The North Star is Red: a Wallace Presidency, KMT Victory, Alternate Cold War TL
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India's growth is so rapid that I would be concerned, based on OTL, about the level of urban planning and of the ability of infrastructure to keep pace.
AeroTheZealousOne
Monthly Donor
In spite of Beria's attempts to prevent a a third bloc...
In spite of Beria.
Not really, of course. But the interpretation's still there. I'm just glad a Non-Aligned Movement still happens.
I know I haven't. This TL is awesome, by the way.
Nephi
Banned
Truly the most shameful heritage of the South.
the recipes below are intriguing.
I'm not buying it, I've seen those adds from the 60s for many things people wouldn't make or eat.
That is a multifaceted abomination, yes, but at least it doesn't feature any mayonnaise.
Nephi
Banned
You know actually I think their world probably avoided stuff like that, I don't know how but I think it works into the story a little bit.
Yeah I might actually eat this one, especially if the cabbage was cooked a little bit.
No, without the CECA the italian economy will not reach the level of OTL, whatever opportunities out of West Europe will probably fail to cover a third of what obtained in the European market...unless we decide to tie our economy to the east block and supply them of higher end tech and products but that will have a lot more consequences.
HOW COME I DON'T GET NOTIFICATIONS ANYMORE?!?!?!?!?!
On a side note, it's interesting to see some European and non-European nations find common ground.
On a side note, it's interesting to see some European and non-European nations find common ground.
I don't think either the CECA would even reach the same OTL levels, as limited it is. But well there are so other markets to exploit: bigger trade volume in the USA and China, Africa may have potential in the long term, South America too, from Venezuela to Argentina through Brazil. And with a black Germany and a split Japan, Italy can have still its economic miracle and more.
He went much better than OTL anyway.
Point is, it would be worth for Italy in the long term this course caused for a slice of Istria back?
Honestly? No; it cost Italy to get to be know as an unreliable alley and surely the idiocy with CECA will really not help. Hell, the only thing that Italy obtained with this Non-aligned idiocy has been the honor to host his own roast party while at the same time irritate the British and make sure that the internation community know that diplomatically speaking, the italian word mean less than nothing. For this reason i had said at the time, well better take it more even in Dalmatia as offered by the Soviets, as the diplomatic cost has been staggering high, at least make it worthy and take everything possible.
China will need a couple of decade to rebuilt, Africa have potential...but also the potential to become as OTL if not worse and honestly the only reason at the moment i will bet on them it's because someone put a gun on my head and force it, the USA are big enough to dictate their term to Italy and Rome will accept it because she don't have many choices, South America is not really stable and usually it's a market cornered by the USA, leaving the other just scrap. Our resources come from the rest of Europe and staying out of CECA mean that coal and steel will cost us more...and for an economy like Italy is like begging to be allowed to cut his own hand.
The times a nation like Italy can go alone in the world and be considered at least an independent power are gone, hell even France OTL understood that and backed the European project.
Its not just you. Something is screwy with the notification system.
Tested this tonight. Man, the peanut completely overwhelm the mayo. Probably cause I put the mayo before the butterTruly the most shameful heritage of the South.
the recipes below are intriguing.
I've got to say, the most rewarding thing about writing a TL is to see people actually debating (in a good way) the politics of the TL. Which is a good thing - because if people don't disagree on a lot of things, I'm not doing a good job writing (RL politics is hardly a unanimous affair).
Chapter 106 - Kennedy Goes To War (and the Iowa Caucus)
Kennedy Goes To War (and the Iowa Caucus)
The Lodge-LaFolette Commission, tasked with having a lot more states vote than in previous Republican primaries (in order to avoid the painful split of 1956), chose as its first state the small Midwestern state of Iowa, because for its state parties, both Democratic and Republican, Iowa had the most sophisticated system of precinct caucuses, district conventions, county conventions, and state conventions of any U.S. state. After Iowa, the next state to vote would be New Hampshire in an actual primary, consistent with its historic statute as the first primary in the nation.
The front-runner going into the Iowa caucus was the conservative firebrand Senator Barry Goldwater, who had rallied the most hardcore opponents of Kennedy Administration on economic and social policy. He was surprised by the endorsement of South Carolina Republican Strom Thurmond, who banked that Goldwater's staunch belief in states' rights would translate in practice to opposing progress in Civil Rights. Goldwater agreed with Kennedy on one issue however: foreign policy. The Republican Party was largely supportive of Kennedy's "War against Communism" in Indonesia, but the overwhelming sentiment among actual Republican voters was opposition to the war in Venezuela. At the beginning of the campaign, George Romney of Michigan and Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota both emerged as strident critics of Goldwater's foreign policy.
