The Soviet Union Reborn - a TL
- Thread starter Onkel Willie
- Start date
The Sino-Soviet rapprochement seems a bit fast.
Very good post otherwise. It's nice to see Afghanistan doing better than IOTL.
Very good post otherwise. It's nice to see Afghanistan doing better than IOTL.
Sure, though try to refrain from anything that would require massively editing the chapters I've already posted as I'm not in the mood for that.
1. Yes, some 3.6 billion barrels actually: http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav090306.shtml
2. It doesn't necessarily have to be like I describe, but I'm going with the optimistic side. Also, Yeltsin's economic disaster is avoided which is good for the USSR's economy.
Also, update
.1995-MCMXCV – 1997 MCMXCVII
First of all, the European Union expanded eastward to include Austria, Sweden and Norway and some in Moscow viewed it as an encroachment on Russia’s traditional sphere of influence in Central Europe and also on the Baltic Sea; in fact, the EU now bordered the USSR, but that wasn’t yet the worst.
Czechoslovakia was looking forward to the prospect of EU membership by 2000-2004 depending on circumstances since it was the most successful of the former eastern bloc countries with a relatively seamless transition from a centrally planned economy to a market economy. A highly educated workforce was present, wages were quite low which attracted more investors, the banking sector and telecommunications had been restructured, commercial laws and practices had been restructured to fit Western standards, most heavy industry had been privatized through voucher privatization (this was a system in which any citizen could buy a book of vouchers that represented potential shares in any state-owned company), the Czech currency had been devaluated and then pegged to the US dollar, real estate had largely been returned to previous owners, Czechoslovakia had reoriented itself mainly toward Germany (the biggest economy in Europe), and foreign investment from the US and Germany (the new main trading partners) had increased a lot.
In terms of state reform, Czechoslovakia had successfully transformed into a federal state where Czechia and Slovakia had their own separate bicameral parliaments and a national parliament in Prague. The Czech and Slovak parts of the country had separate institutions (mainly for education, finances, criminal law, civil law, social welfare and infrastructure) separate cultural policies and their own fiscal policies although the latter was co-determined by Prague and the two regional parliaments. Specifically, four billion dollars a year flowed from the economically stronger Czech half to the weaker Slovak half.
The Czechoslovak GDP was at 85 billion and GDP per capita at nearly 6.800 dollars per capita. GDP was growing at 4-6% annually with extensive foreign investment, but there still were problems. Inflation remained a problem since it remained stuck on a 10% level despite the fact that the Koruna was still pegged to the US dollar, the most stable currency at the time. The government in Prague heightened the interest rate to slow down money creation. Czechoslovakia was also successful in implementing income controls – to end the wage-price spiral – in which wage growth was restrained by means of reduction of work hours and expansion of part-time work; the workers in return were promised measures against unemployment. Then there was the issue of the 8% to GDP deficit which was tackled by means of austerity packages that reduced spending by 3.5% of GDP (or almost 2.98 billion dollars). The deficit would be reduced to around 3.8 billion or 4.5% by 1996 and the debt was also low (especially when compared to other former Eastern Bloc countries). Czechoslovakia was rapidly moving toward the Euro-convergence criteria, and not only them but other Eastern European countries were also trying to meet them to join the EU; it’s just that Czechoslovakia was advancing the fastest.
In the meantime, the Soviet Union’s attempt to become a candidate member was shot down citing its undemocratic nature and human rights issues. Internally, Gorbachev was on the receiving end of a lot of criticisms because his soft foreign policy against the EU and recently his negotiations with Japan regarding the Kuril Islands.
The main leader of the opposition within the Supreme Soviet and politburo was Alexander Lukashenko, a rising star in the communist party and Soviet government. He was born in 1954 in Kopys, Vitebsk Oblast, in the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic as the child of an unmarried mother which earned him bullying as a child. After graduating from the Mogilev Pedagogical Institute, he served in the border guard from 1975 to 1977 and in the 120th Motorised Rifle Guard Division from 1980 to 1982. He then graduated from the ByelorussianAgriculturalAcademy in 1985 and became deputy chairman of a collective farm in 1982 and 1985 before becoming director of both a collective farm and also a construction materials plant in the Shklov district. By 1990, he was a member of the Byelorussian Supreme Soviet. Due to his ruthless efficiency he was made Chairman of an anti-corruption research commission in late 1991 and he accused over a hundred people of corruption, shady financial dealings and outright embezzlement; his powers were expanded to fight organised crime in Belarus. In 1993 he became Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Byelorussian SSR and General Secretary of the Byelorussian branch of the party because of his excellent work. In 1995, Lukashenko finally achieved national prominence because of his promotion to Chairman of the Committee for State Security (the KGB) and it was hoped that in that position he’d be able to repeat his success in combating corruption and crime. He was indeed successful, but also maintained colossal records about just about every party member of any standing and was able to blackmail the corrupt ones into supporting him.
Lukashenko, from January 1995 with the EU’s expansion, became the main leader of the opposition within the Supreme Soviet and obtained a majority that enabled him to push out Gorbachev. Alexander Lukasheno – with support from the “imperial faction” within the party, government and the armed forces of the Soviet Union which had suffered from decreasing budgets for several years now – was propelled forward to the position of President of the Soviet Union in late 1995 and General Secretary.
President Lukashenko fared a more confrontational course that was founded on the USSR’s continued economy growth which in 1995 amounted to 6.5% (for an average growth of 5.4% since 1993 to a GDP of $1.73 trillion or $6.407 per capita). An increase in the defence budget was announced to 5.5% of GDP or over 95 billion dollars, ten times bigger than China’s but still less than a quarter of US spending. And for the first time since 1991 Moscow announced that the Soviet Air Force’s strategic bomber force would pick up its long range patrols again which hadn’t been conducted since the end of the Cold War. Tupolev Tu-95s would resume their weekly patrols from the Kola Peninsula to Cuba along the American eastern seaboard as they had done during the height of the Cold War. The Soviet Navy’s six Typhoon class submarines – the quietest ballistic missile submarine in service, equipped with twenty missiles with ten 100 kiloton warheads each – resumed their patrols in the Atlantic with Akula-class attack submarines as escorts, provoking the US Navy.
And the ironic thing was in the US, in the 1994 congressional election, the House of Representatives was won by the Democrats who opposed a lot of Bush’s policies, including a strong response to Lukashenko. They insisted that Bush raised taxes for the rich (everyone with a salary of $250.000 per year or more) and increased government spending (specifically on social security, education, job creation and cheaper healthcare for middle and lower incomes) in return for increasing the defence budget. Bush was opposed to even more tax increases since he had already raised taxes against the wishes of his following and his Republican Party in his first term. As a result, little legislation of significance was passed in the United States between 1994 and the 1996 Presidential Election.
