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