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2037: The Saudi Civil War, by wildviper121
2037: The Saudi Civil War


Saudi Arabia, once a regional powerhouse, collapsed before the mid-point of the century. While the monarchy in Riyadh had once been able to successfully repress all opposition to its reign, a variety of factors weakened its hold on power.

THE PROBLEMS:

Saudi Arabia was running on borrowed time for decades by the time it collapsed.

For one, the kingdom was a rentier state: state-owned companies extracted oil, made a profit on the international market, and funneling that money into domestic powerholders to satiate complaints against the regime. A rentier state, of course, needs to continue making profit to survive. As the demand for oil declined in the second quarter of the 21st century as alternative fuel sources became cheap, Saudi Arabia needed to diversify.

Because of the nature of the Saudi economy, nearly half of the country’s citizens did not work and were not looking for work in the year 2037. Dependent on dwindling government support and too proud to join the Saudi workforce (which consisted of a large number of foreign workers from South Asia), these unemployed masses had both the time and motivation to take up arms against the government, if it stopped supporting them.

As a rentier kingdom, the Saudi royal family held all key positions in government and most key positions of power in the country. Any king would be challenged by a large number of possible rivals. This was especially the case for King Muhammad bin Salman, who ascended to the throne in 2025. The first grandson of King Abdulaziz (Ibn Saud) to hold the throne, King Muhammad faced a legitimacy crisis despite his efforts to purge all rivals to his power.

There was also the issue of religion. Since its very beginnings, Saudi Arabia was based off an alliance between the Saudi royal family and the ulema clerics, led by the Wahhabi Grand Mufti and his Al Ash-Sheikh religious family. At times, Saudi kings had tried to limit the power of the clerics—claiming the power to appoint the Grand Mufti and the Council of Senior Scholars, for example—but clerics had always been a source of conservative agitation against the government.

Saudi Arabia also had a large minority of Shia Muslims, who were discriminated against as second-class citizens in the Sunni-controlled country. The Shia, who made up a large portion of the population in the east (where most of the oil was) and the southwest (on the tumultuous border with Yemen), were also a source of agitation against the government.

THE RESPONSE:

The Saudi royal family was well aware of these issues. In the early years of his reign, King Muhammad bin Salman sought to bolster other areas of the economy, chiefly technology and trade. He also sought to replace declining oil revenues with international investment, but in order to do that, he needed to modernize the country: he brought women into the workforce, granted noncitizens special legal privileges, and decriminalized adult alcohol consumption. In the political realm, he granted a 2/3 veto power to the Consultative Assembly and created a lower house to be elected throughout the counties (though parties were still banned, and the king still held significant legislative powers). At the centerpiece of King Muhammad’s modernization plans was Neom, an urbanization project in the northwest of the country which included construction of a 100-mile linear city stretching from the coast through inland mountains—with a price-tag in the 100’s of billions of dollars.

King Muhammad’s modernization agenda was celebrated by the country’s progressives and its international allies. However, the conservatives of the country, led by the Council of Senior Scholars and the Grand Mufti were a constant source of whispered objections. Seeking to satiate the clerics and conservatives, King Muhammad returned to beating the dead horse of Yemen. In a series of military campaigns, King Muhammad created a Saudi puppet-state in Hudaydah, western Yemen—which failed to garner international recognition and became a drain on Saudi Arabia’s resources.

Saudi Arabia’s meddling abroad, however, only served to anger the country’s large Shia minority, inciting a state suppression campaign. Those Shias in Saudi Arabia’s southwestern region had cross-border connections with the Zaidi Shias of Yemen and took to the streets to protest King Muhammad’s war. In Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, Shias too protested. These protests, however, died down and failed to attract international intention.

As the Yemen disaster drained the country’s national bank, raised taxes, and shook the country, the Consultative Assembly voiced its objections to the King—who promptly suspended the lower chamber. Leading critics fled to Qatar and Iran. With his authority waning, however, King Muhammad sought to reclaim the loyalty of his country by going after the clerics, who had shut up as of late but might soon turn on him too. He abolished the position of Grand Mufti (as his uncle had done in 1969) and began issuing fatwas of his own from the Ministry of Islamic Affairs. Grand Mufti Muhammad Al ash-Sheikh, not wanting to be assassinated, found refuge in Qatar, though continued to whisper support to the country’s Salafists.

