lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jan 22, 2017 19:33:00 GMT
So the Koreans hate the Chinese more than they hate the Japanese for what they did during their Korean occupation. Despite what the Korean nationalists like to pretend, Japanese rule of Korea wasn't all bad. It brought modernization and socio-economic development, and a sizable portion of the Korean people cooperated with the Japanese and went along with Japanization. Up to WWII, the Japanese Empire was an authoritarian state, but the Japanese rulers didn't treat loyal Koreans much worse than loyal Japanese. It was a more complex situation than classic colonialism, since a genuine attempt to assimilat Korea in the Japanese Empire was underway. ITTL the Americans didn't turn over Korea to Korean nationalists and give them free rein to impose their narrative that Japanese rule had been entirely horrific. They chose to re-establish the Japanese-Korean-Taiwanese union as a federal democracy, with the three peoples sharing an equal relationship, so a narrative of reconciliation prevailed, fostered by economic recovery, much like it happened in Europe. Nearly two decades later, the Chinese came in guns blazing, imposed a brutal occupation and their authoritarian rule in the areas they conquered, and recruited the likes of Kim-il-Sung to act as collaborationists. So their attempts to foster Chinese nationalism in Taiwan and Korean nationalism in Korea have largely fall flat. In thev long term, it might turn differently if the Chinese were to win, but if the Western coalition wins, the war is going to act as a stimulus for Japanese-Korean-Taiwanese solidarity. So the Japanese emperor is the head of the Japanese-Korean-Taiwanese union. |
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eurofed
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Post by eurofed on Jan 22, 2017 19:57:02 GMT
Despite what the Korean nationalists like to pretend, Japanese rule of Korea wasn't all bad. It brought modernization and socio-economic development, and a sizable portion of the Korean people cooperated with the Japanese and went along with Japanization. Up to WWII, the Japanese Empire was an authoritarian state, but the Japanese rulers didn't treat loyal Koreans much worse than loyal Japanese. It was a more complex situation than classic colonialism, since a genuine attempt to assimilat Korea in the Japanese Empire was underway. ITTL the Americans didn't turn over Korea to Korean nationalists and give them free rein to impose their narrative that Japanese rule had been entirely horrific. They chose to re-establish the Japanese-Korean-Taiwanese union as a federal democracy, with the three peoples sharing an equal relationship, so a narrative of reconciliation prevailed, fostered by economic recovery, much like it happened in Europe. Nearly two decades later, the Chinese came in guns blazing, imposed a brutal occupation and their authoritarian rule in the areas they conquered, and recruited the likes of Kim-il-Sung to act as collaborationists. So their attempts to foster Chinese nationalism in Taiwan and Korean nationalism in Korea have largely fall flat. In thev long term, it might turn differently if the Chinese were to win, but if the Western coalition wins, the war is going to act as a stimulus for Japanese-Korean-Taiwanese solidarity. So the Japanese emperor is the head of the Japanese-Korean-Taiwanese union. In a ceremonial, symbolic, and 'spiritual' sense, although he and the rest of his family did their best to intermarry and join ranks with the Korean royal family and high nobility (alas, they could not find any meaningful Taiwanese equivalent to recruit). E.g. Emperor Akihito married a Korean princess. In a practical sense, however, pretty much all the political functions of the federal head of state are discharged by elected Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese officials, on a rotating basis. The Japanese like to compare the situation to a revival of the Shogunate, only in a democratic form and with the participation of Koreans. And of course, all real political power is in the hands of federal and national parliaments and governments, since even the rotating, multi-national 'shogun' is just a ceremonial figure. Japanese prefectures and Korean provinces also enjoy a good degree of autonomy, although Taiwan is too small for much local devolution. |
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jan 22, 2017 20:01:03 GMT
So the Japanese emperor is the head of the Japanese-Korean-Taiwanese union. In a ceremonial, symbolic, and 'spiritual' sense, although he and the rest of his family did their best to intermarry and join ranks with the Korean royal family (alas, they could not find any meaningful Taiwanese high nobility to recruit). In a practical sense, pretty much all the political functions of the head of state are discharged by elected Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese officials, on a rotating basis. The Japanese like to compare the situation to a revival of the Shogunate, only in a democratic form and with the participation of Koreans. And of course, all real political power is in the hands of federal and national parliaments and governments. Even the rotating, multi-national 'shogun' is just a ceremonial figure. Japanese prefectures and Korean provinces also enjoy a good degree of autonomy, although Taiwan is too small for much local devolution. Taiwanese high nobility never existed, before the Japanese took over it was a Chinese province, thus the Japanese could have search forever without any successes. Seems to me the Japanese-Korean-Taiwanese union looks like OTL Austro-Hungarian Empire, i do hoop the the Japanese-Korean-Taiwanese union is more stable than the OTL Austro-Hungarian Empire. |
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eurofed
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Post by eurofed on Jan 22, 2017 20:13:51 GMT
In a ceremonial, symbolic, and 'spiritual' sense, although he and the rest of his family did their best to intermarry and join ranks with the Korean royal family (alas, they could not find any meaningful Taiwanese high nobility to recruit). In a practical sense, pretty much all the political functions of the head of state are discharged by elected Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese officials, on a rotating basis. The Japanese like to compare the situation to a revival of the Shogunate, only in a democratic form and with the participation of Koreans. And of course, all real political power is in the hands of federal and national parliaments and governments. Even the rotating, multi-national 'shogun' is just a ceremonial figure. Japanese prefectures and Korean provinces also enjoy a good degree of autonomy, although Taiwan is too small for much local devolution. Taiwanese high nobility never existed, before the Japanese took over it was a Chinese province, thus the Japanese could have search forever without any successes. Seems to me the Japanese-Korean-Taiwanese union looks like OTL Austro-Hungarian Empire, i do hoop the the Japanese-Korean-Taiwanese union is more stable than the OTL Austro-Hungarian Empire. Unlike Austria-Hungary, Japan-Korea-Taiwan, or the Western European and Nordic unions for that matter, are genuine liberal democracies and federal unions, with no nationality really lording over any other, although of course different amounts of population and GDP carry different levels of influence. So the post-WWII integration experiments are inherently rather more stable than A-H in normal circumstances. Of course, with WWIII the European and Far Eastern experiments are engaged in a life-or-death struggle with Russo-Chinese imperialism. Defeat means failure, dismemberment, and a grim future as various nation-state clients of Moscow and Beijing. Victory means validation and a bright future as regional great powers or continental superpowers. |
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eurofed
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Post by eurofed on Feb 28, 2017 10:48:22 GMT
A massive mobilization of manpower and economic resources on both sides quickly followed expansion of the war to global dimensions. In the long term, the superior technical know-how and greater industrial base of North America and Western Europe were bound to give a decisive advantage to the Allied coalition. In the brief term, however, the Sino-Russians exploited their own mobilization, their vast manpower resources, and their initial military successes to reap one last impressive swath of victories. The Russians occupied most of Poland, Finland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania, and in cooperation with their Arab and Kurd allies most of Turkey and Persia as well. The Chinese overrun vast swths of Korea, Hokkaido, and Thailand. Both made important inroads in northwestern India in cooperation with Pakistan; however the Himalayas barrier largely protected India from a Chinese offensive coming from Tibet. Israel valiantly fought off and pushed back any offensive attempt of the Arab armies, which were thrown into disarray.
