Chapter XIX: Four More Years, 1988-1992
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Chapter XIX: Four More Years, 1988-1992.
Reagan’s victory determined that military spending remained high and that détente was out of the question. The US Navy got the F-14D Super Tomcat they wanted, the Forrestal-class aircraft carriers and USS Enterprise would be upgraded and retained along with the Kitty Hawk and Nimitz-class for the foreseeable future, the Seawolf-class submarines would be built to replace the Los-Angeles-class, a seventh Nimitz-class carrier that would be named USS Robert F. Kennedy was laid down in 1989, the Strategic Air Command got more B-2 Spirit strategic stealth bombers, and more F-117 Nighthawk stealth attack aircraft were planned too.
This constituted an increase in defence spending on top of continued rises in spending since 1981, primarily spent on costly projects. The worthwhileness of those was sometimes questionable while the prestige reasons behind them were obvious. The 72.000 tonne super battleship USS Montana, for example, had been upgraded to a guided missile battleship during Kennedy’s final term: this meant the removal of a lot of the WW II era secondary weapons, save for a few of the 5 inch (127 mm) guns, and the addition of short and long range surface-to-air missiles, anti-submarine missiles, conventional and nuclear tipped cruise missiles, and electronic warfare equipment and decoys (a planned upgrade of her sister USS Ohio to the same effect had been cancelled by the Rockefeller Administration for being way too costly, and they placed her in reserve with plans to make her a museum ship). Given that Germany maintained its pair of 90.000 tonne super battleships (with 48 cm/18.9 inch guns) as well as Tirpitz, Gneisenau and Scharnhorst with the necessary upgrades to guided missile battleships, Reagan had decided to do the same. In the 80s, USS Montana’s WW II era propulsion systems were replaced by a nuclear reactor and she got Phalanx CIWS plus updates to her electronic warfare systems. Ohio was brought out of the reserve and upgraded to the same standard, including the 1970s updates she’d initially missed out on. The Iowa-class received similar upgrades, but retained their original propulsion systems.
The Nazis responded by continuing their own existing military expansion programs. By 1980, the US Navy had eleven super aircraft carriers and the Kriegsmarine eight, to which the Germans responded by laying down three new Karl der Grosse aircraft carriers of their own in the 80s. Of course, the number of Nimitz-class carriers underway meant the American carrier fleet would still be bigger, but the Kriegsmarine’s focus wasn’t on carriers anyway. U-boats were the centrepiece of Kriegsmarine naval strategy. Their leading class of SSBNs was the Type LVII, which displaced 37.000 tonnes while submerged (more than a WW I era battleship) and carried 22 MIRV capable SLBMs with eight 200 kiloton warheads each. They ran quieter than the American Illinois-class* due to their triple layered hull, but were also slightly slower. The first was laid down in 1978 and twelve in total were commissioned between 1980 and 1990 alone, followed by eight more in the 90s. They were complemented by a unique type of attack submarine that was neither nuclear powered nor diesel electric powered. The Type LX hunter killer submarine drew back to experimental late 40s and early 50s experimental models powered by hydrogen peroxide. Utilizing state of the art mid to late 70s technology resulted in the Type LX remaining the quietest hunter killer submarine worldwide even today. While superior to their Los Angeles-class rivals, they have proven much more expensive to build and maintain. Thirty would eventually be built, but the US Navy commissioned sixty Los Angeles-class submarines. In the west the Type LX became known under the name “Haifisch” (German for “shark”).
The Luftwaffe, in the meantime, maintained its Ju 391 fleet, which was comparable in role to the American B-52s. These were complemented by the Me 696 supersonic delta wing bombers, comparable to the US B1-B Lancer but with a greater range (range was less important for the B1-B as they could be based in Britain while the German delta wing bomber had to be able to reach the US from continental Europe). Meanwhile, the Me 59 third generation jetfighters were all mothballed as the fourth-generation multirole Me 86 replaced them (the Me 59s were retained as trainers and reserve units until a deal was reached in which China bought most of them with an upgrade package). As far as stealth technology went, the Luftwaffe applied it to a weapon rather than an airplane: a weapon was developed with a faceted appearance similar to the US F-117, covered by radar absorbent material and powered by a jet engine, carrying a single 1 megaton warhead over a distance of one thousand kilometres. Given that it was unmanned, it was smaller than a plane and had a radar cross-section of merely 5 square centimetres. These subsonic drones carrying a thermonuclear warhead were known as “Gungnir devices” (again the Nazis used a Norse name, this time choosing the name of Odin’s spear). These could be launched from launch ramps on land, able to strike at any target in Britain.