However, foreign policy was to dominate the GOP primary, largely because all of the candidates openly opposed what they called "Kennedian Tyranny" - the most eloquent candidate running against this was Senator Margaret Chase Smith, who was running an eclectic candidacy by being one of the fiercest critiques of Kennedy's seeming dominance of American business and media, although few took the woman senator seriously. This was furthered by President Kennedy's announcement in early 1959 that American troops would be deployed in a "security mission" to the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman, where overstretched British forces were reeling against the marvelously successful Imam Ghalib Alhinai in the Northeast, as funded by Saudi Arabia, North Yemen, and Iran. Worst of all, the Pakistanis had entered in the fray, funding the Dhofar Liberation Front in the Southwest. The Pakistanis proved the perfect mediator between the Islamists and the Communists, and the two groups in Oman more or less brokered an agreement where in case of a victory, they would split the country (with Dhofar going to the Communists - and the Imamate getting the rest). The Pakistanis were strongly opposed to the Sultanate because of the Sultanates refusal to sell the city of Gwadar in South Asia to Pakistan - largely because the British prohibited the Omanis from selling the trading port to the Socialist Pakistani government. Pakistani foreign policy became dominated by the twin policies of supporting Communist governments in both Oman and Burma - the latter to spite India, the former to gain Gwadar.
Kennedy in particular had no ideological objection to the Imamate of Oman, except for the fact that Ibadi Muslims were traditionally more moderate, and the American-backed Islamic Republics of Qatif as well as Iraq viewed them as apostates, threatening to refuse to cooperate with America in Iraq unless they intervened. In addition, the British were desperate, as due to the refusal of both Saudi Arabia and Iran to trade with the West (sans Italy, which eventually allowed Italian workers to aid the Iranian State Oil Company), oil prices were at a premium. The Americans did fine due to their access to the Islamic Republic of Qatif and Al-Hasa, but the EEC was suffering, with British assets in the Gulf totally insufficient to fulfill Europe's need. President De Gaulle of France had indicated to the Americans that a deal to buy oil from the Eastern Bloc was in the works, but noted to Kennedy that it was only his last-ditch option. Regardless, this spooked the Americans into Oman. Kennedy also saw an opportunity to detach Oman from both the British and Soviets - hopefully, controlling the supply of oil into Europe would help in Kennedy's long-term goal of convincing the European empires to give up their colonies, which he saw as a doomed enterprise that would only engender Communism, both at home and in the colonies.
Another surprise intervention shook up the Republican primary in late 1959. The Belgian Congo actually experienced fairly genuine economic growth during World War II, after, and during the Three Years War. In addition, fearing that war might come to them, emigration from Belgium to the Congo significantly expanded between 1954-1957, and continued after the thermonuclear annihilation of Sweden, a trend echoed throughout many European colonial possessions (chiefly France, Portugal, and Belgium - in the Netherlands, the trend was both migration towards and away from Europe). This spawned massive riots across the Belgian Congo, led by grassroots figures like Joseph Kaba-Vubu and Patricia Lumumba. In 1956, riots broke out in Leopoldville over Belgian emigrants who had been buying up local properties, driving up rents. Belgian and Congolese militias would often brawl in the streets over these issues, making it clear to the Belgians that a solution had to be found. After a 1957 conference on future Belgian independence, held just after Melbourne, resulted in failure as most of the independence activists stormed out, the Belgian Government unilaterally declared, with the support of a small group of native moderates, that they would adopt an 25-year timetable for independence, with the Congo set to become independent on 1985. This plan was supported strongly by the French, who feared that an independent Congo would threaten stability in the French Congo. The Belgians opened up municipal elections to test and were greatly disappointed when independence activists such as Kaba-Vubu and Lumumba won in a landslide. King Leopold III realized that problems were brewing in Belgium, and immediately embarked on a good-will tour through Congo. However, in the middle of a speech, a Congolese carrying an American-made Ithaca 37 blew away the King from a distance that most people didn't know shotguns were lethal from (shotguns are lethal from a fairly long distance). This sparked furious outrage among Belgo-Congolese settlers, with many militias indiscriminately attacking anti-colonial protesters, blaming them for the assassination of the King. Europeans immediately blamed Kennedy for this based merely on the American origin of the shotgun, although in reality, the plot had been masterminded by Beria's NKVD. Lumumba and Kaba-Vubu were immediately placed under arrest and the Force Publique ordered to put the Congo under martial law. However, Antoine Gizenga escaped to Stanleyville (which had far fewer Euro-Belgians) and where Congolese militias had largely seized control of the city. In Stanleyville, Gizenga declared the Free Republic of the Congo.
In 1958, the United Nations voted on a Soviet-drafted peace plan. In many ways, Beria sought to spark a war so he could take credit for ending it, hoping to rehabilitate his international standing. Beria also didn't really care much about Africa, generally viewing the entire continent as primitive and irrelevant. All five UNSC members voted for the plan - causing UN peacekeepers to be deployed in support of the new "Dominion of the Congo." The bulk of the peacekeepers were Americans, as many of the Non-Aligned nations refused to contribute any troops - and the European powers too thinly stretched. This opened up Kennedy to criticism from both sides - right-wingers outraged that he was putting US troops under UN control and left-wingers outraged that he was going to war, especially in vague support of a European empire. Much to the outrage of the Europeans, the Americans freed Lumumba and Kasa-Vubu, announcing that Lumumba would be the new Prime Minister of the Congo Dominion. With open American support, Lumumba immediately began staffing the Congolese Loyalist army with Lumumba loyalists as part of his plan to "Africanize" the Officer Corps.