As time went on, however, the Western war effort entirely stopped the Russo-Chinese strategic offensive drive dead in its tracks. Then it started to gradually push them further and further back as the tide shifted and the entire course of the conflict was reversed. Much like it happened during WWII, the Allied air forces gained an increasing superiority in the air war up to a solid strategic and tactical supremacy. They exploited it to harass and damage enemy army concentrations, disrupt their supply network, and support their own offensives. The Russian, Chinese, Arab, and Pakistani logistic networks, industrial centres, resource-extracting areas, and troops concentrations became subject to extensive and relentless Allied strategic bombing. In Eastern Europe, the Allied counter-offensive led to the liberation of Poland, Finland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania. Because of the logistic support of Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece for the Russians, the Allied powers delivered them an ultimatum to drop it and grant free passage to their own forces. When it was ignored, they invaded and occupied the Balkan states.
An Anglo-American-European expeditionary corps landed in Egypt and Levant-Mesopotamia, occupied the Canal Zone, defeated the Arab armies with Israeli support, and pressed on to occupy the Egyptian and UAR major cities. The Allied forces crushed the Arab troops without excessive difficulty, occupied the Egyptian and UAR territory, and overthrew the nationalist regimes. Conquest of Egypt was relatively swift and easy for the Allies since the Egyptians were cut off from Russian aid and the Arab armies were decisively inferior in quality and efficiency to the Western ones. Conquest of the Levant, Mesopotamia, and Arabia was somewhat more difficult and costly for the Allies since the Russians were able to field a considerable amount of their own forces in this theater. But in the end the Allied forces were able to push the Russians back in occupied Anatolia and Persia.
In the Far Eastern theater, a series of Allied land counter-offensives and amphibious landings led to the liberation of Korea, Hokkaido, and Thailand. The Allies gave strategic priority to the European, Middle Eastern, and East Asian theaters, so the South Asian one remained relatively static in comparison to the other ones. The Western powers provided generous support to the Indians, helping them stop the Russo-Chinese-Pakistani offensive drive and gradually re-conquer their lost territory. However they abstained from engaging in major offensive efforts towards Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Subsequently, the Allied strategic offensive gradually pushed the Russians out of the Baltic states, Belarus, Ukraine, Anatolia, western Persia, and southern Caucasus. The Russians tried a series of counteroffensives in Eastern Europe and the Near East, but after some initial successes, their efforts was contained and pushed back. In East Asia, the Allies landed into and overrun Taiwan, Hainan, Sakhalin, Indochina, and Manchuria despite a stubborn Chinese resistance and counter-offensive attempts. The Russians and the Chinese gradually came to face total defeat in the near future as the Allies relentlessly bombed them, pushed them back into their prewar borders, fought their way beyond that, and geared up to invade their core territories. The Western governments refused to talk about any peace terms that did not entail a complete neutralization of the Russian and Chinese war-making potential and removal of their bellicose regimes from power.
Out of growing desperation, the Russian and Chinese leaders tried to force the Allies to a compromise peace by threatening to use their WMD arsenals. They hoped to scare the Allied powers into leniency, although it was a very risky gamble since the Allies had built up a decisive air supremacy and a vast nuclear superiority. Moreover, the Russians and the Chinese only had long-term bombers as a delivery system, unlike the Allies. Once their threats were ignored, the Russians and the Chinese launched a desperate first strike that destroyed about a dozen targets in North America, Europe, India, and the Far East. Fortunately for the Allies, their decisive air superiority enabled them to intercept all the other Russo-Chinese bombers and limit damage. Nonetheless, the Allied nuclear reprisal was inevitable and devastating. The Allied counterstrike destroyed over an hundred targets in Russia, China, and Pakistan, in addition to all the known or suspected sites of their WMD arsenal. Once the conflict escalated to large-scale WMD use, the Allies threatened to continue their nuclear bombing of Russia and China to their utter destruction if the enemy powers did not surrender.
The surviving Russian, Chinese, and Pakistani leaders complied with the Allied ultimatum and WWIII came to an end after three years of fierce fighting. The Allied nuclear strike, on top of their conventional bombing offensive, threw Russia and China into chaos. Nonetheless, Russia had rebuilt itself out of a similar situation after WWII to threaten Eurasia again, and had been the aggressor twice in the last two decades. So the Western leaders decided to spare no efforts to eliminate the threat of Russian revanchism once and for all, despite the huge costs a military occupation and reconstruction of the Russian territories entailed. The Western alliance occupied Russia and made it subject to the same kind of extensive reconstruction, rehabilitation, and re-education program that Europe and Japan-Korea had experienced after WWII. The costs of occupation and reconstruction were burdensome for such a huge area, but the joint effort of America and Europe was able to bear them, and they got the help of Britain, the Dominions, Japan-Korea, and India.