Besides that, three modified Type LVII subs were constructed that could launch one. Unlike the standard Type LVII SSBNs, there were no missile silos installed and the empty space opened up by that was filled with an extendable launch ramp under a hatch separating the launch bay from the sea. To launch, the sub would surface and the hatch would open to extend the launch ramp. Then a rocket engine would propel the drone to the required speed and then detach and fall into the sea as the weapon continued its journey powered by its jet engine. It was the nuclear tipped 1980s culmination of the original 1940s V-1 technology. Given its tiny radar cross-section, which was smaller than that of a humming bird, American radar systems would not detect it. This would make it the perfect weapon for a decapitation strike.
Upon learning of the existence of this revolutionary German weapons system, Reagan issued an executive order that determined that the members of the US Presidential line of succession could never all legally be in the same place at the same time. If the President needed a cabinet meeting, a minimum of two cabinet members would remain at undisclosed locations and attend through teleconference. The executive order also said at least two cabinet members would remain outside Washington DC at all times. A random monthly “lottery” determined which ones would be out of Washington DC, giving the Germans no way of predicting which members of the Presidential line of succession would be in the capital if they ever did decide to use their nuclear stealth drones against the US. This meant a German decapitation strike against the US was impossible. There would always be someone left to order the US armed forces to retaliate, guaranteeing MAD remained in place. The development of these Gungnir missiles prompted not just the United States but all other major powers as well as any countries on the frontlines of the Cold War to develop plans for a “designated survivor.”
In the meantime, early in his third term Reagan won a decisive Cold War victory. The attack on the Church from within Rome, without the regime’s permission no less, made Italy’s longstanding alliance to Germany increasingly untenable. Revolutionary anticlerical elements within the ruling Fascist Party might be happy the Church got slapped by the Nazis, but it didn’t take them long to get seriously upset that this operation had been carried out without Rome’s consent, constituting a violation of Italian sovereignty. Previously, Italy had taken pride in the illusion that they were considered an equal by Germany rather than a puppet, but the illusion had been shattered due to these actions. The Grand Council of Fascists now clearly understood Heydrich considered Italy a subordinate country. Besides that, after martial law was lifted various types of protests re-emerged and/or increased such as illegal audio- and videocassette recordings, anti-Fascist posters, illicit pamphlets, illegal radio broadcasts, public sit-ins demanding social and political reforms and candle light vigils for arrested dissidents. The OVRA continued reporting increased anti-Fascist activity, public support for the Church, a negative opinion on the alliance with Germany from 1985 onward and estimated that the regime could revitalize itself by shaking off this image of being a stooge of the Nazis. The Schindler revelations on the exact nature of the Holocaust and other acts of mass murder also showed that Germany had gone way beyond the colonial violence that the people of Fascist Italy could stomach. According to OVRA rapports, open resistance would continue without radical change.
The 92 year-old Grandi, who had led the country since Ciano’s death in 1974, lacked the courage and energy to take the necessary steps and tendered his resignation to King Victor Emmanuel IV in January 1988. The average member of the Grand Council of Fascists was 70 years old and the King didn’t see any of them as potential successors and instead appointed someone who wasn’t a councilman. Silvio Berlusconi had been born in Milan as the son of a bank employee and a housewife and was drafted when he was 18 in 1954 after completing elementary school and high school. After joining a military band, he was noted for his charisma and was pulled from his regular infantry unit to serve in the propaganda division. After his compulsory two year-military service ended in 1956, he had a number one hit in 1958. He scored a few more Top 40 hits in the late 50s, early 60s. He couldn’t get the kind of musical career off the ground that would earn him more than just a living and therefore took a job at the Ministry of Popular Culture, which supervised and regulated mass media. As the director of the department of music within the ministry, he oversaw relaxations that allowed tours of the Rolling Stones and newer Western rock and pop groups such as Roxy Music, Led Zeppelin and Queen in Italy in the 70s. In 1980, when he was just 44 years old, he became Minister of Popular Culture and used the position to popularize himself by allowing Western music and film, surviving much longer than regular cabinet members as they were retired after a few years or died in office because they were all gerontocrats. In 1988, the King appointed him Prime Minister. After Berlusconi became Prime Minister he retained the Ministry of Popular Culture and also took the portfolio of Foreign Affairs.
