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Description
Alright for the next map that's being reuploaded here's another map based on a decade-old AH.com scenario.

Yes, this is also by the same guy who did "Japan moves south" and "1921: the collapse of the soviet state). In this one, Lavrenti Beria manages to take power in 1947 following Stalin's early death. As a result, the soviet union does extensive economic reform and the cold war slowly tapers off. Like "Japan moves south" or "Soviet collapse in 1921" this scenario has been significantly modified(Like in both of the other scenarios I had to remove his automatic presumption of islamic fundamentalism's inevitable rise. >_>). Astute readers may notice unintentional similarities to some of Herman Kahn's own scenarios with a US-soviet entente.

Even earlier on, Beria set a different tone for the cold war than in OTL with actions such as the 1952 return of South Sakhalin, the "Two Chinas policy", the neutralization of Germany and his looking the other way in 1953 when Kim Il Sung got crushed by South Korea. Our world in 1945-53 saw the cold war's hardening but this world didn't see it. Instead, for the next 30-35 years the west and soviet union would slowly in fits and starts work out their differences. Yes, there are occasional reversals on one or both sides but the overall trend is for more cooperation.

By the 1980s, the soviet union had become a full democracy and the cold war was nothing but a historical memory. While there are issues like China's staunch refusal to democratize, slowly rising energy prices and Africa's seeming inability to start economically converging, it is largely a peaceful and progressive world. Think the post-cold war optimism many felt in the 1990s but extended onwards. This is a somewhat boring, prosperous and post-ideological world with wealthy nations having a certain bit of decadence and excess.

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Even with a drastically altered geopolitical system, the United States is still pretty similar. It's a richer, more confident, more secular nation. Economic policy is in a "centrist" mode similar to Clinton's, but with less reliance on the financial sector, a bit more protectionism and since the early 1960s universal healthcare. The big differences come in social policy where the lack of a cold war translated into aborting the rise of the post-1968 christian right with accompanying side effects on issues like censorship, gay rights, drug use, etc. The lack of cold war-related spending on the military combined with all the government money saved by having a more efficient healthcare system means that there's been alot less debt and alot less inflation. This is a world where there's been only half of our world's post-1968 inflation.

Latin America is more clearly in America's sphere of influence than OTL IT's a bit more capitalist, unequal and democratized a decade later but it's at least more prosperous -- Cuba is fully first world while Argentina and uruguay are at portuguese levels. The Organization of American States is largely limited to economic issues, but you don't need a passport to travel between Canada, The United States, Argentina and Uruguay since 2007.

The second half of the bipolar system, the Soviet Union is much reformed and doing pretty well all things considered. . The economy is more leftist and technocratic than the United States, but it's nto as centrally planned as one would think -- Worker-run combines are quite common and compete with more standard businesses. There is full political freedom along with freedom of speech, which has improved the art scene. Nowadays, the Soviet Union is a country of immigration and there are visible populations of afro-soviets, sino-soviets, viet-soviets or even indo-soviets in Moscow.

Europe from poland to portugal is quite well integrated and is in some ways in a better position than our European Union -- there is no attempt at a single currency and it's much less of a rigid, dirigiste bloc. Restoring the old pre-1914 economic lniks to central and eastern europe has helped boost the economies of the western european nations. Scandanavia and the Benelux nations are confederations within the European Community and rather more integrated than even OTL's EU. The soviet union is an associate member, due to the fact that it'd severely unbalance the European Parliament if it were admitted. The European Community's members are all of course Warsaw pact area states..

The warsaw pact is an economic alliance of the soviet union, western europe and other pro-soviet states. Iran, Laos, Turkey, Albania and vietnam are all members. They have become the outsourcing zones for europe, with all recieving visible boosts to their standards of living. Turkey, Mongolia and Albania are first world, Iran is on the borderline and both of the states in Indochina are upper middle income.

Japan is the world center of capitalist excess and prosperity. The existence of a soviet union as a market along with no energy crisis made Japanese economic history a bit different: the 1970s saw Japan growing at 6-8%, the 1980s 5-7%, the 1990s 4-6% and Japan had higher average growth rates than the rest of the industrialized world even into the 2000s with it's growing at 3-5%. However, since a brief recession in 2008, Japan appears to have finally converged at 2-4% growth rates like the rest of the west.

Like Japan, Taiwan and Korea have both followed the Japanese pattern of higher growth rates. However, due to Korea and Taiwan's being respectively one and two decades behind Japan the two places are booming while Japan's is merely doing no better than say the United States. Korea's recent downshifting to 4% average growthrates and Taiwan's to 5% indicate that the pattern will be the same there too.