The second defeat at the hands of the Allied powers in a generation demoralized the Russian people and discredited anti-Western nationalism. The outcome of the war promised a slide into failed-state chaos, but the Allied occupation forces were able to contain and reverse it with some effort. Their presence ensured the fairly efficient delivery of a considerable amount of relief aid and later support to reconstruction. This greatly helped counterbalance the destructive effects of the Allied conventional and nuclear bombing and the inevitable resentment it fostered. The Allies prosecuted and punished the Russian war criminals, surviving leaders of the nationalist regime, and key members of the repression apparatus, but treated the Russian civilians and professional military decently. For these reasons, the vast majority of the Russians accepted the outcome of the war in relative good grace as a verdict of history on their cause and collaborated with the Allied occupation authorities. Nevertheless, Russia could not entirely avoid a punitive peace deal.
Finland, Norway, the Baltic states, the South Caucasus Federation, Poland-Ukraine, and Iran recovered their pre-war territories, sometimes with a few important border changes in their favor, such as the Polish-Ukrainian annexation of eastern Belarus and the Don region. Northern Caucasus got partitioned between Ukraine (the northwestern and central portion), Turkey (an exclave encompassing the southwestern area), and Iran (the eastern portion). The Allies expelled pretty much all the Russophile Russian-speakers from these lands to end the threat of Russian irredentism once and for all. The Americans considered an annexation of eastern Siberia on top of Kolyma and Kamchatka they had got after WWII, but ultimately they dropped the idea since they did not want such an extensive land border with Russia. Moreover, the Western powers could obtain pretty much all the economic rights they wanted for the Russian resources thanks to the occupation regime. Afghanistan annexed Tajikistan, but otherwise the Allies allowed Russia to keep the rest of its Central Asian territories. The region had got an extensive deal of Russification after WWII, the native populations historically showed lukewarm support for independence from Russia, and the geographical position of the area between Russia and China made the Western powers skeptical its forced separation from Russia was worth the effort. Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece were perceived by the West and treated as turncoats and defeated enemy states: they got a similar treatment as Russia, although to a less extensive degree.
For China the situation got different: much like Russia, the outcome of the war had triggered a slide into failed-state chaos. In this case, however, a return to the division and disorder of the warlord era proceeded essentially unopposed since the victorious powers were reluctant to engage in large-scale military occupation of the country. They were concerned with the vast size and huge population of China, the fierce nationalist character of its people, and previous failures of would-be conquerors in the modern era. Moreover, they already had their hands full with the occupation and rehabilitation of Russia, reconstruction of the areas damaged by the conflict in Europe and the Far East, demobilization, and a return of their own societies to peacetime conditions. Nevertheless, previous experiences of the 20th century made the Western powers aware of the risk defeated great powers or emergent revisionist polities left too much to their own devices might rebuild themselves, turn rogue, and threaten global security again, no matter how much their present situation looked hopeless. Germany had done it, Russia had done it, the concern was the cycle might happen again in the future with China, the Arab world, or other disgruntled actors.
Few were willing to contemplate the risk of the Western world falling into complacency again and having to fight yet another world war a generation or so down the line, with nuclear proliferation potentially threatening the very survival of civilization. In the end, the Western powers decided to spare themselves the over-extension headache of large-scale occupation and extensive reconstruction of all the defeated enemy powers. However they would commit themselves to establish and protect a new world order that would enforce global security and suppress emergent threats to peace, such as a resurgence of hostile nationalism. In this framework, the Western powers would keep, entrench, and intensify their cooperation and integration to form the cornerstone of the new international order. China proper was spared foreign military occupation – in hindsight, it later got questionable it was the best decision – but its lost almost all its border territories. Tibet got independence under the protection of India and its Western allies. Japan-Korea annexed Hainan, Mongolia, and Manchuria. Almost all the Sinophile Han inhabitants of these areas were expelled to remove a potential source of Chinese irredentism. Hainan was integrated with Taiwan and Manchuria and Mongolia merged to form a few new major territorial units of the East Asian Federation. The Mongols, the Manchu, and the non-Han peoples of Hainan became component nationalities of the EAF, although the new territories also got a considerable amount of Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese settlement over time.
The Western powers allowed China to keep Xinjiang more or less for the same reasons they let Russia keep its own portion of Central Asia. They made an effort to provide generous humanitarian relief to the Chinese, but given the chaotic situation in unoccupied China and the lack of Western forces on the ground, such aid proved to be of overall poor effectiveness and got largely wasted, except to a limited degree for the coastal and border areas. Therefore, after a while, the West largely left China to its own devices, only taking care that its domestic disorder would not become a serious threat for the stability of its neighbors. Indochina mostly reverted to the pre-war political settlement, although all of the region was now firmly under Western influence. Pakistan was partitioned: Afghanistan got the northwestern areas, Iran the Baluchistan province, and India annexed Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Sind, and Bengal.
The outcome of the war and the sorry state of postwar China caused a large influx of Chinese refugees which threatened to flood the rest of East Asia. Japan-Korea largely kept its borders closed to them and as a matter of fact they made an effort to remove the Han from their recently-acquired territories, so most refugees went to Southeast Asia or Siberia. This further heightened the ethnic tensions created by the war in Southeast Asia, eventually leading most states in the region to enact a crackdown of Chinese refugees. Eventually, most of them found their way to the Western states. Much the same way, the war also caused a sizable flow of Eastern European and Russian refugees to Western Europe and North America. This vast immigrant influx caused some serious social and political tensions, out of the usual nativist backlash to immigration spikes but also because of the former enemy status of the Russians and the Chinese. With time, however, resentment toned down and integration of the immigrants proceeded fairly well, mostly thanks to ongoing postwar prosperity and confidence in the Western nations and because the newcomers largely proved loyal, hard-working, and willing to integrate.
In the Middle East, Israel annexed the Sinai peninsula and got a few other favorable border corrections. It came to own Mandatory Palestine, the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights, northwestern Jordan, the east bank of the Jordan Valley, and southern Lebanon up to the Litani River with the blessing of its Western allies. The Suez Canal zone was detached from Egypt and put under international (i.e. Western) administration. Most Arab inhabitants of these areas fled or were expelled. Monarchies were restored in Egypt and the UAK and a mix of Western-leaning officers and conservative Muslims took power as their new ruling elites. The Arab oilfields were returned to control of the Western companies. The humiliating defeat of Baathism in WWIII discredited secular nationalism in the Arab world, but it stoked resentment for Western imperialism in the Middle East. In combination with the authoritarian and corrupt character of the Arab regimes, these conditions created a political vacuum that the rise of Islamism was eventually to fill. Unlike Russia, the Western powers did not really bother trying to enact an extensive reconstruction and reform of Arab societies in their own image.
