Another turn of the millennium

[eurofed]

The main theme of this scenario, if it has one, is the Western world being a little more successful, but also experiencing bigger challenges, in the post-Cold War period. Original inspiration was to pick a TL where the course that led the UK to Brexit was reversed. From that it came natural to add other changes that made the EU and the West as a whole a bit more successful in the last 25 years, and then a few more butterflies that seemed appropriate or just interesting. The PoD is in the early 1990s; it is not so blatant or easily identifiable, apart from picking the first significant noteworthy divergence that comes to mind.

ITTL the Clinton Administration thanks to a better negotiation stance with the Congress was able to have a health reform scheme passed in 1993-94. Although imperfect and suboptimal, it laid down the groundwork for a set of improvements roughly similar to OTL Obamacare. Its benefits soon got popular enough with the American public to make the bulk of the system resistant to all subsequent Republican attempts to dismantle it, in a very similar way to Medicare-Medicaid and Social Security.

In Europe, a mediocre campaign of Euroskeptic parties led to Norway approving admission to the European Union in the 1994 referendum. The post-Yugoslav wars initially took place rather like OTL, but eventually escalated to a Serb invasion of Albania and Macedonia with the involvement of Hungary and Bulgaria. NATO intervened to suppress Serb expansionist rampage and human rights violations with a bombing campaign and eventually the invasion and occupation of Serbia. Russia was displeased with the outcome but at the time it was too weak to intervene. However the perceived setback in the Balkans stoked up Russian revanchist-nationalist urges down the line.

The peace deal gave Kosovo to Albania, Macedonia to Bulgaria, and northern Vojvodina to Hungary. It divided Bosnia between a Serb area that merged with Serbia and a Croat-Muslim zone that formed a confederation with Croatia. The Western powers quietly acquiesced to a population transfer that exchanged the vast majority of the Serb and Croat-Muslim minorities between Serbia and Croatia-Bosnia.

Since he was too busy and distracted by domestic and foreign policy issues, President Clinton never had an affair with a White House intern and his Administration remained relatively free from scandals and remarkably popular. As a result, VP Gore won the 2000 election without much effort. Islamist terrorism soon afterwards made itself known as a major global threat with an attack wave that claimed the lives of several thousand people in North America and Europe. An outraged USA led an equally pissed-off NATO in a concerted effort to eradicate Jihadist havens in Afghanistan and the border regions of Pakistan. However it avoided picking fights with Iraq, which it left stew in its post-Gulf War issues.

In the mid 2000s, America instead found itself involved in a different kind of conflict in East Asia. North Korea showed itself unwilling to make any real compromise about its nuclear program. The Americans eventually lost patience and bombed the known North Korean WMD sites. The NK leadership lost it and retaliated with a large-scale air and land attack against South Korea, Japan, and US bases in the region. The US, South Korean, and Japanese armed forces contained the NK offensive, invaded North Korea, and occupied it. Hasty negotiations with China led to a compromise deal: the USA renounced deploying forces above the 40th parallel north and the neck of the Korean Peninsula, the PRC agreed to reunification of Korea under South Korean leadership.

The Serb and North Korean leaders were prosecuted, tried, and sentenced to harsh prison terms by international tribunals for various acts of genocide or extensive human rights violations against their own population. No controversial equivalent of the Iraq War ever took place and Western public opinion largely came to regard the military interventions in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and East Asia as justifiable and popular ‘just wars’. Even ongoing global action against Jihadist terrorism kept solid political support. As a consequence the Labour government in the UK kept its political capital intact for longer.

It eventually decided to invest it in a massive political effort to bring Britain in the Eurozone during the early 2000. After a passionate national debate the British people narrowly approved the euro in a referendum. The British example created enough of a pro-European momentum that similar referendums also approved admission to the Eurozone of Denmark and Sweden. In a similar way, the political atmosphere created by these successes supported ratification of the European Constitution treaty which took place across the EU by referendum or parliamentary approval without excessive trouble. This created a lingering, widespread perception popular will supported European integration.

The Gore Administration was successful enough in its domestic and foreign policy agenda to get reelected in 2004, but incumbent fatigue and a declining economy allowed the Republicans to win in 2008. This however proved to be a poisoned fruit since recession exploded in full force in the following years, only getting worsened by the GOP economic policies. This in turn allowed the Democrats to win back the White House in 2012. They started implementing their liberal economic agenda with an economic relief package, further health care reform to transition to a single-payer system, and various measures to reduce economic inequality, student debt, and dependence on fossil fuels.

When recession hit Europe and stirred up latent economic and financial problems, European integration kept enough momentum and popular support from its previous successes that intensification of supranational cooperation became the main answer to the crisis and rising foreign threats. The Western European ‘core’ of the EU (France, Benelux, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, Portugal) agreed to form a quasi-federal nucleus of the union with fiscal, military, and foreign-policy integration as well as extensive judicial, police, and intelligence cooperation.

