Retro-future: 2010-1-1 as seen from 1990-1-1

Yes, essentially it's a DBWI in all but name and we already had some scenarios like that earlier, usually 1900, 1945 or 1985 to begin from.

How would someone with an alternate history affinity like ours draw a future map of 2010 when he's currently living on New Year's Day 1990, without knowledge of ongoing OTL history?


I intentionally took that date because it's the date when most red regimes of the Eastern Bloc already have fallen in favor of transitional governments, with the awareness of the Cold War being essentially over, but also because it's the date when most upcoming wars and border changes were not in real handsight then. Right after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, Helmut Kohl said to Lech Walesa that "I surely won't live to see the unification of the two Germanies, while you could maybe have a chance to experience it". Everything was very lukewarm then, 1985 to 1990 had been surprising enough, but OTL 1995-6 would have even been considered ASB after the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the new year's party thereafter in Berlin.
 

wormyguy

Banned
I wished I lived in this TL.

2010:

US: The US is under the continued leadership of the Republican Party, uninterrupted since 1980. The Democratic Party has all but imploded, and is trying to reinvent itself as a champion of unions (at the expense of the Japanese), traditional values, and rural and small-town Americans. The chief challenge to the Republicans is from Ross Perot's Reform Party. It is by far the most powerful economy in the world, as well as one of the chief innovators and fastest growing ones, reaping the dividends from a rapid decrease in defense expenditures after the end of the Cold War. Federal programs have begun to create an "intelligent road" network, as well as electric car mandates, will cut oil consumption by 76% by 2018. The US pioneered and is a major player in the new field of "tele-commerce."

Central/South America: Communist regimes in Cuba and Nicaragua have disappeared, one by force and the other by election. Gradual democratization and development are happening in the region, as it slowly shakes off its history of strongman dictators and corruption.

Europe: The peaceful collapse of Communism has created a boom in Eastern Europe of unprecedented levels. Russia and its former Warsaw Pact allies have collectively had nearly 68% economic gains since 1989. Analysts predict that the region as a whole will be wealthier than Western Europe by 2020 if the Western European countries do not provide incentives to businesses that equal those of the East. Increasing IRA terrorism finally forced the British to the negotiating table in 2001, resulting in a united Ireland. However, some Irish nationalists still were unsatisfied, as under the treaty the Royal Navy was permitted to use Belfast as a permanent port, and the Irish government agreed to grant considerable extra rights to Protestants who stayed in Ulster, and monetary compensation to those who left before 2003. Gibraltar was ceded to the Spanish in 2007. This did not mean much, the Royal Navy was still permitted to use it as a port, and any citizens who chose could remain subjects of the British crown rather than the Spanish. Reunified Germany remains an economic powerhouse, although its auto industry is finding it hard to remain on the cutting-edge of electric car production. Yugoslavia remains ethnically divided, but unified after the 1994 federalizing reforms. Czechoslovakia, too, is a perfectly successful state, although it, too, required federalizing reforms to ease ethnic rivalry.

Sub-Saharan Africa: The South African Civil War started in 1995, and has since claimed over three million lives. The black population rose up against their white oppressors (and military). The war has been characterized by widespread "ethnic cleansing" wherein towns and villages are destroyed and noncompliant inhabitants massacred. The situation in the country is dire, with disease, especially AIDS (despite the cure found in 1998), running rampant. One of the greatest triumphs of the US military was Operation Eagle Shield, the destruction on the ground of South Africa's air force in 1995, and the simultaneous parachute assault that captured her nuclear arsenal. The US is planning to return later this year, leading a UTO peacekeeping force to enforce the UN resolution calling for an end to the conflict. Elsewhere, the situation is less dim. Investment from the West, as well as from the opened East, the end of funding for rebel groups from intelligence agencies, and the cure for AIDS are helping to vitalize the Sub-Saharan African economy, and the region is expected to be a major growth leader in years to come.

Middle East and North Africa: The successful invasion of Iraq and subsequent Rose Revolution there, spreading to Kuwait (resulting in peaceful unification) and Syria, provided a shining example of democracy and capitalism for the Middle East. Conservative Islam and traditionalist monarchies quake as the winds of democracy and renewed intellectualism threaten to upset the old ways, simultaneous to record drops in oil prices with the widespread switch to electric cars. Israel and the PLO came to an agreement for a two-state solution in the 1997 Milan Accords, although Israel continues to occupy Lebanon and the Golan Heights.