The decisive defeat the militant Arab regimes and their allies suffered in WWIII, as well as the huge discredit this dealt to ethnic nationalism worldwide, crippled the nationalist insurgency in the Maghreb. This helped the European military crush the rebellion with the help of their American allies in a bitter and brutal armed conflict, and made a compromise possible with the moderate elements of the anti-colonial movement. Despite their military victory, the European governments reluctantly came to realize continuation of the colonial status quo was not sustainable in the long term and would eventually lead to new rebellions. So they negotiated a compromise that allowed Europe to keep a few areas of the Maghreb with an important European settler population and/or special economic or strategic value, which got most of their Arab and Berber inhabitants with questionable political loyalties removed. The rest of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya was merged into a North African Confederation with the Alaouite family at its head that got self-rule but kept a political and economic bond with Europe.
With the progress of European integration, this bond soon got a Pan-European dimension. One of its main manifestations was the establishment of the European Neighborhood Area, a free trade and economic cooperation system between the EU and the NAC that brought a significant amount of industrialization, development, and stability to the Maghreb. European-North African cooperation however maintained strict limits for Arab immigration to Europe even when the EU established free movement of people, since anti-Western Arab nationalism and the influx of Chinese, Russian, and Eastern European refugees made the European leaders wary of uncontrolled Muslim immigration. This policy later got entrenched once the Islamist problem started surfacing.
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Feb 28, 2017 11:03:50 GMT
A massive mobilization of manpower and economic resources on both sides quickly followed expansion of the war to global dimensions. In the long term, the superior technical know-how and greater industrial base of North America and Western Europe were bound to give a decisive advantage to the Allied coalition. In the brief term, however, the Sino-Russians exploited their own mobilization, their vast manpower resources, and their initial military successes to reap one last impressive swath of victories. The Russians occupied most of Poland, Finland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania, and in cooperation with their Arab and Kurd allies most of Turkey and Persia as well. The Chinese overrun northern Korea, Hokkaido, and eastern Thailand. Both made important inroads in northwestern India in cooperation with Pakistani; however the Himalayas barrier largely protected India from a Chinese offensive coming from Tibet. Israel valiantly fought off and efficiently pushed back any offensive attempt of the Arab armies, that were thrown into disarray. As time went on, however, the Western war effort entirely stopped the Russo-Chinese strategic offensive drive dead in its tracks, then gradually shifted to push them further and further back as the whole tide and course of the conflict turned. Much like it had happened during WWII, the Allied air forces gained an increasing superiority in the air war up to a solid strategic and tactical supremacy. They exploited it to harass and damage enemy army concentrations, disrupt their supply network, and support their own offensives. The Russian, Chinese, Arab, and Pakistani logistic networks, industrial centres, resource-extracting areas, and troops concentrations became subject to extensive and relentless Allied strategic bombing. In Eastern Europe, the Allied strategic counter-offensive led to the liberation of Poland, Finland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania. Because of the logistic support of Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece for the Russians, the Allied powers delivered them an ultimatum to grant free passage to their forces. When it was ignored, they invaded and occupied the Balkan states. An Anglo-American-European expeditionary corps landed in Egypt and Levant-Mesopotamia, occupied the Canal Zone, defeated the Arab armies with Israeli support, and pressed on to occupy the Egyptian and UAR major cities. The Allied forces crushed the Arab troops without excessive difficulty, occupied the Egyptian and UAR territory, and overthrew the nationalist regimes. Conquest of Egypt was relatively swift and easy for the Allies since the Egyptians were largely cut off from Russian aid and their armies were decisively inferior in quality and efficiently to the Western ones. Conquest of the Levant, Mesopotamia, and Arabia was somewhat more difficult and costly for the Allies since the Russians were able to field a considerable amount of their own forces in the theater. But in the end the Allied forces were able to pushed the Russians back in occupied Anatolia and Persia. In the Far Eastern theater, a series of Allied land counter-offensives and amphibious landings led to the liberation of northern Korea, Hokkaido, and eastern Thailand. The Allies gave strategic priority to the European, Middle Eastern, and East Asian theaters, so the South Asian one remained relatively static in comparison to the other ones. The Western powers provided generous support to the Indians, helping them stop the Russo-Chinese-Pakistani offensive drive and gradually re-conquer their lost territory. However they abstained from engaging in major offensive efforts towards Afghanistan and Pakistan. Subsequently, the Allied strategic offensive gradually pushed the Russians out of the Baltic states, Belarus, Ukraine, Anatolia, western Persia, and southern Caucasus. The Russians tried a series of counteroffensives in Eastern Europe and the Near East, but after some initial successes, their efforts was contained and pushed back. In East Asia, the Allies landed into and overrun Taiwan, Hainan, Sakhalin, and most of Manchuria despite a stubborn Chinese resistance. The Russians and Chinese came to face total defeat in the near future as the Allies relentlessly bombed them, pushed them back into and fought their way beyond their prewar borders, and geared up to invade their core territories. The Western governments refused to talk about any peace terms that did not entail a complete neutralization of the Russian and Chinese war-making potential and a removal of their bellicose regimes from power. Out of growing desperation, the Russian and Chinese leaders tried to force the Allies to a compromise peace by threatening to use their WMD arsenals. They hoped to scare the Allied powers into leniency, although it was a very risky gamble since the Allies had built up a decisive air supremacy and a vast nuclear superiority. Moreover, the Russians and the Chinese only had long-term bombers as a delivery system, unlike the Allies. Once their threats were ignored, the Russians and the Chinese launched a desperate first strike that destroyed about a dozen targets in North America, Europe, India, and the Far East. Fortunately for the Allies, their vast air superiority enabled them to intercept all the other Russo-Chinese nuclear bombers and contain damage. None the less, the Allied nuclear reprisal was inevitable and devastating. The Allied counterstrike destroyed over an hundred targets in Russia, China, and Pakistan, in addition to all the known or suspected sites of their WMD arsenal. Once the conflict escalated to large-scale WMD use, the Allied governments threatened to continue their nuclear bombing of Russia and China to their utter destruction if the enemy powers did not surrender. The surviving Russian, Chinese, and Pakistani leaders complied with the Allied ultimatum and WWIII came to an end after three years of fierce fighting. The