The Central European nations (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary) and the Baltic states gradually oriented their policies to join the euro and the EU core despite some nationalist misgivings, out of a perceived overwhelming need for stability and protection from the resurgent Russian threat. UK, Ireland, and the Scandinavian nations opted out of this closer bond but remained tied to the ‘basic’ EU system, including in most cases the euro and the Schengen system. Sweden and Finland eventually changed their stance and chose to pursue full integration with the core out of their security concerns.

Britain instead picked to retain a looser bond with the continent, which included the Euro and OTL levels of integration but not the Schengen system. Despite some serious pressure of the Euro-skeptic right and tabloid press to disentangle the UK from the EU, the majority of the British public remained content with this status quo, since the alternative was perceived as too risky and troublesome. Iceland, Slovenia, Croatia-Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Romania, Bulgaria, Malta, and Cyprus also gradually joined the ‘outer ring’ of the EU; a few of them also showed interest for joining the core but in many cases their socio-economic and political standards made them unfit in the immediate future. Greece was kept in the same status because of its lingering financial problems. Slovenia, Malta, and Croatia-Bosnia were the lucky exceptions, being both willing and able.

[eurofed]

Unfortunately, the success and gradual enlargement of the EU and NATO in Eastern Europe increased the nationalist resentment and geopolitical paranoia of Russia that lingered since the collapse of the USSR. After the economic and political chaos of the 1990s, Russia gradually restored internal order under an authoritarian nationalist regime backed by the post-Soviet security apparatus and crony, oligarchic business elites. The new regime exploited revenues from fossil-fuel and other natural resources to rebuild a measure of economic stability and military power for Russia, even if it remained remarkably inferior to the West in both areas.

The Russian leaders invested these resources in an aggressive foreign-policy agenda to re-establish Moscow’s hegemony across the post-Soviet space and Russia’s global stance as a would-be superpower. The first serious manifestations of renewed Russian imperialist aggressiveness involved a series of military interventions, destabilization efforts, sponsored coups and regime changes, and diplomatic pressures that brought Belarus and most of the Caucasus and Central Asian states effectively back under the control of Moscow. An Eurasian system of Russian-dominated regional organizations for economic and military cooperation became the tool of this de facto neo-Soviet restoration.

Ukraine however stubbornly resisted all Russian attempts to pull it back in Moscow’s sphere of influence and clung to a non-aligned stance. This only increased when a liberal-democratic revolution brought down the local oligarchic regime and the new government showed intent to seek a closer bond with the EU. Russia first reacted by sponsoring a pro-Russian uprising in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. When the Ukrainian government’s reaction threatened to crush the rebels it escalated the conflict by invading and occupying Crimea, Eastern Ukraine, and the eastern half of Southern Ukraine.

The Russians easily defeated the Ukrainian army and annexed the conquered areas with a series of rigged referendums. An insurgency to oppose them quickly developed and was brutally repressed by Russian forces. The Western governments reacted by placing Russia under harsh economic sanctions that amounted to an effective embargo and severed most relations. They sent weapons and training support to the Ukrainians and warned Moscow that Russian occupation of Western and Central Ukraine, or a crossing of the Dnieper, might cause a NATO military intervention.

Overt Russian aggression of its neighbors revived Cold War-style polarization between Moscow and the West. It fuelled EU efforts to intensify their military and economic integration and make Europe independent from Russian energy sources. Finland and Sweden joined NATO, Moldova merged with Romania, Transnistria was partitioned between Romania and Ukraine. As a rule, the Russian threat made Scandinavia and Eastern Europe much less concerned about nationalist issues and much more supportive of extensive economic, political, and military integration with the Western European core.

An uneasy armistice put a stop to the armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia, although a pro-Ukrainian insurgency continued in the occupied eastern regions. Rump Ukraine got on a fast track to NATO and EU membership; the Western governments clarified collective-security guarantees of these organizations only covered the postwar territory of Ukraine, not the areas conquered by Russia. Further acts of Russian aggression or destabilization in Eastern Europe, especially against a NATO or EU member state, however would be answered by decisive retaliation. The Western powers engaged in a serious concerted effort to reinforce armed defense on the eastern border of their bloc, and Russia answered in kind with a military build-up of its own.

A further major source of global destabilization arose with the Arab Turmoil, a revolutionary wave that swept the Middle East. Initially it seemed to take the shape of a pro-democracy movement; in most cases however it soon degenerated into a confusing, bloody mess of ethnic-religious conflicts and factional struggles between Islamist radicals, militarist authoritarians, monarchist conservatives, and pro-Western moderates and liberals. Such instability greatly revived the threat of Jihadist terrorism. A notable exception to this disheartening pattern occurred in Iran. The coincidence of a succession struggle for the supreme guide that split the Islamist elites and a presidential election contested as rigged by a vast popular movement created a prerevolutionary situation.

