The Great Mistake - a Winter War escalates TL
- Thread starter Onkel Willie
- Start date
How long before the two Great Evil Ones go after each other, with no decadent capitalist Western democracies to keep them united?
Actually, they might not as I killed off Hitler. Goering was an opponent of Operation Barbarossa initially and The Red gave me the idea of recreating a realistic version of George Orwell's 1984.
Maybe Stalin's Paranoia could get the better of him in this regard, he may want to spread communism further. Of course that depends on how much ideology has changed between Germany the USSR in this time frame.
Eurofed
Banned
Personally by this point I don't regard a fascist-communist hot war to be very realistic. On the Nazi side, the racist megalomanics that would purposefully pick a fight with Russia for Lebensraum purposes (Hitler, Himmler) are dead and buried, Goring was a pragmatist who deemed Barbarossa a folly. On the Soviet side, Stalin was a certified paranoid but even he avoided picking fights with nuclear great powers. Both sides have got recent and extensive evidence of how destructive a WMD war can be. And all the likely successors of Goring and Stalin would be just as, or even more pragmatic, in foreign policy as the previous generation. Even Heydrich and Beria would be quite harsh leaders domestically but would balk at a nuclear war.
At this point, the Nazis and the Soviets have several years of extensive military and economic cooperation under their belts. The very most that I can see happen is an estrangement much like the OTL Sino-Soviet split, and the coming Cold War becoming three-way. But even this isn't a given, it may well be that the USSR and fascist Western Europe remain cooperative in the face of ongoing Cold War with the Anglosphere.
As it concerns the ideological evolution in the Axis bloc, I well expect that with a half-decade of cobelligerance, both fascist and communist propaganda strived to blur the differences with the wartime allies. The Fascists emphasize the "national" elements in the Soviet state and the Nazi reclassify Russians as Aryans (probably making a lot of the blood-mixing between the Russians and the Varangians in the Middle Ages). The Communists emphasize the "socialist" elements in the Nazifascist state. Both sides redefine the "plutocratic"/"imperialist" democracies as the true enemy.
@ OW: a truly fitting and well-written end to this epic WWII. I only have two criticisms:
First, you made the Allies rather too focused on nuking Germans and leaving Soviets almost unscathed in comparison. Although bombing Western Europe is geographically easier for the Allies, there are some major Soviet cities (e.g. Leningrad, Stalingrad) that are not that much more difficult to reach for Allied bombers than German cities, and the Americans know well that they have to knock out the Soviets as hard as they do the Nazifascists, or they cannot really win.
Second, you made British morale last rather too longer than I would deem realistic under ongoing WMD bombing after seven years of a losing war. Britain is not a totalitarian state like the Axis, they have been fighting for the better part of a decade with very poor results, and now they are under the immediate threat of WMD annihilation, I would expect the British public to make an overwhelming call for peace after the first 2-3 cities got WMD bombing at the very most.
At this point, the Nazis and the Soviets have several years of extensive military and economic cooperation under their belts. The very most that I can see happen is an estrangement much like the OTL Sino-Soviet split, and the coming Cold War becoming three-way. But even this isn't a given, it may well be that the USSR and fascist Western Europe remain cooperative in the face of ongoing Cold War with the Anglosphere.
As it concerns the ideological evolution in the Axis bloc, I well expect that with a half-decade of cobelligerance, both fascist and communist propaganda strived to blur the differences with the wartime allies. The Fascists emphasize the "national" elements in the Soviet state and the Nazi reclassify Russians as Aryans (probably making a lot of the blood-mixing between the Russians and the Varangians in the Middle Ages). The Communists emphasize the "socialist" elements in the Nazifascist state. Both sides redefine the "plutocratic"/"imperialist" democracies as the true enemy.
@ OW: a truly fitting and well-written end to this epic WWII. I only have two criticisms:
First, you made the Allies rather too focused on nuking Germans and leaving Soviets almost unscathed in comparison. Although bombing Western Europe is geographically easier for the Allies, there are some major Soviet cities (e.g. Leningrad, Stalingrad) that are not that much more difficult to reach for Allied bombers than German cities, and the Americans know well that they have to knock out the Soviets as hard as they do the Nazifascists, or they cannot really win.
Second, you made British morale last rather too longer than I would deem realistic under ongoing WMD bombing after seven years of a losing war. Britain is not a totalitarian state like the Axis, they have been fighting for the better part of a decade with very poor results, and now they are under the immediate threat of WMD annihilation, I would expect the British public to make an overwhelming call for peace after the first 2-3 cities got WMD bombing at the very most.
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Gratz OW, another german victory
Done in your usual excellent style. I'm just waiting for the next part that brings us to the modern day and the inevitable basing of US nuclear bombers in Britain and the coming of China as the 21st century superpower
Done in your usual excellent style. I'm just waiting for the next part that brings us to the modern day and the inevitable basing of US nuclear bombers in Britain and the coming of China as the 21st century superpowerEurofed
Banned
A rather interesting thought is the long-term socio-economic and technological performance of the Axis Eurasian bloc ITTL. Despite the bombings and the carnage in India, Germany, Italy, and Russia end this WWII leagues better than OTL as it goes spared manpower and economic resources. And they have at least a reasonable chance of maintaining a sufficent level of their wartime cooperation. Moreso, this Nazi Germany and its Italo-French sidekicks are not going to exhaust themselves fighting a mega-Vietnam in occupied Russia.
Although capitalist democratic Anglosphere is always going to have a serious potential advantage, since its economic and education systems shall be rather superior, this Axis is going many more potential resources to provide consumer affluency and fight the Cold War than OTL Soviet bloc. I guess that ITTL winning the Cold War is going to be much less of a walk in the park than OTL for the Anglosphere, although I cannot see them ever losing. Of course, having the resources of capitalist-democratic Japan and India at thier side is going to be a rather huge boost for the Anglosphere.
It also depends a lot on the kind of leaders that Berlin, Moscow, Rome, and Paris are going to get when the "old guard" is phased out by biology in the 60s, but if they get some talented pragmatist reformists that can pick something akin to the Deng path, instead of Breznev-like stagnation, I can see TTL Cold War ending into a draw, the Axis bloc evolving towards something rather akin to modern China.
A not so merry note: notwithstanding the obvious severe dystopic effects of Nazism-Communism being much more successful than OTL (quite likely the ideological differences get more and more blurred as years go by, although as I said, a gradual PRC-like softening is in the cards), TTL 21st century is going to see rather more environmental problems than OTL. This comes from Europe and Russia getting more industrial development, totalitarian systems typically being quite environmentally inefficient, capitalist China developing a generation in advance, and the Anglosphere pushing the economic development of South America and India rather more than OTL.
It seems that the main flashpoints of TTL Cold War are going to be Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. But in all likelihood we are going to see it expanding to the near space. Both blocs have the economic resources and the competitive motivation. Say rival Axis and Allies walks on the moon in the late 50s-early 60s, space stations in the late 60s-early 70s, lunar bases in the late 70s-early 80s, walks on Mars in the mid-late 80s, bases on Mars and in the Lagrangian points in the mid-late 90s, manned expeditions to the Jovian and Saturnian moons in the mid-late 00s.
Politically, as we said, it may be quite possible that the Nazifascist and Communist leaders don't inflict that much of an harsh rule on their own populations: they have more resources at their beck and call to provide consumer affluence, and possibly the average citizen in the Axis bloc gets to be as patriotic, or at least apathetic, as OTL Russians were. Nazifascist rule is mostly limited to Western Europe, where they typically provided a relatively lenient rule, as dictatorships go, if you weren't the wrong minority or a political dissident or rebel. Russians are "safe" under their own homegrown tyrants, there was no invasion, so hopefully Stalin is less eager to ethnically cleanse "disloyal" minorities after the war. It likely sucks being a Jew, a Czech, or a Pole ITTL, although Hitler and Himmler die in 1941, so it is quite possible that Goring, for pragmatical reasons, is not enthused about wasting precious war effort to run the Final Solution. Of course, he lacks the means to deport the Jews beyond the sea, although it is quite possible that he solves the situation dumping all of them in Stalin's hands, and Stalin humors his ally's foibles. He can always find some use for some extra millions workforce. Being at the bottom of the minority totem pole in Stalinist Russia definitely sucks, but it is better than extermination. Similar reasoning for the Czechs and Poles. The very best deal that they can expect, with Hitler gone in 1941, and a more pragmatic leadership, is likely forced Germanization and fascistization for those deemed racially assimilable, and deportation in Siberia of those who aren't. But it definitely sucks being a disabled person ITTL Europe. "Mercy Centers" all the way.
It remains to be told how much of a chunk of Africa, Middle East, and Central Asia the Axis is going to keep in the peace deal. Here, too, the NaziCommunist rule is going to show its worst face, meeting any native resistance to its imperial rule with genocidal scorched earth methods. It remains to seen whether post-Hitler Nazifascism is still going to go all the way to ethnic cleansing against any Black subjects it may have.
Although capitalist democratic Anglosphere is always going to have a serious potential advantage, since its economic and education systems shall be rather superior, this Axis is going many more potential resources to provide consumer affluency and fight the Cold War than OTL Soviet bloc. I guess that ITTL winning the Cold War is going to be much less of a walk in the park than OTL for the Anglosphere, although I cannot see them ever losing. Of course, having the resources of capitalist-democratic Japan and India at thier side is going to be a rather huge boost for the Anglosphere.
It also depends a lot on the kind of leaders that Berlin, Moscow, Rome, and Paris are going to get when the "old guard" is phased out by biology in the 60s, but if they get some talented pragmatist reformists that can pick something akin to the Deng path, instead of Breznev-like stagnation, I can see TTL Cold War ending into a draw, the Axis bloc evolving towards something rather akin to modern China.
