WI Europe and Central/South America Switiched Cold War Governments?

By which I mean, what if post-WW2 Europe was largely a number of US-allied/propped capitalist authoritarian dictatorships, while Central and South America got secure footing as liberal democracies and avoided the periods of US intervention (which is now directed into Europe).

How would such a switch be possible, and what kind of world would result?
 
By which I mean, what if post-WW2 Europe was largely a number of US-allied/propped capitalist authoritarian dictatorships, while Central and South America got secure footing as liberal democracies and avoided the periods of US intervention (which is now directed into Europe).

How would such a switch be possible, and what kind of world would result?

Well Europe was pretty much that way in the 30s. So perhaps some avoidance of WW2?
 

ninebucks

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Well, seeing as Western Europe was more than happy to vote for liberal capitalist governments, I don't see why the USA would force them into it.

A Marshall-plan type thing for South America isn't completely out of the question however. It would need for the South American theatre of the war to be more active while, (somewhat contradictorary), the USA ends up with more money left over from the war.
 
No Marshall-Plan for Europe - the US decides that the Europeans have to pay for the cost of liberation / and the protection against the USSR.

Much of the money the US can pull out of Europe goes to South-America, that gets most investment.
[The rationale in Washington would be - Europe is to blame for the war - and it's a potential rival, while Latin-America is our sphere of influence, thus investment in S.A. is safe, investment in Europe is a waste.]

This results in a much poorer Europe, very slow reconstruction, and thus the communists get VERY popular in most European countries. So elections have to be cancelled to prevent Europe from falling to the Reds....

OTOH, the big boom in South-America leads to more stability, and thus the elites are more confident to allow free elections...

Long term result might be -
There is no Vietnam war, but he US have to fight similar communist insurgencies all over Europe - when they finally pull the plug, (say in the 1970's..), the Communists take over in all of Europe, the USSR wins the Cold War, and is still around until today...
 
This could have very interesting ramifications. Would this TL include a NATO-like organization spanning the Hemisphere? That would certainly help to make the Free Trade Area of the Americas a reality...
 
This could have very interesting ramifications. Would this TL include a NATO-like organization spanning the Hemisphere? That would certainly help to make the Free Trade Area of the Americas a reality...

Hmm...

So in such a TL, the Organization of American States becomes TTL's NATO.

Not to mention if Europe remains a huge basket case, there'll probably be plenty of desperate immigrants surging into the New World. As their economies boom, countries like Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, ect. may actually invite skilled labor from Europe into their countries. And the USA won't have any illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America coming over the Rio Grande, but there'll still be boatloads of ships coming into New York from various ports of call in Europe.

Of course, with Europe so poor, the rapid de-colonization of Africa and Asia that we saw IOTL will only be accelerated, which will lead to all sorts of interesting butterflies on their own. Of course, the USA and its Western Hemisphere allies will have enough to worry about with Europe so politically unstable, but they'll still get involved some way in the Congo, or Uganda, or Egypt, or Tanzania depending on what the USSR's (or Communist China) is up to. The Middle East will certainly be interesting, depending on how big America's presence in the Med is....and who knows, maybe TTL sees Sicily staying under U.S. jurisdiction (like what was discussed on that other thread).

Who knows, maybe an expanded Ellis Island is still in business in 2007, though those Europeans with wealth and connections come into the country on airplanes. New York City in such a TL would certainly be an interesting place to be.
 
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In the thirties there were fascist parties in Latin Amerika. If the gained the power and established Regims like Mussolini or Hitler ... And then after Pearl Harbor when Hitler declares war on the USA they follow.
So the US are occupied with fighting Japan and South America, the can't send much help to Europe, and what arrives lands in England. So the Sowjetunion isn't supported so well. They still stop the Germans at Stalingrad, but they lack transport capacity to reconquer the lost terrain at the same speed as in OTL, and advance much slower.
In the meantime the USA is doing well against the South Americans and Japan. In November 1944 the fascist Regimes surrender. In process South America is totally occupied and de-nazified. Now the USA begins to send more forces across the atlantic (both to Brittain and the SU), the SU retakes Stalingrad and began with an offensiv. In England a huge bomber fleet is stationated which begins to attack the german cities. However Hitler has now VI and VII and the british cities had to suffer (altough less than the germans). As the Manhatten project is concluded, one bomb is droped on Hiroshima, the other on Cologne. While Japan surrenders as in in OTL Hitler fights on. To stop his industry the atomic destruction of the Ruhr area is planed and carried out. On June 6 the invasion takes place. When in 1946 the war is finally over in Europe, the continent is even more destroyed than in OTL. Moreover in Sout America there has been a rebuilding program (like the Marhall plan) for two years. And the side effects of the 8 atom bombs used against Germany become more and more visible. As the USA is fully occupied with rebuilding South America there is little aid left for Europe. In the following winter 1.5 Million people die. Sweden and Switzerland which both relied on trade with the rest of Europe suffer from an economical depression (Spain, Portugal and Ireland are able to trade with the USA). The other countries suffer even worse: their industry is destroyed, and famine breaks out. As a result refugees try to escape to Spain, Switzerland and Sweden and those countries close the borders. Needless to say, that under those circumstances the colonial empires collapse. Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa are unwilling to support England, and the Commonwealth is disolved. Europe stays a backwater, where dictators like De Gaule arise. The countries which infrastructure and economy was largly spared - Spain, Portugal and Ireland - don't look to Europe, but over the atlantic, where under the lead of the USA a powerful economic and military Union arises. A normal european citizen in 1950 (and for the rest of the century) wants only to emigrate to America (or Australia or South Africa), to escape poverty, suppression by the own regime, and fear of a Sowjet invasion. Fortunatly for them the thriving economies of Argentinia, Chile and Brasil have an enormous need for workers. But those who leave are the wealthy and well educated, and so the emmigration drives the rest of Europe even deeper in the misery.
 
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Er, paragraphs? Please?

I would say it's not worth reading, but it's so hilariously bad that I'll summarize:

1. All South American countries join the Axis in WW2.

2. United States wins in conventional warfare and militarily occupies all the South American countries.

3. United States nukes Germany 8 times.

4. United States, Canada, and the white dominions invest all their money in South America and cut ties with Britain.

.-.
 
If you really want Europe to have the corrupt banana republics and Latin America to have stable liberal democracies, it'd probably need a pre-1900 POD, IMHO. Europe would somehow have to lose nearly all of it's industrial capacity, including the "social capital" that allows it, while Latin America would have to have a better balanced economy and better established democratic institutions.
 
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