It exploded into a civil war between reformist moderates and pro-democracy liberals backed by the majority of the regular army and Islamist hardliners backed by the revolutionary guards. The reformist moderates and revolutionary liberals were able to win thanks to Western support and widespread alienation of younger Iranians for the Islamist regime. The Western powers avoided a land intervention but provided arms, training, intelligence, and air support to the revolutionaries. Their victory transformed Iran into a pro-Western democratic republic. Liberal reformists were too weak to get the upper hand in Algeria and Egypt, so the Western powers turned to support military strongmen in their efforts to crush the Islamists. The West helped their regimes stabilize with economic and military support.

Libya seriously threatened to collapse in failed-state chaos after the collapse of the Qaddafi regime, but NATO intervention helped a pro-Western coalition of tribal and militia groups seize power and restore order. Tunisia was able to stabilize under a democratic regime. In the Persian Gulf states, Morocco, and Jordan the traditional monarchies remained popular or influential enough to retain their grip on power, although in many cases a notable pressure for democratization emerged. Turkey devolved into an Islamic-nationalist authoritarian regime that established a dictatorship and largely disentangled the country from its ties with the West. It pursued a neo-Ottoman foreign policy agenda in the Middle East and picked an ambiguous, opportunist stance between the Western world and Russia.

In Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia the situation got much worse and these states effectively broke down when the Baathist regimes and the Saudi monarchy collapsed to civil war. Ethnic-religious conflicts, a confusing multi-faction struggle, the ambiguous role of Turkey, and the meddling of Russia fuelled the failed-state collapse in the Mashriq and Arabia and prevented the Western powers from a decisive action to stabilize the situation. Only after much chaos and bloodshed a few areas of relative stability emerged, such as a pro-Russian Alawite entity on the Syrian coast, a pro-Iranian Shiite polity that encompassed southern Iraq and eastern Arabia, and a pro-Western multi-ethnic federation dominated by Kurds that included the northern regions of Syria and Iraq.

Other areas such as central-eastern Syria, western-central Iraq, and western-central Arabia unfortunately became the playground of Jihadist extremists that engaged in a serious effort to establish an Islamist proto-state (in their pretensions, a revival of the Caliphate). It soon became a major staging ground for atrocities and haven for global terrorism. The Jihadist entity brutally abused its subjects and sponsored random terrorist attacks against civilians. It made itself an enemy of anyone that did not fit its fundamentalist, sectarian vision of Islam and did not submit to its totalitarian agenda, so it quickly made itself a most hated and feared pariah.

The rise of the Jihadist proto-state greatly increased instability and bloodshed in the Middle East, and the global terrorism wave it sponsored claimed many victims. So the great powers and the other regional actors in the Muslim world more or less agreed on an action to weaken and destroy the rogue entity. Their means included a bombing offensive, support to friendly militias, and a military intervention by Muslim states to seize control of the Islamic holy sites. This action gradually showed promise, even if disunity and conflicting interests of the Western powers and Russia, Muslim regional powers, and local militia groups made it unfold more slowly and painfully than it could have been.

Because of polarization with Russia and instability in the Middle East, not to mention increasing awareness of the climate-change threat, the Western world joined in a concerted effort to lessen its dependence from fossil-fuel energy sources, especially from potentially hostile or politically instable states. As a rule, the Western powers were able to adapt and cope with some serious effort; the situation in the Middle East and the looming tension with Russia made the necessity of a different energy policy self-evident to many, albeit with some significant hardship and complaints.

[lordroel]

Jun 27, 2017 16:02:52 GMT eurofed said:

The Serb and North Korean leaders were prosecuted, tried, and sentenced to harsh prison terms by international tribunals for various acts of genocide or extensive human rights violations against their own population. No controversial equivalent of the Iraq War ever took place and Western public opinion largely came to regard the military interventions in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and East Asia as justifiable and popular ‘just wars’. As a consequence the Labour government in the UK kept its political capital intact for longer.

Would those trails be held in the Netherlands city of Den Hague, capital of justice.

[eurofed]

Jun 27, 2017 16:16:32 GMT lordroel said:

Jun 27, 2017 16:02:52 GMT eurofed said:

The Serb and North Korean leaders were prosecuted, tried, and sentenced to harsh prison terms by international tribunals for various acts of genocide or extensive human rights violations against their own population. No controversial equivalent of the Iraq War ever took place and Western public opinion largely came to regard the military interventions in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and East Asia as justifiable and popular ‘just wars’. As a consequence the Labour government in the UK kept its political capital intact for longer.

Would those trails be held in the Netherlands city of Den Hague, capital of justice.

I think so, and I suppose they would initially use ad hoc international tribunals, although down the line an equivalent of the ICC may well be established. Since the Islamist regime in Iran was brought down by local revolutionaries with some Western support, I assume its surviving leaders would be tried by local revolutionary tribunals or killed on the spot. Qaddafi, Saddam, Assad, and their cronies probably got summary justice. The Saudi dynasty likely followed the pampered exile path of many other deposed royal families and dictators in the last two centuries.