A not so merry note: notwithstanding the obvious severe dystopic effects of Nazism-Communism being much more successful than OTL (quite likely the ideological differences get more and more blurred as years go by, although as I said, a gradual PRC-like softening is in the cards), TTL 21st century is going to see rather more environmental problems than OTL. This comes from Europe and Russia getting more industrial development, totalitarian systems typically being quite environmentally inefficient, capitalist China developing a generation in advance, and the Anglosphere pushing the economic development of South America and India rather more than OTL.
It seems that the main flashpoints of TTL Cold War are going to be Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. But in all likelihood we are going to see it expanding to the near space. Both blocs have the economic resources and the competitive motivation. Say rival Axis and Allies walks on the moon in the late 50s-early 60s, space stations in the late 60s-early 70s, lunar bases in the late 70s-early 80s, walks on Mars in the mid-late 80s, bases on Mars and in the Lagrangian points in the mid-late 90s, manned expeditions to the Jovian and Saturnian moons in the mid-late 00s.
Politically, as we said, it may be quite possible that the Nazifascist and Communist leaders don't inflict that much of an harsh rule on their own populations: they have more resources at their beck and call to provide consumer affluence, and possibly the average citizen in the Axis bloc gets to be as patriotic, or at least apathetic, as OTL Russians were. Nazifascist rule is mostly limited to Western Europe, where they typically provided a relatively lenient rule, as dictatorships go, if you weren't the wrong minority or a political dissident or rebel. Russians are "safe" under their own homegrown tyrants, there was no invasion, so hopefully Stalin is less eager to ethnically cleanse "disloyal" minorities after the war. It likely sucks being a Jew, a Czech, or a Pole ITTL, although Hitler and Himmler die in 1941, so it is quite possible that Goring, for pragmatical reasons, is not enthused about wasting precious war effort to run the Final Solution. Of course, he lacks the means to deport the Jews beyond the sea, although it is quite possible that he solves the situation dumping all of them in Stalin's hands, and Stalin humors his ally's foibles. He can always find some use for some extra millions workforce. Being at the bottom of the minority totem pole in Stalinist Russia definitely sucks, but it is better than extermination. Similar reasoning for the Czechs and Poles. The very best deal that they can expect, with Hitler gone in 1941, and a more pragmatic leadership, is likely forced Germanization and fascistization for those deemed racially assimilable, and deportation in Siberia of those who aren't. But it definitely sucks being a disabled person ITTL Europe. "Mercy Centers" all the way.
It remains to be told how much of a chunk of Africa, Middle East, and Central Asia the Axis is going to keep in the peace deal. Here, too, the NaziCommunist rule is going to show its worst face, meeting any native resistance to its imperial rule with genocidal scorched earth methods. It remains to seen whether post-Hitler Nazifascism is still going to go all the way to ethnic cleansing against any Black subjects it may have.
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BlairWitch749
Banned
I just started reading this OW and am impressed
Minor nitpick: Hitler would not chose Ritter Von Leeb to run any sort of important mission to Russia. Hitler hated Leeb and the feeling was mutual. At this point Hitler had allready forcibly retired him twice (only to recall him for Barbarossa and then force him to retire again)
A far more likely choice for such a mission would be Hans Krebs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Krebs_(general)
Although wiki doesn't provide any info worthy of note. Krebs was allready the military attache in Moscow during the M-R pact in otl and had a strong personal relationship with Stalin and spoke fluent Russian. He would be the natural choice to command such a mission.
Minor nitpick: Hitler would not chose Ritter Von Leeb to run any sort of important mission to Russia. Hitler hated Leeb and the feeling was mutual. At this point Hitler had allready forcibly retired him twice (only to recall him for Barbarossa and then force him to retire again)
A far more likely choice for such a mission would be Hans Krebs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Krebs_(general)
Although wiki doesn't provide any info worthy of note. Krebs was allready the military attache in Moscow during the M-R pact in otl and had a strong personal relationship with Stalin and spoke fluent Russian. He would be the natural choice to command such a mission.
I chose Leeb just because Hitler hated him. I figured he would want to get the guy as far away from Germany as humanly possible.
BlairWitch749
Banned
Hitler very neerly put him in a concentration camp for saying too many nice things about the kaiser... assuming the alliance with Russia is important to Hitler I can't understand why he would send the worst officer in his army (at least in Hitler's opinion) on such a crucial task.
I like the idea of TTL going into space. Something like the Drakaverse's Protracted Struggle might result.
Of course, the Evil Ones are going to have the advantage with all their German rocket scientists and all the resources of Eurasia.
The US had better go working quick or else there might be a Communazi Death Star in the works.
Of course, the Evil Ones are going to have the advantage with all their German rocket scientists and all the resources of Eurasia.
The US had better go working quick or else there might be a Communazi Death Star in the works.
Mmm, I suppose so. I can't edit those posts anymore so it doesn't matter.
Here's the first post-war update . Split this into two because of its length.
The great powers in conflict with each other had finally stopped fighting for the first time in almost nine years and peace had to be made and war torn Eurasia had some rebuilding to do although it was clear from the start that this was going to be a negotiated peace which would mostly likely leave the better part of Eurasia under Soviet-German control. The war had lasted for almost nine years, destroying large parts of the world and killing 80 million people. Britain and the US threatened ‘mutually assured destruction’ with chemical weapons and atom bombs if they didn’t get a fair peace. The decision was made to hold the peace conference in neutral territory, in Portugal which Allied leaders deemed safer than travelling through Axis occupied territory to either Switzerland or Sweden. Initially, the Axis powers had wanted the peace conference to be in one of their cities. They knew the Allies were the first to ask for peace and they presented this as a victory for their countries. Neither Moscow nor Berlin were chosen as neither Attlee nor Truman wanted to go into the lion’s den. Portugal was acceptable to both since it was close to Axis Spain, but also easy to invade by sea if need be. American battle groups and carrier groups patrolled the Portuguese coast while German jetfighters and nuclear loaded bombers patrolled the skies. This would be the first and last time that Truman and Attlee met with Goering, Mussolini and Stalin who would turn out to be tough negotiators. The Portuguese themselves also mobilized their armed forces as a precaution in the event of Spanish aggression and because the world’s five most powerful men were gathered in the country. The location chosen was Sesimbra, a city on the coast approximately 25 kilometres south of Lisbon. For Stalin, this was the first time he travelled outside of his country in years and he was doubly paranoid since the Portuguese Estado Novo regime wasn’t exactly friendly to communism and so he took his own NKVD internal troops with him for protection. He had only left the Russia twice since 1900, once in 1907 to London and another time to Stockholm in Sweden to officially empower the alliance between Germany and the Soviet Union.
Truman and Attlee arrived at the Sesimbra Conference with two completely different mindsets which especially Stalin and his foreign minister Molotov would exploit backed by Goering and his foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. America was in good shape economically and had not been defeated militarily in any significant way. The US had the capability to keep on fighting the war for another few years if need be and he made this clear to the Axis leaders and he also hinted at a another more powerful bomb that the Americans were building that would dwarf the destructive power of the nuclear weapons the Axis possessed at this time. Attlee, on the other hand, came to the peace conference with the situation at home in mind. Britain’s economy had been ravaged by almost a decade of war, sending the formerly so powerful British Empire into bankruptcy and an economic depression and India and Burma breaking away. Food riots and looting had already taken place in several British cities and anti-war protests grew in size and violence as the people were war weary and unhappy, even more so with the carnage that Axis atomic bombs and poison had inflicted upon the country, killing tens of thousands of civilians and causing untold amounts of destruction. Britain’s pre-war high living standards had dropped dramatically; with half the country in ruin, this wasn’t surprising. Attlee wanted to bail out of the war on favourable conditions while Truman took a hard line stance against Nazism and communism. It would affect the peace conference since it made it easier for the Axis to get what they wanted. First and foremost issue were possible Allied territorial losses. The Axis wasn’t in a position to demand American territory, but Britain couldn’t oppose such claims. Goering, on behalf of Franco, claimed Gibraltar for Spain and Alsace-Lorraine for Germany while Mussolini claimed Egypt. Mussolini also demanded the recognition of his gains from France (Tunisia, Nice and Savoy), his possession of Malta and Cyprus and the annexation of Albania, Slovenia, Istria, Dalmatia and Kosovo. Greece, a rump-Yugoslav kingdom consisting of Serbia, the Italian protectorate over Montenegro and an independent Croatia (including Bosnia) under Ante Pavelic were recognised as being part of the Italian sphere of influence. The Allies didn’t really have any ways of forcing Mussolini out of the Mediterranean Sea and so they recognised his and Franco’s claims. Bulgaria’s conquest of Vardar Macedonia and Hungary gaining northern Vojvodina was also recognised. Axis dominance over the continent was also reluctantly recognised by the Allies as they weren’t about to force them out. In regards to China, Truman could be more firm as he had boots on the ground there. He demanded recognition of the Republic of China which consisted of Taiwan, Hainan Island the provinces of Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong. Stalin acquiesced, but only in return for the whole of Korea, a small part of which was still under American control. Truman was reluctant, but deemed Chiang to be more useful to protect American interests in China than a tiny capitalist Korean state centred around Busan. He agreed to this. Finland was also formally annexed as the Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic.