Briefly, it seemed as though King Muhammad had solidified his rule. Elections were held again for the Consultative Assembly, with loyalists again winning the supermajority, while Shia protesters returned to their quiet grumblings.

A series of events in the second half of the 2030’s changed that.

  • 2036 Israel-Lebanon War: Israel launched a war against Islamist-controlled Lebanon, forcing the Islamist Group and Hizbullah into exile. While Israel’s war was controversial in the rest of the world (the ruling Islamist Group was considered a terrorist organization by the West), it was despised in the Muslim World, triggering widespread protests and riots. Many Sunni states, who had pragmatically made alliances with Israel and mostly turned a blind eye to the war, were confronted by religious conservatives who demanded action. This left lasting legitimacy issues for many regimes in the Middle East.
  • Whistleblowers revealed the Neom Project’s vast corruption, mismanagement, and abuses of workers during the past decades of the project. While King Muhammad attempted to censor news of the misspent hundreds of billions, he failed to cease its spread.
  • Revolutions of 2037: Over the course of a few months, massive protests proliferated across the Arab world. Their origins began in Egypt against the regime of President Muhammad Farid Hegazy, which ultimately led to his assassination in a military coup. In Morocco, protests forced King Muhammad VI out of power, leaving the parliament to declare a successor. Major protests also erupted in Jordan against King Hussein II, and in the UAE where South Asian workers marched to demand greater rights.
With the Muslim world again rising in revolution, those in Saudi Arabia who were dissatisfied with the status quo—from modernizers to Shias to Salafists—took to the streets as well.

Here's the map at the peak of fighting, in May of 2039. At this point, the rival King Khalid has lost his legitimacy and is facing a widespread Islamist revolt, centered in Buraydah and 'Unayzah. Meanwhile, anti-Saudi rebels have claimed Ha'il, Military City, and Jiddah. Shia revolutionaries are expanding in Dammam and Khamis Mushayt, while Neom has fallen to a workers' revolt. The government of King Muhammad is beginning to rely on foreign aid for its survival -- the allied Gulf states, as well as Jordan, Iraq, and the United States.

5 2039.png


And here's a video of the course of the whole civil war. Make sure to get full screen / hd so you can see the city names.

 
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Without ottoman support, the Jews would not be able to settle Sinai at all. The British were insistent that they would not give the go ahead without ottoman support, and the ottomans owned 63% of Sinai's private territory in 1914 through shares and stakes before it was seized by the British during historical ww1 in 1916. Without the ottomans, in-verse the Jews would have no homeland in the Sinai. And with the in-verse Ottomans in the Entente, the Brits and Russians are not going to invade their ally either.
But the Jews need Israel, not Sinai, so they will betray the Ottomans for British as soon as these is the chance, don't you understand? I really don't see anything I can say to you anymore, and don't see the reason to continue the conversation
 
