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Description
Here's a quick little map-profile of the Nordic Union, circa 2020 from my take on 1983: Doomsday . If you want to see how the rest of Europe fared in this AU of an AU, look no further than this map .

Needless to say, plenty of things have changed.

~~

Prior to Doomsday, the Nordic states were known throughout Europe (and the wider, Western-leaning world) as beacons of liberal democracy, strong welfare states, and diverse exports. However, despite this carefully-maintained facade of peace-loving and cultural unity, the Nordic states were sitting upon a knife's edge. Norway, Denmark, and Iceland were full NATO members, expected to carry out the daunting task of defending democracy's northernmost fringes - be it on sea or on land. Sweden and Finland were staunchly neutral states - the latter forced into the position practically at gun-point, by virtue of its long border with the Soviet Union.

That painful, post-WWII status quo held for almost forty years; in only a few hours of tit-for-tat nuclear warfare, and months of conventional conflict thereafter, did Doomsday tore all of that asunder. The Soviets, misled by faulty data from a new and then-untested orbital early-warning system, launched first, taking out key NATO installations and population centres in northern and western Europe.

Oslo and Copenhagen went up in flames, but the nukes intended for Bergen, Trondheim, Århus, Roskilde and Aalborg - plus a handful of other regional centres and minor military installations - never came. Despite the destruction of their major political and economic centres, both states had enough time to evacuate their respective monarchs and their governments to safe locations. Unlike their neighbours to the south and east, chaos and outright collapse was replaced with an uneasy calm. As for the Nordic NATO members that were out on the fringes - namely Iceland - suffered only a single hit: Keflavik Airport and its adjacent military facilities.

It only took a few hours after Oslo was turned to ash, for the situation in Norway to take took a turn for the worst. Reports of Soviet troops advancing through its now-porous northern border, reached the desk of Prime Minister Kåre Willoch. A formal declaration of war was issued and sent to the Soviet embassy, but not real military actions would take place until mid-October, almost a month after the Third World War began. Norwegian F-16s, unaffected by rumoured EMPs, clashed with Soviet Tupolevs and MiGs over Tromsø and Bodø, ending in a decisive Norwegian victory and total air superiority for the duration of the war - for as long as fuel supplies were adequate. Norwegian and Soviet ground forces clashed in sporadic battles, both sides limited by an ever-dwindling supply of food, fuel and ammunition. By the end of 1983, the Norwegians in Finnmark had managed to fight the Soviets to a standstill, but were largely reduced to guerrilla tactics and limited surgical strikes from the air. The war was over by January of '84, forcing the remaining Soviet troops on a suicidal march to the city of Murmansk, which, despite all reports, had come out the conflagration completely unscathed.

The Danes came through the exchange with only a single city lost, but were cut off from their North Sea dependencies until the years' end, when full contact with both Torshavn and Godthåb (now Nuuk). The Faroes had come out completely intact, thanks to their small population and lack of strategic value. Greenland faced a similar situation to Iceland, losing only the American-operated Thule AFB to a lone Soviet missile. Sweden, by virtue of its lack of direct border with the Soviets and neutrality, came through completely intact, only suffering from a few scares and fallout from nearby nuclear strikes.

Finland, on the other hand, wasn't so lucky. The Finns bore the brunt of the Doomsday's wrath in Scandinavia, losing well over a dozen cities and military installations to both Soviet and American missiles. Long thought to be in either side's pocket throughout the Cold War, Finland, despite its near-unbending adherence to political neutrality, was seen as the staging ground through which both Warsaw Pact and NATO forces might strike at one another. One of the very, very few exceptions to this apocalyptic overreaction was Helsinki, which took only a handful of strikes around its outskirts, losing important industrial zones and transport links, but retaining the majority of its government institutions all the while. Even then, the city was abandoned, the fragmented government choosing the relative safety of inland Mikkeli instead, where it remains to this day.