Allied nuclear strike, on top of their conventional bombing offensive, threw Russia and China into chaos. Nonetheless, Russia had rebuilt itself out of a similar situation after WWII to threaten Eurasia again, and had been the aggressor twice in the last two decades. So the Western leaders decided to spare no efforts to eliminate the threat of Russian revanchism once and for all, despite the huge costs a military occupation and reconstruction of the Russian territories entailed. The Western alliance occupied Russia and made it subject to the same kind of extensive reconstruction, rehabilitation, and re-education program that Europe and Japan-Korea had experienced after WWII. The costs of occupation and reconstruction for such a huge area, but the joint efforts of America and Europe were able to bear them with the cooperation of Britain, the Dominions, Japan-Korea, and India. The second defeat at the hands of the Allied powers in a generation demoralized the Russian people and discredited anti-Western nationalism. The outcome of the war promised a slide into failed-state chaos, but the Allied occupation forces were able to contain and reverse it with some effort. Their presence ensured the delivery and fairly efficient amount of a considerable deal of relief aid and eventually support to reconstruction which helped counterbalance the destructive effects of the Allied conventional and nuclear bombing and the inevitable resentment they fostered. The Allies prosecuted and punished the surviving leaders of the nationalist regime and the Russian war criminals and member of the repression apparatus, but treated the Russian civilians and professional military decently. For these reasons, the vast majority of the Russians accepted the outcome of the war in relative good grace as a verdict of history on their cause and collaborated with the Allied occupation authorities. Nevertheless, Russia could not entirely avoid a punitive peace deal. Finland, Norway, the Baltic states, the South Caucasus Federation, Poland-Ukraine, and Iran recovered their pre-war territories with a few important border changes in their favor, such as the Polish-Ukrainian annexation of eastern Belarus and the Don region. Northern Caucasus got partitioned between Ukraine (the northwestern and central portion), Turkey (an exclave including the southwestern area), and Iran (the eastern portions). The Allies expelled pretty much all Russophile Russian-speakers from these lands to end the threat of Russian ethnic irredentism once and for all. The Americans considered an annexation of eastern Siberia on top of Kolyma and Kamchatka they had got after WWII, but ultimately they dropped the idea since they did not want such an extensive land border with Russia and they could obtain pretty much all the economic rights they wanted thanks to the occupation regime. Afghanistan annexed Tajikistan, but otherwise the Allies allowed Russia to keep the rest of its Central Asian territories. The region had got an extensive deal of Russification after WWII, the native populations historically showed lukewarm support for independence from Russia, and the geographical position of the region between Russia and China made the Western powers skeptical about the strategic value of its separation from Russia. The Balkan states of Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece were perceived by the West and treated as defeated enemy states: they got a similar treatment as Russia, although to a less extensive degree. For China the situation got rather different: much like Russia, the outcome of the war had triggered a slide into failed-state chaos. In this case, however, a return to the division and disorder of the warlord era proceeded essentially unopposed since the victorious powers were rather hesitant to engage in large-scale military occupation of the country. They were concerned with the vast size and huge population of China, the fierce nationalist character of its people, and previous experiences of failure of would-be conquerors in the modern era. Moreover, they already had their hands full with the occupation and rehabilitation of Russia, reconstruction of the areas damaged by the conflict, demobilization, and the return of their own economies and societies to peacetime conditions. Nevertheless, previous experiences of the 20th century made the Western powers quite aware of the risk a defeated great power or other emergent revisionist polities left to their own devices too much and too long might rebuild themselves, turn rogue, and threaten world security again, no matter how much their present situation looked hopeless. Germany had done it, Russia had done it, the concern was the cycle might happen again with China or more hypothetically other disgruntled actors such as the Arab world. Few were willing to contemplate the risk of the Western world falling into complacency and being forced to fight yet another world war a generation or so down the line, with potential nuclear proliferation putting the very survival of civilization at risk. In the end, the Western powers decided to spare themselves the overextension headache of a large-scale occupation and extensive reconstruction of all the defeated enemy powers. However they would commit themselves to establish and protect a new world order that would enforce global security and suppress emergent threats to peace, such as a resurgence of hostile nationalism. In this framework, the Western powers would keep and entrench their cooperation and integration as the core, pillar, and leader of the new international order. China proper was spared foreign military occupation – in hindsight, it was hard to tell whether it turned out a blessing or a curse – but its lost almost all its border territories. Tibet got independence under the protection of India and its Western allies. Japan-Korea annexed Hainan, Mongolia, and Manchuria. Almost all the Sinophile Han inhabitants of these areas were expelled to remove a potential source of Chinese irredentism. Hainan was integrated with Taiwan, and Manchuria and Mongolia merged, to form new major territorial components of the East Asian Federation. The Mongols, Manchu, and the non-Han minorities of Hainan became new component nationalities of the EAF, although both new regions got a considerable amount of Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese immigration and settlement over time. The Western powers allowed China to keep Xinjiang more or less for the same reasons they let Russia keep its own portion of Central Asia. They did made an effort to provide humanitarian relief to the Chinese, but given the chaotic situation in unoccupied China and the lack of Western forces on the ground, such aid proved to be of poor effectiveness and got largely wasted, except to a limited degree in a few coastal and border areas. Therefore, after a while, the West largely left China to its own devices, only taking care that its domestic disorder would not become a serious threat for the stability of its neighbors. Indochina mostly reverted out to the pre-war political settlement, although all of the region was now firmly under Western influence. Pakistan was partitioned: Afghanistan got the northwestern areas, Iran the Baluchistan province, and India annexed Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Sind, and Bengal. The outcome of the war and the sorry state of postwar China caused a large influx of Chinese refugees which threaten to flood the rest of East Asia. Japan-Korea mostly kept its borders flat-out shut to them – as a matter of fact they kicked out the Han out of their recently-conquered territories - so most refugees went to Southeast Asia or Siberia. This further heightened the ethnic tensions created by the war, eventually leading most local governments to enact a crackdown of the Chinese refugees. Eventually, most refugees found their