Rumsfeldia: Fear and Loathing in the Decade of Tears

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Bookmark1995

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Mr.E said:
Yeah, probably, and Europe-USSR is probably the largest market right now for Japanese companies.

You know, with the presumed implosion of the American auto industry ( capped by the nuking of Detroit) Japan might come to dominate in international auto manufacturing.
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Considering A) the willingness of the US Business Community to embrace Rummy's extreme deregulation and B) the elimination of basic labor laws, I bet the US auto industry had already damaged its own reputation by building dangerous cars with awful working conditions.

Hell, Ralph Nader was murdered, albeit by mistake. The auto industry thus felt it had a blank check to build cars so dangerous, they made the Corvair look safe. Rummy maybe gave them protection from imports as well.

Even if Detroit wasn't nuked, I think the auto industry would be doomed either way, because of their participation with Rumsfeldia.

Considering their shitty actions, I don't think the future US government will be giving their leaders a bailout anytime soon.

Seriously, America's business community has thoroughly tarnished its good name by its willingness to horribly exploit the American workforce, fund an opponent of democracy, and sell crap to its own military.
 
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Pyro

I had this reoccurring thought. Would Canada militarize parts of its border with the United States? As I recall Washington State joined up with Canada and most of the western provinces border the Bozeman Communes, as well was occupy the parts of the Great Lakes states.
 

Berkeley2017

Pyro said:
I had this reoccurring thought. Would Canada militarize parts of its border with the United States? As I recall Washington State joined up with Canada and most of the western provinces border the Bozeman Communes, as well was occupy the parts of the Great Lakes states.
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Almost certain they would, possibly even introduce conscription, since the possibility that the religious psychos would spill the civil war to Canada is pretty significant.
 
Knightmare

Knightmare

Pyro said:
I had this reoccurring thought. Would Canada militarize parts of its border with the United States? As I recall Washington State joined up with Canada and most of the western provinces border the Bozeman Communes, as well was occupy the parts of the Great Lakes states.
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Issue is, the border is pretty long....
 

Bookmark1995

Banned
Knightmare said:
Issue is, the border is pretty long....
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I think most border efforts will be focused on the Midwest, considering that is where most of the refugees will be funneling in from. The Northeast, the West Coast and the Mountain West have some form of stability and sanity, and won't need much border protection.

Border security will remain a priority for a while afterwards, not just because of the number of refugees, but because of all the war criminals trying to flee justice. As Drew said, just because the CVs and Rumsfeldians lose doesn't mean they'll vanish for good.

More than a few will probably try and flee into Canada disguised as refugees. Some will become terrorists, others will just try and seek refuge from the very persistent American government, that will stop at nothing to hunt down the men responsible for destroying their country. ITTL, there will jokes about the vast Canadian frontier being "Argentina for the American Nazis".

Canadians, for obvious reasons, despise these monsters for their greed, oppression, and insanity, and will cooperate fiercely to hunt down these fugitives.
 

Berkeley2017

Did Japan already have nukes and a blue water navy by 1990? Or is it simply heading in that direction implying they will have them in about a decade or so?
 

Bookmark1995

Banned
theg*ddam*hoi2fan said:
They'd already launched two supercarriers while Rumsfeld was still in office, and they had nukes in the 1980s.
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That certainly wouldn't lead to a furious outcry from Hiroshima survivors, and millions of other Japanese pacifists.:mad:

What the hell do they even plan to do with those nukes? China is a shattered mess, the USSR and the Southeast Asians just want trade and make money. There is not one enemy Japan has to justify such militarization.
 
theg*ddam*hoi2fan

theg*ddam*hoi2fan

Bookmark1995 said:
That certainly wouldn't lead to a furious outcry from Hiroshima survivors, and millions of other Japanese pacifists.:mad:

What the hell do they even plan to do with those nukes? China is a shattered mess, the USSR and the Southeast Asians just want trade and make money. There is not one enemy Japan has to justify such militarization.
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A combination of memories of the war in China, and the proximity of the Soviet Union (at the time the militarisation got underway, things hadn't yet thawed between Japan and the USSR). The war in China seems to have shattered the post-war pacifism (as seen by the Nakasone-Genda government getting voted in).

And TBH, ITTL it's kind of a good thing they did. After America went down the tubes, it's good to have a capitalist-democratic military power in the world that isn't utterly insane.
 
shiftygiant

shiftygiant

Gone Fishin'
Bookmark1995 said:
That certainly wouldn't lead to a furious outcry from Hiroshima survivors, and millions of other Japanese pacifists.:mad:

What the hell do they even plan to do with those nukes? China is a shattered mess, the USSR and the Southeast Asians just want trade and make money. There is not one enemy Japan has to justify such militarization.
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The Taiwanese and Japanese began the program prior to the Chinese collapse, IIRC, with the North Korean's antics used as justification for keeping the program. The only reason the USSR is on cordial terms with Japan is because of the program, again IIRC.
 
Miss Teri

Miss Teri

Another thing about the remilitarization. Perhaps Valley of the Wind might have a more explicit condemnation of nuclear warfare and militarism in the wake of this and the many uses of nuclear weapons ITTL (like Lop Nur or the Soviet use in Central Asia.)
 

Pyro

Mr.E said:
Another thing about the remilitarization. Perhaps Valley of the Wind might have a more explicit condemnation of nuclear warfare and militarism in the wake of this and the many uses of nuclear weapons ITTL (like Lop Nur or the Soviet use in Central Asia.)
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It makes me wonder what Japanese pop culture looks like with the remilitarization TTL, particularly Mobile Suit Gundam and Macross.
 

TheHolyInquisition

Banned
Pyro said:
It makes me wonder what Japanese pop culture looks like with the remilitarization TTL, particularly Mobile Suit Gundam and Macross.
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That's a good question.
Building on that, I have two questions. 1. Why is anime so common in Japan? 2. What long term cultural effects will uptime anime and such have? I can see a much bigger section of the US television market being animated. The "kawaii" focus of Japanese beauty standards will have interesting effects on the impending Sexual Revolution, too.
 

Voltron64

theg*ddam*hoi2fan said:
A combination of memories of the war in China, and the proximity of the Soviet Union (at the time the militarisation got underway, things hadn't yet thawed between Japan and the USSR). The war in China seems to have shattered the post-war pacifism (as seen by the Nakasone-Genda government getting voted in).

And TBH, ITTL it's kind of a good thing they did. After America went down the tubes, it's good to have a capitalist-democratic military power in the world that isn't utterly insane.
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Hopefully they'll become slightly less xenophobic than they are in OTL.
 

Unknown

I'm just curious: how would the Canada of TheMann's Go North Young Man react to the Rumsfeldian USA (remember, that TL's Canada includes the OTL state of Washington)?
 

Berkeley2017

Lost Freeway said:
Given how the rest of the world seems to be going insane, I think Japan's opinion of foreigners might become worse.
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However, they might get more foreigners immigrating there. OTL there was a massive of Japanese-Brazilians immigrating to Japan. These Japanese Brazilians, although ethnically Japanese, are treated as foreigners once in Japan due to them being culturally Brazilian and speaking better Portuguese than Japanese. With TTL's Brazil much worse off than OTL's, we'd likely see much more of them immigrating to Japan, and it would be interesting to see the effects on Japanese society. Although earlier, bookmark95 (I think that was him) made a post of Korean Americans fleeing Rumsfeldia struggling to adopt to South Korean society. So it'll probably be quite similar to that.
 
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