Okay, now that that argument is over...
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No set PoD. Germany unites faster than our world and becomes the main colonizer of Africa. America never gains Florida from Spain or Mexico. They lose the Mexican-American war. Russia never takes Siberia, letting another country form there. SIberia colonizes Alaska, but it is too expensive and is eventually given independence. England and Scotland never unite, and Ireland never joins in either. England annexes Wales, though. England colonizes Canada, Greenland, India, Ceylon, Guyana, and Australia, but after that it stops. China grows to span from the Caspian to the pacific. Japan never loses Formosa (Taiwan), but they also never gain a foothold on the mainland, leaving Korea independent and united. The Philippines remain Spanish, even though Spain and Portugal united into Iberia. Liberia is formed from Refugees from America as the land slowly but surely falls into chaos and anarchy, becoming the first colony to gain independence in Africa. Italy never unified, being stuck between North and South Italy, with them both splitting Rome. Austria-Hungary collapses, and parts of it join either Germany, Poland-Lithuania, or the Ottoman Empire. The rest are a part of the country of Balkania. The Ottoman EMpire never falls. Poland-Lithuania stays united, stretching from the Black to the Baltic seas. France gains more lands in French Indochina, destroying the country of Siam. Ethiopia becomes the first African country to colonize, expanding to Madagascar, but forced to split it with the Iberians. Scandinavia stays united, with all of scandinavia under their control. France also has some lands of Guyana under their control, as well as the Dutch. Germany colonized but granted independence to Africa, in the now superpower of Mittleafrika. Panama remains unchanged. Chile remains on the Pacific coast of South America, but the southern part is controlled by the country of Patagonia. Brazil remains the power of South America, although their power is on heavy decline with the declaration of Janeiran independence, taking away the beloved city of Rio de Janeiro. Iberia takes much of Southern Africa, although the most southern bits are controlled by the Netherlands. Ireland takes most of the Pacific Islands, also forming the colonies of New Belfast, New Dublin, and New Ireland. They also have most of Papua, but the Dutch have a little bit of it as well. The Netherlands also has the entirety off the East Indies. The Dutch also have most of Greenland, although England has the more southern parts near Canada. The Dutch take the Caribbean as well. Scotland also colonizes Iceland.

Any questions or suggestions?
 
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An Infographic on the Himlayan Confederation, a nation that was seriously in the cards until 1928, when Tibet backed out of the proposals due to the legal ambiguity of their country - being de-facto independent but de-jure considered still a part of China. Thoughts and Comments?
I don't know why but I like the idea of this confederation very much.

And does the high king seat rotated between the countries?

And how much tibetan irredentism was there regarding ladakh?

Surviving PRC is an impressive feat.
 

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Okay, now that that argument is over... View attachment 718021
No set PoD. Germany unites faster than our world and becomes the main colonizer of Africa. America never gains Florida from Spain or Mexico. They lose the Mexican-American war. Russia never takes Siberia, letting another country form there. SIberia colonizes Alaska, but it is too expensive and is eventually given independence. England and Scotland never unite, and Ireland never joins in either. England annexes Wales, though. England colonizes Canada, Greenland, India, Ceylon, Guyana, and Australia, but after that it stops. China grows to span from the Caspian to the pacific. Japan never loses Formosa (Taiwan), but they also never gain a foothold on the mainland, leaving Korea independent and united. The Philippines remain Spanish, even though Spain and Portugal united into Iberia. Liberia is formed from Refugees from America as the land slowly but surely falls into chaos and anarchy, becoming the first colony to gain independence in Africa. Italy never unified, being stuck between North and South Italy, with them both splitting Rome. Austria-Hungary collapses, and parts of it join either Germany, Poland-Lithuania, or the Ottoman Empire. The rest are a part of the country of Balkania. The Ottoman EMpire never falls. Poland-Lithuania stays united, stretching from the Black to the Baltic seas. France gains more lands in French Indochina, destroying the country of Siam. Ethiopia becomes the first African country to colonize, expanding to Madagascar, but forced to split it with the Iberians. Scandinavia stays united, with all of scandinavia under their control. France also has some lands of Guyana under their control, as well as the Dutch. Germany colonized but granted independence to Africa, in the now superpower of Mittleafrika. Panama remains unchanged. Chile remains on the Pacific coast of South America, but the southern part is controlled by the country of Patagonia. Brazil remains the power of South America, although their power is on heavy decline with the declaration of Janeiran independence, taking away the beloved city of Rio de Janeiro. Iberia takes much of Southern Africa, although the most southern bits are controlled by the Netherlands. Ireland takes most of the Pacific Islands, also forming the colonies of New Belfast, New Dublin, and New Ireland. They also have most of Papua, but the Dutch have a little bit of it as well. The Netherlands also has the entirety off the East Indies. The Dutch also have most of Greenland, although England has the more southern parts near Canada. The Dutch take the Caribbean as well. Scotland also colonizes Iceland.

Any questions or suggestions?
I suggest you don’t post the same map twice inside four hours. Someone will ALWAYS report it.
 