After consolidating power by retiring an unprecedented number of ministers and members of the Grand Council, he carried out a partial mobilization of the army in northern Italy in June 1989. Protests broke out across the country as the people believed this was an escalation of the continued campaign of suppression that had been going on since 1985. To their astonishment, Berlusconi emerged on the Altare della Patria in Rome and addressed the crowd of peaceful protestors occupying the Piazza Venezia on July 29th (Mussolini’s birthday). He explained National Socialism was German fascism clearly inspired by Mussolini, but Nazism had become so deviant with its rampant racialism that an ideological rift had emerged between Germania and Rome. According to Berlusconi, Mussolini had intended Fascism to be a spiritual rather than a biological revolution, recognizing that no such thing as an Italian race existed given how many peoples had come and gone during the history of the peninsula: Carthaginians, Ancient Greeks, Gauls, Franks, Normans, Arabs, Frenchmen, Spaniards and so on. Germany’s doctrine of racial superiority had clearly gone too far, now leading to the situation that they treated Italy as a junior partner rather than an equal. Clearly, it was time to part ways, in the same way that two married people each went their separate ways as friends after the kids had left the house. The day of the speech, Italy formally withdrew from the European Community and the Linz Pact. Not long thereafter, Pope Gregory XVII returned to Rome while Anti-Pope Clement XV was excommunicated and arrested.
In the separating partners metaphor, the Reich was the infuriated husband holding the heavy submachine gun while Italy was the ex-wife holding the .22 calibre revolver. The difference was that tens or even hundreds of millions people would suffer if one or the other pulled the trigger. Germany had a stockpile of 35.000 nuclear warheads while Italy had about 650. The Italians could easily destroy the one hundred largest cities in Germany if they had to, leaving Heydrich no other choice but to let the Italians go. He did, however, increase troop deployments in the Reich’s European puppet states to ensure their continued loyalty.
Italy took their puppet Greece with them and they banded together with Spain while Portugal also broke free from the Reich’s embrace. Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal signed the Pact of Florence, forming a customs union and defence pact. This bloc of authoritarian countries was politically, ideologically and culturally compatible to a number of South American countries, but Italy as a nuclear partner was determined to go its own way rather than exchanging the Reich for the US as a dominant partner and playing Britain’s role in the Mediterranean for the Americans. Italy had 650 nuclear warheads and delivery systems to strike anywhere in the world, including MIRV capable ICBMs and a fleet of one hundred strategic bombers with a range of 5.000 kilometres. The Regia Marina was the dominant navy in the Mediterranean Sea with bases at Naples, Taranto, Malta, the Balearic Islands, Tripoli and Crete. It had four Littorio-class guided missile battleships, four aircraft carriers and four SSBNs that were each capable of launching fourteen SLBMs with five 150 kiloton warheads each. Taking all these things into account, Italy had what it took to establish a Mediterranean bloc and it did.
Given the presence of American Pershing II medium range nuclear missiles in Spain and later also of American nuclear bombers, the US appeared to have a foot between the door by providing an Italian ally with a nuclear umbrella. The US, however, proved unwilling to invest in Spain’s weapons oriented nuclear energy program for the sake of proliferation issues. In hindsight, it was a trust issue given that Spain had previously been allied to the Cold War enemy. Italy, on the other hand, didn’t care about that and gave the underfunded and lacking in expertise Spanish atomic bomb program what it needed. The Italians supplied funding, reactor and warhead designs as well as fissile material, allowing for a Spanish 22 kiloton underground nuclear test in 1990 codenamed Cortés. Spain subsequently favoured Italy as it allowed for a roughly equal partnership rather than the country’s earlier junior partner status to the US.
