POD's for a more united Anglosphere

[Murica1776]

I've been mulling over the idea of a more thoroughly united Anglosphere for awhile, and am curious what y'all would think has the potential to cause such a sphere to form. For the purposes of this, I'm being fairly strict/conservative in my definition of Anglosphere as encompassing the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Some ideas I have are below, but I definitely want to hear more!

POD 1: In the aftermath of WWII, suspicions between France and the US/UK are a bit higher than OTL, which isn't unrealistic given De Gaulle's temperament. Perhaps as a reaction to this, the formation of the Commonwealth is altered to make it a more tightly integrated system, scaring off places like India and Africa because it feels too much like rule from London in a new guise.

POD 2: Following the collapse of the USSR and the ensuing boom of neoliberalism/free trade in the 90's, perhaps an Anglosphere-wide free trade agreement either replaces or supplements things like NAFTA and the evolution of the EU.

 

[Puzzle]

I’d say the way to get the anglosphere together is to make everything else worse. When the USSR falls China goes with it, Mexico turns into an anarchic civil war precipitated by drugs, and government corruption. East Germany turns into a basket case with communist die hards blowing things up across Europe, and the Middle East decides to set itself on fire.

The anglosphere would be the safe and sane remaining countries, and happily well separated by oceans or deserts from the chaos. The collapse of most other economies means that there’s a glut of large commercial planes and the peace dividend gives them pilots which kicks off a golden age of tourism uniting the cultures more thoroughly.

 

[Murica1776]

I’d say the way to get the anglosphere together is to make everything else worse. When the USSR falls China goes with it, Mexico turns into an anarchic civil war precipitated by drugs, and government corruption. East Germany turns into a basket case with communist die hards blowing things up across Europe, and the Middle East decides to set itself on fire.

The anglosphere would be the safe and sane remaining countries, and happily well separated by oceans or deserts from the chaos. The collapse of most other economies means that there’s a glut of large commercial planes and the peace dividend gives them pilots which kicks off a golden age of tourism uniting the cultures more thoroughly.

Hmm, that's an interesting idea. I guess the initial POD then would be Nixon never goes to China, thus averting the opening of the country, and perhaps allowing Maoism to maintain a harsher grip. The USSR and Warsaw Pact both have a harder fall than OTL, which could delay the full integration of East Germany by years, which would really alter the EU. The Middle East is still a tinderbox, so that could still go wrong. This is an interesting idea!

 

[Goldwind2]

Hmm, that's an interesting idea. I guess the initial POD then would be Nixon never goes to China, thus averting the opening of the country, and perhaps allowing Maoism to maintain a harsher grip. The USSR and Warsaw Pact both have a harder fall than OTL, which could delay the full integration of East Germany by years, which would really alter the EU. The Middle East is still a tinderbox, so that could still go wrong. This is an interesting idea!

I assume that hong kong will remain an island of sanity as a Britsh conlony. Do you think that after the cossple of the PRC parts of china would request to be come britsh protcoates

 

[Dan1988]

I assume that hong kong will remain an island of sanity as a Britsh conlony. Do you think that after the cossple of the PRC parts of china would request to be come britsh protcoates

I'm afraid it will have to be a no to both. Either way, HK was not going to remain British for long, and if the PRC collapsed a new Chinese Republic would almost immediately take its place and would demand HK be included (and Taiwan as well, as the self-declared successor to the GMD regime). Now, what form the new Chinese Republic takes is an open question - if it was the ROC, for example, it runs into problems with the dangwai movement and the Taiwan-ization process going on under Jiang Jingguo and later Lee Teng-hui - not to mention the growing corruption scandals all throughout the 1980s, as well as a certain one that had to get the FBI involved because it involved the covert use of Triads to target opponents of the GMD regime living in the US. For the ROC to re-establish itself would require a lot of effort to get everything going that would have to involve concessions to Taiwan - as well as the return of Hong Kong to Chinese rule since the ROC, like the PRC, disputed the unequal treaties. Most likely, a new state unconnected with the ROC would probably arise - which would not only dispute the ROC's existence, but would also demand Hong Kong's return to China, no ifs ands or buts about it.