The first half-decade after Doomsday proved to be the hardest for all of Scandinavia's constituent states, but some weathered the catastrophe better than others. Norway and Denmark were under extensive rationing and wartime powers, but were more-or-less functional democratic states. Unburdened by nuclear strikes, Sweden chugged along as if nothing had happened, facing only a marginal drop in living standards, as prices rose and imports slowed to a mere trickle - limited to only their neighbours. Denmark's dependencies were de-facto independent, retaining only the Danish monarch as head of state, living off of fish and small-scale farming. Finland, always being the sole exception, was a hellscape: switching from civilian to military government and back again, all in the space of a few years. The very few Soviet troops that survived the haphazard, poorly-planned invasion harassed local militias that were stationed along frozen roads. Sámi raiders were also a persistent problem, but not as bad as the half-starved Russians.

In 1986, the Swedes took the initiative and invaded Finnish Lapland, turning it into a loosely-defined 'provisional province'. Land and sea-based trade was reestablished with the Finnish 'government' (now a loose military junta at this point), but the latter proved to be more reliable, as the Baltic froze up earlier than expected, thanks to all the lingering ash that was still hanging in the upper atmosphere. The Swedes ended up staying in Lapland (now called Ostrobothnia, perhaps in an effort to be more PC to the last Finnish Sámi that haven't left for Lujávri yet) - despite the fact that it was only supposed to be a temporary measure. Further Swedish (later pan-Nordic) 'cordon sanitares' were established far beyond Finland, reaching the borders of the old Karelian ASSR by 1988. It was through this network of scattered outposts and occasional aerial surveys, that the immediate lands east of Fennoscandia and north of Moscow were surveyed, and found to be flourishing with so-called 'survivor states'. The Swedes and Norwegians gave aid to a select few states wherever possible, bringing them into a loose sphere of influence - something that would have repercussions further down the line.

By the time in the early 1990s rolled around, most of Scandinavia had recovered to something vaguely resembling pre-war levels of stability - albeit at great cost to the population and overall economic advancement. Exports to other surviving states - both old and new - had picked up considerably, while internal trade also began to boom, leaving the three main Scandinavian states (Denmark, Norway and Sweden) on the verge of a joint economic miracle. This new era of prosperity coincided with the Treaty of Trondheim, marking the resurrection and expansion of the Nordic Council's remit, which had laid dormant since Doomsday.

First and foremost, the Nordic Union is an expressly political alliance - with hints of economic and military cooperation here and there. Border controls and trade restrictions within the Union are lax (though some restrictions apply for heavily-irradiated/unstable locations: i.e. Finland) and an overarching set of laws (enforced via the Nordic Law Thing: a largely ceremonial institution) binds the Union together under a common framework. That being said, each member state has full control over its sovereignty, making it less intrusive and more flexible than anything approaching the OTL EU. Outside of the political realm, there's a few other 'Pan-Scandinavian' initiatives, namely an airline (mostly privatised, but with a minority joint Union ownership), a military detachment (the Nordic Battlegroup) and an external trade policy that promotes low barriers.

Then, there's the Union's Observer States, those that are too impoverished (Latvia's successors, Lithuania) or are too married to their own sovereignty and aren't simply 'Nordic' enough to consider full membership (North Germany). These states largely stay for the trade benefits but leave the room the moment further integration is bought up.

The full NU member states outside of Scandinavia proper (not just referring to geography here, also culture) are a mixed bag. Greenland *technically* qualifies for this, as it's undergone something of an 'Inuit Renaissance' as of late, both in terms of cultural revival and economic success. The 'Nuclear Autumn', which set in somewhere around the early 1990s, has led to more and more mineral deposits and arable land being uncovered. The ex-Soviet states (excluding the Baltics) are on average poorer than their partners to the west, resembling something in-between 1990s Yugoslavia and immediate post-USSR Russia, but do benefit from the lax barriers and restored trade links - especially those over the White Sea. That being said, some of these states aren't without their problems; the Russian Mafia has considerable influence in certain parts of Novgorod and Pskov, hampering any chances of the latter ever attaining full membership and the former from getting all those sweet, sweet relief packages.