The USA may well become more cooperative with the ICC, although it (and the EU) would still aim for solid contingencies to prevent abuse of the court by anti-Western actors to harass Western leaders and military. ITTL the Western powers did not get involved in something truly controversial since the Vietnam War, so their international reputation is significantly improved. The vast majority of the Western public agrees interventions in the Balkans, Korea, Iran, and Libya were justifiable and turned out for the better or at least were the lesser evil choice. Afghanistan remains somewhat of the usual intractable mess, but much less so than OTL since there was no major distraction from the Iraq War (the Second Korean War took much less of a sustained occupation effort, since the Western coalition could delegate most of it to the South Koreans) and Europe was more involved in the operation having been another victim of alt-9/11.

There was no Iraq War, Patriot Act, or Muslim travel ban to taint the cause of the War on Terror (it probably gets a different name ITTL), so the vast majority of the public tends to be very supportive of ongoing military, drone killing, police, judicial, and intelligence action to suppress Islamist terrorists and their sympathizers at home and abroad. Complaints about 'collateral damage', short of blatant blunders, tend to be ignored. Israel's occupation of the West bank still stirs some controversy but since the onset of Jihadist terrorism and the Arab Turmoil the Western world tends to regard it as a lesser evil than an Islamist takeover of the Palestinians. The USA and the EU make some half-hearted pressure for a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli issue, but in practice they find the status quo tolerable. Since the collapse of Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, most countries have more or less recognized Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights, Moroccan annexation of Western Sahara, and the new Alawite, Kurd, and Shiite entities.

As usual the world often regards the Middle East as a black hole, a bloody, intractable mess. However the turn to democracy of Iran, free Kurdistan, and to a lesser degree the other Shiites gives some hope the region might be eventually stabilized. Due to conflicting interests and meddling of the Western world, Russia, Turkey, Egypt, and Iran a satisfying solution for the Sunni areas once alt-Daesh is hopefully crushed for good proved much more elusive. Since Jordan and Morocco did a decent job of remaining stable, a few Western policymakers have been toying with the idea of merging the Sunni portions of Syria, Iraq, and Arabia with Jordan in a federation ruled by the Hashemites. Certainly the Kurds, Shiites, and Alawites show no willingness to compromise their newfound autonomy. Nobody wants the Saudis back or to restore the Sykes-Picot settlement, there is widespread agreement they were terrible blunders. After the Second Iranian Revolution won, there is a consensus the First one was a misguided effort to topple autocracy that went horribly wrong and made everything worse, much like the Russian Revolution.

There is a fairly solid consensus in the Western world humanitarian intervention or military action to neutralize rogue states and non-state entities would be justifiable and appropriate in the right circumstances. The antagonistic, obstructionist stance of Russia and China makes the UN mostly useless to manage these issues, short of rubber-stamping a compromise agreement of the great powers when it unfrequently emerges. A major reform would be necessary to revitalize the organization and make it useful and relevant, but so far it proved elusive. So the Western powers are getting accustomed to use NATO as a substitute to coordinate their interventions when they occur, and to seek a consensus among democratic nations to legitimize them. There has been serious political discussion and preliminary negotiations to reform NATO (with a different name) as a global security organization of democratic countries with a worldwide peacekeeping mandate and admit at least Japan, Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, quite possibly other states sufficiently close to Western standards.

These nations show considerable interest in the project because of lingering effects of the Second Korean War and concerns about rising Chinese power and nationalist aggressiveness. Germany, Japan, and Italy mostly scrapped or changed post-WWII anti-war clausles in their constitutions since the post-Cold War conflicts. In any case ongoing federalization of the EU and NATO/EU expansion makes such provisions, or the former neutrality stance of certain nations such as Austria, Ireland, Sweden, and Finland, wholly obsolete once Western collective solidarity gets into play. Ukraine thinks non-alignment was a very bad idea, and can't wait to be a full NATO/EU member. On the other hand, neo-Ottoman Turkey effectively broke ranks with NATO.

[lordroel]

Jun 27, 2017 20:04:38 GMT eurofed said:

Jun 27, 2017 16:16:32 GMT lordroel said:

Would those trails be held in the Netherlands city of Den Hague, capital of justice.

The USA may well become more cooperative with the ICC, although it (and the EU) would still aim for solid contingencies to prevent abuse of the court by anti-Western actors to harass Western leaders and military. ITTL the Western powers did not get involved in something truly controversial since the Vietnam War, so their international reputation is significantly improved. The vast majority of the Western public agrees interventions in the Balkans, Korea, Iran, and Libya were justifiable and turned out for the better or at least were the lesser evil choice. Afghanistan remains somewhat of the usual intractable mess, but much less than OTL since there was no major distraction from the Iraq War (the Second Korean War took much less of a sustained occupation effort, since the Western coalition could delegate most of it to the South Koreans) and Europe was more involved in the operation having been another victim of alt-9/11.

So there is no American Service-Members' Protection Act ore what i is also known as the The Hague Invasion Act here.

