WI: A Cold War With a Monarchy?

And no way it's getting 500mln population. More like half of it.

The USSR reached 250 million, even with the demographic catastrophes of WWI, the Civil War and the Great Patriotic War. A Russian Empire, without those conflicts (Or with less costly ones) combined with an embrace of capitalism would definitely reach 500 if not 600 Million.
 

CECBC

Banned
What if the mad baron took Mongolia? He wanted to combine orthodox Christianity and Buddhism.
He's an interesting character for sure, but I can't see him realistically taking power. Having a Tsar with some of his ideas could be very interesting though. A Russia that propped up Qing China under the guise of pan-monarchism is an interesting thought.
 
From time to time I ponder a modern world with multiple powers rather than the two Super Power paradigm. When I do the points of departure seem to be pre-World War One and stretch back to before 1900, as well as some change to the Great War leaving us battered but surviving Imperial Germany. Until persuaded otherwise I do not see how Imperial Russia survives, its absolutism seems so deeply rooted that only something as radical as the Communist revolution could dislodge it, I see any constitutional monarchy as the slippery slope it became towards full revolution. So perhaps I depart from the thrust of the question posed but I can see a Europe with more surviving Monarchies. Assuming the USA stays out of WWI and perhaps also the British then it becomes a conflict between France/Russia on one side versus Germany/Austro-Hungary on the other with Italy falling away towards some form of neutrality, the UK a hostile neutral towards the Central Powers, and the Ottomans likely sitting it out a friendly neutral to the CP.

Assuming the Czar falls and Russia goes full up into revolution I would hope Germany sees the value in creating genuine buffer states out of the Baltic Republics, Finland and Poland if not also the Ukraine. Both Germany and AH have more troops to push Russia back and enough parity here to seek more compromises but I still suspect AH devolves as its internal pressures overwhelm the Hapsburgs. The Balkans still fight wars that shift boundaries but do not solve much. I can see Germany losing its colonies and getting ousted from China by Japan and if it accepts this fate then it becomes more like the USA in being an industrial exporter reliant on foreign markets, even more so reliant on imported materials, so it begins to see the anti-colonial path just as alluring as the USA did, oddly aligned with the emergent USSR cutting against the British and French Empires. Complicating things would be the desire to oppose Communism by the British, USA and Germans, while it gets sympathy from France.

Resting on that shaky pile of assumptions and glosses to get us into a world with more evenly balanced powers aligned across the spectrum and globe, I see the pressures being the USSR seeking to regain all its lost territory as it appears driven to do so in OTL, thus a Winter War, invasion of the Baltics, invasion of Poland, invasion of the independent Ukraine, etc., all preceded by revolutionary agitation. So perhaps an Eastern War with the USSR is inevitable, sparking off a sort of WWII, abetted by the Japanese lighting up Asia. Germany and the USA will clash over influence and markets in China and both Central and South America, yet tend to cooperate in breaking into the British and French Empires if they remain closed markets, both might see Japan as an enemy, the USA because of China, Germany because of its lost colonies. Japan might remain closer to the British, both likely clash with France, more so Japan in Indochina with China getting more aligned against France. The USSR supports more break away warlords in China leading to a lot of mistrust between it and the USA, likely also Japan if they hold Manchuria or aspire to more of China and possibly the British as they begin to renew fears of having Russia on India's doorstep. The Dutch remain estranged from the British and French, perhaps finding value in alliance with Germany to safeguard the East Indies against aggressive Japan. Once more the Europeans are bumping around in Asia.

As you can see my mind wheels around and around as the shifts keep coming, each move by one of these powers causing more shifts by the others, a game of five or seven way chess that gets wicked complicated, many opportunities for revolutions, insurgencies, brush fire wars, and so on until we get the odd stability of a multi-lateral nuclear armed world. At that point I try to assume they finally get serious about seeking peaceful avenues to resolve disputes, relieve pressures and avoid the likely global war that would be founded on all the same myriad of pressures that led us into the Great War where we began this adventure. It is a fascinating circle.
 