The Axis also divided the spheres of influence among themselves in this conference. Goering decided to award Iraq and Transjordan to Italy as a protectorate. The rest of Middle East ended up in Soviet hands as they founded the People’s Republics of Persia, Afghanistan and Baluchistan. Britain was forced to concede here as well since they had a snowball’s chance in hell of ever retaking the Middle East. Germany remained the paramount power of the European continent. Stalin disbanded the Empire of Manchukuo and added it to Zhou Enlai’s People’s Republic of China while placing Kim Il-Sung in charge of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, a Stalinist regime that controlled the whole of Korea now. The anti-loyalist Japanese forces in China were repatriated to the People’s Republic of Japan which still controlled Hokkaido, southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, forming the basis for the Peasants and Workers Army of Japan. This new communist state also received post factum recognition since Washington was not yet in a mood to stand up for Japan, an attitude that would change a few years later. Germany also kept its share of Poland, Czechia also known as the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia and the Low Countries, Denmark and Norway which were ruled as Reichskommissariats where they would later establish naval bases. Slovakia, Romania, Sweden, France, Switzerland and Hungary ended up under Goering’s influence. Franco was located further away from both Italy and Germany and had a little more leeway although he was still tied to Berlin and Rome. America and Britain both recognised Indonesian and Indochinese independence under Sukarno and Ho Chi Minh since their mother countries were still occupied or aligned with the Axis powers. The Axis wouldn’t recognise either regime until the early 1950s. With this, the Treaty of Sesimbra was concluded and the world could begin with the long and arduous task of rebuilding.
Of all the participants in the war, the USSR and the United States had come out of the war the best. The Americas had been hit with a number of German missiles with nerve gas and a few bombs, but the American people never had to endure the one thousand plane raids that Japan and Germany had suffered nor the atomic bombings of British cities. The US were the world’s foremost economic and military power with a standing army of over ten million men and a navy with three dozen carriers and at least fifteen battleships of which six were of the new Iowa-class; Illinois and Kentucky had barely been completed before the end of the war. Economically, things were going well too since the war had put everyone back to work again and the US were just about the world’s sole holder of credit and the dominant power in the Anglo sphere. American products were becoming increasingly more available to the world’s consumer market. The Soviet Union had also done well, gaining a large sphere of influence in Asia and the Middle East and access to the Indian Ocean. The Soviet Union was the second largest industrial power of the world behind the US and had the world’s largest standing army in the world, ICMBs and an atomic arsenal. Also, no battles had been fought in Soviet territory whatsoever. Of the minor Axis powers, Italy and Spain had done rather well as the former had been able to sit out the war from 1941 onward since the Mediterranean Sea had been secure since then and the latter had received Axis aid to prepare for a campaign against Gibraltar, aid which included construction materials and engineers. Japan had been the only one of the Axis powers to have been defeated and the country was in utter ruin after nuclear and chemical war. Furthermore, the north of the country was being led by a communist regime with its capital being Sapporo. China was also devastated after more than a decade of war. Germany wasn’t in great shape after the loss of over half a dozen cities in nuclear fire, but it still economically, militarily and politically dominated the European continent from which it would draw resources to rebuild. Germany also bought construction materials from Stalin’s Soviet Union which produced more than enough steel, petroleum and coal to assist. American economic, military and political dominance in all of the western hemisphere and Southeast Asia, not to mention their research into the hydrogen bombs ensured their doing well. The German people were forced to accept twelve hour workdays to rebuild the nation and accept rationing. ‘They would have to put their shoulders under it’, as Goering put it.
Truman sent massive aid to rebuild Britain and also to Japan which was even more dependent on foreign food imports after the loss of Hokkaido. Massive American aid led to a reasonable recovery for both and the Truman administration even allowed for a limited rearmament of Japan as they saw Japan as a proxy against communist expansion in Asia and to prevent it from turning entirely communist. The Imperial Japanese Army was reconstituted as well as the Imperial Japanese Navy albeit with a limit on the number of ships. The Japanese were allowed to build one fleet carrier with a maximum tonnage of 45.000 tonnes and a complement of 100 aircraft. They were also allowed to build two light carriers, six battleships, twelve cruisers, sixty destroyers, sixty minesweepers and fifty submarines. The Republic of China under the pseudo fascist regime of Chiang Kai-Shek also received US support to build a modern military. Truman also signed an official military alliance with Great Britain where both Labour and the Tories lost a massive number of seats in the next elections to the reborn Liberals. The presidential campaign was also in full swing with Truman running against the Republican candidate Thomas E. Dewey who favoured an ‘America First’ policy as part of his isolationist stance. He blamed Roosevelt’s meddling in China and Europe as the reason for American involvement in a horrible war that didn’t serve any interests but those of Britain, a Britain that wasn’t too happy with this presidential candidate who also wanted to substantially cut the aid to Britain, Japan and China in favour of public works programs, social security and programs for veteran rehabilitation which found large appeal among the American people, including millions of demobilized American GIs. He correctly pointed out the loss of civilian lives due to German missile attacks provoked by bombing their cities for so long. Truman lost the elections to Dewey and he turned out to be a one term president while Dewey ended up in the White House with his first act being the termination of any alliances with foreign powers, military or otherwise. He reasoned that whatever Germany, Italy, the USSR or China did in Eurasia wasn’t his business. This also meant a reduction in aid to Britain, Japan and Chiang’s China although it didn’t end completely as the people were generally in favour of helping the battered British due to longstanding Anglo-American relations. These foreign policy moves would severely influence the Cold War. First off, the British decided to speed up their atomic bomb program and they would test a 22 kiloton nuclear weapon in 1952. The other consequence was more Axis means to throw their weight around in areas that they hadn’t fully subdued yet such as China. The Chinese communist leadership was easily enough convinced to reunite the whole of China.
. Split this into two because of its length.Chapter VIII: Peace, the Start the Cold War, the Chinese War and the Death of Three Tyrants, 1948 – 1962.
The great powers in conflict with each other had finally stopped fighting for the first time in almost nine years and peace had to be made and war torn Eurasia had some rebuilding to do although it was clear from the start that this was going to be a negotiated peace which would mostly likely leave the better part of Eurasia under Soviet-German control. The war had lasted for almost nine years, destroying large parts of the world and killing 80 million people. Britain and the US threatened ‘mutually assured destruction’ with chemical weapons and atom bombs if they didn’t get a fair peace. The decision was made to hold the peace conference in neutral territory, in Portugal which Allied leaders deemed safer than travelling through Axis occupied territory to either Switzerland or Sweden. Initially, the Axis powers had wanted the peace conference to be in one of their cities. They knew the Allies were the first to ask for peace and they presented this as a victory for their countries. Neither Moscow nor Berlin were chosen as neither Attlee nor Truman wanted to go into the lion’s den. Portugal was acceptable to both since it was close to Axis Spain, but also easy to invade by sea if need be. American battle groups and carrier groups patrolled the Portuguese coast while German jetfighters and nuclear loaded bombers patrolled the skies. This would be the first and last time that Truman and Attlee met with Goering, Mussolini and Stalin who would turn out to be tough negotiators. The Portuguese themselves also mobilized their armed forces as a precaution in the event of Spanish aggression and because the world’s five most powerful men were gathered in the country. The location chosen was Sesimbra, a city on the coast approximately 25 kilometres south of Lisbon. For Stalin, this was the first time he travelled outside of his country in years and he was doubly paranoid since the Portuguese Estado Novo regime wasn’t exactly friendly to communism and so he took his own NKVD internal troops with him for protection. He had only left the Russia twice since 1900, once in 1907 to London and another time to Stockholm in Sweden to officially empower the alliance between Germany and the Soviet Union.
Truman and Attlee arrived at the Sesimbra Conference with two completely different mindsets which especially Stalin and his foreign minister Molotov would exploit backed by Goering and his foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. America was in good shape economically and had not been defeated militarily in any significant way. The US had the capability to keep on fighting the war for another few years if need be and he made this clear to the Axis leaders and he also hinted at a another more powerful bomb that the Americans were building that would dwarf the destructive power of the nuclear weapons the Axis possessed at this time. Attlee, on the other hand, came to the peace conference with the situation at home in mind. Britain’s economy had been ravaged by almost a decade of war, sending the formerly so powerful British Empire into bankruptcy and an economic depression and India and Burma breaking away. Food riots and looting had already taken place in several British cities and anti-war protests grew in size and violence as the people were war weary and unhappy, even more so with the carnage that Axis atomic bombs and poison had inflicted upon the country, killing tens of thousands of civilians and causing untold amounts of destruction. Britain’s pre-war high living standards had dropped dramatically; with half the country in ruin, this wasn’t surprising. Attlee wanted to bail out of the war on favourable conditions while Truman took a hard line stance against Nazism and communism. It would affect the peace conference since it made it easier for the Axis to get what they wanted. First and foremost issue were possible Allied territorial losses. The Axis wasn’t in a position to demand American territory, but Britain couldn’t oppose such claims. Goering, on behalf of Franco, claimed Gibraltar for Spain and Alsace-Lorraine for Germany while Mussolini claimed Egypt. Mussolini also demanded the recognition of his gains from France (Tunisia, Nice and Savoy), his possession of Malta and Cyprus and the annexation of Albania, Slovenia, Istria, Dalmatia and Kosovo. Greece, a rump-Yugoslav kingdom consisting of Serbia, the Italian protectorate over Montenegro and an independent Croatia (including Bosnia) under Ante Pavelic were recognised as being part of the Italian sphere of influence. The Allies didn’t really have any ways of forcing Mussolini out of the Mediterranean Sea and so they recognised his and Franco’s claims. Bulgaria’s conquest of Vardar Macedonia and Hungary gaining northern Vojvodina was also recognised. Axis dominance over the continent was also reluctantly recognised by the Allies as they weren’t about to force them out. In regards to China, Truman could be more firm as he had boots on the ground there. He demanded recognition of the Republic of China which consisted of Taiwan, Hainan Island the provinces of Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong. Stalin acquiesced, but only in return for the whole of Korea, a small part of which was still under American control. Truman was reluctant, but deemed Chiang to be more useful to protect American interests in China than a tiny capitalist Korean state centred around Busan. He agreed to this. Finland was also formally annexed as the Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic.