way to the Western states. Much the same way if perhaps to a slightly lesser scale, the war caused a sizable flow of Eastern European and Russian refugees to Western Europe and North America. This immigrant influx caused some serious socio-political backlash, also because of the former enemy role of the Russians and Chinese. With time, however, it died out and integration of the immigrants proceeded fairly well, mostly thanks to ongoing postwar prosperity and confidence in the Western nations and because the newcomers largely proved loyal, hard-working, and willing to integrate. In the Middle East, Israel annexed the Sinai peninsula and got a few other favorable border corrections. It came to own Mandatory Palestine, the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights, northwestern Jordan, the east bank of the Jordan Valley, and southern Lebanon up to the Litani River with the blessing of the Western powers. Most Arab inhabitants of these areas fled or were expelled. The Suez Canal zone was detached from Egypt and put under international (i.e. Western) administration. Monarchies were restored in Egypt and the UAK and a mix of Western-leaning officers and conservative Muslims took power as their new ruling elites. The Arab oilfields were returned to control of the Western companies. The humiliating defeat of Baathism in WWIII discredited secular nationalism in the Arab world, but it stoked resentment for Western imperialism in the Middle East. In combination with the authoritarian and corrupt character of the Arab regimes, these conditions created a political vacuum that the rise of Islamism was eventually to fill. The decisive defeat the militant Arab regimes and their allies suffered in WWIII, as well as the huge discredit this dealt to ethnic nationalism worldwide crippled the nationalist insurgency in the Maghreb. This helped the EDC military crush the rebellion with the help of their Western allies in a bitter and brutal armed conflict, making a compromise possible with the moderate elements of the anti-colonial movement. Despite their military victory, the European governments reluctantly came to realize continuation of the colonial status quo was not sustainable in the long term and would eventually lead to new rebellions. So they negotiated a compromise that allowed the European states - and eventually, the EU - to keep various coastal cities and districts of the Maghreb with a significant European settler population and/or a special economic or strategic value. The rest of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya was merged into a North African Confederation with the Alaouite family at its head that got self-rule but kept a political and economic bond with Europe. With the progress of European integration, this bond soon got a Pan-European dimension. One of its main manifestations was the establishment of the European Neighborhood Area, a free trade and economic cooperation system between the EU and the NAC that brought a significant amount of industrialization, development, and stability to the Maghreb. European-North African cooperation however maintained strict limits for Arab immigration to Europe even when the EU established free movement of people, since anti-Western Arab nationalism and the influx of Chinese, Russian, and Eastern European refugees made the European leaders wary of uncontrolled Muslim immigration. This policy later got entrenched once the Islamism problem started surfacing. Nice to see a update. So World War III is over, now they will most likely get ready fore World War IV. |
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doug181
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Post by doug181 on Feb 28, 2017 11:25:54 GMT
Nice timeline
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eurofed
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Post by eurofed on Feb 28, 2017 13:10:07 GMT
I apologize for not being able to write them any quicker.  Yep, WWIII was a relatively quick affair as these things usually go (about three years, tentatively I'm going for 1962-65) and luckily the world was able to weather the ordeal with only a relatively limited amount of nuclear devastation. However its after-effects are going to be as influential for the world as the ones of WWII, in their own way. WWIV is of course theoretically quite possible by the late 20th century; the most likely candidates for the enemy role would of course be a resurgent, revanchist China and/or Muslim world. India pulling a TTL China and experiencing serious estrangement from the West to rogue levels is possible as well, although less likely. The most serious issue for this scenario is it would take a very special, outlandish level of fanaticism and craziness for any revisionist power to think they have a fighting chance with the West. Basically speaking, Al-Quaeda/ISIS level of crazy. Moreover, the Western world is not going to let itself fall into complacency and isolationism once again. After the lesson of WWIII, the party line is going to be internationalism, globalism, and super-NATO acting as world policeman more or less all the time. These are reasons why if some kind of WWIV actually takes place a generation or so down the line, it might well be some expanded, intensified equivalent of the War on Terror rather than an old-school conventional conflict, with religious extremism as the next major enemy, now that ethnic nationalism had its chance in the field and was crushed and discredited just like fascism and communism. The seeds for Islamism to grow and become a major headache exist ITTL as well. It is also entirely possible postwar China eventually comes out of its Mad Max phase with some kind of North Korea/ISIS-style radicals on top. Anyway, whichever the scenario, the Western world is going to be quite well-prepared to face it, since it is going to include the team-up of a North American-Oceanian USA, a Pan-European federal EU, a Far Eastern Japan-Korea, and a reformed Russia (going to get the Axis powers treatment and be rebuilt in the West's image after WWIII; two utter defeats in a row are too much even for Russian nationalist pride and entitlement to survive). India may or may not stay friendly to the West but the possibility certainly exists. And after the experience of the last conflict, standing policy for the West is going to be curbstomping anyone that dares looking like a rogue. Especially as it concerns nuclear proliferation; after the way WWIII ended, global-NATO is going to be absolutely paranoid about WMD in the hands of hostile agents and bomb any would-be equivalent of OTL Iran or North Korea into the Middle Ages if they are lucky. |
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Feb 28, 2017 13:15:22 GMT
