by all intents and purposes, the US just LOST the war against communism. Expect capialist ideas and the US Conservatives to be on the outs. Clearly the 'Command economy' is better -- warfare just proved it! leftist/solialist/communist ideas to have a strong ascendancy, while conservatism and corporatism will be in relative decline. Expect the US to be going to introspection, and revanchism. Isolationism will have a VERY strong comeback. This kind of defeat in a major war is something the US has never actually dealt with
countries like Britain and France will no longer look toward the US for support and will be highly accomodating to the Soviet Union. similar weakness will be felt in Latin America.
If the United States had seen its ideology defeated, I would agree. But here, they won't have been, and the Soviets will have inflicted tens of thousands of civilian casualties in addition to hundreds of thousands of military ones to the US, UK, Canada and France. Trust me, they WILL NOT accept the victory of socialism. If the world is lucky, the US tries to exterminate communism in other nations and other parts of the world. The UK and France may try to be more accommodating to the USSR (still not betting on it, but it is more likely there), but the USA? Not a chance in hell. Dave Howery's point is more possible, but I still think it would be more likely that the US takes it defeat in Europe as a sign to redouble its efforts in other parts of the world. That won't be a good sign for people in a lot of countries, mind you, but I don't suspect Washington will give a damn at that point. Latin America especially will be seen by Washington as "their territory" and any attempts of socialist leaders to get influence in these nations will meet the US supporting their opposition.
No BMWs, no Mercedes, no Audis, no Porsches...
At the very least, not in the capitalist bloc - not in the same form, anyway. The Soviets would definitely try and make the most use of whatever West German industrial assets remain intact after the war. Then again, these auto companies would likely try and move as much of their operations as they can to the UK or US once it became clear that the BRD would fold. Same with Italian automakers for that matter.
Or Ferraris, Maseratis, Lamborghinis, Alfa Romeos or any other Italian cars, at least for a while. Likewise, with the damage done, its probably unlikely the British or French industries would be too quick to get going again. As for those now in the communist world, those automakers in question were widely seen as maker of capitalist toys, even in the eyes of the Italian Communist Party which made trouble for the Ferrari and Lamborghini plants on more than one occasion.
At least in the short and medium term, Detroit and Tokyo rule the Western automobile world. Yes, several of the automakers would probably bugger out of Germany, but any war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact can't last any more than a few months without nukes flying, as their supplies of men and materiel could not be replenished fast enough. That's not nearly enough time to move, and since the automakers in question are all well to Germany's South or West, they would be among the last to attempt to leave.
when does this happen? I'm guessing during the 70s, when the US military morale was at it's most dismal. If so, I wonder if you wouldn't see a new round of US isolationism... fort up the home front and to hell with the rest of the world. If it happens during the 60s or 80s, it won't be anything like that...
I highly doubt it would even be like that in the 1970s. The neocons were around then, let's not forget.
The US,Canada and the UK would be an armed camp ginning us Their defenses in preparation to a possible Soviet invasion.
France too, and probably those nations closest to the USSR that were western allies, particularly Japan and South Korea.