The Axis also divided the spheres of influence among themselves in this conference. Goering decided to award Iraq and Transjordan to Italy as a protectorate. The rest of Middle East ended up in Soviet hands as they founded the People’s Republics of Persia, Afghanistan and Baluchistan. Britain was forced to concede here as well since they had a snowball’s chance in hell of ever retaking the Middle East. Germany remained the paramount power of the European continent. Stalin disbanded the Empire of Manchukuo and added it to Zhou Enlai’s People’s Republic of China while placing Kim Il-Sung in charge of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, a Stalinist regime that controlled the whole of Korea now. The anti-loyalist Japanese forces in China were repatriated to the People’s Republic of Japan which still controlled Hokkaido, southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, forming the basis for the Peasants and Workers Army of Japan. This new communist state also received post factum recognition since Washington was not yet in a mood to stand up for Japan, an attitude that would change a few years later. Germany also kept its share of Poland, Czechia also known as the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia and the Low Countries, Denmark and Norway which were ruled as Reichskommissariats where they would later establish naval bases. Slovakia, Romania, Sweden, France, Switzerland and Hungary ended up under Goering’s influence. Franco was located further away from both Italy and Germany and had a little more leeway although he was still tied to Berlin and Rome. America and Britain both recognised Indonesian and Indochinese independence under Sukarno and Ho Chi Minh since their mother countries were still occupied or aligned with the Axis powers. The Axis wouldn’t recognise either regime until the early 1950s. With this, the Treaty of Sesimbra was concluded and the world could begin with the long and arduous task of rebuilding.
Of all the participants in the war, the USSR and the United States had come out of the war the best. The Americas had been hit with a number of German missiles with nerve gas and a few bombs, but the American people never had to endure the one thousand plane raids that Japan and Germany had suffered nor the atomic bombings of British cities. The US were the world’s foremost economic and military power with a standing army of over ten million men and a navy with three dozen carriers and at least fifteen battleships of which six were of the new Iowa-class; Illinois and Kentucky had barely been completed before the end of the war. Economically, things were going well too since the war had put everyone back to work again and the US were just about the world’s sole holder of credit and the dominant power in the Anglo sphere. American products were becoming increasingly more available to the world’s consumer market. The Soviet Union had also done well, gaining a large sphere of influence in Asia and the Middle East and access to the Indian Ocean. The Soviet Union was the second largest industrial power of the world behind the US and had the world’s largest standing army in the world, ICMBs and an atomic arsenal. Also, no battles had been fought in Soviet territory whatsoever. Of the minor Axis powers, Italy and Spain had done rather well as the former had been able to sit out the war from 1941 onward since the Mediterranean Sea had been secure since then and the latter had received Axis aid to prepare for a campaign against Gibraltar, aid which included construction materials and engineers. Japan had been the only one of the Axis powers to have been defeated and the country was in utter ruin after nuclear and chemical war. Furthermore, the north of the country was being led by a communist regime with its capital being Sapporo. China was also devastated after more than a decade of war. Germany wasn’t in great shape after the loss of over half a dozen cities in nuclear fire, but it still economically, militarily and politically dominated the European continent from which it would draw resources to rebuild. Germany also bought construction materials from Stalin’s Soviet Union which produced more than enough steel, petroleum and coal to assist. American economic, military and political dominance in all of the western hemisphere and Southeast Asia, not to mention their research into the hydrogen bombs ensured their doing well. The German people were forced to accept twelve hour workdays to rebuild the nation and accept rationing. ‘They would have to put their shoulders under it’, as Goering put it.
Truman sent massive aid to rebuild Britain and also to Japan which was even more dependent on foreign food imports after the loss of Hokkaido. Massive American aid led to a reasonable recovery for both and the Truman administration even allowed for a limited rearmament of Japan as they saw Japan as a proxy against communist expansion in Asia and to prevent it from turning entirely communist. The Imperial Japanese Army was reconstituted as well as the Imperial Japanese Navy albeit with a limit on the number of ships. The Japanese were allowed to build one fleet carrier with a maximum tonnage of 45.000 tonnes and a complement of 100 aircraft. They were also allowed to build two light carriers, six battleships, twelve cruisers, sixty destroyers, sixty minesweepers and fifty submarines. The Republic of China under the pseudo fascist regime of Chiang Kai-Shek also received US support to build a modern military. Truman also signed an official military alliance with Great Britain where both Labour and the Tories lost a massive number of seats in the next elections to the reborn Liberals. The presidential campaign was also in full swing with Truman running against the Republican candidate Thomas E. Dewey who favoured an ‘America First’ policy as part of his isolationist stance. He blamed Roosevelt’s meddling in China and Europe as the reason for American involvement in a horrible war that didn’t serve any interests but those of Britain, a Britain that wasn’t too happy with this presidential candidate who also wanted to substantially cut the aid to Britain, Japan and China in favour of public works programs, social security and programs for veteran rehabilitation which found large appeal among the American people, including millions of demobilized American GIs. He correctly pointed out the loss of civilian lives due to German missile attacks provoked by bombing their cities for so long. Truman lost the elections to Dewey and he turned out to be a one term president while Dewey ended up in the White House with his first act being the termination of any alliances with foreign powers, military or otherwise. He reasoned that whatever Germany, Italy, the USSR or China did in Eurasia wasn’t his business. This also meant a reduction in aid to Britain, Japan and Chiang’s China although it didn’t end completely as the people were generally in favour of helping the battered British due to longstanding Anglo-American relations. These foreign policy moves would severely influence the Cold War. First off, the British decided to speed up their atomic bomb program and they would test a 22 kiloton nuclear weapon in 1952. The other consequence was more Axis means to throw their weight around in areas that they hadn’t fully subdued yet such as China. The Chinese communist leadership was easily enough convinced to reunite the whole of China.
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The People’s Republic of China dominated all of China apart from the provinces of Fujian Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Hainan Island and Taiwan. The territory they controlled included Manchuria which was the most industrialized region of the country and rich in coal, iron ore and, as it turned out, oil from the Daqing oilfield. Soviet assistance and a relatively sane policy that didn’t include collectivization or other damaging policies that Stalin had implemented during the first two Five Year Plans helped rebuilding China that was now finally orderly and in peace. The communists had introduced a strict order and had destroyed the very last of the warlords which had been publicly hanged as enemies of the state as well as collaborators of the Japanese and suspected sympathizers of the Nationalist Kuomintang. Zhou Enlai generally followed an economic policy that was in line with Lenin’s New Economic Policy of the early 1920s and therefore allowed a limited form of market economy, but did combat ‘large capitalism’. Heavy industry, mining, arms production, electricity production, public works and infrastructure ended up under the jurisdiction of Beijing while small businesses were allowed to continue. The agricultural policy was relatively moderate. Large bourgeois landowners were disowned and their land was redistributed to poorer peasants who received government issued farming equipment and utilities bought for bottom prices from the Soviet Union such as tractors, combines and good fertilizer. Due to government attempts at a slower movement toward socialism, the great famines and deaths that the USSR had seen generally didn’t occur. Zhou Enlai also introduced compulsory education free for all so that every person in China could read, write and do calculus by 1960 while building a system of higher education although that took more time. With Soviet assistance, Zhou started to rapidly industrialize and modernize his country. Set goals were to increase coal production to 250 million tonnes, steel production to 25 million tonnes, oil production to 50 million tonnes and electricity production to 27.5 billion kWh per year, all by the end of the First Seven Year Plan which was set to end in 1955. The plan also included a large rearmament program and a massive expansion of the road net, the railroad network and the communications network. Large new roads based on the German ‘autobahns’, new railroads and telegraph, telex and phone connections were to be created while the USSR provided locomotives and Germany allowed Chinese car manufacturers to build the Volkswagen Beetle under license., making it a true ‘People’s Car’ which is what Volkswagen means. This design was so simple and cheap that it could easily be mass produced for little cost. Even today, millions of Chinese produced ‘People’s Cars’ are still in use in China and in the Third World. This was a family car, available for only 1.000 German marks and able to achieve a respectable speed of 100 km/h. Production wouldn’t cease until the early 1980s.
By 1950 already, the triumvirate of Zhou Enlai, Peng Dehuai and Deng Xiaoping felt confident enough to reunite China as president Dewey had turned inward. Moreover, they were backed by Moscow. Stalin sold them T-34-85, IS series and T-55 tanks, the new AK-47 assault rifle, MiG-15 jetfighters and supply trucks and also provided the necessary training for Chinese soldiers and pilots. They felt they could beat the small Republic of China which sat in the southeast as a thorn in the side of their country and ‘The Revolution’. Some call this the Chinese War although most see it as a continuation of the Chinese Civil War, including president Dewey who decided not to interfere with China’s ‘internal affairs’ which earned him the anger and contempt of rabid anticommunists such as senator Joseph McCarthy. Communist forces under general Peng Dehuai crossed the Yangtze river on December 26th 1950, Mao Zedong’s birth date, attacking with many troops and out of nowhere, catching Chiang off guard. The Dewey administration offered only token support by selling weapons and sending a handful of special forces. Notable anticommunist Joseph McCarthy supported by famous figures like general George S. Patton and Douglas MacArthur quickly achieved popularity in decrying Dewey’s selling out of American allies and interests, calling him a backstabber. It didn’t change his mind, even when People’s Liberation Army forces took Zheijang province by the end of January (a third of the entire country). Korean and Soviet troops also operated in the region and captured American operatives whose existence Dewey denied for them never to be heard of again. The PLA defeated Chiang’s outnumbered forces within six months despite Chiang’s good use of the landscape and modern US weapons. Fact was that his soldiers were unmotivated, especially when seeing what was being achieved so quickly in communist China and what was going on under Chiang’s corrupt regime. He fled with his entourage to Taiwan. The Republic of China was reduced to Taiwan, the Pescadores and Hainan Island. The communists lacked the naval capability to take these islands, more so with an American and a Japanese carrier group in the area. They declared a victory in May 1951.