In the meantime, tensions rose between the Soviet Union and China on one side and Japan on the other because Lukashenko had abruptly broken off negotiations with the Social Democrat government of Tomiichi Murayama about returning the southern three most Kuril Islands as long as they weren’t militarized. Japan’s view was that the southern three Kuril Islands were rightfully Japanese since they had never belonged to Russia (even before 1905), and that their occupation violated the Soviet-Japanese neutrality pact and Japan maintained they weren’t part of the Kurils. Moscow’s view was that the Yalta Treaty gave it the islands. By 1996, tensions between Tokyo and Moscow could be cut with a knife.
The Second Russo-Japanese War, 1996-1997.
On November 10th a Tupolev Tu-142 “Bear-F” strategic bomber, the naval reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare derivative of the Tu-95, and its fighter escort took off from Vladivostok for a patrol that wouldn’t turn out so regular. Whether or not the Soviet provocation was deliberate or not is still a subject of debate. In any case, Japanese air-defence radar on Hokkaido had monitored the Bear and its two MiG-29 escorts during the whole of its 45 minute flight that led it straying into Hokkaido’s airspace, and upon them entering Japan’s skies several F-15J interceptor fighters were dispatched to escort them back to neutral skies.
According to transcripts from communications between a Japanese pilot and his airbase commander, the Bear slowly banked right and began a smooth descent toward the Sea of Japan, international waters. The commanding pilot was given permission to follow the bomber and also the MiG-29s which were uncomfortably close, but in order to intimidate the Russians he locked on to the intruding bomber. NATO planes never did so and patrolling Russian bombers always kept their auto-cannons pointed upward; both sides had made this routine their de facto protocol in order to prevent escalation. Japan wasn’t in NATO so this wasn’t protocol from their viewpoint, official or unofficial, but the Tupolev’s crew felt intimidated by the pushing of the Japanese pilots and in a spur of the moment decision the two 23 mm auto-cannons in the tail fired on a Japanese airplane and damaged one of its engines, forcing it to limp back to base. The commanding Japanese pilot did not think for very long and returned the favour by shooting down the bomber with an AIM-9 Sidewinder; the crew bailed out by parachute as the Bear-F went down in flames and was later picked up by a Russian Akula-class submarine. In the ensuing dogfight, one MiG-29 was shot down and the other made it back home safely. The Second Russo-Japanese War had begun with both sides calling each other the aggressor, over 90 years after the first one had ended, and the international community could do little since it was unclear which one of the two was the aggressor. Moreover, foreign intervention could easily escalate into nuclear war, something which not even US President George H.W. Bush was up for to stop the Soviets.
Soon thereafter, as the Pentagon in Washington DC knew from high resolution satellite images, the Soviet Pacific Fleet was scrambling and most of its submarines were preparing to leave their berth and this knowledge was discretely relayed to Tokyo. Also, all four Kirov-class battlecruisers, super carrier Ulyanovsk, all four Kiev-class carriers as well as the smaller aircraft carriers Varyag and Admiral Kuznetsov left their ports and headed toward the Pacific from the Barents Sea, the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea on the request of the Pacific Fleet’s commanding officer Vladimir Kuroyedov although it would take weeks to for them to arrive. Besides this, major troop movements took place in the Russian Far East, including the majority of the USSR’s airborne units of which the bulk was stationed in the Far Eastern Military Districts. The 15th, the 35th and 51st Armies, the 25th Army Corps and the 14th Spetsnaz brigade were mobilized over the following days, but Japan wasn’t doing nothing, on the contrary.
On November 11th 1996, Japanese vessels started laying sea mines in the Sea of Japan which crippled Delta III-class submarine Zelenograd. She limped back to port with 25 of her crew dead, a gash in the hull and her launch facilities rendered inoperable for the immediate future which would put her in dry dock for another three months; there was some fear for the stability of her reactor as well, leading to doom scenarios of a new Tsjernobyl, but that didn’t occur. The same day, a wing of F-4 Phantom II fighter-bombers equipped with anti-shipping missiles attacked Russian ships at sea and sank Udaloy I-class destroyer Marshal Shaposhnikov while heavily damaging Slava-class missile cruiser Chervona Ukraina and Sovremenny-class destroyer Bystryy, putting a large part of the Pacific Fleet’s surface ships out of commission.
War had still not been declared yet, but the USSR and Japan were in a state of armed conflict for all intents and purposes. As a result, an emergency session of the Imperial Diet convened and it suspended Article 9 of the constitution under which "The Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes". Japan cited Soviet aggression to declare a war in self-defence on November 15th 1996.
The Soviet response was swift and on the same day as the declaration of war. A Tu-95K22 Bear-G armed with a Raduga Kh-22 anti-ship missile flew in over the Sea of Japan below enemy radar. Once within firing range (400 kilometres), the Tupolev bomber launched the missile equipped with a 900 kg high explosive shaped charge. It hit helicopter carrying destroyer Haruna – based in Maizuru, Kyoto Prefecture – amidships, tearing a gaping hole, and the vessel sank in port. At the same time, three Oscar II class submarines – Tomsk, Kasatka and Omsk – assumed positions off Japan’s western coastline with escorting Kilo-class submarines. They began launching non-nuclear cruise missiles at military targets in Japan; those were pinpricks, but they were pinpricks in strategic locations. Docks of several Japanese naval bases were heavily damaged and unusable, military bases were heavily damaged and equipment was lost, and hangar bays were destroyed and the tarmac of Japanese Air Self-Defence Force landing strips was damaged. Japan spread out its naval units to prevent them from getting damaged in these missile attacks, and Japanese aircraft were also spread out. Nonetheless, these attacks put out of commission two guided missile destroyers and over a dozen planes; several dozen targets were taken out in total.
Japan retaliated with a large joint fleet and air force operation on November 25th. Destroyers Murasame, all eight Asagiri-class destroyers and all twelve Hatsuyuki-class destroyers were deployed in a daring action in the Sea of Japan. They hoped to lure out the remaining vessels of the Soviet Pacific Fleet and decisively defeat them before reinforcements arrived in the shape of super carrier Ulyanovsk, smaller aircraft carriers Kuznetsov and Varyag, all four Kirov-class battlecruisers and various smaller cruisers, destroyers and other supporting vessels. Commanding officer Vladimir Kuroyedov was smarter than that and so, instead Japanese vessels launched missiles against Vladivostok’s naval facilities and Phantom II fighter-bombers bombed several strategically important dry docks, supply dumps, hangars, and most importantly the Fleet HQ of the Soviet Pacific Fleet; several civilian targets were also damaged and there were 31 civilian deaths. Admiral Kuroyedov was severely injured by debris flying around after the bombing of Fleet HQ and would die a few days after due to damage to his internal organs.