The Italian-Spanish partnership that has dominated the Mediterranean since the late 80s was based in no small part on a clear antipathy toward the Nazi assault on the Catholic Church (Italian Fascism rid itself of its last remaining anticlericalism in the late 80s). On the other hand, Italy and Spain both knew the Americans were both unsympathetic to their continued colonial empires. Libya had been flooded by Italian settlers because oil wealth was a pillar to Italy’s economy, and by the 80s ethnic Italians constituted a majority of the population. Eritrea remained loyal for fear of being absorbed by Ethiopia after Italy had ended its occupation in 1978. Half a million Italians lived in Eritrea out of a total population of 3.5 million in 1990. Over 150.000 Italians in Eritrea lived in Asmara, which looked almost identical to an Italian city with all its piazzas, pizzerias, ice cream parlours and Catholic churches and chapels. Italian Somalia also started to rise up, with Italian suppression particularly successful in the Puntland region after oil was discovered there in 1979. Spain was faced with issues in Spanish Morocco and Spanish Guinea.
The anti-Nazi positions of Italy and Spain made these countries interesting to the US. That was why American support to anti-colonial resistance movements in Italian Somalia, Spanish Guinea and Spanish Morocco dried up. Reagan subsequently visited Rome and Madrid in 1990 and established much better relations with both countries than the US had known in decades. This roughly coincided with Iran’s first successful nuclear weapons test in 1989, the Darius Test which consisted of a 40 kiloton above ground test in the desert. It was contributed to by American support for Iran’s supposedly peaceful nuclear energy program (not realizing how far along Iran had gotten in weaponization; the CIA had estimated Iran was at least a decade away from a bomb in 1989). The members of the Pact of Florence as well as Iran banded together and struck up friendly relations with China, bolstering the so-called “Non-Aligned Movement” (NAM). As the impartial “semi-super power” mediating between the Reich and the West, China had headed the NAM for decades. China was on the cusp of becoming a full-fledged third superpower.
*TTL's equivalent of the Ohio-class SSBNs.
Chapter XIX: Four More Years, 1988-1992.
Reagan’s victory determined that military spending remained high and that détente was out of the question. The US Navy got the F-14D Super Tomcat they wanted, the Forrestal-class aircraft carriers and USS Enterprise would be upgraded and retained along with the Kitty Hawk and Nimitz-class for the foreseeable future, the Seawolf-class submarines would be built to replace the Los-Angeles-class, a seventh Nimitz-class carrier that would be named USS Robert F. Kennedy was laid down in 1989, the Strategic Air Command got more B-2 Spirit strategic stealth bombers, and more F-117 Nighthawk stealth attack aircraft were planned too.
This constituted an increase in defence spending on top of continued rises in spending since 1981, primarily spent on costly projects. The worthwhileness of those was sometimes questionable while the prestige reasons behind them were obvious. The 72.000 tonne super battleship USS Montana, for example, had been upgraded to a guided missile battleship during Kennedy’s final term: this meant the removal of a lot of the WW II era secondary weapons, save for a few of the 5 inch (127 mm) guns, and the addition of short and long range surface-to-air missiles, anti-submarine missiles, conventional and nuclear tipped cruise missiles, and electronic warfare equipment and decoys (a planned upgrade of her sister USS Ohio to the same effect had been cancelled by the Rockefeller Administration for being way too costly, and they placed her in reserve with plans to make her a museum ship). Given that Germany maintained its pair of 90.000 tonne super battleships (with 48 cm/18.9 inch guns) as well as Tirpitz, Gneisenau and Scharnhorst with the necessary upgrades to guided missile battleships, Reagan had decided to do the same. In the 80s, USS Montana’s WW II era propulsion systems were replaced by a nuclear reactor and she got Phalanx CIWS plus updates to her electronic warfare systems. Ohio was brought out of the reserve and upgraded to the same standard, including the 1970s updates she’d initially missed out on. The Iowa-class received similar upgrades, but retained their original propulsion systems.