Stalin was pleased as his sphere of influence had now been rounded up without stirring up any meaningful repercussions for the Soviet Union, but in America many people were turning against Dewey’s return to isolationism which just wasn’t the way to go anymore after the war had dragged America out of its isolationism. Most modern political analysts agree to this and regard Dewey’s presidency as a mere fluke influenced by an overly panicked response to German attacks on American soil. McCarthy started spewing virulent anti-isolationist rhetoric against the government which he blamed of being weak and soft toward the evils of communism and fascism which were working hand in hand to dominate the world and he even accused Dewey of being a closet socialist for just leaving Chiang Kai-Shek, one of America’s most important allies in Asia, to his own devices just like that. Eurasia had already fallen prey to them except for India which remained as bulwark of democracy, but was threatening to slip into socialism as well under Nehru who he called a lackey of Moscow. Very soon, he predicted, the entire eastern hemisphere would be painted either red or brown. His anti-fascist and anti-communist antics struck a chord as he demonstratively showed a map, showing the spheres of influence of communism and fascism. He stated that coexistence with communism and fascism was neither possible, nor desirable nor honourable and that cooperation with them would advance the cause of tyranny. In Africa, both Italy and France were fighting vicious, brutal colonial wars to retain their empires which had been trying to break free from them since the war with American aid. The pleas of these people for freedom, democracy and justice were being ignored by the evil fascists and McCarthy argued that America had to be the champion of democracy and should combat fascism and communism wherever it could instead of ignoring them as they trampled the will of the free man. His protests against government policy led to him being ignored by the White House and president Dewey, but they couldn’t ignore the following he was getting among the people and within the Republican party itself. It was in September 1951 that McCarthy announced he would be running for president and would be competing with president Dewey for the Republican nomination. He requested Patton to be his running mate, but he declined as he wasn’t a politician. In his stead, Charles Lindbergh, a known anti-communist, became his running mate. This big name, along with support from generals Patton and Douglas MacArthur (who had fought to liberate China no less), gave him all the publicity he needed. It isn’t surprising that this duo easily won the Republican nomination over Dewey. Their competitor was Adlai Stevenson who didn’t really have anything new to offer to the American people. Initially, choosing Lindbergh as running mate was deemed risky since he had been suspected of pro-fascist sympathies before the war. If he had really fostered those, he stopped fostering them the moment Germany and Italy joined the USSR in the war. Despite having a rather single issue campaign, they managed to win the 1952 elections.
Both Goering and the now rapidly aging Stalin noticed the change in America’s foreign policy and sped up their hydrogen bomb program as McCarthy had already done for the American program. With Europe rebuilding and the economy growing again, they also started to consider a space program, research into warhead miniaturization and nuclear ICBMs. Stalin and Goering continued their relations despite being officially ideologically opposed to each other as it had been a very fruitful partnership for both their countries. Germany dominated Europe while the Soviet Union dominated Asia and part of the Middle East. Werner von Braun and his team started doing research into the A11 ballistic missile which had been nothing more than a concept until then. This missile would be capable of bringing a satellite payload into Earth orbit or carrying a nuclear warhead if warhead miniaturization proceeded according to plan. The Soviet and German nuclear energy project with names of famous nuclear physicists such as Igor Kurchatov, Andrei Sakharov, Otto Hahn, Werner Heisenberg, Carl Weizsäcker and Kurt Diebner as researchers was going strong even if it was slightly behind on the American program. On November 1st 1952, America tested Ivy Mike, a thermonuclear weapon. The super heavy "Mike" device was essentially a building that resembled a factory rather than a weapon. It has been reported that Russian engineers derisively referred to Mike as a "thermonuclear installation". At its centre, a large cylindrical thermos flask, held the cryogenic deuterium-tritium fusion fuel. A regular fission bomb at one end was used to create the conditions needed to start the fusion reaction. The device had been designed by a student of Enrico Fermi, on the suggestion of Edward Teller. It had been decided that nothing other than a full-scale test would validate the idea of the Teller-Ulam design and Garwin was instructed to use very conservative estimates when designing the test, and that it need not be deployable. The primary stage was a boosted fission bomb in a separate space on top of the assembly (so it would not freeze, rendering it inoperable). The fusion stage used liquid deuterium-tritium despite the difficulty of handling this material, because this fuel simplified the experiment, and made the results easier to analyze. Running down the centre of the flask which held it was a cylindrical rod of plutonium (the "sparkplug") to ignite the fusion reaction. Surrounding this assembly was a 4.5 tonne natural uranium "tamper". The exterior of the tamper was lined with sheets of lead and polyethylene foam, which formed a radiation channel to conduct X-rays from the primary to secondary (the function of X-rays was to hydro dynamically compress the secondary, increasing the density and temperature of the deuterium to the levels needed to sustain the thermonuclear reaction, and compressing the sparkplug to super criticality ignition.) The outermost layer was a steel casing 10-12 inches (25-30 cm) thick. The entire assembly, nicknamed "Sausage", measured 80 inches (2.03 m) in diameter and 244 inches (6.19 m) in height and weighed about 54 tons. The entire Mike device (including cryogenic equipment) weighed 73.8 metric tonnes.
It was detonated and the estimated yield of the blast was 10.4 megatons although 77% of the bomb’s power came from fast fission of the uranium tamper, producing a lot of fallout. The mushroom cloud reached an altitude of 37 kilometres and it was 160 kilometres wide with a 32 kilometre wide stem. Where the Elugelab Atoll (where the test took place) had once been, there was a 1.9 kilometre wide and 50 metre deep crater. The islands nearby were stripped of their vegetation. Lots of coral was destroyed and irradiated debris hit ships stationed almost 50 kilometres away while the immediate area around the blast (‘ground zero’) was heavily contaminated. The USSR and Germany responded with their own new weapon of the ‘Sloika design’ devised by the Russian research team. Despite their alliance, there was some healthy competition. The blast had an estimated yield of 700 kilotons which made it weak for a fusion weapon. In reality, this was not a hydrogen bomb, but a boosted fission bomb although the Russians argued that this weapon could be deployed by aircraft whereas the Ivy Mike design could not be used as a weapon which was true. This bomb was also the strongest pure fission bomb ever built. It would take until 1954 before the Axis powers tested their first hydrogen bomb, but their design didn’t utilize the cryogenic deuterium-tritium fuel, making it much lighter and therefore deployable as a weapon and it was powerful enough in its own right with 3.3 megaton yield.
Externally, McCarthy held word about combating communism as well as he did internally. The American government funded anti-communist movements and governments all over the world, including Africa, Asia and South America with money, weapons and training. He supported regimes like that Juan Peron in Argentina and other south American caudillos as long as their brand of ‘South American fascism’ wasn’t tied to Germany or Italy. Military juntas supported by Washington frequently replaced more socialist oriented regimes. This blunt American intervention in South American politics which caused so much corruption, poverty and oppressive militarism explains the animosity many people in South America today towards the US. Internally, he increased funding of both the CIA and FBI massively and expanded their jurisdiction at the expense of other agencies and the police. Among their new powers was the right to detain any American citizen suspected of communist sympathies for a not predetermined amount of time. This was euphemistically called ‘protective custody’. In this state a subject had been arrested, but not formally accused of anything yet. In this judicial vacuum, there were many vague definitions and rules. Since it was defined so unclearly, people could be kept imprisoned for years before actually being charged with anything and brought into a courtroom. The FBI and CIA used it frequently to remove ‘communist sympathizers’. FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover also used his immensely powerful powerbase to blackmail or harass political activists and dissenters, create secret files about important politicians containing all the skeletons in their closets, tapping telephone lines, shadowing people, obtaining illegal evidence or plainly fabricate evidence in some cases. This was part of the ‘better dead than red’ campaign which cleared out any possible dissenters and opponents of the new American government. America was definitely not a dictatorship, but nevertheless McCarthy was busy destroying the democracy he was trying to protect, laying the foundations for a much more authoritarian America if still recognizable as a democracy. The tools he had created would be utilized by all the presidents after him. He, however, wasn’t happy with the job of leading a superpower which turned out to be more stressful and difficult than he had thought, more so with him becoming paranoid, looking over his shoulders for NKVD assassins. He became alcoholic, a secret that he guarded very well and which wouldn’t get out until years later, long after his death of liver failure in 1957 which made Charles Lindbergh the new president of the United States. He too was anti-communist although McCarthy had done most of the work for him. What he did do was act against crime, specifically the mafia, by using the newly expanded powers of the FBI which included frequent violations of habeas corpus and privacy. He also created a system of citizen guards to support the police against more local crime, including the gang problem although that problem wouldn’t arise until later after the mob had been beaten. These armed militias had the jurisdiction to arrest people, but they had to deliver them to the real police afterward. The creation of these militias followed the general trend of America’s militarizing society.
In the meantime, the three European great leaders perished of age one by one. Stalin was the first to go, dying on March 5th 1953 after a few days in agony after a stroke. Considering his eating and drinking habits, high blood pressure, rheumatism, arthritis and so on this was hardly surprising although Molotov claims in his memoires that Beria killed him. Regardless of this, a power struggle ensued between Beria and his NKVD powerbase on one hand and Molotov and Khrushchev on the other with small timers Bulganin and Malenkov caught in the middle. None of them wanted to see Beria in charge of the Soviet Union since he would surely execute them all and replace them with his own cronies. They formed a temporary alliance against him and managed to wrest the reins of power from his hands together. He was arrested by the new leader of the Soviet Union’s secret police, Semyon Ignatyev, who had him thrown into his own Lubyanka prison where he had tortured so many political opponents and dissenters during his bloody reign. He was charged with treason and hundreds accounts of rape, abuse and murder of which the bones of his victims were silent witnesses. He was swiftly executed while Khrushchev took power. The first thing he did was reaffirm his ties with Berlin and Beijing. These ties had been cemented over the years with ideological differences blurring after nearly a decade of co-belligerence and military and economic cooperation afterward. The racist loons Hitler and Himmler with their ‘Lebenraum’ ideas had died long ago although the former was still venerated as the person who put Germany on the map again as a great power. Hitler had been given a huge mausoleum and numerous statues all over Germany and many streets and even complete towns named ager him. Nazi scientists had reclassified the Russians as Aryans pressured by Goering while Goebbels’s propaganda glorified their struggle for the motherland, Russian patriotism, courage and strength, in short the Nationalist elements in the USSR. Soviet propaganda, in the meantime, emphasized the socialist elements in National Socialism.