In late 1959, anger at Lumumba reached a breaking point and the Force Publique, especially its native Belgian members, demanded that Lumumba resign. In response to Lumumba, Belgian settlers organized themselves into what they called the Secret Army (Organisation Armee Secrete - or OAS, confusingly named the same as the French organization). When the American UN troops refused their demands, OAS members launched a coup in cities across the Congo right as UN forces were approaching Stanleyville in the East. Their coup succeeded in both Leopoldville and the Katanga, forcing Lumumba's government to flee to Coquilhatville, whereupon much to the horror of the Americans, Lumumba's new Africanized corps turned on their American backers. In the massacre of Coquilhatville, hundreds of UN peacekeepers were caught in their beds and unceremoniously gunned down, as Lumumba declared that the government of the Dominion of Congo was joining the Free Congo Republic. The Americans, seeking revenge, retreated to Banningville, where Kasa-Vubu, declaring Lumumba a traitor, was made the next President of the wildly unpopular Dominion of the Congo, which had alienated the Euro-Belgians before being then backstabbed by Lumumba. In contrast, the State of Katanga, a state-within-a-state in the Dominion of the Congo, led by Moishe Tshombe, was strongly backed by France, Britain, and South Africa (which while fighting off Maoist rebels at home, saw African independence as a threat to its ideology). In a desperate attempt to prevent the loyalists from splitting, Tshombe was made Kasa-Vubu's second-in-command, an act that did not stop the slow growth of OAS influence, especially as OAS sympathizers were widely embedded in what was left of the Force Publique.
Kennedy, who was a strong personal supporter of Lumumba, felt personally betrayed and decided he had to destroy the man. Molotov, much to Beria's annoyance, immediately recognized Lumumba as the legitimate leader of all of the Congo. In addition, Gizenga, seeing that Lumumba was bringing an Africanized Force Publique in support of his cause, immediately stepped down, biding his political time. The Congo War was quite possibly the biggest foreign policy blunder of the Kennedy administration and it supercharged the Republican primary. Largely because Kennedy declared that American forces were being deployed in mass numbers to crush both Lumumba and "colonialist terrorists" (namely, the OAS).
Goldwater openly celebrated Kennedy's war against the "Communist Lumumba" (Lumumba, although not a Communist, was openly supported by the Communist bloc). The Republican political establishment, fearing a Goldwater nomination would torpedo their chances of defeating Kennedy once and for all, gave orders to many local Republican party officials to back anyone but Goldwater, something they would immediately regret after the caucuses. Anger at Kennedy's war, including at this point the Congo, Oman, Venezuela, and Indonesia, boiled up. A crucial and highly motivated force was the Atomic Army, led by an angry American veteran of the Three Years War, the openly socialist Marines officer, Robert Bork, who was furious at the Kennedy Administration for denying the existence of radiation sickness.[1] American veterans of the Three Year War suffering from radiation sickness (as a result of the atomic bombing of North China) were denied medical coverage, both private and public, especially as the official stance of the government was that such radiation sickness was Communist propaganda (the North Chinese government never stopped talking about the "American disease" and passing off all suspicious deaths as complications from the "American disease.") Bork's army of outraged veterans stormed Iowa, barnstorming for the most anti-Kennedy, anti-war candidate they could find. Coincidentally, it was a man who was a close fit for Iowa. When the Iowan Henry Wallace himself declined to run due to his old age, he recommended a young fan of his, the Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy, a rare Democrat to defect to the Republicans. Wallace had endorsed and campaigned for the Republicans in 1952/1956, so he had largely been restored to good standing in the party, carrying weight in Iowa. The Iowa caucus declared a surprise upset victory by the 44-year old Senator of Minnesota that shocked the country, where McCarthy won 24%-23% over Goldwater. McCarthy was best known before then, for debating multiple times on television against the other McCarthy when both were Senate colleagues.
The more Republican Party insiders read about this McCarthy, the less they liked, especially his platform that they saw as practically socialistic. McCarthy was openly backed by figures such as Bayard Rustin and Martin Luther King, which were poisonous in the South. The traditional GOP was really unsure who they hated more, Goldwater or McCarthy. In theory, they could have rallied behind one figure. However, they were divided as well. Both Henry Cabot Lodge, pushing a more internationalist perspective, and John Bricker, pushing a more non-interventionist perspective, rallied their respective wings of the traditional Republican Party. As a result, the field had consolidated by the first primary in New Hampshire. It didn't work, as Bork's Army stormed New Hampshire, where McCarthy won 37% of the vote, Lodge 32%, Goldwater 22%, and Bricker 10%. Goldwater finally triumphed in the Florida primaries the next week in a landslide (he was the candidate of the South), with all eyes turning on the next state Illinois. If there was a panic-button, the GOP would have hit it. Anyone-but-Goldwater transformed into Anyone-But-Goldwater-And-McCarthy, but that didn't even work because they couldn't even unite behind one candidate!
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[1] Robert Bork was a rare socialist in the US Marines before his politics shifted later in life.
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