The Nazis responded by continuing their own existing military expansion programs. By 1980, the US Navy had eleven super aircraft carriers and the Kriegsmarine eight, to which the Germans responded by laying down three new Karl der Grosse aircraft carriers of their own in the 80s. Of course, the number of Nimitz-class carriers underway meant the American carrier fleet would still be bigger, but the Kriegsmarine’s focus wasn’t on carriers anyway. U-boats were the centrepiece of Kriegsmarine naval strategy. Their leading class of SSBNs was the Type LVII, which displaced 37.000 tonnes while submerged (more than a WW I era battleship) and carried 22 MIRV capable SLBMs with eight 200 kiloton warheads each. They ran quieter than the American Illinois-class* due to their triple layered hull, but were also slightly slower. The first was laid down in 1978 and twelve in total were commissioned between 1980 and 1990 alone, followed by eight more in the 90s. They were complemented by a unique type of attack submarine that was neither nuclear powered nor diesel electric powered. The Type LX hunter killer submarine drew back to experimental late 40s and early 50s experimental models powered by hydrogen peroxide. Utilizing state of the art mid to late 70s technology resulted in the Type LX remaining the quietest hunter killer submarine worldwide even today. While superior to their Los Angeles-class rivals, they have proven much more expensive to build and maintain. Thirty would eventually be built, but the US Navy commissioned sixty Los Angeles-class submarines. In the west the Type LX became known under the name “Haifisch” (German for “shark”).
The Luftwaffe, in the meantime, maintained its Ju 391 fleet, which was comparable in role to the American B-52s. These were complemented by the Me 696 supersonic delta wing bombers, comparable to the US B1-B Lancer but with a greater range (range was less important for the B1-B as they could be based in Britain while the German delta wing bomber had to be able to reach the US from continental Europe). Meanwhile, the Me 59 third generation jetfighters were all mothballed as the fourth-generation multirole Me 86 replaced them (the Me 59s were retained as trainers and reserve units until a deal was reached in which China bought most of them with an upgrade package). As far as stealth technology went, the Luftwaffe applied it to a weapon rather than an airplane: a weapon was developed with a faceted appearance similar to the US F-117, covered by radar absorbent material and powered by a jet engine, carrying a single 1 megaton warhead over a distance of one thousand kilometres. Given that it was unmanned, it was smaller than a plane and had a radar cross-section of merely 5 square centimetres. These subsonic drones carrying a thermonuclear warhead were known as “Gungnir devices” (again the Nazis used a Norse name, this time choosing the name of Odin’s spear). These could be launched from launch ramps on land, able to strike at any target in Britain.
Besides that, three modified Type LVII subs were constructed that could launch one. Unlike the standard Type LVII SSBNs, there were no missile silos installed and the empty space opened up by that was filled with an extendable launch ramp under a hatch separating the launch bay from the sea. To launch, the sub would surface and the hatch would open to extend the launch ramp. Then a rocket engine would propel the drone to the required speed and then detach and fall into the sea as the weapon continued its journey powered by its jet engine. It was the nuclear tipped 1980s culmination of the original 1940s V-1 technology. Given its tiny radar cross-section, which was smaller than that of a humming bird, American radar systems would not detect it. This would make it the perfect weapon for a decapitation strike.
Upon learning of the existence of this revolutionary German weapons system, Reagan issued an executive order that determined that the members of the US Presidential line of succession could never all legally be in the same place at the same time. If the President needed a cabinet meeting, a minimum of two cabinet members would remain at undisclosed locations and attend through teleconference. The executive order also said at least two cabinet members would remain outside Washington DC at all times. A random monthly “lottery” determined which ones would be out of Washington DC, giving the Germans no way of predicting which members of the Presidential line of succession would be in the capital if they ever did decide to use their nuclear stealth drones against the US. This meant a German decapitation strike against the US was impossible. There would always be someone left to order the US armed forces to retaliate, guaranteeing MAD remained in place. The development of these Gungnir missiles prompted not just the United States but all other major powers as well as any countries on the frontlines of the Cold War to develop plans for a “designated survivor.”