Looks pretty good! However a few provinces/territories are unnamed from what I see. Was that intentional?
I couldn't think of names for them.
Auralia: 55,000
ACT: 400,000
Capricornia: 460,000
Carpentaria: 34,000
Central Australia: 47,000
Cygnia: 2.1 M
Fitzroy: 400,000
Flinders: 1.5M
Pilbara: 71,000
Gold Coast: 4M
Illawarra: 220,000
Orana: 370,000
Kati Thanda: 37,000
Kimberley: 34,000
NSW: 5.3M
Riverina: 970,000
Tasmania: 540,000
Top End: 170,000
Victoria: 4.7M

The population sizes may be a tad unequal
That's pretty hard to do in Australia.
 
Russia never takes Siberia, letting another country form there. SIberia colonizes Alaska, but it is too expensive and is eventually given independence.

Your Siberian state, I'll note, is northern enough that it doesn't even include the halfway decent pieces of actual Siberia. No way it's going to support an agricultural population dense enough to avoid being swallowed by China or Russia, or possibly Japan or Korea if for some reason they don't bother. Push it south to include Mongolia, northern Manchuria and the Russian far east, and northern Kazakhstan and you might have something workable.
 
A scenario, that has been stuck in my head for a long time. A scenario, where Doggerland never been flooded and the Frisians settled there in the late antiquity/ early middle ages.
Nearly all the Frisians moved to what we, in OTL, know as "Doggerland". They intermixed with the local population and overlapped the Frisian language(s) over the local one(s). Later some Angles and Jutes came to the island and left a noticeable but not too heavy mark in the developement of the Frisian nation-genesis. The vikings conquered the land but could be "shaken off" soon, though the Norsemen left a not-to-be-scoffed-at influence in terms of both linguistics and culture.
In 1603, the unification of the Frisian lands could be realized and the Kingdom of Frisland was born.
Later Frisland fought against the English, the Danes and the French.
During the Napoleonic era, Frisland was on the side of the British and member of the coalitions.
From the 17th to the 19th century, Frisland could establish four larger colonies: Atera (what's New Zealand in OTL), Madagascar, Orangania (what's Gabun, mainland-Equatorialguinea and Brazzeville-Congo in OTL) and Patagonia. All these gained independence from 1940 to 1963.
In the first world war, Frisland fought on the side of the Central Powers. After losing, Frisland lost its monarchy and has been transformed into a parliamentary republic. During WWII, the country stayed neutral and could manage to keep both the Germans and British outside of Frisland. At least mostly - the country received a few bombings from both sides, but especially sea battles near the Frislandic coast.
The end of WWII led Frisland into a strongly left-winged direction and in 1951, the country felt into a socialistic dictatorship - with secret help from the Soviet Union.
During the late 50s and the 60s, the People's Republic of Frisland built an arsenal of nuclear weapons.
In 1976, the country could shake off the dictatorship due to the so called "Codfish revolution". But contrary to expections, the newly democratized country did not want to join NATO, the country decided to stay neutral.
In 1979, oil and gas has been found near Holenschlot, Ürlbeschlot and Daraugüm.
In 1995, Frisland joined the EU and in 2007 the Euro-zone.


QpftBYx.png
This is located at the OTL Dogger Bank?
 
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(No offense to any American here). In 1815, New England seceded from the union. Britain, wary of 23 years of war, decided to guarantee New England's independence but not pursue any further war with America. That was the beginning of the downward spiral for America, as revanchist politics and the slave-dominated union continued to fight among itself for future avenues of policies, economics, and military. The 1842 Oregon War saw Britain destroy American military capabilities to the ground, and the government very nearly collapsed. Thus began the American Century of Humiliation as the country was divided into several zones of influence and treaty ports were handed to various European powers.

(I chose the treaty ports and zones based on most or second most investments in the regions by country in 1900).

Thoughts and comments?
Neat idea! I assume Canada is analogous to Japan, Mexico is analogous to Russia, New England is analogous to Manchuria or Korea, and... I'm not so sure about Borealia... maybe Mongolia...

Is there going to be a follow up with a People's Republic of America, New York SAR, Mobile SAR, a rump Republic of America (wonder where) and a nine dotted line stretching all the way through the Caribbean and almost abutting Venezuela?
 