The war threatened to escalate as the Senkaku Islands Dispute flared up again. On October 7th protestors from both Taiwan and China planted their national flags on the uninhabited islands that were claimed by both Taipei and Beijing. They were removed, but in the light of the Soviet Union’s war against Japan and the presence of a powerful Soviet fleet many nationalist inspired Chinese were emboldened. Several dozen activists from the People’s Republic of China landed on the disputed island group and again raised the flag of their country. They were arrested for illegal entry, but two of the activists resisted violently and were accidentally shot dead which brought Sino-Japanese relations to a low point (even for generally chilly Sino-Japanese relations). For lack of a Japanese military presence, Beijing responded by deploying its own naval forces: several attack submarines, one ballistic missile submarine, over a dozen destroyers and frigates, and several auxiliary ships. A battalion of People’s Liberation Army infantry – with vehicle support from some armoured cars and armoured personnel carriers and air support from land-based planes – landed and pompously established Chinese sovereignty over the disputed islets on December 2nd 1996 and declared it would begin exploiting the oil and gas reserves in the region. Japan was wise to not respond to China’s actions and widen the war.
They did decide that something decisive needed to be done against the USSR. Japanese military commanders decided to do something risky and bring the war to Russian soil; this would either lead to the Soviets seeking peace because it showed Japan was serious about pursuing the war even if it went nuclear which would pretty much guarantee US support, or it would lead to escalation and World War III. That was a risk that had to be taken if this war was going to come to a favourable end.
Fifteen landing vehicles landed a battalion and one company of Japanese soldiers on the flat southern coastline of Sakhalin between Korsakov and Utesnaya while Hercules C-130s dropped a regiment of paratroopers several miles inland on December 7th. These airborne troops seized control of several important roads, bridges, junctions and railheads and prevented local Soviet garrisons from dislodging the landing party from their beach positions. LCACs brought in Japanese armour. These forces established a bridgehead and within days the Japanese presence swelled to 15.000 soldiers, 50 tanks and 200 armoured vehicles despite continuous Soviet air attack. Lukashenko made driving the Japanese out a priority for prestige reasons but also to protect the precious reserves of oil, natural gas, coal and manganese on the island. The JGSDF expeditionary forces advanced to Sakhalin’s capital Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, but the Soviet high command had quickly deployed some elite troops across the frozen Strait of Tartary. This would become the first actual engagement between Soviet and Japanese ground forces.
The 71st Air-Defence Missile Brigade equipped with SA-6 surface to-air missiles had assumed positions around the city and made the area impenetrable for enemy planes. The 338th Guards MLRS Brigade and 165th Artillery Brigade provided fire support by pummelling advancing Japanese forces; of course Japanese artillery fired back and so artillery duels ensued which devastated a lot of the countryside. The 83rd Independent Airborne Brigade, the 68th Guards Tank Regiment and the 57th Guards Independent Motor-Rifle Brigade formed the Soviets’ ground forces that dug in around Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk anticipating a pitched battle. The first skirmishes took place on December 12th when Soviet BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles of the 57th engaged advancing Japanese Type 74 tanks who were moving toward the location of a shot down Japanese F-15J; Soviet troops quickly retreated in the face of superior forces. They counterattacked with help from the 68th Guards Tank Regiment equipped with the new T-90, and a dramatic, bloody battle ensued around the aircraft wreckage which was more symbolic than anything else (there was little strategic use in saving the crew of a single F-15 lost behind enemy lines, but fanatic Japanese soldiers refused to give up). Under heavy fire, Japanese ground forces extracted their brothers in arms from behind enemy lines at a high cost and for questionable gains. In Japan, the battle would be dramatized in a motion picture drama which was highly controversial since it romanticized Japanese war exploits (a sensitive topic, even 50 years after World War II). The USSR, the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan (the Republic of China) would denounce it as Japanese imperialism and banned the movie.
By December 14th, Japanese soldiers had established a line at Khomutovo, but couldn’t go further because their enemies had dug in, making the oblast capital a virtual fortress. The Soviet Army launched a vigorous artillery and aerial bombardment with 152 mm guns, BM-27 multiple rocket launchers and Su-25 close-air-support planes and counterattacked with T-72, T-80 and T-90 tanks. These tanks proved superior to Type 74s but not to the Type 90s that had been designed to handle the T-72 (the most common Soviet tank) and its variants. The largest tank battle since the Korean War ensued with fierce offensives and counteroffensives, artillery bombardments and large aerial battles. In the end, the Japanese withdrew to within the range of the navy’s big guns, anti-aircraft missile batteries and CIWS because of massive, numerically superior Soviet armoured attacks. Soviet forces did not advance beyond Uspenskoye; here there was a fair balance in air power and artillery support and so World War I style trench warfare ensued with both sides staring at each other across no-man’s land.
Lukashenko posthumously bestowed the title “Hero of the Soviet Union” and the “Order of Lenin” on the deceased Kuroyedov admiral for his “heroic and exemplary service”. In the meantime, by December 10th, super aircraft carrier Ulyanovsk and its supporting forces made up of carriers Kuznetsov, Varyag, Kiev, Minsk, Novorossiysk and Baku, battlecruisers Kirov, Frunze, Kalinin and Yuri Andropov, and smaller supporting ships passed the Senkaku Islands. They had travelled through the Suez Canal and the Indian Ocean past Bombay as a gesture of goodwill to India and then went through the Strait of Malacca, the South China Sea and steamed into the East China Sea (reassuring China of the strength of their alliance after China’s unilateral annexation of the Senkaku Islands) toward the Tsushima Strait.
Several resolutions from the UN to enforce a ceasefire had already failed due to Soviet and Chinese vetoes, but something needed to be done. After the victory of the communist government of Afghanistan, Indo-Pakistani relations were once again tense and several border skirmishes took place that threatened to escalate (and India made no secret of the fact that they would deploy nuclear weapons). An Asian wide nuclear conflict needed to be avoided at all costs. Aircraft carriers USS George Washington and USS Carl Vinson were deployed to the Taiwan Straits to deter China, and American readiness was raised to DEFCON 3. In a bloody and massive naval engagement on January 3rd known as the Second Battle of Tsushima, the Soviet fleet butchered the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force, in part to avenge the loss in 1905. Lukashenko and most other Moscow politicians felt the USSR’s national pride had been defended and were ready to make peace although the Japanese were vengeful and felt like going on despite the strategic situation.
As one of his first acts after his inauguration, President Al Gore – who was popular as Democratic Congressman because he had pushed for healthcare, social security and education reforms – brokered a peace deal between Moscow and Tokyo. The Soviets signed a status quo ante bellum peace with Japan on February 17th. Tokyo, however, refused to acknowledge China’s occupation of the SenkakuIslands even if they couldn’t and didn’t do anything about it. The war was over but left lingering tensions.
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von kressenstein
Banned
I dont see how you could have the USSR go to war with Japan with out American intervention .. The United States is Japans military. Something like that would lead to a full on east west confrontation, Unless the United States has gone isolationist and just given up.
also i would think that kim might take the moment to walk south..
also i would think that kim might take the moment to walk south..
Well, it's a relatively limited naval and aerial engagement until the last phase of the war; also WMDs were never used. Moscow never intended to invade Japan and are out for a status quo ante bellum and some prestige. If it went further, however, with Soviet boots on Japanese soil or the USSR using nukes, things would be a bit different.
