The best possible hyperpower

Who would be the best sole superpower (i.e. hyperpower)


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But you like me because I'm a bastard...

But you encourage me and then let me down. I see you as a challenge and think I can tame you. Really I need someone who likes me for me.

Where is that speech from South park about the devil and his relationship with Saddam...
 
I'm trying to think of what would create a world with a different hyperpower state; the first step is that something needs to happen to keep the US out of the role.

The easy answers are its destruction at the hands of the USSR or the Nazis, but I think it's pretty clear that in either of those circumstances, the result is a pretty disastrous world.

So I think the best way to just keep the USA down may paradoxically to make it a larger colonial power in the early 20th century (I'm assuming a relatively-recent POD). Perhaps really trying to govern territory won in the Spanish American war and expanding into Mexico and the Caribbean. A few disasters, though, and the whole thing could just become a huge money-suck after some high-profile victories. America's 20th century isn't spent projecting power on a global scale, but fighting off a large series of rebellions in the Western Hemisphere while trying to isolate it off from the other side of the ocean.

Expect a more militarized, less educated, less racially-tolerant USA.

So they're out - now is there anyone likable enough to take their place? The British could well set themselves up as a more liberal alternative to this USA - adopting the Commonwealth relatively early and becoming a forceful ally for small nations facing threats from the Americans, and maybe checking a Kaiser-led Germany that is growing in strength on the continent steadily. A few more generations of German growth at the expense of France and Russia is plausible if a major, WW1-level conflict can be held off.

The British here would, I think, lead a bloc basically similar to what the United States has done in OTL. Better or worse? It's hard to say.

At the same time, this lack of WW1 could lead to a very different socialist evolution in Europe - the Russian Revolution would be neutralized without the War, and perhaps the first Communist states could arise in France and/or Germany, and reach hyperpower status by uniting Europe against the ultracapitalist Brits and ultraimperialist Americans. They'd free their colonies, and work to foment revolution in the Commonwealth and the American possessions. They'd be walking a fine line between collapsing into despotism, but I think those countries at least have a chance of making a democrati socialist state if they can get past nationalism and racism.
 
But you encourage me and then let me down. I see you as a challenge and think I can tame you. Really I need someone who likes me for me.

Where is that speech from South park about the devil and his relationship with Saddam...

I keep you on your toes, you naughty desk jockey.

I add sparkle to your 9-5 existence. You never know, when you get home after a busy, whether I've done the housework or set fire to the place and turned it into a drug den.
 
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