I assume Canada is analogous to Japan, Mexico is analogous to Russia, New England is analogous to Manchuria or Korea, and... I'm not so sure about Borealia... maybe Mongolia...
See I assumed that (if you want to go full parallelism, which I don't think was the intention here), Mexico is India; New England is Korea before Japan decided to outright annex it; Canada is Siberia; France is Britain, and Britain is Japan.
 
7Gl7Foc.png

(No offense to any American here). In 1815, New England seceded from the union. Britain, wary of 23 years of war, decided to guarantee New England's independence but not pursue any further war with America. That was the beginning of the downward spiral for America, as revanchist politics and the slave-dominated union continued to fight among itself for future avenues of policies, economics, and military. The 1842 Oregon War saw Britain destroy American military capabilities to the ground, and the government very nearly collapsed. Thus began the American Century of Humiliation as the country was divided into several zones of influence and treaty ports were handed to various European powers.

(I chose the treaty ports and zones based on most or second most investments in the regions by country in 1900).

Thoughts and comments?
Is America taking a path as OTL China went through?
 
2037: The Saudi Civil War


Saudi Arabia, once a regional powerhouse, collapsed before the mid-point of the century. While the monarchy in Riyadh had once been able to successfully repress all opposition to its reign, a variety of factors weakened its hold on power.

THE PROBLEMS:

Saudi Arabia was running on borrowed time for decades by the time it collapsed.

For one, the kingdom was a rentier state: state-owned companies extracted oil, made a profit on the international market, and funneling that money into domestic powerholders to satiate complaints against the regime. A rentier state, of course, needs to continue making profit to survive. As the demand for oil declined in the second quarter of the 21st century as alternative fuel sources became cheap, Saudi Arabia needed to diversify.

Because of the nature of the Saudi economy, nearly half of the country’s citizens did not work and were not looking for work in the year 2037. Dependent on dwindling government support and too proud to join the Saudi workforce (which consisted of a large number of foreign workers from South Asia), these unemployed masses had both the time and motivation to take up arms against the government, if it stopped supporting them.

As a rentier kingdom, the Saudi royal family held all key positions in government and most key positions of power in the country. Any king would be challenged by a large number of possible rivals. This was especially the case for King Muhammad bin Salman, who ascended to the throne in 2025. The first grandson of King Abdulaziz (Ibn Saud) to hold the throne, King Muhammad faced a legitimacy crisis despite his efforts to purge all rivals to his power.

There was also the issue of religion. Since its very beginnings, Saudi Arabia was based off an alliance between the Saudi royal family and the ulema clerics, led by the Wahhabi Grand Mufti and his Al Ash-Sheikh religious family. At times, Saudi kings had tried to limit the power of the clerics—claiming the power to appoint the Grand Mufti and the Council of Senior Scholars, for example—but clerics had always been a source of conservative agitation against the government.

Saudi Arabia also had a large minority of Shia Muslims, who were discriminated against as second-class citizens in the Sunni-controlled country. The Shia, who made up a large portion of the population in the east (where most of the oil was) and the southwest (on the tumultuous border with Yemen), were also a source of agitation against the government.

THE RESPONSE:

The Saudi royal family was well aware of these issues. In the early years of his reign, King Muhammad bin Salman sought to bolster other areas of the economy, chiefly technology and trade. He also sought to replace declining oil revenues with international investment, but in order to do that, he needed to modernize the country: he brought women into the workforce, granted noncitizens special legal privileges, and decriminalized adult alcohol consumption. In the political realm, he granted a 2/3 veto power to the Consultative Assembly and created a lower house to be elected throughout the counties (though parties were still banned, and the king still held significant legislative powers). At the centerpiece of King Muhammad’s modernization plans was Neom, an urbanization project in the northwest of the country which included construction of a 100-mile linear city stretching from the coast through inland mountains—with a price-tag in the 100’s of billions of dollars.

King Muhammad’s modernization agenda was celebrated by the country’s progressives and its international allies. However, the conservatives of the country, led by the Council of Senior Scholars and the Grand Mufti were a constant source of whispered objections. Seeking to satiate the clerics and conservatives, King Muhammad returned to beating the dead horse of Yemen. In a series of military campaigns, King Muhammad created a Saudi puppet-state in Hudaydah, western Yemen—which failed to garner international recognition and became a drain on Saudi Arabia’s resources.