Far East: The "Newspaper Revolution" (so named because all the major newspapers in Beijing ran articles praising the February 10 protests) in 1993 overthrew the Chinese government in favor of democracy, a movement which had been gaining strength since the 1989 Tianenmen Square incident. The movement spread to the now-isolated Communist states of Mongolia and North Korea, and these led to the 1995 peaceful reunifications of China and Korea. China and Korea are emerging economic powerhouses, and China may soon rival the US and Japan in terms of sheer output. Japan, whose electronics sales in the US may soon exceed that of US companies, and whose automakers (embarrassingly for the US) produced the first mass-produced electric car (the Toyota Electra), also benefited greatly from the opening of markets in Eastern Europe, China, and North Korea to its goods, and its economy, the second-largest in the world, may soon rival that of the US. In 1996, Japan bought the Kurile Islands from Russia for the enormous sum of $100,000,000,000 rubles. Meanwhile, Japan is known for setting newer and higher standards of excess, such as the notorious executive whose wife tiled her bathroom floor with diamonds. Meanwhile, Southeast Asia remains the only haven for Communism left, albeit "Communism With Vietnamese Characteristics," and, in Laos, "Socialism Within Popular Mass Agreement."



Miscellaneous:

Oil: $5.17 a barrel. (45% of cars are now electric, comprising 87% of new car sales).

UTO (United Treaty Organization, direct successor to NATO):

Far from its origins as a defensive military pact, the UTO is now an international peacekeeping force which helps developing countries overcome conflicts and insurgencies the world over.

UTO Member States:

Republic of Albania
Argentine Republic
Republic of Austria (Participant in activities, but not signatory to the treaty)
Commonwealth of Australia
Kingdom of Belgium
Belize
Federative Republic of Brazil
Republic of Bulgaria
Canada
Republic of Chile
Chinese National Republic
Republic of Colombia
Cuban State
Federal Republic of Czechoslovakia
Kingdom of Denmark
Republic of Equador
Republic of Estonia
Republic of Finland
French Republic
Federal Republic of Germany
Republic of Hungary
Republic of Iceland
Republic of India (Participant in activities, but not signatory to the treaty)
Republic of Iraq and Kuwait
Ireland (Participant in activities, but not signatory to the treaty)
State of Israel (Participant in activities, but not signatory to the treaty)
Italian Republic
State of Japan (Participant in activities, but not signatory to the treaty)
Republic of Korea
Republic of Latvia
Republic of Lithuania
Grand Duchy of Luxembourg
Republic of Malta (Participant in activities, but not signatory to the treaty)
United Mexican States
Kingdom of the Netherlands
Republic of Nicaragua
Kingdom of Norway
Republic of Panama
Republic of Paraguay
Republic of Peru
Pepublic of the Philippines
Republic of Poland
Portuguese Republic
(Russian) Democratic Federation of Sovereign Soviet Republics
Republic of Singapore (Participant in activities, but not signatory to the treaty)
Kingdom of Spain
Kingdom of Sweden (Participant in activities, but not signatory to the treaty)
Kingdom of Thailand
Republic of Turkey
United Kingdom of England and Scotland
United States of America

20101990world.png
 
This looks similar to speculative timelines from games in the early 90s. Kudos for capturing the style perfectly. Need a dab of cyberpunk (people wear VR goggles to access the global Net?) in technology, though.
 
How would someone with an alternate history affinity like ours draw a future map of 2010 when he's currently living on New Year's Day 1990, without knowledge of ongoing OTL history?
OK, I'll try. Explanation of some PODs in brackets and accompanied with initials (like this - CG)
Germany is unified in mid- to late-1990s. However, Americans had to respect Gorbachev-Baker agreement (Oral IOTL, but Gorbachov was more cunning and secure to sign formal agreement ITTL - CG) on NATO enlargement, so Eastern Germany isn't used to deploy American forces. Same agreement prevented Eastern Europe from joining NATO. Technically they remain non-aligned neutral states, but in fact most of them are rabidly pro-American. There's tongue-in-cheeks definition of the region "Free Europe", with more than one American conservative talking head routinely suggesting that rest of Europe isn't so free. Yugoslavia broke up in mid-1990s but UN, drawing from lessons of Karabakh and Somalia, was quick to deploy heavily armed and broadly mandated peacekeeping force, hell-bent on not allowing fractions to get at each other's throats (my my darkest dreams I couldn't imagine IOTL "selective peacekeeping", with Western peacekeepers organizing safe havens for ethnic militias, as soon as those weren't Serbs - CG). Therefore, major bloodshed was avoided, but ruling regimes of successor states are still unstable and are propped by peacekeepers. Croatia and Slovenia left Yugoslavia, but rest sticks (or should we say "stuck") together, although Roman Catholic and Muslim Bosniaks aren't too happy about Serb-dominated regime.