 

[Aisha Clan-Clan]

To get it, all you'd need is them joining the US openly as commonwealths like PR going by the lack of practical independence/sovereignty OTL.

Puerto ricans at least can vote in primaries/send a nonvoting delegate to the house and move to the mainland but brits/canadians/australians and tbh euros don't have that.

 

[Hugh Third of Five]

You could avert the American Revolution by having parliament take a more liberal approach, but at that point there would be so many butterflies that it's hard to say what the world would look like in the 20th Century.

If you're looking to have something where the 5 Anglosphere countries basically become the ATL counterpart of NATO, it would probably take a form different from the Commonwealth. The British monarch is its nominal head, and I can't see the USA doing anything even remotely looking like becoming (part of) a constitutional monarchy, so it would either be a situation where the monarch is not head of the Commonwealth (which could itself require a bit of explaining) or be a separate organization.

 

[Goldwind2]

I'm afraid it will have to be a no to both. Either way, HK was not going to remain British for long, and if the PRC collapsed a new Chinese Republic would almost immediately take its place and would demand HK be included (and Taiwan as well, as the self-declared successor to the GMD regime). Now, what form the new Chinese Republic takes is an open question - if it was the ROC, for example, it runs into problems with the dangwai movement and the Taiwan-ization process going on under Jiang Jingguo and later Lee Teng-hui - not to mention the growing corruption scandals all throughout the 1980s, as well as a certain one that had to get the FBI involved because it involved the covert use of Triads to target opponents of the GMD regime living in the US. For the ROC to re-establish itself would require a lot of effort to get everything going that would have to involve concessions to Taiwan - as well as the return of Hong Kong to Chinese rule since the ROC, like the PRC, disputed the unequal treaties. Most likely, a new state unconnected with the ROC would probably arise - which would not only dispute the ROC's existence, but would also demand Hong Kong's return to China, no ifs ands or buts about it.

In 1916 china first presidnet Yuan Shikai, t tired make himself empoeror. This was unpoppular and Yuan Shikai found him self unprising. Yuan Shikai, shortily after delcaring himself emppor. After Yuan death none of the rebel could gain control of over. This result in the 12 year warold period. It possalbe the cosslape of the PRC could result in another warold peroid

 

[Library of Alexandria]

To get it, all you'd need is them joining the US openly as commonwealths like PR going by the lack of practical independence/sovereignty OTL.

Puerto ricans at least can vote in primaries/send a nonvoting delegate to the house and move to the mainland but brits/canadians/australians and tbh euros don't have that.

What are you implying? That Puerto Rico has more say in the way that it's governed than the rest of the world's normal provinces do?

 

[Aisha Clan-Clan]

More of a say in the way it's governed than most COUNTRIES besides the US and to a lesser extent russia/china/maybe saudi arabia if you count soft power in the form of religion, yeah.

There's reasons that date to how the world wars turned out for why both Vietnam and Algeria ended up governed by National Liberation Fronts instead of an emperor for one and a sultan for another. Reasons that are connected to US bomber flights over europe , of course.

 

[Mark E.]

You could avert the American Revolution by having parliament take a more liberal approach, but at that point there would be so many butterflies that it's hard to say what the world would look like in the 20th Century.

That's what I was thinking: give the American colonies representation in Parliament and the American country breaks off later the way Canada did. But that changes the borders on the continent as the Louisiana and Mexican territory (south of the Oregon territory) might never be part of the Anglosphere. One benefit is that the British outlawed slave trade and would have phased out slavery sooner.

