How would a Modern day Ottoman Empire look like?

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Because as bad as Russia's position was in 1913, it was still rapidly gaining in strength; it was industrializing at a rapid clip; and given a few more years, it would have laid down some serious military reforms.

Okay, let's take some statistics.

Steel production:

1900 is 2.2 million tons, 1913 is 4.8.

Sounds great, right?

United States: 10.3 million to 31.8 million
Germany: 6.3 million to 17.6 million
Britain 5 million to 7.7 million
France: 1.5 to 4.6 million
Austria-Hungary: 1.1 to 2.6 million

Hard to boast about doubling production when three great powers are tripling theirs, even if we consider comparing absolute output unfair.

Total industrial potential (from 1900 to 1913) with Britain in 1900 being 100.
US: 127.8 to 298.1
Germany: 71.2 to 137.7
Britain: 100 to 126.2
Russia: 47.5 to 76.6
France: 36.8 to 57.3
Austria-Hungary: 25.6 to 40.7

Total manufacturing (1900-1913:
United States 23.6% to 32%
Germany: 13.2% to 14.8%
Britain: 18.5% to 13.6%
Russia: 8.8% to 8.2%
France: 6.8% to 6.1%
Ausitria-Hungary: 4.7 to 4.4%

By contrast, the USSR did little more than continue on the path the Tsars would have set it upon, except with a fuckton more corpses, and with policies which led directly to four years of unmitigated destruction of the Russian heartland.
Same source:

Russian steel production goes from 0.16 million tons in 1920 (last place) to 5.7 million tons in 1930 (5th place) to 18 million in 1938 (3rd place with nearly twice as much as Britain's 10.5 million).

Industrial potential goes from 72 (1928) to 152 (1938), putting it in fourth place still - but much closer than it was twenty-five years ago.
Total manufacturing is only 9%, still fourth place.

Given the devastated state of Russia after WWI, the Soviet Union made enormous progress - even considering how much of that was merely making up for lost ground.

The period under the tsars is less impressive.

I'm not entirely sure the tsars would have avoided the corpses, given the both were autocratic police states that regarded dissent as tantamount to treason and the fact the patience of the people is nearly exhausted by 1914.

I'd honestly say that Russia was a better place under the Tsars than under Communism, which is about as faint as praise gets for any system of government.
It may or may not have been a better place to live in (I differ to social historians here), but it was a weaker state.
 
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I think the main thing holding back Russia was the Tsarist regime, and once it was removed, we saw what the Soviet achieved after. Imagine how far they will go under capitalist economy.
 
Is Russia a highly educated state as compares to the rest of the world?

Yes.

OECD, (p.137):

The educational attainment of the adult population and the current output of education in Russian have been very high historically and remain so. Educational attainment exceeds the OECD average for all levels of education. Of the adult population, 96 per cent has completed lower secondary education and most also have an upper secondary education. Furthermore, more than one-half of all adults have attained type A or type B tertiary education. Graduation rates are at or above OECD standards – 87, 29 and 33 per cent for upper secondary, tertiary type B and tertiary type A, respectively. International student achievement tests, namely PISA and TIMSS, also show high results for Russian children in Grades 4 and 8 and at age 15. However, TIMSS results indicate that mathematics and science achievement of Grade 8 students decreased compared to 1995.

It's slightly old (2005) but more recent numbers I have seen are pretty similar and have shown even slight improvements.
 
I think the main thing holding back Russia was the Tsarist regime, and once it was removed, we saw what the Soviet achieved after. Imagine how far they will go under capitalist economy.

I really don't see it, the Russian capitalist class are a bunch of crony capitalists giving their friends important market shares. The system is still based on corruption and graft in Russia, just corruption and graft wearing the viel of capitalism rather than communism. And with the only actual opposition being from the communists and the Nazis I don't expect things to change much in terms of Russian development. This isn't a message on behalf of the communists either, it's just that Russia's problems go far far deeper than who is in charge, in the end the person in charge can only do so much, the deeper socioeconomic conditions will play a much bigger if unnoticed part.
 
The US and Germany come to mind as other examples of countries with "large natural resources" - the US even having oil too.

Natural resources in the US have generally gone into building out the industrial economy rather than being a cash cow in an of itself. Cheap oil didnt make the US wealthy - manufacturing and industrial capacity did. Same with Britain and coal.

If the OE wants to be a superpower it would need to develop its industrial base. I have no idea if they would have or not but there isnt much evidence in their favor. If someone has a thesis with supporting arguments, please share.
 