The war also wasn't intentional, or at least many could argue it wasn't. Many world leaders and US politicians could point at Japan and the 'aggressive' behaviour and 'violation of protocol' of the F-15 pilots in what was a mere accidental violation of Japanese airspace, thus justifying the Soviets opening fire. Mind you, this isn't my personal opinion, but it's how people ITTL could perceive this.
Lastly, the US and the USSR don't want WW III over this.
Methinks Beijing and Moscow would disapprove. In this case, US forces would be directly under attack from enemy (North Korean) forces which is sure to lead to some kind of response. Widening the East Asian crisis is just dumb; all sides know that.
This TL is about the August Coup not occuring in 1991 and Gorbachev successfully reforming the country into a looser federation. The disaster that was Yeltsin's economic policy is avoided
As always, interesting, well written and original scenario! Keep on the good work!
Yea, I wasn't expecting that at all. But it makes for an interesting twist, and its the authors prerogative for which small incidents to blow up into major conflicts, as it does happen sometimes IOTL.
Given the disparity between Japan (without American support) and USSR, this result is the only reasonable one. Although I fear a resurgence in militarism, especially after a Japanese defeat...
Marc A
Marc A
Update time .
The Soviet Union had reasserted itself on the world stage through this war which had repercussions. First of all, the war had been a blow to the Japanese economy and the 1997-’98 recession of Japan caused a mild economic downturn across East Asia with inflation, a drop in economic growth and higher unemployment. Japan itself was hit the hardest and on top of that there was the psychological blow of what was perceived as a defeat in the war. The economic crisis and the diplomatic blundering that had led Japan into a war it was unprepared for led to a governmental crisis which forced Emperor Akihito to issue new elections, elections in which the traditional parties were obliterated. The government coalition made up of the Japan Socialist Party, the Liberal Democratic Party and the New Party Sakigake lost and became opposition parties (which for the LDP was new). The Japanese nationalist, national conservative Rising Sun Party of Japan (RSPJ) formed in March 1997 by Takeo Hiranuma – who advocated historical revisionism regarding the Rape of Nanking – attained 154 out of 480 seats (32,1% of popular vote) in the lower house of the Imperial Diet. It formed a coalition with other nationalistic, socially conservative, and conservative liberal parties and enjoyed support from business conglomerates and corporate tycoons referred to as Zaibatsu (like their WW II counterparts) by the opposition. A nationalist, socio-culturally conservative, corporatist, economically interventionist, authoritarian and Social Darwinist government emerged with Confucian and Shinto elements that implied Japanese superiority. Nationalism and militarism in Japan saw a revival in the late 1990s which led to friction with China since Tokyo downplayed war crimes committed during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) and stated its right to defend itself. South Korea also looked negatively on the new government and relations became rather sour.
With tacit US approval, Article 9 was repudiated as were several defence policies: Japan no longer oriented itself solely on a purely defensive policy, Japan wanted to become a major military power again, war was once again accepted as a means to settle international disputes, and building forces capable of military power projection became an explicit goal.
To create an economic base for military expansion, a Four Year Plan for the economy was laid down in which the government gave certain sectors in private capital lucrative contracts: these contracts allowed cartel formation which gave Japanese companies the strength to dominate their domestic market and easily push out foreign competitors, and in return for this these companies aimed to achieve government set quotas. This enabled Japanese companies to compete much better with foreign businesses and gain higher profits (though investment-profit incentive was reduced). A wage ceiling was implemented to combat the wage-price spiral, which caused some public dissatisfaction at first, but in return employment was increased by means of a great increase in part-time employment. A set of austerity packages cut back the government deficit. Many unemployed men were also encouraged to serve in the military which was expanded with more armoured divisions, anti-air defence systems, surface-to-surface missiles, surface-to-air missiles, cruise missiles and heavy artillery (the Soviets had proven superior in all of these categories, and they were Japan’s new main enemy). The air force was expanded with fighter-bombers, torpedo bombers, more Airborne Early Warning aircraft and additional paratrooper divisions. The navy saw the biggest expansion with aircraft carriers being laid down for the first time since World War II to ward off the numerically superior but qualitatively inferior (at least in China’s case) Sino-Soviet navies. These were the Admiral Sukeyuki-class aircraft carriers that weighed 48.000 tonnes and carried fifteen F-15Js, fifteen F-4 Phantom IIs, two E-2 Hawkeye AEW aircraft, three anti-submarine warfare helicopters and three transport helicopters. Two hulls were laid down in 1998 and three more were planned. A new class of missile cruisers equipped with Tomahawks (with a 500 kg warhead and 2.500 km range) that weighed 12.000 tonnes, was heavily armoured and was capable of operating worldwide was also planned as were several long-ranged guided missile frigates, destroyers, “hunter-killer” submarines, minelayers, minesweepers and coastal defence vessels.
In the US, fear of a resurgent Soviet Union led to a Republican victory in the 1998 Congressional Elections; the Democrats lost both the House and the Senate which made President Gore’s position difficult indeed. The Republicans wanted to repeal a lot of the reforms in social security, healthcare and education that had been pushed through by Gore in 1997 in favour of the middle and lower income classes, and they also wanted to undo the tax increases implemented by Bush in his first term to gain approval for a strong foreign policy and higher defence budget. Gore vetoed such proposals, but understood that compromises needed to be made because otherwise he wouldn’t be able to pass any meaningful legislation. He made a deal: he would fare a strong anti-Soviet foreign policy which included increased American troop strength in Europe, increased support to America’s more “questionable” allies and the construction of a missile shield in Germany, Norway, Canada and Turkey that would cancel out a lot of the strength of the USSR’s numerically and yield-wise superior nuclear arsenal; in return, the Republicans agreed to compromise on their domestic agenda.
The Soviets simply responded by unilaterally discarding the START II Treaty and introduce the use of MIRVs again, but the United States went further in regards to Ba’ath ruled Iraq. Even during the Gore Presidency, WashingtonDC was under the opinion that the Soviet Union’s attitude toward Saddam Hussein’s regime was soft at best (and willingly supportive against UN sanctions at worst). Indeed, the Lukashenko administration in Moscow delivered spare parts and weapons like T-72 tanks, BMP-2 and 3 IFVs, BTR-80 APCs, MiG-29 fighters, Su-25 ground support aircraft, Dragunov sniper rifles, AK-47 assault rifles, D-20 152 mm howitzers and BM-27 multiple rocket launchers to Iraq in sufficient quantities despite the UN resolution. In a covert operation by US commandos a bomb was planted on April 28th 1998 (Saddam’s 61st birthday, which was celebrated on his yacht) on Saddam’s yacht that killed Saddam Hussein, his sons Qusay and the psychopathic Uday, Ali Hassan al-Majid “Chemical Ali” and a large number of the Ba’ath party’s and government’s brass. The result was chaos since the Ba’ath dictatorship led by Saddam Hussein had been decapitated, and so a power struggle ensued of which a neighbouring country with vengeful sentiments profited. The United States had expected a new, democratic government to form as they supplied opposition movements with weapons, but that didn’t occur.
