Just a fairly plain one.
Although there was some rather unpleasant nuke-waving at first, all those tourists in Mexican, Canadian, European, etc. hands acted as a rather potent counterdeterrent to, say, nuking Mexico city, and it soon became clear that 4 million Americans weren't going to be able to prevent cities from burning down, reactors from melting down, etc. etc., and in any event could hardly fill the endless empty cities and fields. So, a negociated compromise was agreed on: the US citizens would get back the heatlands of their country, the Canadians and Mexicans would be allowed some territory, and the bulk of the east coast would be "held in trust" by a multinational UN-backed force.
As it happened, Mexico, in the midst of a dreadful economic meltdown, was in no shape to colonize it's territories, and was forced to accept foreign assistance in the SW. The Chinese, rather impolitely, have refused to leave the area they put quite a bit of time, energy, and hungry peasants into restoring to civilization.
50 years on, the rump US has a population of some 10 million: more than the third are settlers from somewhere else, which is causing some severe political stresses: the two major new apocalyptic churches may not agree on much, but they agree that letting in probably-dammned foreigners is most offensive to god. Politics are turbulent in the new capital of New Orleans, and people worry if US democracy - shaky enough after the 15 years of "emergency rule" following the Vanishing - will survive.
Latin America underwent a bout of wacky politics as a result of the global economic meltdown, although the new, liberating, "peoples socialism" has turned out to not be much of an improvement over the old variety (although with a lower body count). Today Latin American radicalism is in decline, not helped by the early-on split of the movement into Venezuelan and Mexican branches.
A number of African countries essentially collapsed as a result of the global economic meltdown, and eventually the EC and UN peacekeepers moved in: as things have remained bad over the last 50 years (with, admittedly, a few bright spots, such as the final development of cheap AIDS medications), they have frequently come back, and in some places essentially stayed (Zaire after it fell apart, the western Sahel after continued desertification made it essentially impossible for the land to support the people). Of course, human nature being what it is, the UN often forms the catspaw of foreign governments with interests in the area.
The Iranian-Israeli nuclear arms race ended rather badly, although the Iraqis and the Azeris might disagree.
Pakistan, after the first civil war and the Islamicist takeover, the persecution of the Shi'as, the second civil war and the takeover by the amy, and their displacement by the militant neo-Sufis, is barely functional as a country, and much of its area is basically not under government control. It is essentially dependent on imports of vat-grown synthifood, but won't let in any UN peacekeepers as a matter of national pride.
The EC and China form the Big Two powers. The EC remains only loosely politically federated, and increasingly dominated by a France with better demographics than Germany or Italy. It still speaks with a more-or-less united voice whenever its interests are threatened, and has finally eased up on the harsh restrictions to immigration from the Islamic world that it passed in the aftermath of the economic collapse, having over the last-half century managed to largely digest it's Islamic population into chatty cafe-dwellers with little inclination to riot, except maybe over soccer. It retains a capacity for rapid social mobilization dating to the panicky days after the Vanishing, when a number of European countries instituted their own form of "emergency rule."
The Chinese government never quite recovered it's legitimacy after the plunge in living standards, and although China was eventually able to get on it's feet again, a democratic government now runs the country (and casualties in the changeover were in the low millions). A plebescite on independence has been held in Sianking and Tibet: unfortunately, the former dictatorship had been too successful in colonizing Tibet, and the almost unanimous "union" vote of the Chinese immigrants defeated the move towards independence. (China may be democratic now, but it's no less - indeed, if anything more nationalistic).
Russian bullying of the Central Asian states led to a pro-Chinese alliance, to which only non-Turkish Tajikstan and Chinese-hating Sianking do not suscribe: they look instead to India, which with it's history of long suffering was able to ride out the global economic collapse better than some other countries, and is beginning to catch up with China.
The Pacific Rim Alliance have in common historical bad feelings towards China and a determination to not end up as satellites of the Chinese sun. (Indonesia has less fraught a history than its partners, but the current constant fussing about Chinese minority rights by the Chinese government is very annoying).
Russia's increasingly push and agressive behavior after the vanishing of the US, culminating in the Moscow-backed rising in Eastern Ukraine, has led to an increased militarization of the EC, although mostly in the form of more nukes and anti-missile systems: Russia's actual army remains fairly crappy, since it's Soviet-inherited weaponry long ago passed into obsolesence, and it's economy has never been strong enough to build a first-class conventional army.