The USSR reached 250 million, even with the demographic catastrophes of WWI, the Civil War and the Great Patriotic War. A Russian Empire, without those conflicts (Or with less costly ones) combined with an embrace of capitalism would definitely reach 500 if not 600 Million.

(1) This would to some extent be counterbalanced by the tendency in advanced capitalist states for the birthrate to fall. You can't simply read the birthrate of OTL late-Tsarist Russia into later eras.

(2) In any event, the original post explicitly required an *absolute* monarchy. https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/wi-a-cold-war-with-a-monarchy.400016/ Russia was not an absolute monarchy after 1905, and an industrially advanced Russia in the late twentieth century would be very unlikely to be one.

(3) As I noted, if you waive the requirement that the monarchy be absolute, there are all sorts of cold wars between the US and monarchies that are possible (Wilhlmine Germany without the Great War, Japan withiout the Pacific War, etc.).
 
A German WWI victory seems the best option. Germany wins WWI, the U.S leaves isolation after ITTL WWII between Commie U.K and France, where Germany wins. Germany now has East Europe, Central Europe + A-H, France, Britain, and likely the Balkans and Iberia or Italy as allies or in Germany's sphere of influence. If the U.S leaves isolation (maybe war with Japan, where Germany is neutral), then we could see a "Cold War" between the two, as the Germans try to dominate Africa and other markets.
 
My thought is that American isolationism was in large part a product of the World War One experience despite our historic belief in the Monroe Doctrine, my argument would be that if the USA avoided the Great War then its political culture would not be as sharply divided between internationalist and isolationist, there would be more adventurism as the USA continues to expand its sphere in the Pacific and Asia. I would argue that the USA would conflict with Imperial Japan even more openly and might take a dimmer view of the other imperial powers in Asia. The question is whether such a mix would go hot or settle into a cold war, possibly with a proxy war on the periphery like the Franco-Thai war, civil war and proxy warfare in China itself, and so on. In this world the USA would not be the ally to Europe but its more open competitor despite what would be strong trade links. Perhaps the trade links as well as indebtedness would force a sort of cold war as both sides cannot afford war but the other forms of competition we saw between the USA and USSR, here the economic linkage serving as the deterrent versus nuclear weaponry.
 

Insider

Banned
Of course there could be a Cold War between monarchy and USA. If anything, had the Nazis never came to power in Germany and no war in Europe, the second China-Japan war would likely cause situation like this, as the Japan would never be pushed into its corner as they were in OTL - that would mean no attack against Pearl Harbor. In turn, it would be pretty much impossible for even most hawkish POTUS to declare war on Japan, as Congress would never be convinced to intervene in China... unless of course Japanese would do something stupid. As Chinese would be backed by American arms and mercenaries, China would likely evolve into something like a proxy war.
That's just one scenario, but I could come up with a dozen more. To be fair there are many events that could make relations between two powers go sour. As well as there are many causes for conflict, resources, market outlets, trade routes, hell even prestige, and personal likes and dislikes of politicians involved play the role. What would be difficult is to keep this stew boiling for decades preventing détente, or boiling over to all out war.
 
(1) This would to some extent be counterbalanced by the tendency in advanced capitalist states for the birthrate to fall. You can't simply read the birthrate of OTL late-Tsarist Russia into later eras.

Mapping the late Tsarist birthrate onto later eras results in a population of over 1 billion by 2000.

And the chances of Russia to become an advanced capitalist state during the 20th Century were very poor. In all likelyhood, it would look like a giant latin american state - a giant Brazil with demographic trends to match, resulting in a population close to 800 million by 2000 and most of that population in crushing poverty.

As such, HistoryLearner was underestimating the population of a Russia that avoided Bolshevism and catastrophic wars.

fasquardon
 
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