[eurofed]

Jun 28, 2017 2:47:35 GMT lordroel said:

Jun 27, 2017 20:04:38 GMT eurofed said:

The USA may well become more cooperative with the ICC, although it (and the EU) would still aim for solid contingencies to prevent abuse of the court by anti-Western actors to harass Western leaders and military. ITTL the Western powers did not get involved in something truly controversial since the Vietnam War, so their international reputation is significantly improved. The vast majority of the Western public agrees interventions in the Balkans, Korea, Iran, and Libya were justifiable and turned out for the better or at least were the lesser evil choice. Afghanistan remains somewhat of the usual intractable mess, but much less than OTL since there was no major distraction from the Iraq War (the Second Korean War took much less of a sustained occupation effort, since the Western coalition could delegate most of it to the South Koreans) and Europe was more involved in the operation having been another victim of alt-9/11.

So there is no American Service-Members' Protection Act ore what i is also known as the The Hague Invasion Act here.

Maybe there is, but it gets approved as an unlikely contingency rather than a serious possibility, or perhaps more likely America and Europe ratify and get fully involved in the drafting of the ICC treaty, so they successfully lobby for a few clausles that give them an effective veto power on prosecutions. E.g. perhaps UNSC permanent members (either on their own, or 2-3 acting in concert) can veto an ICC prosecution. Of course, whatever the USA, EU, and UK can put in the treaty to protect themselves and Israel from an abuse of the ICC to harass their leaders and military, can also be used by Russia and China to protect themselves and any tinpot dictator that is in their favor.

ITTL the UN's ability to effectively represent the international community got even more questionable than OTL, due to factors like the federalization of the EU, reunification of Korea to become a second Japan, and the rise of Europe, China, and India to candidate superpowers. The French seat is now effectively the EU seat; the UK retains its autonomy in foreign policy issues but of course it aligns with its North American and European allies almost all the time. On one hand, federalization of the EU removed the opposition of European states to a reform of the UN and settled the issue of their representation in the UNSC. On the other hand, it makes the UK seat look even more anachronistic. There may be a decent consensus the USA, the EU, Russia, China, and India deserve a permanent seat, the UNSC and UNGA need some serious reform, and corruption and inefficiency in UN agencies need to be addressed. Among the controversial issues there are UNSC representation of the UK/Dominions, Japan/Korea and Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Muslim world, retention or reform of veto power, voting system in the UNGA, what to do of the UN bureaucracy, and of course the whole peacekeeping stuff, and the rise of NATO to be a controversial rival of the UN.

[lordroel]

Jun 28, 2017 13:40:14 GMT eurofed said:

ITTL the UN's ability to effectively represent the international community got even more questionable than OTL, due to factors like the federalization of the EU, reunification of Korea to become a second Japan, and the rise of Europe, China, and India to candidate superpowers. The French seat is now effectively the EU seat; the UK retains its autonomy in foreign policy issues but of course it aligns with its North American and European allies almost all the time. On one hand, federalization of the EU removed the opposition of European states to a reform of the UN and settled the issue of their representation in the UNSC. On the other hand, it makes the UK seat look even more anachronistic. There may be a decent consensus the USA, the EU, Russia, China, and India deserve a permanent seat, the UNSC and UNGA need some serious reform, and corruption and inefficiency in certain UN agencies need to be addressed. Among the controversial issues there are UNSC representation of the UK/Dominions, Japan/Korea and Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Muslim world, retention or reform of veto power, voting system in the UNGA, what to do of the UN bureaucracy, and of course the whole peacekeeping stuff, and the rise of NATO to be a controversial rival of the UN.

Wait a Unified Korea becomes a second Japan, the cost of the unification between the two Germany cost 2 trillion euros compared to 2.7 trillion dollars that i see on google for a Unified Korea.

[eurofed]

Jun 28, 2017 13:46:25 GMT lordroel said:

Wait a Unified Korea becomes a second Japan, the cost of the unification between the two Germany cost 2 trillion euros compared to 2.7 trillion dollars that i see on google for a Unified Korea.

Well, to be fair, unified Korea may become a second Japan in perspective, after sufficient work has been done to rehabilitate northern Korea and put it in decent shape for Western standards, as it happened with eastern Germany and Eastern Europe. I guess it would take at least as much time, effort, and money it took to reform the Warsaw pact countries, perhaps a bit more since the Kim dynasty's rule was even more destructive than vanilla Soviet communism. On the other hand, those examples, and the success of China's post-Maoist reforms, indicate it can be done. After all, 1970s China was not in a much better shape than NK after decades of Maoist misrule, and it took about 30 years to become a capitalist colossus and candidate superpower. Vietnam is another example of an Asian Communist country getting itself in decent shape with economic liberalization reforms. Even post-Communist Cambodia made some decent progress despite being burdened by the legacy of an even more destructive regime than NK.