One of the more minor dictators to perish was Philippe Pétain, leader of France, Germany’s western European sidekick although not weak by any means. France had been allowed to reconstitute its armed forces during the war in 1942. France maintained a large fleet of battleships and was also building carriers. After the end of the war, unrest had erupted in Algeria and Morocco and he had responded with military force. Being a fascist dictatorship, the French leadership had no scruples and no qualms about use of heavy force such as carpet bombing, artillery bombardments and large scale use of armour and chemical weapons which they did with support from Mussolini. He died in 1951 at the age of 95 by which time he was already senile and admiral François Darlan had already taken over the day to day affairs by then. The step to de jure president of France was therefore a small one. France had settled in nicely into the New Order. Admittedly, the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, Nice and Savoy stung, but the peace had been lenient compared to what it could have been. France had a privileged status compared to occupied countries like the Low Countries.
In the meantime, the space program got off the ground. In 1953, the Germans put the first satellite into orbit from the Peenemunde test site while Italy’s nuclear program got started as well with German support after the Ivy Mike test. Goering sold the Italians a non-functioning model warhead to work with along with tonnes of notes and paperwork from the German nuclear energy project which sped up their program immensely, more so with access to French uranium supplies in their Saharan colony of Niger. By 1954, the Italian research team had built a heavy water reactor and a number of centrifuges in an underground facility just outside Rome. Mussolini tried to rush the project to make Italy equal in status to Germany again instead of playing second fiddle to Goering and Stalin. In Libya and Tunisia, Mussolini was fighting a fierce colonial war and seemed to be winning as he swarmed his ‘Fourth Shore’ with millions of settlers who were eager to move there after oil had been found in the late 1940s, especially from poorer southern Italy. Large numbers of Albanians and smaller numbers of Croats living in occupied Istria and Dalmatia moved there too as there was no future where they lived. The entire colony of Libya And Tunisia had less than one million natives which would soon be demographically overwhelmed by Sicilians, south Italians and a handful of Albanians and Croats. Due to German assistance, the bomb was ready before Mussolini’s death although the bomb wasn’t strong due to Mussolini’s rushing. It was tested in the Libyan desert and had an estimated yield of 9 kilotons.
The arms race and space race continued with Germany and the USSR sending up a manned mission in 1957 while Mussolini and Goering grew older. Mussolini was about to pass away as well as the second member of the old guard to go after Stalin. He held a speech in 1958 to commemorate his 75th birthday, but as he spoke he started to get slow and pronounced words wrongly. He collapsed on the stage of a stroke. At the age of 75, fascist dictator Benito Mussolini was dead. The Cold War continued and threatened to escalate into a hot war in Cuba. In 1958, communist leader Fidel Castro overthrew corrupt dictator Fulgencio Batista supported by Moscow, but very much against the wishes of president Lindbergh. Soviet operatives were working in Cuba and so they were in danger of being captured when Lindbergh ordered an invasion of Cuba for 1959. No less than three carrier groups were deployed to the Gulf of Mexico to keep communism out of Washington’s backyard. Five divisions of American troops landed near Havana in full force with armour, artillery support and air support, nuclear bombers on standby and battleships to destroy possible counterattacks against the American beachhead. Moscow raged and fumed, announcing a partial mobilization and bringing their own nuclear bombers in the air threatening war if American forces laid so much as a finger on KGB and Red Army ‘advisors’ on Cuba which brought the world closer to nuclear war than most people thought at the time. Both sides had thousands of nuclear weapons ready for use in bombers circling near the borders of enemy territory and also ICBMs, making them capable of unleashing the apocalypse several times over. Lindbergh had no interest in a nuclear war with the Soviet Union over Cuba and promised the safe return of whatever Soviet citizens were on Cuban soil and so the crisis wound down. Moscow didn’t want to risk a nuclear war over some far flung island any more than the American government did; also, Berlin wasn’t too excited about the prospect of nuclear war either with the destruction of German cities in the war in mind. The first crisis of the Cold War resulted in nothing more than both sides shouting some accusations back and forth a little more than usual such as ‘western imperialists’ and ‘plutocrats’ by the Soviets and Germans and ‘fascist oppressors’ and ‘communist barbarians’ by the US. This ended with the officious Soviet-German cooperation being concluded in the Eurasian Alliance in which all European countries except for Switzerland and Portugal were part of. The USSR also tried to woo Nehru into this block, but he refused to commit although he kept up a pro-Soviet foreign policy. Lindbergh strengthened his ties with Britain, the other members of the British Commonwealth such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand, Japan and his caudillos in South America, forming the Oceanian Pact. Indonesia under Sukarno remained neutral, leading to American suspicion of pro-communist sympathies. Indochina also stuck to neutrality as they became more economically and militarily dependent on their northern neighbor and also because they didn’t like the frequent American meddling in their internal affairs under McCarthy and later under Lindbergh. This left China as a weaker, but still powerful third block in Asia although Zhou Enlai stayed committed to Moscow for most of the fifties to gain strength before asserting his country as a third power. This first period ended with Goering’s death in 1962 at the age of 69 after a heart attack. He was succeeded by Heydrich, a cold and cruel ruler, but pragmatic enough to see the Eurasian Alliance was in his best interests.
By 1950 already, the triumvirate of Zhou Enlai, Peng Dehuai and Deng Xiaoping felt confident enough to reunite China as president Dewey had turned inward. Moreover, they were backed by Moscow. Stalin sold them T-34-85, IS series and T-55 tanks, the new AK-47 assault rifle, MiG-15 jetfighters and supply trucks and also provided the necessary training for Chinese soldiers and pilots. They felt they could beat the small Republic of China which sat in the southeast as a thorn in the side of their country and ‘The Revolution’. Some call this the Chinese War although most see it as a continuation of the Chinese Civil War, including president Dewey who decided not to interfere with China’s ‘internal affairs’ which earned him the anger and contempt of rabid anticommunists such as senator Joseph McCarthy. Communist forces under general Peng Dehuai crossed the Yangtze river on December 26th 1950, Mao Zedong’s birth date, attacking with many troops and out of nowhere, catching Chiang off guard. The Dewey administration offered only token support by selling weapons and sending a handful of special forces. Notable anticommunist Joseph McCarthy supported by famous figures like general George S. Patton and Douglas MacArthur quickly achieved popularity in decrying Dewey’s selling out of American allies and interests, calling him a backstabber. It didn’t change his mind, even when People’s Liberation Army forces took Zheijang province by the end of January (a third of the entire country). Korean and Soviet troops also operated in the region and captured American operatives whose existence Dewey denied for them never to be heard of again. The PLA defeated Chiang’s outnumbered forces within six months despite Chiang’s good use of the landscape and modern US weapons. Fact was that his soldiers were unmotivated, especially when seeing what was being achieved so quickly in communist China and what was going on under Chiang’s corrupt regime. He fled with his entourage to Taiwan. The Republic of China was reduced to Taiwan, the Pescadores and Hainan Island. The communists lacked the naval capability to take these islands, more so with an American and a Japanese carrier group in the area. They declared a victory in May 1951.
Stalin was pleased as his sphere of influence had now been rounded up without stirring up any meaningful repercussions for the Soviet Union, but in America many people were turning against Dewey’s return to isolationism which just wasn’t the way to go anymore after the war had dragged America out of its isolationism. Most modern political analysts agree to this and regard Dewey’s presidency as a mere fluke influenced by an overly panicked response to German attacks on American soil. McCarthy started spewing virulent anti-isolationist rhetoric against the government which he blamed of being weak and soft toward the evils of communism and fascism which were working hand in hand to dominate the world and he even accused Dewey of being a closet socialist for just leaving Chiang Kai-Shek, one of America’s most important allies in Asia, to his own devices just like that. Eurasia had already fallen prey to them except for India which remained as bulwark of democracy, but was threatening to slip into socialism as well under Nehru who he called a lackey of Moscow. Very soon, he predicted, the entire eastern hemisphere would be painted either red or brown. His anti-fascist and anti-communist antics struck a chord as he demonstratively showed a map, showing the spheres of influence of communism and fascism. He stated that coexistence with communism and fascism was neither possible, nor desirable nor honourable and that cooperation with them would advance the cause of tyranny. In Africa, both Italy and France were fighting vicious, brutal colonial wars to retain their empires which had been trying to break free from them since the war with American aid. The pleas of these people for freedom, democracy and justice were being ignored by the evil fascists and McCarthy argued that America had to be the champion of democracy and should combat fascism and communism wherever it could instead of ignoring them as they trampled the will of the free man. His protests against government policy led to him being ignored by the White House and president Dewey, but they couldn’t ignore the following he was getting among the people and within the Republican party itself. It was in September 1951 that McCarthy announced he would be running for president and would be competing with president Dewey for the Republican nomination. He requested Patton to be his running mate, but he declined as he wasn’t a politician. In his stead, Charles Lindbergh, a known anti-communist, became his running mate. This big name, along with support from generals Patton and Douglas MacArthur (who had fought to liberate China no less), gave him all the publicity he needed. It isn’t surprising that this duo easily won the Republican nomination over Dewey. Their competitor was Adlai Stevenson who didn’t really have anything new to offer to the American people. Initially, choosing Lindbergh as running mate was deemed risky since he had been suspected of pro-fascist sympathies before the war. If he had really fostered those, he stopped fostering them the moment Germany and Italy joined the USSR in the war. Despite having a rather single issue campaign, they managed to win the 1952 elections.