Here is a hypothetical counterfactual. OE stays neutral in WWI and WWII (The butterflies for WWII are immense - no Greek or North African Campaigns for Germany for one). They see the USSR become a superpower. Given the obvious threat, they take that oil money and build up a massive military. Its possible they join NATO but more likely become a leader in the non-aligned movement. Unfortunately, all that military spending crowds out private investment causing their economy to stagnate and creating government deficits. The 1960's roll around and Egyptian nationalists revolt, backed by Soviet money. And, after watching Algeria, the Congo, India, Vietnam, and various other countries go free, its fair to say the Eyptians would look for independence. Then you have the Balkans. Soviets will definately want to cover their flank in Europe so expect communist insurgencies there.

There is no Arab oil embargo, because there are no wars with Israel which doesnt exist, to push push up the price of oil in the 70s. Maybe they do this themselves to bail out their economy but then they risk alienating the West while still having the USSR to their north. An alliance with China could be helpful but difficult to pull off at this time.

Given likely Soviet meddling and internal tensions, decent chance of some border clashes in the Caucasus during this period and maybe some mild shootouts in the Black Sea, any one of which could escalate.

And then if it does collapse due to nationalism, what do the Soviets and Americans do? Soviets intervene to protect minorities? Americans take Saudi Arabia and southern Iraq to protect economic interests? Soviets and Americans meet halfway at Babylon, err I mean Bagdad. Sounds biblical.

I'll just stop here and suggest modern Turkey might be better than this OE timeline.
 
If the OE wants to be a superpower it would need to develop its industrial base. I have no idea if they would have or not but there isnt much evidence in their favor. If someone has a thesis with supporting arguments, please share.
Several areas of the Ottoman Balkans were in a proto-industrial state prior to the 1877 war. The Ottomans will scarcely be catching up to the United Kingdom any time soon, but she does have the chance to catch up to at least a Japanese level of industrialization. The Ottoman Empire doesn't have the best industrial resources in the world, though there is still lots of lignite coal and even a significant amount of anthracite and hard coal, around the Zonguldak mines and in several areas in Bulgaria. The main things standing in the way of Ottoman Industrialization was a lack of capital, caused in part by the Capitulations, which had the double effect of keeping Muslim-owned businesses uncompetitive, and making sure that a significant amount of economic activity could not be taxed by the Ottoman State. If the Ottoman Empire is in a good diplomatic position, she will almost certainly move to abolish these.
 

Deleted member 67076

Here is a hypothetical counterfactual. OE stays neutral in WWI and WWII (The butterflies for WWII are immense - no Greek or North African Campaigns for Germany for one). They see the USSR become a superpower. Given the obvious threat, they take that oil money and build up a massive military. Its possible they join NATO but more likely become a leader in the non-aligned movement. Unfortunately, all that military spending crowds out private investment causing their economy to stagnate and creating government deficits. The 1960's roll around and Egyptian nationalists revolt, backed by Soviet money. And, after watching Algeria, the Congo, India, Vietnam, and various other countries go free, its fair to say the Eyptians would look for independence. Then you have the Balkans. Soviets will definately want to cover their flank in Europe so expect communist insurgencies there.

There is no Arab oil embargo, because there are no wars with Israel which doesnt exist, to push push up the price of oil in the 70s. Maybe they do this themselves to bail out their economy but then they risk alienating the West while still having the USSR to their north. An alliance with China could be helpful but difficult to pull off at this time.

Given likely Soviet meddling and internal tensions, decent chance of some border clashes in the Caucasus during this period and maybe some mild shootouts in the Black Sea, any one of which could escalate.

And then if it does collapse due to nationalism, what do the Soviets and Americans do? Soviets intervene to protect minorities? Americans take Saudi Arabia and southern Iraq to protect economic interests? Soviets and Americans meet halfway at Babylon, err I mean Bagdad. Sounds biblical.

I'll just stop here and suggest modern Turkey might be better than this OE timeline.

Won't Ottoman neutrality have important effects in WW1 and possibly the circumstances that led to WW2?

Also this seems to imply that the empire will still focus on mostly military spending and won't change that, along with not modernizing enough to avoid the stagnation.

And is there no way to end/beat back the nationalism and create a Pan Ottoman identity?
 
Won't Ottoman neutrality have important effects in WW1 and possibly the circumstances that led to WW2?

Also this seems to imply that the empire will still focus on mostly military spending and won't change that, along with not modernizing enough to avoid the stagnation.