Speaking of prospective members, there's also Scotland; technically a self-governing state of the Celtic Alliance, there are those within both Holyrood and Stockholm's hallowed halls that wish for greater integration - primarily for economic reasons (gotta love that post-apocalyptic North Sea trade), but there are those that have a more Machiavellian bent to their reasoning: the NU and CA regularly argue over the ownership of the long-independent Northern Isles of Scotland, which have considerable oil and gas deposits nearby. The NU already has considerable leverage via the aforementioned Orkney and Shetlands (blame Danish, Faroese, Norwegian aid efforts and a mainland-focused, hamstrung Scottish government), but what's just one more strategically-placed ally?

Alas, it seems that some things never change...

As for technology, living standards and all that cool stuff: Scandinavia proper (that's Denmark, Sweden and Norway) has the best living standards, occasionally surpassing the Celts in some areas. Energy independence is all-but assured, thanks to the Norwegian oil fields and Sweden's coal deposits, allowing private cars to run on the roads as if DD never happened and a robust public transport system to fill in the gaps. Swedish consumer electronics are the envy of Europe, occasionally measuring up to pre-war Japanese designs, but often pale in comparison to the advanced systems coming out of Singapore, Brazil and Australia. Some families might have to share their televisions with their neighbours, but everybody has a radio and a phone line; some even have mobile phones (think really late 80s designs, less big bricks or 3310s) and VCRs (not to mention the occasional pre-war Betamax) - the former is especially the case for businessmen and government employees. All-in-all, the overall living standard resembles something out of the mid-1990s - though your mileage may vary the further you get out of town; Finland is downright 18th century in some places, whereas the Russian statelets resemble something out of the early 20th century. Iceland is somewhere in between the 1970s and 1980s, in spite of modern appliances and energy needs. As said in the Europe map, the internet only exists in major cities and is primarily for government and academic use, though there is an ever-growing cadre of private sites that cater to civvies. A sort of 'internet exchange' exists in Stockholm (don't ask, I'm not a tech wizard. I just think the idea's cool. Shit on me in the comments, if you must), hooking up the Nordic intranet (probably called 'Yggdrasil') with their Celtic, Canadian and Soviet equivalents (somebody in Vladivostok thought that OGAS was worth looking into after a few years).

~~

I don't own 1983: Doomsday, nor do I own the other AH works referenced here.

Description
Here's a quick little map-profile of the Nordic Union, circa 2020 from my take on 1983: Doomsday . If you want to see how the rest of Europe fared in this AU of an AU, look no further than this map .

Needless to say, plenty of things have changed.

~~

Prior to Doomsday, the Nordic states were known throughout Europe (and the wider, Western-leaning world) as beacons of liberal democracy, strong welfare states, and diverse exports. However, despite this carefully-maintained facade of peace-loving and cultural unity, the Nordic states were sitting upon a knife's edge. Norway, Denmark, and Iceland were full NATO members, expected to carry out the daunting task of defending democracy's northernmost fringes - be it on sea or on land. Sweden and Finland were staunchly neutral states - the latter forced into the position practically at gun-point, by virtue of its long border with the Soviet Union.

That painful, post-WWII status quo held for almost forty years; in only a few hours of tit-for-tat nuclear warfare, and months of conventional conflict thereafter, did Doomsday tore all of that asunder. The Soviets, misled by faulty data from a new and then-untested orbital early-warning system, launched first, taking out key NATO installations and population centres in northern and western Europe.

Oslo and Copenhagen went up in flames, but the nukes intended for Bergen, Trondheim, Århus, Roskilde and Aalborg - plus a handful of other regional centres and minor military installations - never came. Despite the destruction of their major political and economic centres, both states had enough time to evacuate their respective monarchs and their governments to safe locations. Unlike their neighbours to the south and east, chaos and outright collapse was replaced with an uneasy calm. As for the Nordic NATO members that were out on the fringes - namely Iceland - suffered only a single hit: Keflavik Airport and its adjacent military facilities.