Saudi Arabia’s meddling abroad, however, only served to anger the country’s large Shia minority, inciting a state suppression campaign. Those Shias in Saudi Arabia’s southwestern region had cross-border connections with the Zaidi Shias of Yemen and took to the streets to protest King Muhammad’s war. In Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, Shias too protested. These protests, however, died down and failed to attract international intention.

As the Yemen disaster drained the country’s national bank, raised taxes, and shook the country, the Consultative Assembly voiced its objections to the King—who promptly suspended the lower chamber. Leading critics fled to Qatar and Iran. With his authority waning, however, King Muhammad sought to reclaim the loyalty of his country by going after the clerics, who had shut up as of late but might soon turn on him too. He abolished the position of Grand Mufti (as his uncle had done in 1969) and began issuing fatwas of his own from the Ministry of Islamic Affairs. Grand Mufti Muhammad Al ash-Sheikh, not wanting to be assassinated, found refuge in Qatar, though continued to whisper support to the country’s Salafists.

Briefly, it seemed as though King Muhammad had solidified his rule. Elections were held again for the Consultative Assembly, with loyalists again winning the supermajority, while Shia protesters returned to their quiet grumblings.

A series of events in the second half of the 2030’s changed that.

  • 2036 Israel-Lebanon War: Israel launched a war against Islamist-controlled Lebanon, forcing the Islamist Group and Hizbullah into exile. While Israel’s war was controversial in the rest of the world (the ruling Islamist Group was considered a terrorist organization by the West), it was despised in the Muslim World, triggering widespread protests and riots. Many Sunni states, who had pragmatically made alliances with Israel and mostly turned a blind eye to the war, were confronted by religious conservatives who demanded action. This left lasting legitimacy issues for many regimes in the Middle East.
  • Whistleblowers revealed the Neom Project’s vast corruption, mismanagement, and abuses of workers during the past decades of the project. While King Muhammad attempted to censor news of the misspent hundreds of billions, he failed to cease its spread.
  • Revolutions of 2037: Over the course of a few months, massive protests proliferated across the Arab world. Their origins began in Egypt against the regime of President Muhammad Farid Hegazy, which ultimately led to his assassination in a military coup. In Morocco, protests forced King Muhammad VI out of power, leaving the parliament to declare a successor. Major protests also erupted in Jordan against King Hussein II, and in the UAE where South Asian workers marched to demand greater rights.
With the Muslim world again rising in revolution, those in Saudi Arabia who were dissatisfied with the status quo—from modernizers to Shias to Salafists—took to the streets as well.

Here's the map at the peak of fighting, in May of 2039. At this point, the rival King Khalid has lost his legitimacy and is facing a widespread Islamist revolt, centered in Buraydah and 'Unayzah. Meanwhile, anti-Saudi rebels have claimed Ha'il, Military City, and Jiddah. Shia revolutionaries are expanding in Dammam and Khamis Mushayt, while Neom has fallen to a workers' revolt. The government of King Muhammad is beginning to rely on foreign aid for its survival -- the allied Gulf states, as well as Jordan, Iraq, and the United States.

View attachment 718005

And here's a video of the course of the whole civil war. Make sure to get full screen / hd so you can see the city names.


The Ultimate Can of Worms.

Why does Egypt support the Commune of Neom? What are the politics of the Arabian Transistion Gov/Free Arabia. Army and Officer Alliance?
 
The Ultimate Can of Worms.

Why does Egypt support the Commune of Neom? What are the politics of the Arabian Transistion Gov/Free Arabia. Army and Officer Alliance?
Great q's --

So Egypt is the first to fall to the Second Arab Spring, bringing to power a socialist regime which finds ideological allies in the rebelling workers of Neom.

Meanwhile, the 'democratic' forces broadly support an end to Saudi monarchy and the arrival of republican democracy. However, they disagree to what degree Arabia should be democratic. Many end up defecting to Islamists once their factions begin to lose or once pay dries up, for example.
 
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