicker, and be transformed into a modern constitutional monarchy.
 

Don Quijote

Banned
Unfortunately some countries were difficult to satisfy and were always looking for more. Russia was never going to stop interfering in the Balkans if it thought it could gain territory/influence at the expense of the Ottomans, and Austria-Hungary was the same. If you make Japan stronger, that will only increase its ambitions in Korea and China. Germany and Italy, having unified much later than their neighbours, had fewer colonies and therefore took every chance to gain new ones eg. Libya in 1911.

At best you might get an early 'cold war' between two or three long lasting power blocs. Maybe UK, France and Ottomans vs Germany, Austria and Italy vs Russia, Bulgaria and Serbia.
 
A Cold War is still preferable to a shooting war.
The least-bloody is competition between corporations, but minority tribes still get crushed by mining companies.

The greatest challenge is eliminating historical fears of invasion by a neighbouring country. For example, one (German) excuse for launching WW1 was a fear that France would try to re-claim Alsace and Lorraine.
Another German fear was historical fear of repeated invasions from the Asian steppes. Granted, the Mongol hordes only ever penetrates as far west as the gates of (German-speaking) Vienna, but German propagandists could easily fan those flames (slightly modified) with fears of invasions by White Russians.

Perhaps if German school boys were allowed to visit France, Russia, etc. they would fear foreigners less.
 
The big problem with "European Domination" is that "Europe" doesn't really exist as a single entity throughout most of history since the division of the Roman Empire (given the situation of the EU today you could argue it still isn't). Instead of one massive area and group of people united under one banner, like Imperial China or the USA, but rather as a bunch of comparatively small squabbling states whose biggest feuds are with their neighbours. The Europeans spend most of their economic and military strength fighting among each other and reinforcing their own borders rather than actually trying to "dominate the world". This rivalry also extended to colonization with one European power generally trying to sabotage another's colonial projects to weaken their position (eg. French intervention in the American Revolution). As such you can only ever see a single European state rise to a relatively short, unstable period of hegemony before it is checked by other European powers (eg. collapse of Spanish power, defeat of Napoleonic France by European Coalitions) and once other larger states come close to matching the technological and economic strength of the strongest individual European states, which they will since they have much more land/people in order to grow and develop (eg. The US surpassed the UK in economic power in the late 19th century but was only a fraction the economic size of all of Europe) then the centre of world power will shift away from Europe. The two world wars are a great example of how Europe squandered its strength obliterating itself. Indeed , even today the combined economic might of Europe would be first in the world, but no one would really consider the EU dominant compared to the US or China because of the deep and enduring political fractures. For "Europe" to dominate the world much longer you need a Europe under one authority from at least the 19th century on. If you can achieve that Europe would still be dominant today.
 
In practical terms European countries along with USA and Japan could dominate the rest of the world until these countries develop the means to throw off the occupation. Given the persistence of post colonial dictators throughout the world the 'West' could hold countries by these same methods at least as long as these dictators did. The problem of course is the benefit of doing this, there has to be a material benefit to expending lives and tax dollars on maintaining police states around the world, if not why bother.
 
You have to count the USA as Europe, right?

And you can't count dictators or regimes who survive due to international recognition and support as independent of the system that keeps them in power.

So Europe does dominate the world. It's just terribly uncouth to paint the map in this century, and it also seems to be rude to call European transplants (USA-CAN-AUS-NZ) European.
 
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