It only took a few hours after Oslo was turned to ash, for the situation in Norway to take took a turn for the worst. Reports of Soviet troops advancing through its now-porous northern border, reached the desk of Prime Minister Kåre Willoch. A formal declaration of war was issued and sent to the Soviet embassy, but not real military actions would take place until mid-October, almost a month after the Third World War began. Norwegian F-16s, unaffected by rumoured EMPs, clashed with Soviet Tupolevs and MiGs over Tromsø and Bodø, ending in a decisive Norwegian victory and total air superiority for the duration of the war - for as long as fuel supplies were adequate. Norwegian and Soviet ground forces clashed in sporadic battles, both sides limited by an ever-dwindling supply of food, fuel and ammunition. By the end of 1983, the Norwegians in Finnmark had managed to fight the Soviets to a standstill, but were largely reduced to guerrilla tactics and limited surgical strikes from the air. The war was over by January of '84, forcing the remaining Soviet troops on a suicidal march to the city of Murmansk, which, despite all reports, had come out the conflagration completely unscathed.

The Danes came through the exchange with only a single city lost, but were cut off from their North Sea dependencies until the years' end, when full contact with both Torshavn and Godthåb (now Nuuk). The Faroes had come out completely intact, thanks to their small population and lack of strategic value. Greenland faced a similar situation to Iceland, losing only the American-operated Thule AFB to a lone Soviet missile. Sweden, by virtue of its lack of direct border with the Soviets and neutrality, came through completely intact, only suffering from a few scares and fallout from nearby nuclear strikes.

Finland, on the other hand, wasn't so lucky. The Finns bore the brunt of the Doomsday's wrath in Scandinavia, losing well over a dozen cities and military installations to both Soviet and American missiles. Long thought to be in either side's pocket throughout the Cold War, Finland, despite its near-unbending adherence to political neutrality, was seen as the staging ground through which both Warsaw Pact and NATO forces might strike at one another. One of the very, very few exceptions to this apocalyptic overreaction was Helsinki, which took only a handful of strikes around its outskirts, losing important industrial zones and transport links, but retaining the majority of its government institutions all the while. Even then, the city was abandoned, the fragmented government choosing the relative safety of inland Mikkeli instead, where it remains to this day.

The first half-decade after Doomsday proved to be the hardest for all of Scandinavia's constituent states, but some weathered the catastrophe better than others. Norway and Denmark were under extensive rationing and wartime powers, but were more-or-less functional democratic states. Unburdened by nuclear strikes, Sweden chugged along as if nothing had happened, facing only a marginal drop in living standards, as prices rose and imports slowed to a mere trickle - limited to only their neighbours. Denmark's dependencies were de-facto independent, retaining only the Danish monarch as head of state, living off of fish and small-scale farming. Finland, always being the sole exception, was a hellscape: switching from civilian to military government and back again, all in the space of a few years. The very few Soviet troops that survived the haphazard, poorly-planned invasion harassed local militias that were stationed along frozen roads. Sámi raiders were also a persistent problem, but not as bad as the half-starved Russians.

In 1986, the Swedes took the initiative and invaded Finnish Lapland, turning it into a loosely-defined 'provisional province'. Land and sea-based trade was reestablished with the Finnish 'government' (now a loose military junta at this point), but the latter proved to be more reliable, as the Baltic froze up earlier than expected, thanks to all the lingering ash that was still hanging in the upper atmosphere. The Swedes ended up staying in Lapland (now called Ostrobothnia, perhaps in an effort to be more PC to the last Finnish Sámi that haven't left for Lujávri yet) - despite the fact that it was only supposed to be a temporary measure. Further Swedish (later pan-Nordic) 'cordon sanitares' were established far beyond Finland, reaching the borders of the old Karelian ASSR by 1988. It was through this network of scattered outposts and occasional aerial surveys, that the immediate lands east of Fennoscandia and north of Moscow were surveyed, and found to be flourishing with so-called 'survivor states'. The Swedes and Norwegians gave aid to a select few states wherever possible, bringing them into a loose sphere of influence - something that would have repercussions further down the line.

By the time in the early 1990s rolled around, most of Scandinavia had recovered to something vaguely resembling pre-war levels of stability - albeit at great cost to the population and overall economic advancement. Exports to other surviving states - both old and new - had picked up considerably, while internal trade also began to boom, leaving the three main Scandinavian states (Denmark, Norway and Sweden) on the verge of a joint economic miracle. This new era of prosperity coincided with the Treaty of Trondheim, marking the resurrection and expansion of the Nordic Council's remit, which had laid dormant since Doomsday.

