Stephen Green, Vodkapundit, goes back to WWI to discuss the establishment of the one, currently, working Islamic democracy, Turkey. Nice to see that the Great War built good things as well as established most of the world's current problems. Here's another counter-factual, but the probably a good one:
Wilson has the courage of his (ill-conceived, poorly established, knee-jerk) convictions and keeps the US out of the war. Then, instead of a humiliating defeat, Germany, France & Britain exhaust each other and reach a detente instead of the crushing peace that was imposed because of America's involvement. The Middle East is not then divvied up 'tween France & Britain. There is no WWII. Communism is possibly strangled in it's infancy since a strong Germany next door to a weak Russia influences their economy & politics.
However, Vodkapundit's ideas & reporting are much better than mine. If the three or four people that visit this site don't visit his, please do.
4 comments:
That's some counter-factual. But then most counter-factuals give me the willys. How about these as counterparts to your proposal.
Russia doesn't become a communist state. No way. An exhausted Germany would be no threat for a long time, allowing the Reds to wipe out the Whites and form their little utopia in isolation. God knows where that would lead in effect on Europe later. Especially if Germany has difficulty regaining its strength.
Then there is the collapse of the British empire. Result, My guess is the worst part would be civil war in India due to sectarian disruptions and the fact that Gandi never becomes a power because the empire failed and withdrew. The religious violence gets out of control with no calming entity which Gandi provided later.
Japan becomes the world power to balance against a much weaker and less militaristic USA. Japan takes control of all of manchuria and China and slowly takes control of South-east Asia. No British or French empires to stand in their way or even mildly threaten them.
South Africa becomes the power of Africa and takes control of the majority of the continent. Aparthied times 10 comes to reality thirty years early due to the fall of the British and French Empires.
Well, maybe that is too much, but I'm going to think that I'd prefer reality to the potential of that counter-factual.
Probably true. I had forgotten about Japan. However, I still say Germany was crippled because of Versaille, not because it was broken by the war. Once the blockades were off, if we eliminate the reperations, the German economy springs back into life. When Hitler declared Versaille null & void, that's exactly what happened. I still say they might have strangled the Soviet baby in its crib. As far as the empire collapsing, when they took on the colonies of Germany and the Ottoman Empire is when they became so top heavy that, combined with the war debt, they collapsed. There's actually a chance, slim, that they wouldn't have collapsed at all.
I still think that you have to assume without US interference that the war would have gone on for at least a couple more years. Germany was still strong enough to hold its own against the allies and that amount of further drain, in my opinion, would have caused a much weaker Europe in all aspects.
There is also an assumption that at the point where the blockades stopped, that Germany would have any assets to pay for imports. I'm thinking there would be substantial limits there which would substantially slow recovery.
The Russian thing seems to me to have more plausibility it they wouldn't have been involved in the peace with France/Britain. I see no reason why Germany would grant them anything more since they had already won against Russia. Germany held vast tracks of Russia, so maybe some of those resources would have helped in their recovery. That sounds more plausible to me. In fact, I would say that could be logic to think that Germany would have become very strong much more quickly. It makes you wonder how the German mind set would have run if they recovered and prospered at that point. Would they have remained peaceful?
I also didn't speak of the Ottoman empire in your scenario. That's a hard one. I'm going to think that the middle-east would have stayed under their control, and the Armenian genocide may have become far worse. Not to mention the problems that may have come down with respect to the oil economies later.
Interesting thought exercise.
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