Likelihood of a world dominated/conquered by authoritarian regime(s)?

One of the unsettling unanswered questions of history is the likelihood of the entire world being conquered by an authoritarian regime, or dominated by a collection of them like in the book 1984.

To you, how likely would it be? Or what paths do you think might lead to that sort of scenario?

Obviously, there are degrees to this sort of thing. Let's consider, first, the scenario of the world being conquered or dominated by only one evil power.

Let's say that North Korea would be close to a 10 on the evil list, with a 1 being a sort of "benign" domination.

Do you think a POD much farther back than 1900 would be needed? Far enough, in other words, that human culture itself would need to be changed? Or do you think it would have been possible by now, if things had changed?

I honestly don't know what the answer is. I wanted to hear your thoughts on it.

My guess is that technically it would be possible with a POD after 1900, but any such regime would be extremely short-lived. The real fear is that people would figure out how to make it long-lived, but I just don't see that happening. I have a lot of faith in human decency and intelligence.
 
IMHO a Totalian one state is close to ABS butba coalition of military or fascist countries like Latin America during the 70s is a possibility
 
It's possible depending on how WWII works out. *If* someone like Robert Taft winds up POTUS then a Nazi-Soviet stalemate will leave democracy eclipsed in a world polarized between Sovietism and Hitlerism until the latter economically disintegrates and is the springboard to greater power for the former as per OTL. Alternately if the Nazis do 1940 differently and wind up in a longer, bloodier western war and then the Soviets invade in 1942 when they're locked in an intractable stalemate ala WWI, then the democracies are screwed a very different way.

A third possibility is to avoid a general European war, which while leaving de-colonization still an inevitability will leave most of Europe in the hands of repressive absolute monarchies.
 
If during the Great Depression Roosevelt had never been elected and things had continued to get worse through the 1930's it's just possible America could become one of the 'bad guys.' Turn America into a totalitarian regime and all of a sudden it is VERY easy to imagine a world dominated by the US, a victorious Germany, and imperial Japan. All of them with their own spheres of influence and in competition with each other.

That is actually almost exactly the world Orwell pictured in 1984. One with three totalitarian states in a constant state of limited war.
 
It's possible depending on how WWII works out. *If* someone like Robert Taft winds up POTUS then a Nazi-Soviet stalemate will leave democracy eclipsed in a world polarized between Sovietism and Hitlerism until the latter economically disintegrates and is the springboard to greater power for the former as per OTL. Alternately if the Nazis do 1940 differently and wind up in a longer, bloodier western war and then the Soviets invade in 1942 when they're locked in an intractable stalemate ala WWI, then the democracies are screwed a very different way.

A third possibility is to avoid a general European war, which while leaving de-colonization still an inevitability will leave most of Europe in the hands of repressive absolute monarchies.


Hell, yes, especially if

a. The Nazi end up getting the bomb first. Good bye Moscow and London. Maybe New York depending on how quick the US gets the message.

b THe Soviets win either as you suggest or even later they are better exporting their ideology or if China remains an ally. Communism is good at propagandizing and brute force.

c If the Imperial powers populations become convinced that Imperialism is the source of their prosperity, de-colonization could be a bloodbath on the scale of the World Wars, just spread out over the 50s, 60, 70s?

Mmm, wonder what the US would be doing in this senerio? Staying out of trouble making money selling wheat and guns? Or shut out be trading block?
 
My guess is staying out of trouble, as Robert Taft is precisely the kind of guy who'd be that blinkered, while the Soviets have the ability to destroy German offensive power and drive the Nazis out of the Soviet Union but not to annex all of Eastern Europe. Thanks to Hitler's policies fascism's collapse is guaranteed, the USSR in this case has survived a monstrous invasion and gets to reap the fruits of the fascist empire.....:eek:

If a general European war is avoided in 1914 (for the sake of hypothesis we'll go with better Austro-Hungarian political handling of 1914 resulting in a short, punitive Third Balkan War that derails Serbia's momentum and Europe remaining peaceful for at least 10 more years) then this preserves authoritarianism in general quite a bit moreso. Avoiding WWI will do more for this than trying to alter the outcome of the World Wars IMHO.
 
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