The two big giants that have benefitted from globalization in OTL, India and China have both experienced OTL's economic growth but their sucesses are considered to be of less relevance than in OTL. After all, with with a soviet union that's at French standards of living, a Japan that's at $67,000 per capita GDP and an America which avoided the 1970s slump their economies are considered to be relatively smaller and people's perceptions of both countries are still more in pre-80s modes of seeing them as backwaters. The people's Republic of China has a bigger problem with protestors than OTL, but still looks largely the same. Also, due to the soviet example of economic reform and gradual democratization as an alternative there is a bigger problem with protests and unrest which has been papered over by turning China into a dominant party state and using rigged elections. India has little change from OTL, due to the license raj being liberalized no earlier.

The Arab Confederation is a group of regimes that are all pretty much carbon copies of OTL's Egypt, except slightly better-run. Also, there's a bit more prosperity thanks to soviet advisors pointing out the worst mistakes

Israel is back to it's 1948 borders, tiny and largely irrelevant to world politics. Relations with it's neighbors aren't good, but there hasn't been any wars since the early 1950s. In fact, Israel's greatest trouble nowadays comes from ultra-orthodox terrorist -- Removing the threat from outside has led to Israel's existing divisions between secular and religious to deepen and turn ugly.

**********************************************

With a larger capitalist world, technology is a bit more advanced than OTL in biotechnology, synthetics, material science and alternate energy. Howeer, military technology, computer networking and aerospace are merely on par with OTL. A bigger economy translating into larger research budgets in practice, even if they're smaller percentage-wise means that there isn't a lag. More competittion translated into the space race getting another decade of enthusiasm before it petered out in 1983 with the establishment of a moon base by the soviet union. The United States, Soviet Union and China all have lunar bases and much more unmanned presence in space. Hilton is currently raising the capital for an orbital hotel.

Economics is a more diverse field than OTL with alot of "heterodox" ideas being put into practice. This has had beneficial results in terms of economic growth compared to OTL overall. Yes, there have been occasional failures and certain areas still stubbornly refuse to converge but the overall prognosis is brighter than OTL, particularly for the third world. Many socialist thinkers in this world seriously argue that capitalist modernization is a necessary stage to pass through before True Communism and are backed with the successful example of the Soviet Union.

Description
Alright for the next map that's being reuploaded here's another map based on a decade-old AH.com scenario.

Yes, this is also by the same guy who did "Japan moves south" and "1921: the collapse of the soviet state). In this one, Lavrenti Beria manages to take power in 1947 following Stalin's early death. As a result, the soviet union does extensive economic reform and the cold war slowly tapers off. Like "Japan moves south" or "Soviet collapse in 1921" this scenario has been significantly modified(Like in both of the other scenarios I had to remove his automatic presumption of islamic fundamentalism's inevitable rise. >_>). Astute readers may notice unintentional similarities to some of Herman Kahn's own scenarios with a US-soviet entente.

Even earlier on, Beria set a different tone for the cold war than in OTL with actions such as the 1952 return of South Sakhalin, the "Two Chinas policy", the neutralization of Germany and his looking the other way in 1953 when Kim Il Sung got crushed by South Korea. Our world in 1945-53 saw the cold war's hardening but this world didn't see it. Instead, for the next 30-35 years the west and soviet union would slowly in fits and starts work out their differences. Yes, there are occasional reversals on one or both sides but the overall trend is for more cooperation.

By the 1980s, the soviet union had become a full democracy and the cold war was nothing but a historical memory. While there are issues like China's staunch refusal to democratize, slowly rising energy prices and Africa's seeming inability to start economically converging, it is largely a peaceful and progressive world. Think the post-cold war optimism many felt in the 1990s but extended onwards. This is a somewhat boring, prosperous and post-ideological world with wealthy nations having a certain bit of decadence and excess.

**********************************************

Even with a drastically altered geopolitical system, the United States is still pretty similar. It's a richer, more confident, more secular nation. Economic policy is in a "centrist" mode similar to Clinton's, but with less reliance on the financial sector, a bit more protectionism and since the early 1960s universal healthcare. The big differences come in social policy where the lack of a cold war translated into aborting the rise of the post-1968 christian right with accompanying side effects on issues like censorship, gay rights, drug use, etc. The lack of cold war-related spending on the military combined with all the government money saved by having a more efficient healthcare system means that there's been alot less debt and alot less inflation. This is a world where there's been only half of our world's post-1968 inflation.

