The World Wars Paradigm

When do you think it's reasonable to have two World Wars similar to OTL?


  • Total voters
    88
where there is life, there is stalinism,

etc.

If you define Stalinism as a totalitarian state using the apparatus of 20th century technology to control its population in unprecedented ways, it seems nigh inevitable, no?

Nazism, Maoism, Stalinism, Imperial Japan. If an idea pops up repeatedly...
 

RealityX

Banned
Personally I do not believe that Versailled was "too harsh": if anything it was too lenient, compared for instance to 1945 or to Brest-Litovsk.

Nor was Germany in a position to resist what happened to it: as the 1923 occupation showed.

You know what? Racial politics is one of the most common reason for war. If The British empire or the allies had demanded complete defeat and then simply annexed the losers into their empires, giving them the same rights after peace (although taking away lots of their wealth via looting before the treaty) I think the third Reich could have been avoided. But you know what with current technology the only thing that is stopping war is the threat of destroying all life on earth via man made plagues and nukes. Otherwise I think the world would continue to be at war until united under one flag. Once this happens history will continue but on a different note.
 
I think that the answer depends on the ATL.

Example one: The strong and highly industrialized Russian Empire fights the expanionalist Chinese Empire over the territory of the totering and ancient Persian Empire, but the Carolinean and Malori Empires (major trading partners of the Persians) intervenes and drags their New World territories, countries, and simi-independent colonies into the conflict. The outcome is is a draw, leaving both sides unsatisfied. A generation later, conflict erupts again.

Example two: The American Confederation comes to the aid of the Southern Empire (South Africa, Australia, New Zealand) against the Belgium Empire who are trying to take Bornio and New Guinea Protectorates away from the S.E. After several years and the involvement of both sides' allies (and neutrals who just happen to be in the way) the war grinds to a halt, but in the end there is a solid victory and the losers' territory is divided up amounst the winners. No wars of that magnitude are fought for generations.
 
One issue that has not been mentioned is that wars tend to involve two 'sides'. Are three sided diplomatic stand-offs less likely to lead to war? The example of NATO, USSR and China might suggest this (although nukes ruin the comparison).

Assume a POD of Russia winning the Russo-Japanese war and expanding into North China and Central Asia and thus threatening British and German interests while at the same time Germany and Britain run a naval race as OTL. Might the resulting conflicts be managable because nobody wants to run the risk of fighting both potential opponents?
 
Basically I think "rerunning" history will never produce the same result - just imagine all humans after a certain date being concieved a splitssecond later or earlier - i.e. different spermcells winning the race and different humans populating the earth...:D

Personally, I hate those kinds of "butterflies". I don't like changes introduced that aren't traceable via cause and effect to the original PoD. Just saying "It's a different universe, so random chance turned out differently" is a fairly boring storytelling technique, and it defeats the main purpose of AH, namely, to explore the effects of a given cause.

WWI started traditionally as yet another duel between powers that had duelled so many times before and in that context probably would have started some time or another anyway. But to have a WWII anything like the OTL one it need to drain also the victors pale. We have on this board have had many exampes of plausible PoDs giving an early and clear victory (one of my favourite sbeing the Russians taking Berlin in 1915) but anyway pushing the "inevitable" WWI by some years will alone be significant. If happening in 1905, not that unlikely, France will probably be run over before you can say "guano". If happening in 1923, Germany will probably see Russians in Berlin before Christmas. In each case the most significant PoD probably will be the absense of OTLs pacifism and modernism - the belief in God, King and Country (or whatever it is called around the world) is unshaken - la belle epoche goes on.

Already this will prevent a WWII type of conflict, as a Germany type of upstart probbaly never will be allowed past the reoccupation of the Rhineland and certainly never with Anschluss or Munich as Mussolini will not be allowed past Abyssinia or Japan with her China policy.

It will certainly not be a peaceful world, there will be plenty of wars, a lot of civil wars and revolutions too, but as long as they don't end in the total carnage of WWI the old regimes/Empires will stay in power. But WWI being fought in 2014 and with nuclear weapoins might have the OTL one appear merciful. Another TL might be one of the old Empires gradually dominating Europe and its overseas possession while USA simultaneously develops its strength. That is bound to end in a World War, but my guess is a mainly naval war and thus probably without the cruelty and carnage of the OTL world wars - unless of course it is fought with ICBMs and nukes...

That is a fascinating take on the 2 wars. Culture and ideology are so important, aren't they.
 
I think you have to look at the specific ATL, and think about it, not just blindly write in two major wars. That said, the "World Wars" arose due to a combination of new technology along with old ideas like nationalism. Only A-bombs really put a stop to total war on a global scale. So to get rid of world wars, you need to have a very stable world in the period between major industrialization and atomic weapons.
 
Top