Bruce
Although there was some rather unpleasant nuke-waving at first, all those tourists in Mexican, Canadian, European, etc. hands acted as a rather potent counterdeterrent to, say, nuking Mexico city, and it soon became clear that 4 million Americans weren't going to be able to prevent cities from burning down, reactors from melting down, etc. etc., and in any event could hardly fill the endless empty cities and fields. So, a negociated compromise was agreed on: the US citizens would get back the heatlands of their country, the Canadians and Mexicans would be allowed some territory, and the bulk of the east coast would be "held in trust" by a multinational UN-backed force.
As it happened, Mexico, in the midst of a dreadful economic meltdown, was in no shape to colonize it's territories, and was forced to accept foreign assistance in the SW. The Chinese, rather impolitely, have refused to leave the area they put quite a bit of time, energy, and hungry peasants into restoring to civilization.
50 years on, the rump US has a population of some 10 million: more than the third are settlers from somewhere else, which is causing some severe political stresses: the two major new apocalyptic churches may not agree on much, but they agree that letting in probably-dammned foreigners is most offensive to god. Politics are turbulent in the new capital of New Orleans, and people worry if US democracy - shaky enough after the 15 years of "emergency rule" following the Vanishing - will survive.
Latin America underwent a bout of wacky politics as a result of the global economic meltdown, although the new, liberating, "peoples socialism" has turned out to not be much of an improvement over the old variety (although with a lower body count). Today Latin American radicalism is in decline, not helped by the early-on split of the movement into Venezuelan and Mexican branches.
A number of African countries essentially collapsed as a result of the global economic meltdown, and eventually the EC and UN peacekeepers moved in: as things have remained bad over the last 50 years (with, admittedly, a few bright spots, such as the final development of cheap AIDS medications), they have frequently come back, and in some places essentially stayed (Zaire after it fell apart, the western Sahel after continued desertification made it essentially impossible for the land to support the people). Of course, human nature being what it is, the UN often forms the catspaw of foreign governments with interests in the area.
The Iranian-Israeli nuclear arms race ended rather badly, although the Iraqis and the Azeris might disagree.
Pakistan, after the first civil war and the Islamicist takeover, the persecution of the Shi'as, the second civil war and the takeover by the amy, and their displacement by the militant neo-Sufis, is barely functional as a country, and much of its area is basically not under government control. It is essentially dependent on imports of vat-grown synthifood, but won't let in any UN peacekeepers as a matter of national pride.
The EC and China form the Big Two powers. The EC remains only loosely politically federated, and increasingly dominated by a France with better demographics than Germany or Italy. It still speaks with a more-or-less united voice whenever its interests are threatened, and has finally eased up on the harsh restrictions to immigration from the Islamic world that it passed in the aftermath of the economic collapse, having over the last-half century managed to largely digest it's Islamic population into chatty cafe-dwellers with little inclination to riot, except maybe over soccer. It retains a capacity for rapid social mobilization dating to the panicky days after the Vanishing, when a number of European countries instituted their own form of "emergency rule."
The Chinese government never quite recovered it's legitimacy after the plunge in living standards, and although China was eventually able to get on it's feet again, a democratic government now runs the country (and casualties in the changeover were in the low millions). A plebescite on independence has been held in Sianking and Tibet: unfortunately, the former dictatorship had been too successful in colonizing Tibet, and the almost unanimous "union" vote of the Chinese immigrants defeated the move towards independence. (China may be democratic now, but it's no less - indeed, if anything more nationalistic).
Russian bullying of the Central Asian states led to a pro-Chinese alliance, to which only non-Turkish Tajikstan and Chinese-hating Sianking do not suscribe: they look instead to India, which with it's history of long suffering was able to ride out the global economic collapse better than some other countries, and is beginning to catch up with China.
The Pacific Rim Alliance have in common historical bad feelings towards China and a determination to not end up as satellites of the Chinese sun. (Indonesia has less fraught a history than its partners, but the current constant fussing about Chinese minority rights by the Chinese government is very annoying).
Russia's increasingly push and agressive behavior after the vanishing of the US, culminating in the Moscow-backed rising in Eastern Ukraine, has led to an increased militarization of the EC, although mostly in the form of more nukes and anti-missile systems: Russia's actual army remains fairly crappy, since it's Soviet-inherited weaponry long ago passed into obsolesence, and it's economy has never been strong enough to build a first-class conventional army.
Bruce