Baltic countries are either allowed to leave USSR or kept as members of loose "Confederation". It is largely face-saving measure for Union authorities, but coincidentally allowing equal status to Baltic Russophones (it was very obvious by 1990 that initial boradly democratic "people's fronts" in Baltic countries metastased into ethnic separatist groups and unconditional independence of Baltic countries would mean Russophones there becoming second-rate citizens; therefore everyone was hoping that USSR would keep some kind of control over the situation - CG). Same goes for Georgia and Moldova. Georgia quickly deteriorated from a country to a loose collection of chieftaindoms (basically each mountain valley is governed by a separate warlord) with Gamsakhurdia family (aging Zviad Gamsakhurdia is still a President nominally, but Premier Minister Tsotne Gamsakhurdia is the heir apparent) being President and government figureheads, drawing fragile support from ever-shifting system of alliances with separate warlords. Armenia tried to leave USSR too, but was to scared to deal with Turkey alone so after period of "Quebec"-style blackmail grudgingly stayed in the USSR. USSR (second "S" stands for "Souvereign" now) went through quite rough transition from planned to market economy and probably lost as much as third of it's industrial output (statistics is very uncertain and depends on who you ask), but is steadily growing on the back of resource export and local economic boom generated by several huge infrastructure projects (growth remains fragile though).

China went through several waves of civil unrest, often violent. CCP had been able to restore control over society, but paid the price of slower economic growth. Call of cheap Chinese labour is still pretty powerful, though, so outsourcing trend is still there, sapping manufacturing jobs from the West.

PLO lost Soviet support in early 1990s and collapsed soon after that (everyone and their brother considered "Palestinian Liberation" a mirage of cold war, bound to disappear as soon as war ends - CG), bringing down only glimpse of hope for united Palestinian leadership. Israel's occupation of West Bank and Gaza still continues, with Israel trying to play different Palestinian clans against each other. It is still a mess, though. There are few uplifting signs, though, in raising number of Palestinians benefiting from work opportunities in Israel. Optimists hope that strengthening economic ties would create more mellow attitude on both sides. By the way, Israel left Southern Lebanon in 1992, as it had nothing to do there after PLO collapse and it needed every shekel it could get to accomodate huge influx of Soviet Jews in 1990-1992 (it started in 1989 IOTL, so "1989 me" has all reasons to assume it would continue - CG). After several very tough years in 1990-1995, Israel started to transform itself into high-tech powerhouse, capitalizing on hundreds of thousands of technorati among Soviet Olim (immigrants). Israel's biggest economic challenge today is to find a balance between "old" economy, relying on abundant supply of relatively cheap Arab labor, and "new" one (basically outsourcing of American and Japanese R&D).

Japan had very tough years following collapse of asset price bubble, but general boom in world economy, free from shakles of Cold War, lifted it by mid-1990s. American rightist ultras are still talking about "Japan buying America". but their doomsday predictions are getting stale. After all, America hugely profited from computer and Internet revolution and most of world software market is controlled by American companies. American economy is still by far largest in the world and is bound to keep the lead at east until 2090.

South Africa remains complicated case. They technically abandoned Apartheid in 1997, following long and complicated talks with Mandela. ANC lost it's Soviet backers in 1990-1992, so Mandela wasn't in a position to push too far. Besides, continued communal violence within black community between ANC and IFP, as well as black-on-coloureds violence, prevented sides from working together. In the end, complicated tripartite accord had been signed in 1997, creating insanely complex system of powersharing between communities (this might smell of hindsight knowledge of OTL Bosnia, but I honestly couldn't imagine abandonement of Apartheid in 1990 - CG).
 
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