The most senior Ba’ath figure still alive was Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Saddam Hussein’s half-brother, who had not been able to attend the birthday party due to his responsibilities as director of the secret police, an organisation responsible for assassinations abroad, executions at home and ruthless, brutal purges of elements regarded as disloyal to the regime. His secret police was mobilized almost immediately upon the rumours of Saddam’s death and before it was actually confirmed. Within hours, death squads arrested high profile dissidents and confined them to solitary detention or simply murdered them to prevent them from causing unrest. Agents of the Iraqi intelligence service were soon crawling all over key government buildings in Baghdad and established a perimeter. However, the biggest threat came from within the Ba’ath regime itself as several of Saddam’s relatives were still alive and made a bid for power. A number of prominent members of the Al-Tikriti clan, but also high ranking officers of the Iraqi Army attempted their own coup d’états to become the new strongman. Within two weeks Iraq had descended into civil war with Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and his secret police with support from the Republican Guard on one side and various elements in the Sunni community and the Iraqi military on the other. Due to lack of government control, Kurds and Shiites rose up as well, giving the Iraqi Civil War a second dimension of sectarian violence parallel to the ongoing power struggle.
By the end of May 1998, Barzan with some loyalist forces controlled only Baghdad and Saddam’s birth city of Tikrit as well as the immediate surrounding areas. Further outlying areas were controlled by either warlords or sectarian groupings. The two largest groupings were the Shiites who aimed for a constitutional parliamentary system in which their majority would be acknowledged, and the Kurds whose opinions varied from a (con)federal state to abolition of Iraq and the establishment of an independent Kurdish republic. The leading Kurdistan Democratic Party swung to the latter which seemed the most popular; that earned the Kurds the mistrust and suspicions of neighbouring countries Turkey and Iran neither of whom were happy with the prospect of an independent Kurdish state that could stir up unrest among their own Kurdish minorities. Some smaller countries like Syria shared their scepticisms, suspicions and worries. And so, Iran’s next move was necessary in the eyes of Istanbul and Damascus and tacitly approved of.
To “bring peace to the people of Iraq, end the bloodshed against our Muslim brethren, to protect the world economy from an oil crisis, and to prevent the instability to pour over into the Middle East” Iranian troops and armoured formations crossed the Iraqi border and “restored order” harshly (by means including but not limited to aerial bombardment of Iraqi military bases under the control of the various warlords) in August 1998. Besides the obvious motive of revenge for the Iran-Iraq War, uniting with Iraqi Shiites was another goal. Iran had already been supplying the Shiites in Iraq with weaponry and help from military advisors for months, and now they expected the Iraqi Shiites to welcome them with open arms which was a miscalculation on Tehran’s part; there were hordes of Shiites who welcomed the Iranians as liberators, but among many Shiites anti-Persian sentiments, that had been fostered by Shiite and Sunni Arabs alike, took over. The Sunni and Kurd responses were completely unambiguous (unlike the Shiite reaction) and outright violent with terrorism and guerrilla attacks. However, the Iranian army equipped with the new Zulfiqar main battle tanks, T-72S tanks, T-62s, Chieftains and M60A1s overran Iraqi positions; they also enjoyed air support from F-14s and F-4 Phantom IIs while the Iraqi Air Force had been taken out of the equation in the preceding sectarian conflict and civil war (and of course the Gulf War).
The conservative government under Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, however, went further than the mandate extended to them by their neighbours when they declared the United Islamic Republic with the alleged “support of the Iraqi people as proven by a referendum” (a rigged referendum at best). De jure, the UIR consisted of Iraq and Iran. US President Gore and Soviet President Lukashenko, who was furious after being informed of America’s assassination of Saddam Hussein, both saw what kind of a monster had taken shape. It marked the beginning of a mutual détente motivated by the desire to contain the Iranian threat, but also to ensure peace and stability in the Middle East once and for all and prevent a World War from igniting one day over some silly incident in the Arab world (like the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict).
Both the USSR and the United States funnelled weapons and support ranging from AK-47s, MP-5s and RPGs to C4, Stinger missiles, military advisors and cash to the Iraqi resistance which grew daily as the Iranian occupation grew more repressive. Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis alike opposed their “Persian” rulers and ironically united under the Ba’ath remnants that had oppressed them (“the lesser evil”), leading to a national resistance. Bridges between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds were made, leading to a stronger Iraqi and Arab sense of nationalism. Many thousands of Sunni volunteers from across the Arab world travelled to Iraq and took up arms as the spectre of an Iranian dominated Middle East loomed. Oil money from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other Arab states flowed to the Iraqi national resistance movement.
In the meantime, an economic crisis erupted due to high oil prices and unrest on the stock market as many feared for their investments in the entire Middle East due to the tensions there; this began just as the recession in Asia winded down in summer 1998. Oil prices soared which hampered economic growth across much of the world, even in the Soviet Union. Soviet growth in 1993, ’94, ’95 and 1996 was 4.1%, 5.9%, 6.5% and (despite the war against Japan) 6.2% respectively. Growth in 1997 had already dropped to 5% because of the Asian recession. The 1998 economic crisis caused by high oil prices heightened state income (oil and natural has exploiting companies in the USSR were still state owned), but many companies suffered from costly fuel and of course the economic problems elsewhere (whether the hardliners in Moscow liked it or not, the country’s “communist” economy was much more intertwined with the global capitalist economic system than ever). 1998 economic growth radically shrunk to 3.9% and 1999 growth to 2.2%; this amounted to an average annual growth of 4.6% since 1993, a GDP of $2.03 trillion, and a GDP per capita of $7.509 (compared to $6.407 in 1995). US growth stagnated with a growth of less than 1.5% over the course of 1998 and growth in Europe wasn’t too good either. Only China and India did relatively well, but still less well than during the early and mid 1990s.
Besides supporting the Iraqi resistance, the Soviets and America tried to end the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine regardless of what conservative Israeli opposition leaders like Netanyahu thought and vociferously used to gain popular support. Moscow and Washington insisted on a solution since the issue was so taxing on all of world politics and the world economy, and they were soon joined by Beijing, New Delhi, Brasilia, Paris, London, Berlin and several other powerful countries that wanted oil prices to go down since it hampered their economies and who wanted some regional stability for once. Talks were already well underway thanks to the Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli Prime Minister at the time, who had paved the way for the Oslo Accords that had given the Palestinian National Authority partial control over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. He had narrowly avoided assassination in 1995 and the resulting boost in popularity was enough to get him re-elected.