In the meantime, early in his third term Reagan won a decisive Cold War victory. The attack on the Church from within Rome, without the regime’s permission no less, made Italy’s longstanding alliance to Germany increasingly untenable. Revolutionary anticlerical elements within the ruling Fascist Party might be happy the Church got slapped by the Nazis, but it didn’t take them long to get seriously upset that this operation had been carried out without Rome’s consent, constituting a violation of Italian sovereignty. Previously, Italy had taken pride in the illusion that they were considered an equal by Germany rather than a puppet, but the illusion had been shattered due to these actions. The Grand Council of Fascists now clearly understood Heydrich considered Italy a subordinate country. Besides that, after martial law was lifted various types of protests re-emerged and/or increased such as illegal audio- and videocassette recordings, anti-Fascist posters, illicit pamphlets, illegal radio broadcasts, public sit-ins demanding social and political reforms and candle light vigils for arrested dissidents. The OVRA continued reporting increased anti-Fascist activity, public support for the Church, a negative opinion on the alliance with Germany from 1985 onward and estimated that the regime could revitalize itself by shaking off this image of being a stooge of the Nazis. The Schindler revelations on the exact nature of the Holocaust and other acts of mass murder also showed that Germany had gone way beyond the colonial violence that the people of Fascist Italy could stomach. According to OVRA rapports, open resistance would continue without radical change.
The 92 year-old Grandi, who had led the country since Ciano’s death in 1974, lacked the courage and energy to take the necessary steps and tendered his resignation to King Victor Emmanuel IV in January 1988. The average member of the Grand Council of Fascists was 70 years old and the King didn’t see any of them as potential successors and instead appointed someone who wasn’t a councilman. Silvio Berlusconi had been born in Milan as the son of a bank employee and a housewife and was drafted when he was 18 in 1954 after completing elementary school and high school. After joining a military band, he was noted for his charisma and was pulled from his regular infantry unit to serve in the propaganda division. After his compulsory two year-military service ended in 1956, he had a number one hit in 1958. He scored a few more Top 40 hits in the late 50s, early 60s. He couldn’t get the kind of musical career off the ground that would earn him more than just a living and therefore took a job at the Ministry of Popular Culture, which supervised and regulated mass media. As the director of the department of music within the ministry, he oversaw relaxations that allowed tours of the Rolling Stones and newer Western rock and pop groups such as Roxy Music, Led Zeppelin and Queen in Italy in the 70s. In 1980, when he was just 44 years old, he became Minister of Popular Culture and used the position to popularize himself by allowing Western music and film, surviving much longer than regular cabinet members as they were retired after a few years or died in office because they were all gerontocrats. In 1988, the King appointed him Prime Minister. After Berlusconi became Prime Minister he retained the Ministry of Popular Culture and also took the portfolio of Foreign Affairs.
After consolidating power by retiring an unprecedented number of ministers and members of the Grand Council, he carried out a partial mobilization of the army in northern Italy in June 1989. Protests broke out across the country as the people believed this was an escalation of the continued campaign of suppression that had been going on since 1985. To their astonishment, Berlusconi emerged on the Altare della Patria in Rome and addressed the crowd of peaceful protestors occupying the Piazza Venezia on July 29th (Mussolini’s birthday). He explained National Socialism was German fascism clearly inspired by Mussolini, but Nazism had become so deviant with its rampant racialism that an ideological rift had emerged between Germania and Rome. According to Berlusconi, Mussolini had intended Fascism to be a spiritual rather than a biological revolution, recognizing that no such thing as an Italian race existed given how many peoples had come and gone during the history of the peninsula: Carthaginians, Ancient Greeks, Gauls, Franks, Normans, Arabs, Frenchmen, Spaniards and so on. Germany’s doctrine of racial superiority had clearly gone too far, now leading to the situation that they treated Italy as a junior partner rather than an equal. Clearly, it was time to part ways, in the same way that two married people each went their separate ways as friends after the kids had left the house. The day of the speech, Italy formally withdrew from the European Community and the Linz Pact. Not long thereafter, Pope Gregory XVII returned to Rome while Anti-Pope Clement XV was excommunicated and arrested.
