India was the issue there. India's leaders, start with Nehru, leaned towards Marxism but wanted free enterprise as well, which is how the License Raj came to be. They were not friendly with the West at the time, and the ideas of Soviet-style planned economies and equal rights for all dovetailed nicely with much of the ideas promoted by the Indian government, owing in large part to their bad experiences as a colony of Britain. I don't think it was so much a missed opportunity as Pakistan being easier to deal with.
WI More Humane Cold War Approach
- Thread starter Sword of the South
- Start date
India was the issue there. India's leaders, start with Nehru, leaned towards Marxism but wanted free enterprise as well, which is how the License Raj came to be. They were not friendly with the West at the time, and the ideas of Soviet-style planned economies and equal rights for all dovetailed nicely with much of the ideas promoted by the Indian government, owing in large part to their bad experiences as a colony of Britain. I don't think it was so much a missed opportunity as Pakistan being easier to deal with.
The problem with supporting democracy is that people often elect people you don't like and they share the sentiment. Another problem is that you have to deal with potential change of governemnt every few years.so why risk it when you can choose soembody who will keep people in line and you know will still be in power in few years.
Yeah, but I was like 6
Now I know that, but back then that would have just flown over my head. I still think post-'62 we could have gotten in bed with them a bit, even with the OTL leaders--not a formal alliance, no, but supplanting the USSR as a supplier of military and civilian hardware.And I'm not sure how Pakistan, of all places, would be easier to deal with...maybe more predictable--whoever's in power will want guns to shoot his (or her, at a few points) opponents with.
The Sandman
Banned
Because if you're supporting a democracy, you have a relatively certain timetable for any theoretical revolution, a built-in method for that country to switch back to a more palatable government, and a ruling regime that doesn't see your influence as an existential threat. By supporting a dictatorship, you've guaranteed that any revolution will be hostile to you, increased the chance that a regime change will take you by surprise, and created an "ally" who by necessity will keep you at arm's length in order to keep their own people from getting ideas about democracy and human rights.
By supporting a democracy, you sacrifice short-term certainty for medium- and long-term stability. Supporting a dictatorship has the opposite result.
And you have to accept any such opposition and change in policy as legitimate. While in dictatorships you can label it as enemy and take appropriate actions. And in democracy you have to deal with whatever people elect while in dictatorship you can back the group you like most and deal with them.
As if we don't label opposition in democracies as at least bad, anyways
I mean, look how we treated France and Germany in 2002-2003...not to mention how US policy always seems to end up being rather short-sighted and us-focused, democratic ally or no (that's part of the reason the ESA got so big--the US wasn't being particularly nice to Europe about payloads and launches. Look at the number of joint projects that got unilaterally canceled or rescoped by Congress (a lot)).
Besides, come on. "Label it as enemy and take appropriate actions"? That's exactly the kind of attitude Sandman was pointing out led to long-term problems. People don't like being treated as if they have one role--to be America's bitch. That's far more likely to lead to trouble than working with governments that have policy opposition to US goals to the extent possible to achieve those goals--look how much trouble the US had in Europe (very little) compared to South America, Africa, or Southwest Asia (a lot). And a lot of that was because Europeans were mostly democratic (noticeable exceptions being Greece, Spain, and Portugal, but only in the '50s, '60s, and some of the '70s) and could decide for themselves how much to align with US goals.
Do you really think that, say, formenting a coup d'etat and the formation of a military dictatorship in France after De Gaulle (partially) withdrew from NATO would have been better than what we actually did, which was continue to work with them in a lot of areas? Why would it be different in Chile or Guatamala?