I assume southern Korea, Japan, and the USA shall have to share the financial burden of northern Korea's reconstruction, but it can be done, and those powers have any interest to cooperate and make the rebirth of northern Korea a success story, just like the EU did wth Eastern Europe. Surely it would be a rather more productive and successful way for America to invest in the reconstruction of a country than the Iraq sinkhole. ITTL northern Korea was liberated about 15 years ago, so by the late 2010s its rehabilitation to developed world's standards should look halfway or mostly if not yet completely done, kinda like the Asian Tigers at the end of the 20th century or eastern Europe in the 2000s. 

[lordroel]

Jun 28, 2017 18:56:35 GMT eurofed said:

Jun 28, 2017 13:46:25 GMT lordroel said:

Wait a Unified Korea becomes a second Japan, the cost of the unification between the two Germany cost 2 trillion euros compared to 2.7 trillion dollars that i see on google for a Unified Korea.

Well, to be fair, unified Korea may become a second Japan in perspective, after sufficient work has been done to rehabilitate northern Korea and put it in decent shape for Western standards, as it happened with eastern Germany and Eastern Europe. I guess it would take at least as much time, effort, and money it took to reform the Warsaw pact countries, perhaps a bit more since the Kim dynasty's rule was even more destructive than vanilla Soviet communism. On the other hand, those examples, and the success of China's post-Maoist reforms, indicate it can be done. After all, 1970s China was not in a much better shape than NK after decades of Maoist misrule, and it took about 30 years to become a capitalist colossus and candidate superpower. I assume southern Korea, Japan, and the USA shall have to share the financial burden of northern Korea's reconstruction, but it can be done, and those powers have any interest to cooperate and make the rebirth of northern Korea a success story, just like the EU did wth Eastern Europe. ITTL northern Korea was liberated about 15-20 years ago, so by the late 2010s its rehabilitation to developed world' standards should look mostly if not yet completely done, kinda like the Asian Tigers at the end of the 20th century. Surely it would be a rather more productive and successful way for America to invest in the reconstruction of a country than the Iraq sinkhole.

I think it will take a long time for the Northern part of a unified Korea will become anything than a burden for the Southern part, it might cause tensions between them.

[eurofed]

Jun 28, 2017 19:00:27 GMT lordroel said:

Jun 28, 2017 18:56:35 GMT eurofed said:

Well, to be fair, unified Korea may become a second Japan in perspective, after sufficient work has been done to rehabilitate northern Korea and put it in decent shape for Western standards, as it happened with eastern Germany and Eastern Europe. I guess it would take at least as much time, effort, and money it took to reform the Warsaw pact countries, perhaps a bit more since the Kim dynasty's rule was even more destructive than vanilla Soviet communism. On the other hand, those examples, and the success of China's post-Maoist reforms, indicate it can be done. After all, 1970s China was not in a much better shape than NK after decades of Maoist misrule, and it took about 30 years to become a capitalist colossus and candidate superpower. I assume southern Korea, Japan, and the USA shall have to share the financial burden of northern Korea's reconstruction, but it can be done, and those powers have any interest to cooperate and make the rebirth of northern Korea a success story, just like the EU did wth Eastern Europe. ITTL northern Korea was liberated about 15-20 years ago, so by the late 2010s its rehabilitation to developed world' standards should look mostly if not yet completely done, kinda like the Asian Tigers at the end of the 20th century. Surely it would be a rather more productive and successful way for America to invest in the reconstruction of a country than the Iraq sinkhole.

I think it will take a long time for the Northern part of a unified Korea will become anything than a burden for the Southern part, it might cause tensions between them.

Probably it shall cause a few political tensions but in all likelihood nothing worse than what we saw between western and eastern Germany, or northern and southern Italy. Besides solidarity feelings created by nationalism, the war shall be a poignant reminder of why it is necessary for united Korea to rebuild its northern half in decent shape. Besides, I do not expect southern Korea to do it alone, the USA and Japan shall in all likilihood help. All of them have a solid strategic and economic interest to stabilize northern Korea and make it a success story. America and Japan were involved in the death pangs of NK so know what stability in the region means, and they also have an interst in stabilizing Korea to keep China at bay. Last but not least, China itself may be interested in some investment in the region. As for the time it shall take, see the above examples.  

[lordroel]

Jun 28, 2017 19:17:21 GMT eurofed said:

Jun 28, 2017 19:00:27 GMT lordroel said:

I think it will take a long time for the Northern part of a unified Korea will become anything than a burden for the Southern part, it might cause tensions between them.

Probably it shall cause a few political tensions but in all likelihood nothing worse than what we saw between western and eastern Germany, or northern and southern Italy. Besides solidarity feelings created by nationalism, the war shall be a poignant reminder of why it is necessary to rebuild northern Korea in decent shape. Besides, I do not expect southern Korea to do it alone, the USA and Japan shall in all likilihood help. All of them have a solid strategic and economic interest to stabilize northern Korea and make it a success story. America and Japan too know were involved in the death pangs of NK so know what stability in the region means. As for the time it shall take, see the above examples.  

What about China, are they not going to invest in a unified Korea, even if it is not North controlled.

