WI: The Americans went into isolation after WW2

What would have happened if, like after WWI, the US got so disgusted with European warmongering that they went back to pursuing an isolationist policy after WWII? A bit ASB maybe but what would happen?

Personally, I see much more focus on European intergration as a defense against the Soviets, and possibly the emergence of an EU superpower, militarily as well as economically. Or the entire continent could collapse in a heap and be steamrolled by the commies :rolleyes:

What are your thoughts on this?
 
Kind of dystopic, but I think this is a worst case scenario, honestly:

With no Marshall Plan, expect communism to spread like wildfire in Europe. In Italy, the Communists will probably win the 1948 general election. When the allies withdraw from Germany, expect a Soviet-backed 'war of liberation' to break the FRG (if it even exists) early on. Berlin becomes the capital of a unified DDR.

France's Communist Party will probably do markedly better as well. If the powers that be deny them a victory at the polls, you might see civil war or something in the aftermath. Austria probably goes red as well. The remaining noncommunist states probably form some sort of alliance without the United States (UK, Benelux nations, Norway, Denmark, Spain, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand), but they're grossly outnumbered by Red Europe.

In Asia, Chinese Communists achieve total victory over the KMT. North Korea unifies the peninsula after a brief conflict. If the United States occupies Japan for as long as they did IOTL, don't expect many changes there, but if they simply set up a new Constitution and then let the Japanese have at it, there's a very real possibility that the Japanese Communists win out at the polls if the Americans don't rebuild the country.

If France goes red, expect it's colonies to get independence and probably go red as well. Same for other colonial powers that go Communist.

India and Israel forge alliances with the Soviet bloc, while the Arabs ally with the Anticommunist European bloc. Latin America probably faces a great deal of leftist upheaval as well. There may very well be a short war between the uber-Soviet bloc and the European bloc, and this would favor the uber-Communists, of course, supposing that the United States stays neutral.
 
Without the Marshall Plan ($13 billion in aid), Europe is going to have a hard time rebuilding after the war. Anti-US sentiment in Europe will be much higher, and if Stalin offers even token aid while playing up his own losses in stopping the Nazis, he could certainly push the Warsaw Pact further west. Stronger socialist movements in the Western Europe with no opposition funding from the US, no US troops on the ground requiring higher defense spending in Europe (and thus an even harsher recovery phase), no nuclear shield until the UK or France develops its own A-bombs.

Yeah, I'd lean towards a Warsaw Pact (Paris Pact? Vienna Pact?) that covers continental Europe, with the UK worrying about invasion from the continent yet again.

How do you say "Sea Lion" in Russian? :)

BTW, I think an isolationist US post-WWII is VERY unlikely.
 
with the US having the atom bomb and utterly ruling the oceans, I doubt it would be bad news for the USA for quite a while, since the US is fairly self sufficient at this time; Britain is likely to be seriously pissed off at us though. The crunch would come when the US starts looking for more raw materials overseas (particularly oil) and finding the commies sitting in control over most of it...
 
I believe that this was the basis for 1984, with Orwell assuming that the US pulls out of europe earlier than OTL. As a result all of europe falls to to the soviets and eventually the US, UK, and Canada form the core of Oceana which is a shithole militaristic dictatorship which acts so harsh in response to the threat of Soviet aggression.

This POD has the potential to result in a realistic Vlad Tepes TL.
 
If the POD is during the war, then this could happen.

If the USSR is hurt worse before the Nazis go down, then yeah, I can see the US withdrawing into isolationism.

Also, I'll plug CalBear's Anglo-American vs the Nazis war thread. This superb TL posits a surviving Nazi Germany defeating the USSR and initial Anglo-American landing in Europe. After about a decade of cold war, WWII erupts again in the mid-late 1950s bwteen the USA/UK and Nazis.

Presumbing they win i nthat TL, I can see the US kind of shuddering back from the horror of what almost 20 years under the Nazis have done to Europe and with no other major powers (apart from the hurting and friendly UK), the US shrugs and goes back to baseball.

Mike Turcotte
 

Typo

Banned
For all time has this

Europe is economically screwed for a decade longer than OTL due to defense spending against Soviets and no Marshall plan
 
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