Both Goering and the now rapidly aging Stalin noticed the change in America’s foreign policy and sped up their hydrogen bomb program as McCarthy had already done for the American program. With Europe rebuilding and the economy growing again, they also started to consider a space program, research into warhead miniaturization and nuclear ICBMs. Stalin and Goering continued their relations despite being officially ideologically opposed to each other as it had been a very fruitful partnership for both their countries. Germany dominated Europe while the Soviet Union dominated Asia and part of the Middle East. Werner von Braun and his team started doing research into the A11 ballistic missile which had been nothing more than a concept until then. This missile would be capable of bringing a satellite payload into Earth orbit or carrying a nuclear warhead if warhead miniaturization proceeded according to plan. The Soviet and German nuclear energy project with names of famous nuclear physicists such as Igor Kurchatov, Andrei Sakharov, Otto Hahn, Werner Heisenberg, Carl Weizsäcker and Kurt Diebner as researchers was going strong even if it was slightly behind on the American program. On November 1st 1952, America tested Ivy Mike, a thermonuclear weapon. The super heavy "Mike" device was essentially a building that resembled a factory rather than a weapon. It has been reported that Russian engineers derisively referred to Mike as a "thermonuclear installation". At its centre, a large cylindrical thermos flask, held the cryogenic deuterium-tritium fusion fuel. A regular fission bomb at one end was used to create the conditions needed to start the fusion reaction. The device had been designed by a student of Enrico Fermi, on the suggestion of Edward Teller. It had been decided that nothing other than a full-scale test would validate the idea of the Teller-Ulam design and Garwin was instructed to use very conservative estimates when designing the test, and that it need not be deployable. The primary stage was a boosted fission bomb in a separate space on top of the assembly (so it would not freeze, rendering it inoperable). The fusion stage used liquid deuterium-tritium despite the difficulty of handling this material, because this fuel simplified the experiment, and made the results easier to analyze. Running down the centre of the flask which held it was a cylindrical rod of plutonium (the "sparkplug") to ignite the fusion reaction. Surrounding this assembly was a 4.5 tonne natural uranium "tamper". The exterior of the tamper was lined with sheets of lead and polyethylene foam, which formed a radiation channel to conduct X-rays from the primary to secondary (the function of X-rays was to hydro dynamically compress the secondary, increasing the density and temperature of the deuterium to the levels needed to sustain the thermonuclear reaction, and compressing the sparkplug to super criticality ignition.) The outermost layer was a steel casing 10-12 inches (25-30 cm) thick. The entire assembly, nicknamed "Sausage", measured 80 inches (2.03 m) in diameter and 244 inches (6.19 m) in height and weighed about 54 tons. The entire Mike device (including cryogenic equipment) weighed 73.8 metric tonnes.
It was detonated and the estimated yield of the blast was 10.4 megatons although 77% of the bomb’s power came from fast fission of the uranium tamper, producing a lot of fallout. The mushroom cloud reached an altitude of 37 kilometres and it was 160 kilometres wide with a 32 kilometre wide stem. Where the Elugelab Atoll (where the test took place) had once been, there was a 1.9 kilometre wide and 50 metre deep crater. The islands nearby were stripped of their vegetation. Lots of coral was destroyed and irradiated debris hit ships stationed almost 50 kilometres away while the immediate area around the blast (‘ground zero’) was heavily contaminated. The USSR and Germany responded with their own new weapon of the ‘Sloika design’ devised by the Russian research team. Despite their alliance, there was some healthy competition. The blast had an estimated yield of 700 kilotons which made it weak for a fusion weapon. In reality, this was not a hydrogen bomb, but a boosted fission bomb although the Russians argued that this weapon could be deployed by aircraft whereas the Ivy Mike design could not be used as a weapon which was true. This bomb was also the strongest pure fission bomb ever built. It would take until 1954 before the Axis powers tested their first hydrogen bomb, but their design didn’t utilize the cryogenic deuterium-tritium fuel, making it much lighter and therefore deployable as a weapon and it was powerful enough in its own right with 3.3 megaton yield.
Externally, McCarthy held word about combating communism as well as he did internally. The American government funded anti-communist movements and governments all over the world, including Africa, Asia and South America with money, weapons and training. He supported regimes like that Juan Peron in Argentina and other south American caudillos as long as their brand of ‘South American fascism’ wasn’t tied to Germany or Italy. Military juntas supported by Washington frequently replaced more socialist oriented regimes. This blunt American intervention in South American politics which caused so much corruption, poverty and oppressive militarism explains the animosity many people in South America today towards the US. Internally, he increased funding of both the CIA and FBI massively and expanded their jurisdiction at the expense of other agencies and the police. Among their new powers was the right to detain any American citizen suspected of communist sympathies for a not predetermined amount of time. This was euphemistically called ‘protective custody’. In this state a subject had been arrested, but not formally accused of anything yet. In this judicial vacuum, there were many vague definitions and rules. Since it was defined so unclearly, people could be kept imprisoned for years before actually being charged with anything and brought into a courtroom. The FBI and CIA used it frequently to remove ‘communist sympathizers’. FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover also used his immensely powerful powerbase to blackmail or harass political activists and dissenters, create secret files about important politicians containing all the skeletons in their closets, tapping telephone lines, shadowing people, obtaining illegal evidence or plainly fabricate evidence in some cases. This was part of the ‘better dead than red’ campaign which cleared out any possible dissenters and opponents of the new American government. America was definitely not a dictatorship, but nevertheless McCarthy was busy destroying the democracy he was trying to protect, laying the foundations for a much more authoritarian America if still recognizable as a democracy. The tools he had created would be utilized by all the presidents after him. He, however, wasn’t happy with the job of leading a superpower which turned out to be more stressful and difficult than he had thought, more so with him becoming paranoid, looking over his shoulders for NKVD assassins. He became alcoholic, a secret that he guarded very well and which wouldn’t get out until years later, long after his death of liver failure in 1957 which made Charles Lindbergh the new president of the United States. He too was anti-communist although McCarthy had done most of the work for him. What he did do was act against crime, specifically the mafia, by using the newly expanded powers of the FBI which included frequent violations of habeas corpus and privacy. He also created a system of citizen guards to support the police against more local crime, including the gang problem although that problem wouldn’t arise until later after the mob had been beaten. These armed militias had the jurisdiction to arrest people, but they had to deliver them to the real police afterward. The creation of these militias followed the general trend of America’s militarizing society.
In the meantime, the three European great leaders perished of age one by one. Stalin was the first to go, dying on March 5th 1953 after a few days in agony after a stroke. Considering his eating and drinking habits, high blood pressure, rheumatism, arthritis and so on this was hardly surprising although Molotov claims in his memoires that Beria killed him. Regardless of this, a power struggle ensued between Beria and his NKVD powerbase on one hand and Molotov and Khrushchev on the other with small timers Bulganin and Malenkov caught in the middle. None of them wanted to see Beria in charge of the Soviet Union since he would surely execute them all and replace them with his own cronies. They formed a temporary alliance against him and managed to wrest the reins of power from his hands together. He was arrested by the new leader of the Soviet Union’s secret police, Semyon Ignatyev, who had him thrown into his own Lubyanka prison where he had tortured so many political opponents and dissenters during his bloody reign. He was charged with treason and hundreds accounts of rape, abuse and murder of which the bones of his victims were silent witnesses. He was swiftly executed while Khrushchev took power. The first thing he did was reaffirm his ties with Berlin and Beijing. These ties had been cemented over the years with ideological differences blurring after nearly a decade of co-belligerence and military and economic cooperation afterward. The racist loons Hitler and Himmler with their ‘Lebenraum’ ideas had died long ago although the former was still venerated as the person who put Germany on the map again as a great power. Hitler had been given a huge mausoleum and numerous statues all over Germany and many streets and even complete towns named ager him. Nazi scientists had reclassified the Russians as Aryans pressured by Goering while Goebbels’s propaganda glorified their struggle for the motherland, Russian patriotism, courage and strength, in short the Nationalist elements in the USSR. Soviet propaganda, in the meantime, emphasized the socialist elements in National Socialism.
One of the more minor dictators to perish was Philippe Pétain, leader of France, Germany’s western European sidekick although not weak by any means. France had been allowed to reconstitute its armed forces during the war in 1942. France maintained a large fleet of battleships and was also building carriers. After the end of the war, unrest had erupted in Algeria and Morocco and he had responded with military force. Being a fascist dictatorship, the French leadership had no scruples and no qualms about use of heavy force such as carpet bombing, artillery bombardments and large scale use of armour and chemical weapons which they did with support from Mussolini. He died in 1951 at the age of 95 by which time he was already senile and admiral François Darlan had already taken over the day to day affairs by then. The step to de jure president of France was therefore a small one. France had settled in nicely into the New Order. Admittedly, the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, Nice and Savoy stung, but the peace had been lenient compared to what it could have been. France had a privileged status compared to occupied countries like the Low Countries.
In the meantime, the space program got off the ground. In 1953, the Germans put the first satellite into orbit from the Peenemunde test site while Italy’s nuclear program got started as well with German support after the Ivy Mike test. Goering sold the Italians a non-functioning model warhead to work with along with tonnes of notes and paperwork from the German nuclear energy project which sped up their program immensely, more so with access to French uranium supplies in their Saharan colony of Niger. By 1954, the Italian research team had built a heavy water reactor and a number of centrifuges in an underground facility just outside Rome. Mussolini tried to rush the project to make Italy equal in status to Germany again instead of playing second fiddle to Goering and Stalin. In Libya and Tunisia, Mussolini was fighting a fierce colonial war and seemed to be winning as he swarmed his ‘Fourth Shore’ with millions of settlers who were eager to move there after oil had been found in the late 1940s, especially from poorer southern Italy. Large numbers of Albanians and smaller numbers of Croats living in occupied Istria and Dalmatia moved there too as there was no future where they lived. The entire colony of Libya And Tunisia had less than one million natives which would soon be demographically overwhelmed by Sicilians, south Italians and a handful of Albanians and Croats. Due to German assistance, the bomb was ready before Mussolini’s death although the bomb wasn’t strong due to Mussolini’s rushing. It was tested in the Libyan desert and had an estimated yield of 9 kilotons.