In the separating partners metaphor, the Reich was the infuriated husband holding the heavy submachine gun while Italy was the ex-wife holding the .22 calibre revolver. The difference was that tens or even hundreds of millions people would suffer if one or the other pulled the trigger. Germany had a stockpile of 35.000 nuclear warheads while Italy had about 650. The Italians could easily destroy the one hundred largest cities in Germany if they had to, leaving Heydrich no other choice but to let the Italians go. He did, however, increase troop deployments in the Reich’s European puppet states to ensure their continued loyalty.
Italy took their puppet Greece with them and they banded together with Spain while Portugal also broke free from the Reich’s embrace. Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal signed the Pact of Florence, forming a customs union and defence pact. This bloc of authoritarian countries was politically, ideologically and culturally compatible to a number of South American countries, but Italy as a nuclear partner was determined to go its own way rather than exchanging the Reich for the US as a dominant partner and playing Britain’s role in the Mediterranean for the Americans. Italy had 650 nuclear warheads and delivery systems to strike anywhere in the world, including MIRV capable ICBMs and a fleet of one hundred strategic bombers with a range of 5.000 kilometres. The Regia Marina was the dominant navy in the Mediterranean Sea with bases at Naples, Taranto, Malta, the Balearic Islands, Tripoli and Crete. It had four Littorio-class guided missile battleships, four aircraft carriers and four SSBNs that were each capable of launching fourteen SLBMs with five 150 kiloton warheads each. Taking all these things into account, Italy had what it took to establish a Mediterranean bloc and it did.
Given the presence of American Pershing II medium range nuclear missiles in Spain and later also of American nuclear bombers, the US appeared to have a foot between the door by providing an Italian ally with a nuclear umbrella. The US, however, proved unwilling to invest in Spain’s weapons oriented nuclear energy program for the sake of proliferation issues. In hindsight, it was a trust issue given that Spain had previously been allied to the Cold War enemy. Italy, on the other hand, didn’t care about that and gave the underfunded and lacking in expertise Spanish atomic bomb program what it needed. The Italians supplied funding, reactor and warhead designs as well as fissile material, allowing for a Spanish 22 kiloton underground nuclear test in 1990 codenamed Cortés. Spain subsequently favoured Italy as it allowed for a roughly equal partnership rather than the country’s earlier junior partner status to the US.
The Italian-Spanish partnership that has dominated the Mediterranean since the late 80s was based in no small part on a clear antipathy toward the Nazi assault on the Catholic Church (Italian Fascism rid itself of its last remaining anticlericalism in the late 80s). On the other hand, Italy and Spain both knew the Americans were both unsympathetic to their continued colonial empires. Libya had been flooded by Italian settlers because oil wealth was a pillar to Italy’s economy, and by the 80s ethnic Italians constituted a majority of the population. Eritrea remained loyal for fear of being absorbed by Ethiopia after Italy had ended its occupation in 1978. Half a million Italians lived in Eritrea out of a total population of 3.5 million in 1990. Over 150.000 Italians in Eritrea lived in Asmara, which looked almost identical to an Italian city with all its piazzas, pizzerias, ice cream parlours and Catholic churches and chapels. Italian Somalia also started to rise up, with Italian suppression particularly successful in the Puntland region after oil was discovered there in 1979. Spain was faced with issues in Spanish Morocco and Spanish Guinea.
The anti-Nazi positions of Italy and Spain made these countries interesting to the US. That was why American support to anti-colonial resistance movements in Italian Somalia, Spanish Guinea and Spanish Morocco dried up. Reagan subsequently visited Rome and Madrid in 1990 and established much better relations with both countries than the US had known in decades. This roughly coincided with Iran’s first successful nuclear weapons test in 1989, the Darius Test which consisted of a 40 kiloton above ground test in the desert. It was contributed to by American support for Iran’s supposedly peaceful nuclear energy program (not realizing how far along Iran had gotten in weaponization; the CIA had estimated Iran was at least a decade away from a bomb in 1989). The members of the Pact of Florence as well as Iran banded together and struck up friendly relations with China, bolstering the so-called “Non-Aligned Movement” (NAM). As the impartial “semi-super power” mediating between the Reich and the West, China had headed the NAM for decades. China was on the cusp of becoming a full-fledged third superpower.
*TTL's equivalent of the Ohio-class SSBNs.
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