And is there no way to end/beat back the nationalism and create a Pan Ottoman identity?

Just thinking outloud here, albeit borderline ASB. WWI and WWII create so many butterflies.

Regarding your second point, I am just looking at the fact that they have a massively armed, historical enemy on their border. The track record of oil producing countries that spend enormous of amounts of money on the military isnt that good. Limited sample size but worth noting.

Also assuming the Soviets are not entirely comfortable with an oil producing Ottoman Empire on their border and take measures to undermine its cohesiveness. Seems reasonable to expect they would support communist/socialist nationalists.

We had the Superpower thesis. Now we've seen Armaggedon. Provide something else.
 
Well, I think the most likely scenario out of World War One has a Great Power Ottoman Empire coming out, but ending up as a sort of second rank power by ATL's 2013, assuming that the rest of the worlds power dynamic isn't thrown out too much. The Dutch disease will likely be more of a problem than a earlier POD, but this still isn't Saudi Arabia we are talking about. The Ottoman Empire was already a modern bureaucratic state by 1914, even if it was backwards in a number of areas. I don't think an Egyptian revolution will be a problem, as Egypt will not be a part of the Empire (most likely. I don't see the British relinquishing control to the Ottomans).

I don't see a significant Arab rebellion as there will be nothing much for Egypt to rally the Arabs around. Although there was a growing tendency of Turkification in the Empire by 1914, there's no guarantee this would be a lasting trend. The Arabs are the second largest group in the Empire and the political elite recognizes this. Somewhere down the line, I could see Classical Arabic being made the joint official language (with Ottoman Turkish) which will serve to bind the Arabs of the Empire closer to the state.

The Ottoman Empire won't be a great military power so to speak, but she will likely be more than the Europeans are willing to go through for Oil. Remember that in our world, the Ottomans took hundreds of thousands of allied troops with her. Contrary to what some in the West though (note some, not all), the Ottoman Army was actually quite capable, and they would likely be sufficient to defend the Empire from all but the most determined of assaults. That's why I don't see the "West realises there's oil and takes it like a boss" meme really coming to fruition.
 
I'm not entirely sure the tsars would have avoided the corpses, given the both were autocratic police states that regarded dissent as tantamount to treason and the fact the patience of the people is nearly exhausted by 1914.

The Russian Empire was so brutally repressive that when Maria Spiridonova assassinated a district security chief in 1905, the fact that she was manhandled by her victim's Cossack guards became a national scandal. She was described in the opposition press as a "pure, virginal being", her death sentence was commuted to a prison term in Siberia, and en route to Siberia, she was allowed to speak to large crowds at every train stop.

Spiridonova served 11 years in Siberia. She was eventually executed though - in 1941, by Stalin's police. The USSR executed at least 100 times as many Communists as the Russian Empire. That's in addition to the enormous numbers of "class enemies" and "saboteurs" who were killed.

Nothing even remotely approaching the murderous violence of Communism was ever seen in Imperial Russia.

Look at the numbers. Communism is not just one order of magnitude worse, it's two to three orders worse. It's the difference between bad and horrendous.
 
The Russian Empire was so brutally repressive that when Maria Spiridonova assassinated a district security chief in 1905, the fact that she was manhandled by her victim's Cossack guards became a national scandal. She was described in the opposition press as a "pure, virginal being", her death sentence was commuted to a prison term in Siberia, and en route to Siberia, she was allowed to speak to large crowds at every train stop.
This anecdotal case seems like sufficient example that the Russian Empire was actually a fairly benign state. :rolleyes:

If we are actually going to discuss numbers, let's actually look at some. In the years following 1905 (up until 1908), thousands of political prisoners were executed by the state. In the revolution itself, well over 10,000 people were killed. And this isn't the most brutal action of Tsarist Russia. Various waves of pogroms left thousands of Jews dead, which of course was supported by the Russian government.

If we look earlier in the 19th century, the record becomes even more appalling. In particular, the ethnic cleansing of Muslim populations in the Caucasus and the Balkans was some of the most savage of the century. It is unknown precisely how many Circassians were killed in the ethnic cleansing in the Caucasus, though it is likely the figure is in the hundreds of thousands. Likewise, in the territories Russia occupied in the 1877-78 war with Turkey, the Muslim population was for the larger part either massacred or expelled into the remaining areas of European Turkey.

These numbers don't quite add up to communist totals (Or to be precise, Stalinist totals) but the image that Tsarist Russia was a relatively light-handed state is an obvious lie.
 
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