[eurofed]

Jun 28, 2017 19:19:54 GMT lordroel said:

Jun 28, 2017 19:17:21 GMT eurofed said:

Probably it shall cause a few political tensions but in all likelihood nothing worse than what we saw between western and eastern Germany, or northern and southern Italy. Besides solidarity feelings created by nationalism, the war shall be a poignant reminder of why it is necessary to rebuild northern Korea in decent shape. Besides, I do not expect southern Korea to do it alone, the USA and Japan shall in all likilihood help. All of them have a solid strategic and economic interest to stabilize northern Korea and make it a success story. America and Japan too know were involved in the death pangs of NK so know what stability in the region means. As for the time it shall take, see the above examples.  

What about China, are they not going to invest in a unified Korea, even if it is not North controlled.

Very likely. Not so much as if it were a Chinese ally/client, but to some important degree nonetheless. The modern Chinese are business-minded opportunists, if proudly nationalist ones, and Manchuria, Korea, and Japan form a natural economic and strategic continuum (one reason I'm so fond of making the region united, most often as a successful Japanese Empire, in AH). Once northern Korea is liberated, there is going to be some lively trade between it and southern Manchuria. There'd be some already, if the Chinese had been successful in their efforts to persuade the Kim dynasty to adopt reforms similar to their own. So far they essentially failed, probably because the Kims and their cronies know they are so bad rulers they need hardcore totalitarianism to stay in power, and they would likely suffer the fate of the Gang of Four if they moved towards Chinese-style liberalization. My tentative guess is northern Korea after reunification would get something like 35% South Korean, 25% Japanese, 25% American, 15% Chinese investments, give or take a few digits.  

[lordroel]

Jun 28, 2017 20:05:41 GMT eurofed said:

Jun 28, 2017 19:19:54 GMT lordroel said:

What about China, are they not going to invest in a unified Korea, even if it is not North controlled.

Very likely. Not so much as if it were a Chinese ally/client, but to some important degree nonetheless. The modern Chinese are business-minded opportunists, if proudly nationalist ones, and Manchuria, Korea, and Japan form a natural economic and strategic continuum (one reason I'm so fond of making the region united, most often as a successful Japanese Empire, in AH). Once northern Korea is liberated, there is going to be some lively trade between it and southern Manchuria. There'd be some already, if the Chinese had been successful in their efforts to persuade the Kim dynasty to adopt reforms similar to their own. So far they essentially failed, probably because the Kims and their cronies know they are so bad rulers they need hardcore totalitarianism to stay in power, and they would likely suffer the fate of the Gang of Four if they moved towards Chinese-style liberalization. My tentative guess is northern Korea after reunification would get something like 35% South Korean, 25% Japanese, 25% American, 15% Chinese investments, give or take a few digits.  

Did China in this universe have to worry about massive North Korean refuges streaming into their country.

[eurofed]

Jun 29, 2017 2:45:29 GMT lordroel said:

Did China in this universe have to worry about massive North Korean refuges streaming into their country.

Yep. I assume ITTL the 1990s-2000s famine in NK went just as bad as OTL or even slightly worse if at all possible. It helped put the Kims regime into a quasi-apocalyptic urgency mood and made them gamble solving their problems with the nuclear project to blackmail the world. When that failed b/c the Americans bombed them before nukes were ready they escalated to war and it went even worse. The NK leaders that survived the conflict should be thankful international justice gave up using the death penalty for war crimes and major human-rights abuses since the 1940s, so they can just look forward to a very long stay in a maximum-security prison together with Milosevic and his pals.

Of course China experienced some serious NK refugees influx through the Yalu border during the famine period and the war, and probably either the Chinese or the Russians got a few NK elites escaping Western armies and their justice, assuming they wished the embarassment of sheltering them. Even IOTL China and Russia have been less than happy with the antics of the NK regime. But it shut down and reversed course once reconstruction of northern Korea started, so it has not been an issue during the last 15 years or so. Besides a lot of Sino-Korean trade, the border now may see a few Chinese dissidents escaping abroad, but numbers are relatively limited.

Most Chinese are content with economic growth and the regime leaving them alone if they don't threaten it, dissidents are either a politicized pro-democracy minority or those unhappy with stuff like corruption and environmental damage. The PRC regime does not face a serious dissidence problem similar to the late Soviet bloc or Castrist Cuba unless the economy takes a real turn for the worse or corruption and environmental problems go out of control. There was the Tienanmen event of course but the regime seems to have weathered that storm. In this modern China is more similar to late 1930s Germany and Italy (except for scapegoat minorities of course).

As it concerns alt-Putin's Russia, that is a different, more complex question. On one hand, the regime's aggressive, mostly successful bid to rebuild the Russian/Soviet empire under a new Eurasian Community guise won it serious popularity among nationalist Russian people. On the other hand, the Western embargo and Cold War confrontational stance after the war in Ukraine sent Russian economy in a nosedive to depression, with few good chances to improve things in the near future. Only selling oil and gas to China and India gives some slim hope to keep Russian economy barely afloat, but it is a questionable perspective. All the nationalist pride in the world can only can do so much to make the Russians forget their lack of jobs, empty stores, and frozen bank accounts.