A conference was called in May 1999 in Vienna under the watchful eyes of Washington and Moscow and with many world leaders attending such as US President Gore, Soviet President Lukashenko, French President Jacques Chirac, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair, President of the People’s Republic of China Jiang Zemin and even – controversial to many Israelis for historical reasons – the Chancellor of recently reunited Germany, Gerhard Schröder. Ironically, Chancellor and front man of the social-democrat SPD Schröder got along with Rabin, himself member of Labour in his own country, and Germany helped mediate between the parties involved. In July 2000 the so-called “Vienna Agreement” was achieved in which the Gaza Strip and the West Bank became the Republic of Palestine led by the moderate Fatah Party of Yasser Arafat. The status of East Jerusalem, however, remained as the last hurdle which to date has not been passed. Rabin was ostracized in the next election for giving up so much land which had forced a lot of Israeli settlements to be abandoned (even if their inhabitants had been financially compensated); the resulting conservative Likud government refused to budge on Jerusalem’s status as Israel’s “undivided and eternal capital” and so for all intents and purposes Ramallah until today serves as the centre of Palestinian government. The status of Jerusalem with the holiest sites of both Judaism and Islam remains a sensitive issue and a stumbling block in the way of improving relations between Palestine and Israel.
The Republic of Palestine received financial support from most of the Arab world to build up a modern country, and mostly the USSR and China supplied it with weapons that they themselves were phasing out like MiG-23 fighters, BTR-60 APCs, BMP-1 IFVs, T-62, T-54/55 and Type 69 tanks, AK-47 assault rifles etcetera to form an army that was at least capable of stamping down on internal dissent but which wasn’t a threat to Israel. An army was necessary since the United Islamic Republic (Iran) was opposed to the moderate leftwing Fatah government headed by Arafat and supported Islamic radicals such as Hamas with funds and weapons.
Fortunately, Iran’s actions had made it an international pariah; not even the Soviet Union and China wanted to have much to do with Tehran anymore. Also, in 2000, the oil-producing Arab states agreed to increase production to lower oil prices and take away a lot of Iran’s income. As Iran’s defence expenditure grew, spending on social security, healthcare and education stagnated and declined which led to the system not being able to cope with public demand due to financial troubles. Besides this, Iran was suffering increasingly from terrorist attacks by Sunnis that the state security apparatus was unable to quell which led to many questioning the need for its repressiveness. And then there was the incessant Iraqi guerrilla. By 2001, Iran was suffering from high levels of unemployment, runaway inflation, an inability of the state to provide basic social security and a government crumbling under terrorism and which was increasingly seen as inept, corrupt, weak and needlessly oppressive.
After the latest series of terrorist bombings in April 2001 that killed 187 civilians, a massive peaceful demonstration spontaneously erupted in Tehran which swelled to tens of thousands of people. The government responded harshly by sending in riot police, leading to violence as the protestors refused to go home until their petition was accepted by Khamenei himself. Violent protests against the regime of the ayatollahs erupted in most major cities after news of the brutal repression of the Tehran protests spread. The riot police was overwhelmed and in many cases police officers refused to fire on crowds with friends and relatives in them; in fact, many police officers who themselves were unsatisfied with the regime joined the protestors and provided them with weapons. The Iranian army was called in, but it was not possible to deploy soldiers in great numbers due to the anti-insurgency efforts in Iraq. Opposition leaders joined the protestors and a bloody, bitterly fought civil war ensued often referred to as the “Second Iranian Revolution.” The revolutionary movement received massive foreign support and in January 2002, they declared a victory.
Mir-Hossein Mousavi became head of an interim government that announced democratic reform and a phased retreat of Iranian forces from Iraq. In the meantime, under enormous press coverage, Empress Dowager Farah Pahlavi, returned together with her son and Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi. Both had voiced strong criticisms of the brutal repression by the hands of the regime of the ayatollahs, had supported the revolutionaries and had contributed money to charity to help those displaced by the violence. They were received in Tehran by a gigantic cheering crowd (mainly consisting of those that didn’t consciously remember the last Shah’s reign), that shouted “We want our Shah”. Reza Pahlavi announced he was willing to ascend the throne as a purely constitutional monarch, but only if a majority of the population was in favour. A referendum was held in March 2002 and a small majority favoured monarchy over republic (handily providing the new regime with a symbolic figurehead). The prince was crowned Shah Reza II Pahlavi of Iran.
In Baghdad the Federal Republic of Iraq was proclaimed and democratic elections were announced in which the Shiites won out and formed a broad national coalition with the Kurds and the new Ba’ath party. Iraq joined the Volgograd Cooperation Organisation as Iran oriented itself more to the west.
.1997-MCMXCVII – 2002-MMII
With tacit US approval, Article 9 was repudiated as were several defence policies: Japan no longer oriented itself solely on a purely defensive policy, Japan wanted to become a major military power again, war was once again accepted as a means to settle international disputes, and building forces capable of military power projection became an explicit goal.
To create an economic base for military expansion, a Four Year Plan for the economy was laid down in which the government gave certain sectors in private capital lucrative contracts: these contracts allowed cartel formation which gave Japanese companies the strength to dominate their domestic market and easily push out foreign competitors, and in return for this these companies aimed to achieve government set quotas. This enabled Japanese companies to compete much better with foreign businesses and gain higher profits (though investment-profit incentive was reduced). A wage ceiling was implemented to combat the wage-price spiral, which caused some public dissatisfaction at first, but in return employment was increased by means of a great increase in part-time employment. A set of austerity packages cut back the government deficit. Many unemployed men were also encouraged to serve in the military which was expanded with more armoured divisions, anti-air defence systems, surface-to-surface missiles, surface-to-air missiles, cruise missiles and heavy artillery (the Soviets had proven superior in all of these categories, and they were Japan’s new main enemy). The air force was expanded with fighter-bombers, torpedo bombers, more Airborne Early Warning aircraft and additional paratrooper divisions. The navy saw the biggest expansion with aircraft carriers being laid down for the first time since World War II to ward off the numerically superior but qualitatively inferior (at least in China’s case) Sino-Soviet navies. These were the Admiral Sukeyuki-class aircraft carriers that weighed 48.000 tonnes and carried fifteen F-15Js, fifteen F-4 Phantom IIs, two E-2 Hawkeye AEW aircraft, three anti-submarine warfare helicopters and three transport helicopters. Two hulls were laid down in 1998 and three more were planned. A new class of missile cruisers equipped with Tomahawks (with a 500 kg warhead and 2.500 km range) that weighed 12.000 tonnes, was heavily armoured and was capable of operating worldwide was also planned as were several long-ranged guided missile frigates, destroyers, “hunter-killer” submarines, minelayers, minesweepers and coastal defence vessels.
In the US, fear of a resurgent Soviet Union led to a Republican victory in the 1998 Congressional Elections; the Democrats lost both the House and the Senate which made President Gore’s position difficult indeed. The Republicans wanted to repeal a lot of the reforms in social security, healthcare and education that had been pushed through by Gore in 1997 in favour of the middle and lower income classes, and they also wanted to undo the tax increases implemented by Bush in his first term to gain approval for a strong foreign policy and higher defence budget. Gore vetoed such proposals, but understood that compromises needed to be made because otherwise he wouldn’t be able to pass any meaningful legislation. He made a deal: he would fare a strong anti-Soviet foreign policy which included increased American troop strength in Europe, increased support to America’s more “questionable” allies and the construction of a missile shield in Germany, Norway, Canada and Turkey that would cancel out a lot of the strength of the USSR’s numerically and yield-wise superior nuclear arsenal; in return, the Republicans agreed to compromise on their domestic agenda.
