Make a third world country in Europe

As was stated in a convo in one of my previous threads, European countries tend not to devolve into the total chaos and degeneration of societal institutions like you see in the middle east now for several reasons, even following a brutal war. So, what WOULD it take to get a "middle east style" civil war in Europe after 1900? Bonus points if it's in western Europe. And some questions:

How would it affect European and world politics? How it affect cultural perceptions of the country the country in question? How would it affect cultural perceptions of "third world countries" in general? Would it cause a refugee crisis and if so how would it be dealt with?
 

nbcman

Donor
As was stated in a convo in one of my previous threads, European countries tend not to devolve into the total chaos and degeneration of societal institutions like you see in the middle east now for several reasons, even following a brutal war. So, what WOULD it take to get a "middle east style" civil war in Europe after 1900? Bonus points if it's in western Europe. And some questions:

How would it affect European and world politics? How it affect cultural perceptions of the country the country in question? How would it affect cultural perceptions of "third world countries" in general? Would it cause a refugee crisis and if so how would it be dealt with?
OTL Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s complete with genocide, refugee crisis numbering in the millions, and a whole host of other unpleasantries.

EDIT: Also, the OTL Spanish Civil War of the 1930s was pretty brutal.

For ATL, Nazi Germany disintegrating either after a successful Op Valkyrie or in response to Werewolf revolts after WW2 was done. Greece could have had a more serious civil war after WW2. France's 4th Republic could have fallen to civil war in 1958 instead of accepting the return of de Gaulle.
 
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OTL Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s complete with genocide, refugee crisis numbering in the millions, and a whole host of other unpleasantries.
True, but after the war ended, the countries recovered. Today, the Balkan countries seem like pretty okay places to live compared to Iraq and Afghanistan.
 
True, but after the war ended, the countries recovered. Today, the Balkan countries seem like pretty okay places to live compared to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Afghanistan has been in a state of foreign backed civil war for 40 years now. It’s hard to compare anything to that.

Look at Greece between 1942-50 for a good example of very brutal and long running civil war.

I’m not sure you can just disqualify the former Yugoslavia like that. The might not be in a state of civil war but they aren’t doing well.

Also: Albania collapsed in the 1990’s and still hasn’t recovered, lots of the country is still outside state control.
 
Afghanistan has been in a state of foreign backed civil war for 40 years now. It’s hard to compare anything to that.

Look at Greece between 1942-50 for a good example of very brutal and long running civil war.

I’m not sure you can just disqualify the former Yugoslavia like that. The might not be in a state of civil war but they aren’t doing well.

Also: Albania collapsed in the 1990’s and still hasn’t recovered, lots of the country is still outside state control.
Aren't the Balkan countries doing well enough that most of them are EU candidates now?
 
Belarus or Moldova, possibly even Ukraine, could meet this in a more violent collapse of the CCCP scenario...particularly if borders start getting redrawn in the last decade or so.
 
Aren't the Balkan countries doing well enough that most of them are EU candidates now?
Slovenia and Croatia, but that doesn't mean they're well off. The former Yugoslav states are among Europe's poorest countries. I mean there's still a ton of ethnic strife in the region. Bosnia & Herzegovina has the whole Republic of Srpska, there's still a lot of tension between Croatia and Serbia, there's the Kosovo Conflict, Northern Macedonia was basically sanctioned over it's name, the Albanians in Northern Macedonia are still largely mistreated. Outside of what used to be Yugoslavia, Albania's been pretty spotty on human rights issues and Greece's fall to economic ruin has been pretty well documented. Things are better than they were 20 years ago, but everyone still hates each other, most of them could definitely improve their human rights, it's plagued by economic issues, and border disputes are still largely unresolved.
 
OTL Ukraine and Moldova already qualify for this. Ukrainian GDP per capita is comparable to Laos and Honduras. Living standards in Belarus and most of the western Balkans are close to double that of Ukraine. The major effects have been a massive exodus of Ukrainian guest workers to Poland and other parts of the EU.

Corruption and the economic dislocation of the 2014 crisis and the war in the east are still problems, but Ukraine's economy is starting to recover from the conflict and set itself on an upward trajectory. Russian nationalists and russo-philes have been gleefully predicting the collapse of the Ukraine, but the worst of the conflict seems to be over.
 
The thing is, nobody really likes constant instability and churning violence too close to them. It's bad for bussiness and produces a stream of refugees they don't want to deal with. In order to get a proper slow-boil breakdown into a "failed state" there has to be nobody with both the means and motive to intervene which highly developed democratic states (like those in Western and Centeral Europe) tend to be. Your best bet is to get some solid reforms in the USSR that allow them to hold the Warsaw Pact tightly together and seriously extend the Cold War long enough for Yugoslavia to start imploding. In that case, nobody is liable to directly and heavily intervene for fear of what the other Bloc will do,but feed in weapons to their favored factions anyways.
 