Of course in the long term the West may well wish to lessen tensions and resume normal trade with Russia, just like bids for detente alternated with more confrontational periods during the (first) Cold War, but it won't happen that quickly or easily. It is an interesting question whether the resolve of the West or the will of the Russian people shall break first. Moreover, tensions with Russia, instability in the Middle East, and increasing awareness of climate change drove the Western world to pursue a different energy policy, so they are going to become structurally much less dependent on Russian and Arab oil and gas. Then again, China and India may well become a substitute market for Russian and Arab commodities to some degree, even if they cannot entirely replace the West in the near future.

Russia also faces military expenses from the build-up it and EU/NATO are engaged in, which it can afford much worse than the West - on the other hand, the Western countries also had to deal with the costs of globalization, recession, Russian embargo, energy crisis, and the Middle East mess. It also faces an insurgency problem in eastern Ukraine, Caucasus, and Central Asia, but the Russians deal with it the usual brutally effective way, ask Checenya. Russia is also a target of Jihadist terrorism, but that is a problem it shares with North America, Europe, Iran, India, Southeast Asia, China, etc.

TTL equivalents of Al-Quaeda and Daesh made a very good job of making Islamic fundamentalism hated and feared by the rest of the world, even more so than OTL w/o the blunders of people like GWB, Cheney, and Trump to confuse the issue. One area where the international community, despite being woefully divided on many other issues, seems to work in decent unison is cooperation to crush terrorism and an agreement to treat it as a major crime against humanity akin to genocide and slavery. Broadly speaking, a working definition everybody more or less agrees upon is indiscriminate violence against civilians; use of violence against state targets is much more controversial since not so rarely one side's terrorists are another side's freedom fighters in this case.

An international legal standard has developed to treat terrorists like pirates and slavers, ‘hostis humani generis’, outlaws in a state of war against all humanity. Therefore it is legal for any state even if not directly attacked to make them subject to summary punishment if dictated by military necessity or to put them on trial and sentence them as the worst kind of felons or war criminals if they can be safely captured. In practice terrorists tend to be caught alive if they are important for intelligence or investigation purposes, make a public show of surrender or powerlessness during capture, or turn informant, otherwise they are usually killed by police or the military. This new international law effectively settled all meaningful debate about the status of terrorists as unlawful enemy combatants, or the use of targeted killing against them.

Propaganda, open advocacy, and material support of terrorism are treated in a similar way to participation in criminal organizations or trafficking in child pornography, if with even harsher legal penalties. Any public show of sympathy can potentially make one liable to severe punishment. Policymakers, the courts, and public opinion tend to have little sympathy or patience with claims the human rights of terrorists or their fifth column are being violated or complaints about reasonable amounts of ‘collateral damage’, short of blatant abuses or blunders. If you are suspected of rooting for Islamists, your best defense is to show an honest mistake was made. If you are the genuine item, congrats, all but the barest minimum of your civil rights just got revoked. On the other hand, a decent consensus developed that torture is a bad way of dealing with terrorists.

Western military, police, and intelligence thus got very ample leeway from their governments to fight terrorists and their sympathizers. The big problem with no so easy solution in sight is to find them, and identify the really dangerous subjects before they attack. Otherwise concerted domestic and international anti-terrorist action often tends to work like a well-oiled machine thanks to almost two decades of practice. No real equivalent of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp was ever set up to become iconic, as a rule the Western powers tend to kill terrorists, put them in their own maximum-security prison circuit, or hand them to the security apparatus of friendly non-Western countries, as circumstances dictate.

As a consequence of this international atmosphere, Islamist entities became pariahs. Known Jihadist groups are hunted worldwide like rabid dogs as much as available military, police, and intelligence resources would allow, Iran became an avowed enemy of Islamism, the Saudis fell from power, the other Persian Gulf states were told in no uncertain terms they would be wiped out if caught supporting Islamist groups. Hamas rule in Gaza Strip faces an impossible situation with practically no international support and is spiraling towards collapse, even if it is far from clear what would replace it. Alt-Daesh at its peak controlled a sizable portion of the Mashriq, Arabia, and North Africa and won the allegiance of several militant Islamist groups across Africa and Asia, but it became subject to relentless military pressure to degrade and destroy it since then. Its elimination as an organized proto-state is within sight, even if it likely won’t mean the end of the Islamist threat by any means.

Success of NATO in the post-Cold War conflicts and its efficiency to coordinate international action against terrorism enhanced its prestige and perceived usefulness after end of the Cold War terminated its original mission. It is a big reason why the project to reform it as a global peacekeeping organization is getting momentum since the UN keeps surprising no one with its uselessness. On the other hand, revival of tensions with Russia makes many assume its original mandate is not so obsolete after all and the war against terrorism only added new responsibilities.