Latin America is more clearly in America's sphere of influence than OTL IT's a bit more capitalist, unequal and democratized a decade later but it's at least more prosperous -- Cuba is fully first world while Argentina and uruguay are at portuguese levels. The Organization of American States is largely limited to economic issues, but you don't need a passport to travel between Canada, The United States, Argentina and Uruguay since 2007.

The second half of the bipolar system, the Soviet Union is much reformed and doing pretty well all things considered. . The economy is more leftist and technocratic than the United States, but it's nto as centrally planned as one would think -- Worker-run combines are quite common and compete with more standard businesses. There is full political freedom along with freedom of speech, which has improved the art scene. Nowadays, the Soviet Union is a country of immigration and there are visible populations of afro-soviets, sino-soviets, viet-soviets or even indo-soviets in Moscow.

Europe from poland to portugal is quite well integrated and is in some ways in a better position than our European Union -- there is no attempt at a single currency and it's much less of a rigid, dirigiste bloc. Restoring the old pre-1914 economic lniks to central and eastern europe has helped boost the economies of the western european nations. Scandanavia and the Benelux nations are confederations within the European Community and rather more integrated than even OTL's EU. The soviet union is an associate member, due to the fact that it'd severely unbalance the European Parliament if it were admitted. The European Community's members are all of course Warsaw pact area states..

The warsaw pact is an economic alliance of the soviet union, western europe and other pro-soviet states. Iran, Laos, Turkey, Albania and vietnam are all members. They have become the outsourcing zones for europe, with all recieving visible boosts to their standards of living. Turkey, Mongolia and Albania are first world, Iran is on the borderline and both of the states in Indochina are upper middle income.

Japan is the world center of capitalist excess and prosperity. The existence of a soviet union as a market along with no energy crisis made Japanese economic history a bit different: the 1970s saw Japan growing at 6-8%, the 1980s 5-7%, the 1990s 4-6% and Japan had higher average growth rates than the rest of the industrialized world even into the 2000s with it's growing at 3-5%. However, since a brief recession in 2008, Japan appears to have finally converged at 2-4% growth rates like the rest of the west.

Like Japan, Taiwan and Korea have both followed the Japanese pattern of higher growth rates. However, due to Korea and Taiwan's being respectively one and two decades behind Japan the two places are booming while Japan's is merely doing no better than say the United States. Korea's recent downshifting to 4% average growthrates and Taiwan's to 5% indicate that the pattern will be the same there too.

The two big giants that have benefitted from globalization in OTL, India and China have both experienced OTL's economic growth but their sucesses are considered to be of less relevance than in OTL. After all, with with a soviet union that's at French standards of living, a Japan that's at $67,000 per capita GDP and an America which avoided the 1970s slump their economies are considered to be relatively smaller and people's perceptions of both countries are still more in pre-80s modes of seeing them as backwaters. The people's Republic of China has a bigger problem with protestors than OTL, but still looks largely the same. Also, due to the soviet example of economic reform and gradual democratization as an alternative there is a bigger problem with protests and unrest which has been papered over by turning China into a dominant party state and using rigged elections. India has little change from OTL, due to the license raj being liberalized no earlier.

The Arab Confederation is a group of regimes that are all pretty much carbon copies of OTL's Egypt, except slightly better-run. Also, there's a bit more prosperity thanks to soviet advisors pointing out the worst mistakes

Israel is back to it's 1948 borders, tiny and largely irrelevant to world politics. Relations with it's neighbors aren't good, but there hasn't been any wars since the early 1950s. In fact, Israel's greatest trouble nowadays comes from ultra-orthodox terrorist -- Removing the threat from outside has led to Israel's existing divisions between secular and religious to deepen and turn ugly.

**********************************************

With a larger capitalist world, technology is a bit more advanced than OTL in biotechnology, synthetics, material science and alternate energy. Howeer, military technology, computer networking and aerospace are merely on par with OTL. A bigger economy translating into larger research budgets in practice, even if they're smaller percentage-wise means that there isn't a lag. More competittion translated into the space race getting another decade of enthusiasm before it petered out in 1983 with the establishment of a moon base by the soviet union. The United States, Soviet Union and China all have lunar bases and much more unmanned presence in space. Hilton is currently raising the capital for an orbital hotel.

Economics is a more diverse field than OTL with alot of "heterodox" ideas being put into practice. This has had beneficial results in terms of economic growth compared to OTL overall. Yes, there have been occasional failures and certain areas still stubbornly refuse to converge but the overall prognosis is brighter than OTL, particularly for the third world. Many socialist thinkers in this world seriously argue that capitalist modernization is a necessary stage to pass through before True Communism and are backed with the successful example of the Soviet Union.