I apologize for not being able to write them any quicker. No apologies needed, any update is a good update. Yep, WWIII was a relatively quick affair as these things usually go (about three years, tentatively I'm going for 1962-65) and luckily the world was able to weather the ordeal with only a relatively limited amount of nuclear devastation. However its after-effects are going to be as influential for the world as the ones of WWII, in their own way. WWIV is of course theoretically quite possible by the late 20th century; the most likely candidates for the enemy role would of course be a resurgent, revanchist China and/or Muslim world. India pulling a TTL China and experiencing serious estrangement from the West to rogue levels is possible as well, although less likely. The most serious issue for this scenario is it would take a very special, outlandish level of fanaticism and craziness for any revisionist power to think they have a fighting chance with the West. Basically speaking, Al-Quaeda/ISIS level of crazy. Moreover, the Western world is not going to let itself fall into complacency and isolationism once again. After the lesson of WWIII, the party line is going to be internationalism, globalism, and super-NATO acting as world policeman more or less all the time. These are reasons why if some kind of WWIV actually takes place a generation or so down the line, it might well be some expanded, intensified equivalent of the War on Terror rather than an old-school conventional conflict, with religious extremism as the next major enemy, now that ethnic nationalism had its chance in the field and was crushed and discredited just like fascism and communism. The seeds for Islamism to grow and become a major headache exist ITTL as well. It is also entirely possible postwar China eventually comes out of its Mad Max phase with some kind of North Korea/ISIS-style radicals on top. Anyway, whichever the scenario, the Western world is going to be quite well-prepared to face it, since it is going to include the team-up of a North American-Oceanian USA, a Pan-European federal EU, a Far Eastern Japan-Korea, and a reformed Russia (going to get the Axis powers treatment and be rebuilt in the West's image after WWIII; two utter defeats in a row are too much even for Russian nationalist pride and entitlement to survive). India may or may not stay friendly to the West but the possibility certainly exists. And after the experience of the last conflict, standing policy for the West is going to be curbstomping anyone that dares looking like a rogue. Especially as it concerns nuclear proliferation; after the way WWIII ended, global-NATO is going to be absolutely paranoid about WMD in the hands of hostile agents and bomb any would-be equivalent of OTL Iran or North Korea into the Middle Ages if they are lucky. So the world is not stable even with the end of World War III. |
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eurofed
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Post by eurofed on Feb 28, 2017 15:06:26 GMT
So the world is not stable even with the end of World War III. Not necessarily, or even likely. I was just following your input about a potential WWIV and discussing how anything remotely resembling it might possibly take place in this scenario, and why any agent going for it must necessarily be ISIS level of crazy. This doesn't mean serious global instability is going to be likely in any way. Chances are, after this war the Western world is going to be so much stronger and more united than OTL that any kind of organized challenge by rational actors is defused, irrational threats (such as any equivalent of Islamism) are decisively stomped out, and impersonal challenges (such as environmental damage or financial instability) are efficiently dealt with. WWIII has been a mighty boost towards internationalism and supranational cooperation while it discredited nationalism more or less the same way WWII did with fascism and communism. The likes of Trump, Le Pen, Putin, or Orban coming any close to mainstream relevance, much less elected office, anywhere in the developed world are negligible for the foreseeable future. Also because one long-term effect of the war is globalization is going to be a more managed affair when it occurs, the Keynesian consensus and post-WWII prosperity are going to stay into place at least for another generation, quite possibly two, and predatory finance is not going to have a real chance at screwing the Western middle class. Moreover, the 1960s-70s social changes are still going to occur as part of postwar readjustment, but in a way much less polarizing and antagonistic to the system, since WWIII has been any bit the same validating, unifying, righteous 'just war' experience for the Western world as WWII. The war crushed Russian revanchism for all time, and paved the way to co-opt a reformed Russia into the Western camp, although they are going to be the junior great power equal of Japan-Korea rather than the US or EU superpowers in the pecking order for the foreseeable future. The four of them bound in a super-NATO (once America and Europe inevitably absorb the remnants of the British Empire) is going to pack a helluva lot of political, economic, and military power to deal with global threats. Even if it is entirely possible an equivalent of Islamist terrorism arises ITTL, and the radicals are the only ones fanatical enough to challenge the West again after it curbstomped Russia and China, it does not mean the equivalent of the War on Terror is not going to turn out differently, with global NATO efficiently and ruthlessly stomping out the terrorists across the world. And even if China comes out of its new warlord era with some kind of Kim dynasty nutjob in charge, they may well be so weak in comparison to the all-powerful West that they are bound to resentful isolationism, or otherwise they get utterly crushed in a short time. It might go various ways for the Chinese, but the war pretty much ended their realistic chances of getting any close to their OTL power level until well into the 21st century at best. And God help anyone trying to get WMD that the Western powers do not trust as much as themselves. Chances are, WWIII ushers in a long era of relative peace, prosperity, and stability (at least within the ever-expanding borders of the developed/newly-industrialized world) OTL would envy, and the Western superpowers eventually lead mankind into the stars, even if it sucks being Chinese, Arab, or African. |
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Mar 1, 2017 16:03:26 GMT
So the world is not stable even with the end of World War III. And even if China comes out of its new warlord era with some kind of Kim dynasty nutjob in charge, they may well be so weak in comparison to the all-powerful West that they are bound to resentful isolationism, A China with a Kim dynasty nutjob in charge, that is not a place i would want to live in, North Korea already has thousands in labor camps, imaged what it would look like in a China version. |
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eurofed
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Post by eurofed on Mar 2, 2017 9:40:44 GMT
And even if China comes out of its new warlord era with some kind of Kim dynasty nutjob in charge, they may well be so weak in comparison to the all-powerful West that they are bound to resentful isolationism, A China with a Kim dynasty nutjob in charge, that is not a place i would want to live in, North Korea already has thousands in labor camps, imaged what it would look like in a China version. Indeed. A China under a Kim dynasty regime in all likelihood would not be much different from a continuation of Maoism at its worst, as it might have happened IOTL if the Gang of Four instead of Deng had taken over after Mao. Now, I am skeptical a regime that kind of inefficient and repressive could survive as long as the North Korean and Burmese ones have been, in a country as vast as China and w/o the external support NK has enjoyed. As it concerns TTL China, unfortunately postwar circumstances are not much favorable to the rise of good government, so I expect they are in for another generation of suffering, although the tragedy would likely end by the turn of the millennium. The endgame may vary between the regime falling to economic collapse and revolution, it somehow overstepping its bounds in looking enough of a security threat to global NATO and being swiftly crushed on the battlefield, the West tiring out of having an hellhole on its borders and resorting to humanitarian intervention, or a mix of the above. As it concerns the ideological trappings such a regime may take, TTL has been following a loose pattern of the West fighting and overcoming a sequence of hostile challenges, such as classical totalitarianism in all its variants and aggressive ethno-nationalism, enlarging its boundaries by co-opting reformed enemies and getting stronger and more united in the process. I think the next (and