The Soviets simply responded by unilaterally discarding the START II Treaty and introduce the use of MIRVs again, but the United States went further in regards to Ba’ath ruled Iraq. Even during the Gore Presidency, WashingtonDC was under the opinion that the Soviet Union’s attitude toward Saddam Hussein’s regime was soft at best (and willingly supportive against UN sanctions at worst). Indeed, the Lukashenko administration in Moscow delivered spare parts and weapons like T-72 tanks, BMP-2 and 3 IFVs, BTR-80 APCs, MiG-29 fighters, Su-25 ground support aircraft, Dragunov sniper rifles, AK-47 assault rifles, D-20 152 mm howitzers and BM-27 multiple rocket launchers to Iraq in sufficient quantities despite the UN resolution. In a covert operation by US commandos a bomb was planted on April 28th 1998 (Saddam’s 61st birthday, which was celebrated on his yacht) on Saddam’s yacht that killed Saddam Hussein, his sons Qusay and the psychopathic Uday, Ali Hassan al-Majid “Chemical Ali” and a large number of the Ba’ath party’s and government’s brass. The result was chaos since the Ba’ath dictatorship led by Saddam Hussein had been decapitated, and so a power struggle ensued of which a neighbouring country with vengeful sentiments profited. The United States had expected a new, democratic government to form as they supplied opposition movements with weapons, but that didn’t occur.
The most senior Ba’ath figure still alive was Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Saddam Hussein’s half-brother, who had not been able to attend the birthday party due to his responsibilities as director of the secret police, an organisation responsible for assassinations abroad, executions at home and ruthless, brutal purges of elements regarded as disloyal to the regime. His secret police was mobilized almost immediately upon the rumours of Saddam’s death and before it was actually confirmed. Within hours, death squads arrested high profile dissidents and confined them to solitary detention or simply murdered them to prevent them from causing unrest. Agents of the Iraqi intelligence service were soon crawling all over key government buildings in Baghdad and established a perimeter. However, the biggest threat came from within the Ba’ath regime itself as several of Saddam’s relatives were still alive and made a bid for power. A number of prominent members of the Al-Tikriti clan, but also high ranking officers of the Iraqi Army attempted their own coup d’états to become the new strongman. Within two weeks Iraq had descended into civil war with Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and his secret police with support from the Republican Guard on one side and various elements in the Sunni community and the Iraqi military on the other. Due to lack of government control, Kurds and Shiites rose up as well, giving the Iraqi Civil War a second dimension of sectarian violence parallel to the ongoing power struggle.
By the end of May 1998, Barzan with some loyalist forces controlled only Baghdad and Saddam’s birth city of Tikrit as well as the immediate surrounding areas. Further outlying areas were controlled by either warlords or sectarian groupings. The two largest groupings were the Shiites who aimed for a constitutional parliamentary system in which their majority would be acknowledged, and the Kurds whose opinions varied from a (con)federal state to abolition of Iraq and the establishment of an independent Kurdish republic. The leading Kurdistan Democratic Party swung to the latter which seemed the most popular; that earned the Kurds the mistrust and suspicions of neighbouring countries Turkey and Iran neither of whom were happy with the prospect of an independent Kurdish state that could stir up unrest among their own Kurdish minorities. Some smaller countries like Syria shared their scepticisms, suspicions and worries. And so, Iran’s next move was necessary in the eyes of Istanbul and Damascus and tacitly approved of.
To “bring peace to the people of Iraq, end the bloodshed against our Muslim brethren, to protect the world economy from an oil crisis, and to prevent the instability to pour over into the Middle East” Iranian troops and armoured formations crossed the Iraqi border and “restored order” harshly (by means including but not limited to aerial bombardment of Iraqi military bases under the control of the various warlords) in August 1998. Besides the obvious motive of revenge for the Iran-Iraq War, uniting with Iraqi Shiites was another goal. Iran had already been supplying the Shiites in Iraq with weaponry and help from military advisors for months, and now they expected the Iraqi Shiites to welcome them with open arms which was a miscalculation on Tehran’s part; there were hordes of Shiites who welcomed the Iranians as liberators, but among many Shiites anti-Persian sentiments, that had been fostered by Shiite and Sunni Arabs alike, took over. The Sunni and Kurd responses were completely unambiguous (unlike the Shiite reaction) and outright violent with terrorism and guerrilla attacks. However, the Iranian army equipped with the new Zulfiqar main battle tanks, T-72S tanks, T-62s, Chieftains and M60A1s overran Iraqi positions; they also enjoyed air support from F-14s and F-4 Phantom IIs while the Iraqi Air Force had been taken out of the equation in the preceding sectarian conflict and civil war (and of course the Gulf War).
The conservative government under Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, however, went further than the mandate extended to them by their neighbours when they declared the United Islamic Republic with the alleged “support of the Iraqi people as proven by a referendum” (a rigged referendum at best). De jure, the UIR consisted of Iraq and Iran. US President Gore and Soviet President Lukashenko, who was furious after being informed of America’s assassination of Saddam Hussein, both saw what kind of a monster had taken shape. It marked the beginning of a mutual détente motivated by the desire to contain the Iranian threat, but also to ensure peace and stability in the Middle East once and for all and prevent a World War from igniting one day over some silly incident in the Arab world (like the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict).
Both the USSR and the United States funnelled weapons and support ranging from AK-47s, MP-5s and RPGs to C4, Stinger missiles, military advisors and cash to the Iraqi resistance which grew daily as the Iranian occupation grew more repressive. Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis alike opposed their “Persian” rulers and ironically united under the Ba’ath remnants that had oppressed them (“the lesser evil”), leading to a national resistance. Bridges between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds were made, leading to a stronger Iraqi and Arab sense of nationalism. Many thousands of Sunni volunteers from across the Arab world travelled to Iraq and took up arms as the spectre of an Iranian dominated Middle East loomed. Oil money from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other Arab states flowed to the Iraqi national resistance movement.
In the meantime, an economic crisis erupted due to high oil prices and unrest on the stock market as many feared for their investments in the entire Middle East due to the tensions there; this began just as the recession in Asia winded down in summer 1998. Oil prices soared which hampered economic growth across much of the world, even in the Soviet Union. Soviet growth in 1993, ’94, ’95 and 1996 was 4.1%, 5.9%, 6.5% and (despite the war against Japan) 6.2% respectively. Growth in 1997 had already dropped to 5% because of the Asian recession. The 1998 economic crisis caused by high oil prices heightened state income (oil and natural has exploiting companies in the USSR were still state owned), but many companies suffered from costly fuel and of course the economic problems elsewhere (whether the hardliners in Moscow liked it or not, the country’s “communist” economy was much more intertwined with the global capitalist economic system than ever). 1998 economic growth radically shrunk to 3.9% and 1999 growth to 2.2%; this amounted to an average annual growth of 4.6% since 1993, a GDP of $2.03 trillion, and a GDP per capita of $7.509 (compared to $6.407 in 1995). US growth stagnated with a growth of less than 1.5% over the course of 1998 and growth in Europe wasn’t too good either. Only China and India did relatively well, but still less well than during the early and mid 1990s.