First and foremost, the Nordic Union is an expressly political alliance - with hints of economic and military cooperation here and there. Border controls and trade restrictions within the Union are lax (though some restrictions apply for heavily-irradiated/unstable locations: i.e. Finland) and an overarching set of laws (enforced via the Nordic Law Thing: a largely ceremonial institution) binds the Union together under a common framework. That being said, each member state has full control over its sovereignty, making it less intrusive and more flexible than anything approaching the OTL EU. Outside of the political realm, there's a few other 'Pan-Scandinavian' initiatives, namely an airline (mostly privatised, but with a minority joint Union ownership), a military detachment (the Nordic Battlegroup) and an external trade policy that promotes low barriers.

Then, there's the Union's Observer States, those that are too impoverished (Latvia's successors, Lithuania) or are too married to their own sovereignty and aren't simply 'Nordic' enough to consider full membership (North Germany). These states largely stay for the trade benefits but leave the room the moment further integration is bought up.

The full NU member states outside of Scandinavia proper (not just referring to geography here, also culture) are a mixed bag. Greenland *technically* qualifies for this, as it's undergone something of an 'Inuit Renaissance' as of late, both in terms of cultural revival and economic success. The 'Nuclear Autumn', which set in somewhere around the early 1990s, has led to more and more mineral deposits and arable land being uncovered. The ex-Soviet states (excluding the Baltics) are on average poorer than their partners to the west, resembling something in-between 1990s Yugoslavia and immediate post-USSR Russia, but do benefit from the lax barriers and restored trade links - especially those over the White Sea. That being said, some of these states aren't without their problems; the Russian Mafia has considerable influence in certain parts of Novgorod and Pskov, hampering any chances of the latter ever attaining full membership and the former from getting all those sweet, sweet relief packages.

Speaking of prospective members, there's also Scotland; technically a self-governing state of the Celtic Alliance, there are those within both Holyrood and Stockholm's hallowed halls that wish for greater integration - primarily for economic reasons (gotta love that post-apocalyptic North Sea trade), but there are those that have a more Machiavellian bent to their reasoning: the NU and CA regularly argue over the ownership of the long-independent Northern Isles of Scotland, which have considerable oil and gas deposits nearby. The NU already has considerable leverage via the aforementioned Orkney and Shetlands (blame Danish, Faroese, Norwegian aid efforts and a mainland-focused, hamstrung Scottish government), but what's just one more strategically-placed ally?

Alas, it seems that some things never change...

As for technology, living standards and all that cool stuff: Scandinavia proper (that's Denmark, Sweden and Norway) has the best living standards, occasionally surpassing the Celts in some areas. Energy independence is all-but assured, thanks to the Norwegian oil fields and Sweden's coal deposits, allowing private cars to run on the roads as if DD never happened and a robust public transport system to fill in the gaps. Swedish consumer electronics are the envy of Europe, occasionally measuring up to pre-war Japanese designs, but often pale in comparison to the advanced systems coming out of Singapore, Brazil and Australia. Some families might have to share their televisions with their neighbours, but everybody has a radio and a phone line; some even have mobile phones (think really late 80s designs, less big bricks or 3310s) and VCRs (not to mention the occasional pre-war Betamax) - the former is especially the case for businessmen and government employees. All-in-all, the overall living standard resembles something out of the mid-1990s - though your mileage may vary the further you get out of town; Finland is downright 18th century in some places, whereas the Russian statelets resemble something out of the early 20th century. Iceland is somewhere in between the 1970s and 1980s, in spite of modern appliances and energy needs. As said in the Europe map, the internet only exists in major cities and is primarily for government and academic use, though there is an ever-growing cadre of private sites that cater to civvies. A sort of 'internet exchange' exists in Stockholm (don't ask, I'm not a tech wizard. I just think the idea's cool. Shit on me in the comments, if you must), hooking up the Nordic intranet (probably called 'Yggdrasil') with their Celtic, Canadian and Soviet equivalents (somebody in Vladivostok thought that OGAS was worth looking into after a few years).

~~

I don't own 1983: Doomsday, nor do I own the other AH works referenced here.