last) iteration of the cycle by the end of the century may well be religious extremism (by analogy with OTL and because the other obvious alternatives have been already defeated and discredited), or more properly speaking a combination of that and the impersonal challenges coming from the Western model's very success, such as an energy crisis and environmental trouble arsing from industrialization and affluence spreading across the world and overuse of fossil fuels, as well as instability in the Muslim world. Of course such extremism is going to take the familiar trappings of Islamism in the Arab/Muslim world, but those are not fitting for China. Nonetheless, the Chinese have their own tradition of religious nutjobs (cfr. the Boxers or the Taiping), so the regime that takes over in such desperate times may well be something cult-like of that kind. Differently from previous iterations of the cycle, however, the final one may well not involve a conventional world war in the classical sense, since the power unbalance between the West and its enemies would be far too great - any global-NATO conventional military action against Islamist entities, theocratic China, or both is likely to last weeks or months at most and be a total wipeout, although occupation, pacification, reconstruction, and eradication of the extremists may well last much longer, quite possibly even a decade or two (in all likelihood rather more for the Muslim lands than for China). With this turn of events China should get integrated in the Western system at last, although they are going to be the weakest and least developed of the great powers until well into the 21st century. |
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Mar 2, 2017 16:24:41 GMT
A China with a Kim dynasty nutjob in charge, that is not a place i would want to live in, North Korea already has thousands in labor camps, imaged what it would look like in a China version. Indeed. A China under a Kim dynasty regime in all likelihood would not be much different from a continuation of Maoism at its worst, as it might have happened IOTL if the Gang of Four instead of Deng had taken over after Mao. Now, I am skeptical a regime that kind of inefficient and repressive could survive as long as the North Korean and Burmese ones have been, in a country as vast as China and w/o the external support NK has enjoyed. As it concerns TTL China, unfortunately postwar circumstances are not much favorable to the rise of good government, so I expect they are in for another generation of suffering, although the tragedy would likely end by the turn of the millennium. The endgame may vary between the regime falling to economic collapse and revolution, it somehow overstepping its bounds in looking enough of a security threat to global NATO and being swiftly crushed on the battlefield, the West tiring out of having an hellhole on its borders and resorting to humanitarian intervention, or a mix of the above. As it concerns the ideological trappings such a regime may take, TTL has been following a loose pattern of the West fighting and overcoming a sequence of hostile challenges, such as classical totalitarianism in all its variants and aggressive ethno-nationalism, enlarging its boundaries by co-opting reformed enemies and getting stronger and more united in the process. Well so this China under a Kim dynasty regime, is it a imperial dynasty with them being emperors like those of old China ore a big version of North Korea of OTL. |
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eurofed
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Post by eurofed on Mar 2, 2017 16:55:02 GMT
Indeed. A China under a Kim dynasty regime in all likelihood would not be much different from a continuation of Maoism at its worst, as it might have happened IOTL if the Gang of Four instead of Deng had taken over after Mao. Now, I am skeptical a regime that kind of inefficient and repressive could survive as long as the North Korean and Burmese ones have been, in a country as vast as China and w/o the external support NK has enjoyed. As it concerns TTL China, unfortunately postwar circumstances are not much favorable to the rise of good government, so I expect they are in for another generation of suffering, although the tragedy would likely end by the turn of the millennium. The endgame may vary between the regime falling to economic collapse and revolution, it somehow overstepping its bounds in looking enough of a security threat to global NATO and being swiftly crushed on the battlefield, the West tiring out of having an hellhole on its borders and resorting to humanitarian intervention, or a mix of the above. As it concerns the ideological trappings such a regime may take, TTL has been following a loose pattern of the West fighting and overcoming a sequence of hostile challenges, such as classical totalitarianism in all its variants and aggressive ethno-nationalism, enlarging its boundaries by co-opting reformed enemies and getting stronger and more united in the process. Well so this China under a Kim dynasty regime, is it a imperial dynasty with them being emperors like those of old China ore a big version of North Korea of OTL. Well, I am using 'Kim dynasty' in a loose sense, since the ideology is going to be very different, and the regime is probably not gonna stay in power long enough to be a dynasty (unless perhaps the charismatic founding leader dies early enough, which is quite possible). I'm thinking of something like a modernized analogue of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, one of the many militant sects the Chinese like to form in times of crisis shaping its ideology around some odd syncretic mix of Abrahamic and Chinese folk religion, seizing power across China in the postwar chaos by sheer fanaticism, and establishing a theocratic imperial regime. Very broadly speaking, ISIS with a mix of Daoism and heretical Christianity (or less likely Islam) instead of Islamism, but more isolationist and w/o an overwhelming apocalyptic drive to pick a fight to the death with the rest of the world by terrorism and conquest (at least at the beginning). Since the original Taiping model established a theocratic monarchy, I suppose this analogue is going to as well. The exact grandiose title its Pope-Emperor dictator is going to use may vary (East Asian cultures may be very extravagant and ornate about this kind of thing, but I lack that kind of creativity with names). I suppose something like "Heavenly Emperor" would suffice for our purposes. |
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Mar 2, 2017 17:03:22 GMT
Well so this China under a Kim dynasty regime, is it a imperial dynasty with them being emperors like those of old China ore a big version of North Korea of OTL. Well, I am using 'Kim dynasty' in a loose sense, since the ideology is going to be very different, and the regime is not gonna stay in power long enough to be a dynasty (unless perhaps the charismatic founding leader dies early enough, which is quite possible). I'm thinking of something like a modernized analogue of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, one of the many militant sects the Chinese like to form in times of crisis shaping its ideology around some odd syncretic mix of Abrahamic and Chinese folk religion, seizing power across China in the postwar chaos by sheer fanaticism, and establishing a theocratic regime. Very broadly speaking, ISIS with a mix of Daoism and heretical Christianity (or less likely Islam) instead of Islamism, but more isolationist and w/o the apocalyptic drive to pick a fight with the rest of the world by terrorism and conquest (at least at the beginning). Since the original Taiping model established a theocratic monarchy, I suppose this analogue is going to as well. That China sound like hell on Earth. |
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