 

[Dan1988]

In 1916 china first presidnet Yuan Shikai, t tired make himself empoeror. This was unpoppular and Yuan Shikai found him self unprising. Yuan Shikai, shortily after delcaring himself emppor. After Yuan death none of the rebel could gain control of over. This result in the 12 year warold period. It possalbe the cosslape of the PRC could result in another warold peroid

OTOH the collapse of the PRC would probably be nothing like the Warlord Period. Even when the Soviet Union collapsed, the RSFSR still remained more or less intact as the Russian Federation, and my basic assumption would be something similar would happen to the PRC, since too many people would have benefited from the regime to not keep it going. On top of that, Sun Yixian/Sun Yat-sen is already revered in China (and among the GMD in Taiwan) as the "Founder of Modern China" and a big thing in Sun's imagination was the need for unity. If the CCP collapsed, it could just as easily be renamed as something and/or merged into the satellite parties so that at least 1-2 of them could maintain the CCP's dominance in all but name. Say, for example, a pro-Mainland GMD/China Democratic League coalition keeping everything going while getting post-Maoist China to recover from the chaos (in which case some reform is unavoidable).

IOW, too many people are invested into the notion of a united Chinese nation-state to let the Warlord Period repeat itself. Furthermore, it cannot be emphasized enough that in Hong Kong itself, many people were Chinese nationalists of some sort. They could argue amongst themselves which China they would prefer to be under, but given the UK's early recognition of the PRC due to Hong Kong, not to mention a lot of Hong Kongers were sympathetic to leftist ideas (although that did not automatically translate to being pro-PRC, to be sure), having Hong Kong join the PRC's successor state is the most likely outcome if the PRC collapsed since China was long an important part of HK's infrastructure. China holds all the cards when it comes to Hong Kong, and Britain could not do a thing about it, and neither would a more united Anglosphere. Not unless they risk Hong Kong being Macau'ed.

 

[Captain Seafort]

That's what I was thinking: give the American colonies representation in Parliament and the American country breaks off later the way Canada did. But that changes the borders on the continent as the Louisiana and Mexican territory (south of the Oregon territory) might never be part of the Anglosphere. One benefit is that the British outlawed slave trade and would have phased out slavery sooner.

I doubt that would work. Having representation at Westminster would drive a coach and horses through the argument that English law didn't apply in the colonies, and lead to the conclusion that Somerset applied in the colonies just as it did in England and Wales. I suspect that the colonials' response to being told that would be violent.

 

[Deleted member 94680]

That's what I was thinking: give the American colonies representation in Parliament

I doubt that would work.

I’ve always assumed the Revolutionaries knew London would never accept the demands for representation and hit on a casus belli that would unite the Colonies.

 

[marathag]

One benefit is that the British outlawed slave trade and would have phased out slavery sooner.

Or not.
But the 19thC, the British Sugar Islands were not the money makers of the previous centuries, and Slavery was on the out.
It wasn't a big hit to the Treasury to pay for emancipation. £20M Pounds for 800k slaves, and that was 40% of the Budget for thatfiscal year.
Add in Southern Slaves, that's 2million more people, and the Cotton Gin had made Slavery very profitable again, so 25 Pounds a Slave won't cut it.

 

[Dan1988]

Anyway, as for this POD:

POD 1: In the aftermath of WWII, suspicions between France and the US/UK are a bit higher than OTL, which isn't unrealistic given De Gaulle's temperament.

That's probably easy to do, by preventing the formation of the GPRF. Hence no Fourth Republic as we know it IOTL (which was basically a continuation of the Third Republic in all but name), but instead FDR's wish is granted early enough which over-rules Eisenhower and others. So AMGOT is set up in France (thus preventing recognition of the CFLN as the legitimate government of France) as the replacement for both Vichy and the German military administration, thus making the assumption that despite the efforts of de Gaulle and the Free French, France itself would still be considered enemy territory and would be governed as such. Eventually, France does regain independence, and hence its sanity, but would only regain prominence as part of European integration. I would suggest doing quite a bit of research and discussion with some of our French AH.commers to get everything right, though, because one false move by AMGOT could derail the project completely.