The arms race and space race continued with Germany and the USSR sending up a manned mission in 1957 while Mussolini and Goering grew older. Mussolini was about to pass away as well as the second member of the old guard to go after Stalin. He held a speech in 1958 to commemorate his 75th birthday, but as he spoke he started to get slow and pronounced words wrongly. He collapsed on the stage of a stroke. At the age of 75, fascist dictator Benito Mussolini was dead. The Cold War continued and threatened to escalate into a hot war in Cuba. In 1958, communist leader Fidel Castro overthrew corrupt dictator Fulgencio Batista supported by Moscow, but very much against the wishes of president Lindbergh. Soviet operatives were working in Cuba and so they were in danger of being captured when Lindbergh ordered an invasion of Cuba for 1959. No less than three carrier groups were deployed to the Gulf of Mexico to keep communism out of Washington’s backyard. Five divisions of American troops landed near Havana in full force with armour, artillery support and air support, nuclear bombers on standby and battleships to destroy possible counterattacks against the American beachhead. Moscow raged and fumed, announcing a partial mobilization and bringing their own nuclear bombers in the air threatening war if American forces laid so much as a finger on KGB and Red Army ‘advisors’ on Cuba which brought the world closer to nuclear war than most people thought at the time. Both sides had thousands of nuclear weapons ready for use in bombers circling near the borders of enemy territory and also ICBMs, making them capable of unleashing the apocalypse several times over. Lindbergh had no interest in a nuclear war with the Soviet Union over Cuba and promised the safe return of whatever Soviet citizens were on Cuban soil and so the crisis wound down. Moscow didn’t want to risk a nuclear war over some far flung island any more than the American government did; also, Berlin wasn’t too excited about the prospect of nuclear war either with the destruction of German cities in the war in mind. The first crisis of the Cold War resulted in nothing more than both sides shouting some accusations back and forth a little more than usual such as ‘western imperialists’ and ‘plutocrats’ by the Soviets and Germans and ‘fascist oppressors’ and ‘communist barbarians’ by the US. This ended with the officious Soviet-German cooperation being concluded in the Eurasian Alliance in which all European countries except for Switzerland and Portugal were part of. The USSR also tried to woo Nehru into this block, but he refused to commit although he kept up a pro-Soviet foreign policy. Lindbergh strengthened his ties with Britain, the other members of the British Commonwealth such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand, Japan and his caudillos in South America, forming the Oceanian Pact. Indonesia under Sukarno remained neutral, leading to American suspicion of pro-communist sympathies. Indochina also stuck to neutrality as they became more economically and militarily dependent on their northern neighbor and also because they didn’t like the frequent American meddling in their internal affairs under McCarthy and later under Lindbergh. This left China as a weaker, but still powerful third block in Asia although Zhou Enlai stayed committed to Moscow for most of the fifties to gain strength before asserting his country as a third power. This first period ended with Goering’s death in 1962 at the age of 69 after a heart attack. He was succeeded by Heydrich, a cold and cruel ruler, but pragmatic enough to see the Eurasian Alliance was in his best interests.
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Eurofed
Banned
I like the idea of TTL going into space. Something like the Drakaverse's Protracted Struggle might result.
Of course, the Evil Ones are going to have the advantage with all their German rocket scientists and all the resources of Eurasia.
The US had better go working quick or else there might be a Communazi Death Star in the works.
Well, the Good Guys are going to have the resources of the New World, Japan, and India, so the struggle is not so unbalanced. But yes, the pooled resources of a continental Europe and Russia that weren't razed by total war, plus Northern Africa and the Middle East, are going to be huge, too. So it shall be a much more balanced fight than OTL Cold War, one big reasons it may easily go all the way to the stars (at least throughout the Solar System).
Note: as soon as the oil and gas reserves in USA and Canada start to dwindle, the Allies are going to make *serious* efforts to develop alternative energy sources out of dire need. They have the Venezuelan and Mexican oilfields, too, but they alone cannnot suffice (the North Sea oilfields won't be a reliable source, for obvious reasons). The Axis shall have a chokehold on the Middle Eastern and North African oil and gas reserves (the likes of Osama and Khomeini ITTL get to taste firsthand the tender mercies of the SS-NKVD for "reactionary bandits"). This may have a silver lining for the Allies, in that they may be pushed to develop a technological advantage in "green" and advanced fission (maybe even fusion) energy sources, while the CommuNazi remain stumbled in being fossil sources gluttons and possibly early generation fission (multiple Chernobyls across Eurasia, maybe ?).
But yes, ITTL we may expect a major Scramble for the Solar System and a serious militarization of space. Orbital launch platform ICBMs, Moonside mass drivers, and if there is ever a way to make SDI work by "brute science", the CommuNazi are going to pull it.
Another sci-fish idea that the Evil ones are going to love is eugenics and genetic engineering to produce supersoldier operatives. With no moral taboos whatsoever and huge resources, they can probably create some fancy guys. Not comic-book stuff of course, but we can possibly expect something like Dark Angel by the end of the 20th century: low-level superhuman strength, reflexes, durability, enhanced senses and survival capabilities, the works, through eugenic optimization of human genome and hybridization with animal and artifical genes.
So maybe not Star Wars but quite possibly Gundam.
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Eurofed
Banned
Well, it seems I made a mistake predicting a pro-US China, although the we see the split between "Pink" China and the Western Axis in the works, which is a saving grace for the American bloc. They can manage a tripolar Cold War: they really, really need the resources of South America and India, which is way I find the US going hard on Cuba wholly justified, as well as the Eurasian Alliance declining a fight over it, Cub is rather outside their sphere of influence after all, although in the cold War every piece matters. But a Cold War against all of a united, industrialized Eurasia but India would have been much more uphill.
In hindsight, Dewey would deserve to be impeached and dragged before a firing squad, letting mainland China be lost to the Axis is unexcusable, treasonous incompetence. Although I can see the hand of the author picking quite reasonable political butterflies to steer the world towards a tripolar, not bipolar Cold War. The temporary isolationist swing of the American public is understandable, if one thinks what ITTL FDR's ideological anti-totalitarian crusading activism bought them: at most, a very costly draw in East Asia and a defeat in all but name in Europe after a half-decade of carnage, the first serious threat of American mainland's security in 80 years, and WMD bombing.
My only main serious criticism about the last, otherwise excellent as always, update is that TTL may ape OTL too much about India. They really don't have any serious justification about going neutral. Come on, the Russo-Germans invade them, make them a major battlefield for years, we can easily imagine the SS-NKVD deploying all their usual tender mercies on the Indian Resistance in occupied areas, and post-war India doesn't turn out to be an eager member of the Oceanian Alliance ? What it takes to shake them out of neutrality, the Draka slavers or "V" man-eating Reptils ? True, they may blame Britain for drawing them into this fight, but at least America spilled a lot of blood to save them. Unplausible IMO. We may allow for some reasonable deviations from the strict 1984 model for sake of plausibility.
Another note: if we rightfully heed political plausiblity in letting TTL copy OTL about the succession of Stalin (the moderates band together and off the nasty secret police boss before it does it to them), we really ought to let the same happen as it concerns Goring's succession, the Nazi moderates band together and off Heydrich. The conditions are more or less the same, and under Goring's centrist rule German moderates would be able to build even more of a power base than the Russian ones under Stalin.
In hindsight, Dewey would deserve to be impeached and dragged before a firing squad, letting mainland China be lost to the Axis is unexcusable, treasonous incompetence. Although I can see the hand of the author picking quite reasonable political butterflies to steer the world towards a tripolar, not bipolar Cold War. The temporary isolationist swing of the American public is understandable, if one thinks what ITTL FDR's ideological anti-totalitarian crusading activism bought them: at most, a very costly draw in East Asia and a defeat in all but name in Europe after a half-decade of carnage, the first serious threat of American mainland's security in 80 years, and WMD bombing.
My only main serious criticism about the last, otherwise excellent as always, update is that TTL may ape OTL too much about India. They really don't have any serious justification about going neutral. Come on, the Russo-Germans invade them, make them a major battlefield for years, we can easily imagine the SS-NKVD deploying all their usual tender mercies on the Indian Resistance in occupied areas, and post-war India doesn't turn out to be an eager member of the Oceanian Alliance ? What it takes to shake them out of neutrality, the Draka slavers or "V" man-eating Reptils ? True, they may blame Britain for drawing them into this fight, but at least America spilled a lot of blood to save them. Unplausible IMO. We may allow for some reasonable deviations from the strict 1984 model for sake of plausibility.
Another note: if we rightfully heed political plausiblity in letting TTL copy OTL about the succession of Stalin (the moderates band together and off the nasty secret police boss before it does it to them), we really ought to let the same happen as it concerns Goring's succession, the Nazi moderates band together and off Heydrich. The conditions are more or less the same, and under Goring's centrist rule German moderates would be able to build even more of a power base than the Russian ones under Stalin.
Dialga
Banned
Now that the great tyrants who perpetrated this conquest are dying off, who's going to take over the Evil Empire? That's always been the biggest problem with tyrannies: their inability to perpetuate themselves. Sooner or later, someone's going to take over who brings the whole regime down. It's what happened to the Soviet Union IRL; it would be hardly surprising if it were to happen ITTL.