Besides supporting the Iraqi resistance, the Soviets and America tried to end the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine regardless of what conservative Israeli opposition leaders like Netanyahu thought and vociferously used to gain popular support. Moscow and Washington insisted on a solution since the issue was so taxing on all of world politics and the world economy, and they were soon joined by Beijing, New Delhi, Brasilia, Paris, London, Berlin and several other powerful countries that wanted oil prices to go down since it hampered their economies and who wanted some regional stability for once. Talks were already well underway thanks to the Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli Prime Minister at the time, who had paved the way for the Oslo Accords that had given the Palestinian National Authority partial control over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. He had narrowly avoided assassination in 1995 and the resulting boost in popularity was enough to get him re-elected.
A conference was called in May 1999 in Vienna under the watchful eyes of Washington and Moscow and with many world leaders attending such as US President Gore, Soviet President Lukashenko, French President Jacques Chirac, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair, President of the People’s Republic of China Jiang Zemin and even – controversial to many Israelis for historical reasons – the Chancellor of recently reunited Germany, Gerhard Schröder. Ironically, Chancellor and front man of the social-democrat SPD Schröder got along with Rabin, himself member of Labour in his own country, and Germany helped mediate between the parties involved. In July 2000 the so-called “Vienna Agreement” was achieved in which the Gaza Strip and the West Bank became the Republic of Palestine led by the moderate Fatah Party of Yasser Arafat. The status of East Jerusalem, however, remained as the last hurdle which to date has not been passed. Rabin was ostracized in the next election for giving up so much land which had forced a lot of Israeli settlements to be abandoned (even if their inhabitants had been financially compensated); the resulting conservative Likud government refused to budge on Jerusalem’s status as Israel’s “undivided and eternal capital” and so for all intents and purposes Ramallah until today serves as the centre of Palestinian government. The status of Jerusalem with the holiest sites of both Judaism and Islam remains a sensitive issue and a stumbling block in the way of improving relations between Palestine and Israel.
The Republic of Palestine received financial support from most of the Arab world to build up a modern country, and mostly the USSR and China supplied it with weapons that they themselves were phasing out like MiG-23 fighters, BTR-60 APCs, BMP-1 IFVs, T-62, T-54/55 and Type 69 tanks, AK-47 assault rifles etcetera to form an army that was at least capable of stamping down on internal dissent but which wasn’t a threat to Israel. An army was necessary since the United Islamic Republic (Iran) was opposed to the moderate leftwing Fatah government headed by Arafat and supported Islamic radicals such as Hamas with funds and weapons.
Fortunately, Iran’s actions had made it an international pariah; not even the Soviet Union and China wanted to have much to do with Tehran anymore. Also, in 2000, the oil-producing Arab states agreed to increase production to lower oil prices and take away a lot of Iran’s income. As Iran’s defence expenditure grew, spending on social security, healthcare and education stagnated and declined which led to the system not being able to cope with public demand due to financial troubles. Besides this, Iran was suffering increasingly from terrorist attacks by Sunnis that the state security apparatus was unable to quell which led to many questioning the need for its repressiveness. And then there was the incessant Iraqi guerrilla. By 2001, Iran was suffering from high levels of unemployment, runaway inflation, an inability of the state to provide basic social security and a government crumbling under terrorism and which was increasingly seen as inept, corrupt, weak and needlessly oppressive.
After the latest series of terrorist bombings in April 2001 that killed 187 civilians, a massive peaceful demonstration spontaneously erupted in Tehran which swelled to tens of thousands of people. The government responded harshly by sending in riot police, leading to violence as the protestors refused to go home until their petition was accepted by Khamenei himself. Violent protests against the regime of the ayatollahs erupted in most major cities after news of the brutal repression of the Tehran protests spread. The riot police was overwhelmed and in many cases police officers refused to fire on crowds with friends and relatives in them; in fact, many police officers who themselves were unsatisfied with the regime joined the protestors and provided them with weapons. The Iranian army was called in, but it was not possible to deploy soldiers in great numbers due to the anti-insurgency efforts in Iraq. Opposition leaders joined the protestors and a bloody, bitterly fought civil war ensued often referred to as the “Second Iranian Revolution.” The revolutionary movement received massive foreign support and in January 2002, they declared a victory.
Mir-Hossein Mousavi became head of an interim government that announced democratic reform and a phased retreat of Iranian forces from Iraq. In the meantime, under enormous press coverage, Empress Dowager Farah Pahlavi, returned together with her son and Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi. Both had voiced strong criticisms of the brutal repression by the hands of the regime of the ayatollahs, had supported the revolutionaries and had contributed money to charity to help those displaced by the violence. They were received in Tehran by a gigantic cheering crowd (mainly consisting of those that didn’t consciously remember the last Shah’s reign), that shouted “We want our Shah”. Reza Pahlavi announced he was willing to ascend the throne as a purely constitutional monarch, but only if a majority of the population was in favour. A referendum was held in March 2002 and a small majority favoured monarchy over republic (handily providing the new regime with a symbolic figurehead). The prince was crowned Shah Reza II Pahlavi of Iran.
In Baghdad the Federal Republic of Iraq was proclaimed and democratic elections were announced in which the Shiites won out and formed a broad national coalition with the Kurds and the new Ba’ath party. Iraq joined the Volgograd Cooperation Organisation as Iran oriented itself more to the west.
Let's see if another reformer comes to power in the USSR, and Japan gets a new government. Interesting take on Iran, and the UIR thing.
I think things are getting a little too radical.
*Japan repudiates its decades of postwar pacifism and returns to the 1930s?
*The Iranians try to ANNEX Iraq rather than support some pet puppet faction, fall into civil war, and then restore the monarchy?
Also, what about South Africa? The withdrawal of Cuban forces from Angola and South Africans from Namibia should have already taken place, but apartheid did not fall until 1994.
One factor in the end of apartheid was the end of the Cold War, which doesn't appear to have taken place in TTL with USSR resurgent even if it did release Eastern Europe and some of its constituent republics.
I wonder what's going on with them? They're going to look at the recovering USSR and be rather frightened, but trying to join NATO might come off as extremely provocative.
*Japan repudiates its decades of postwar pacifism and returns to the 1930s?
*The Iranians try to ANNEX Iraq rather than support some pet puppet faction, fall into civil war, and then restore the monarchy?
Also, what about South Africa? The withdrawal of Cuban forces from Angola and South Africans from Namibia should have already taken place, but apartheid did not fall until 1994.
One factor in the end of apartheid was the end of the Cold War, which doesn't appear to have taken place in TTL with USSR resurgent even if it did release Eastern Europe and some of its constituent republics.
I wonder what's going on with them? They're going to look at the recovering USSR and be rather frightened, but trying to join NATO might come off as extremely provocative.