The thing is, nobody really likes constant instability and churning violence too close to them. It's bad for bussiness and produces a stream of refugees they don't want to deal with. In order to get a proper slow-boil breakdown into a "failed state" there has to be nobody with both the means and motive to intervene which highly developed democratic states (like those in Western and Centeral Europe) tend to be. Your best bet is to get some solid reforms in the USSR that allow them to hold the Warsaw Pact tightly together and seriously extend the Cold War long enough for Yugoslavia to start imploding. In that case, nobody is liable to directly and heavily intervene for fear of what the other Bloc will do,but feed in weapons to their favored factions anyways.
Interesting, but would it be possible to get a failed state on the other side of the Iron Curtain?
 
Interesting, but would it be possible to get a failed state on the other side of the Iron Curtain?

Unlikely,unless you're screwing Western Europe to the point it's barely recognizable. If there's a failed state that close to France, Britain, or Germany they'll intervene to restore order and nobody is going to stop them.
 
Unlikely,unless you're screwing Western Europe to the point it's barely recognizable. If there's a failed state that close to France, Britain, or Germany they'll intervene to restore order and nobody is going to stop them.
Maybe something in post war Germany, like the occupation goes horribly wrong and turns violent?
 
Maybe something in post war Germany, like the occupation goes horribly wrong and turns violent?

... then you have lots and lots of dead Germans, as France and the Soviets will easily outgun them. The Nazi's already tried irregular warfare... Germany is pretty well tapped out of military aged men who are willing to go into the hills, and their enemies are literally right next door.
 
The thing is, nobody really likes constant instability and churning violence too close to them. It's bad for business and produces a stream of refugees they don't want to deal with. In order to get a proper slow-boil breakdown into a "failed state" there has to be nobody with both the means and motive to intervene which highly developed democratic states (like those in Western and Centeral Europe) tend to be.

This is the reason why European nations haven't descended into decades long levels of chaos like Somalia, Iraq or Afghanistan have. Before 1990 other nations would intervene to stop the other side (Western powers, Communists, fascists) winning control of the country which would be bad for the balance of power. After 1990, the EU/NATO took up the role of policing Europe to avoid refugee flows and ensure those pesky Russians don't get a foot hold somewhere.

An interesting case would be Spain in the 1930s. There was the potential for Spain to be split several ways between the ideological groups backed by different countries. If the civil war got very bogged down you couldn't have an invasion by one side backers (USSR) otherwise it could cause war with the other sides backers (Germany). The Civil War made several differing ideologies fight on the same side (Communists & Anarchists vs Fascists and traditional conservatives) often causing armed conflicts between the same sides. Add in the various nationalities & strong regionalisms in Spain potentially wanting independence you could have Spain fall into a Syria level chaos quite easily. Spain however is too important to Europe to allow for the chaos to last that long...
 
This is the reason why European nations haven't descended into decades long levels of chaos like Somalia, Iraq or Afghanistan have. Before 1990 other nations would intervene to stop the other side (Western powers, Communists, fascists) winning control of the country which would be bad for the balance of power. After 1990, the EU/NATO took up the role of policing Europe to avoid refugee flows and ensure those pesky Russians don't get a foot hold somewhere.

An interesting case would be Spain in the 1930s. There was the potential for Spain to be split several ways between the ideological groups backed by different countries. If the civil war got very bogged down you couldn't have an invasion by one side backers (USSR) otherwise it could cause war with the other sides backers (Germany). The Civil War made several differing ideologies fight on the same side (Communists & Anarchists vs Fascists and traditional conservatives) often causing armed conflicts between the same sides. Add in the various nationalities & strong regionalisms in Spain potentially wanting independence you could have Spain fall into a Syria level chaos quite easily. Spain however is too important to Europe to allow for the chaos to last that long...
If this is true, then why hasn't Europe stopped all the wars in the middle east for that matter? Syria is right on Europe's doorstep.
 
Ireland potentially could have tipped over into outright large scale sectarian warfare in the early years of the century. In 1914 you had two large mutually hostile paramilitary groups in the Irish Volunteers and the Ulster Volunteers and things could have gotten very bloody and much more along Catholic/Protestant lines than in OTL.
 
Depends on what you mean by "third world". As pointed out by others here, there are European states today that have a lower GDP per capita than some African nations.
 
Would it be possible to get this in a part not in the Balkans? Like, maybe Finland after a much, much messier Winter War?

Finland's trajectory after a worse Winter War would look roughly similar to that of the Baltics. Falling into Soviet control, becoming a part of the USSR or a puppet people's republic, later new independence if and when the USSR falls. Any special poverty and societal breakdown over and above the rest of the USSR's "Baltic fringe" would be unlikely.

Otherwise, it seems to me that what the OP is asking for is not so much "a third world country" as it is "a failed state". There are many third world countries that are generally functional and peaceful, even if they are poor and lacking in economic and societal development.
 
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