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OttoVonSuds — Prime Minister Machiavelli

Published: 2012-11-24 00:20:06 +0000 UTC; Views: 3770; Favourites: 27; Downloads: 42
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Description Here's an adaptation of one of Chris Nuttall's scenario. It's his "Prime Minister Machiavelli" scenario, which is basically what it says on the tin. Essentially, Britain gets an intelligent Prime Minister who is more proactive at handlin various foreign and domestic policy crises and is able to manipulate outcomes for Britain's advantage. The short version of this is this: Britain is able to maneuver it's way out of being broke as a result of Prime Minister Mackenzie's* willingness to do whatever it takes for the empire to survive. You can read the full scenario for this on Changing The Times.

As a result of Prime Minister Mackenzie's actions, the situation at the end of the war is rather more to Britain's liking. There are a few hard years, but Britain has avoided being indebted to the United States by a mix of blackmail(threatening to make peace with germany) and playing on Roosevelt's anglophilia. The soviet union is stuck at it's 1938 borders, with the only gains being east turkestan and Manchuria. Japan of course gets off more leniently and retains Taiwan, south sakhalin and a (largely toothless) aristocracy. Germany gets off with better borders than in 1938 in OTL and a british guarentee to sweep various war crimes under the rug.

Instead of decolonization, the postwar era instead saw attempts by the big powers to turn their empires into commonwealths. This worked in Britain and flopped in France but set precedents for the emergence of globalization in the 1970s and 1980s. The economies of the "Indian Rim" began booming. Along with the modernization of the British Empire, another trend after the end of the second world war was the struggle to contain communism.

* Yes, I know picking a name similar to machiavelli may be a bit annoyingly punny but I couldn't resist. Deal.

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Britain's empire has made it into the 21st century and in the process has drastically changed. Nowadays it's a bit of an Indo-British codominion with London and New Delhi as opposed to an empire. London and New delhi are working together to economically develop the nations of the sterling bloc -- There is a free trade zone with common outside tariff along with a military alliance. As a result, Britain has moved to making high-value goods and providing capital for the emerging industrial economies of India and the dominions in Africa. On the political side of things, all of the dominions of the empire are at least nominally liberal democracies even if places like Egypt don't necessarily fully adhere to it. Their economies are of course rather more capitalistic than the norm for our third world. There are curry shops in London, India's cinema scene is beginning to compete with Hollywood and ska is the current big musical fad. Britain is this world's cultural superpower with America, France and Japan as the places which have their own successful popular cultures that aren't just swept aside by the trends of London or New Delhi. The cape to cairo railroad has been in operation for 23 years and there are ongoing discussions about turning it to a cape to Singapore rail road.

With Britain's examples in mind, Europe's states have retained more minor bits and pieces like Cape Verde, suriname, sierra leone and West Irian to name a few of these posessions. America granted statehood to Puerto Rico and Isola(OTL's pacific trust territories) in the 1980s.

In many ways, the United States is a more lefty nation than OTL and rather less internationally involved. Civil rights happened in the 1970s and 80s, though without a cold war to require the US's leadership to look better in the third world. Also, immigration was opened later than OTL, and due to anti-british feeling doesn't include allowing in africans or people from muslim countries or India. The breach between America and Britain was repaired in the 1950s and 60s, and by now the two powers are once again allies, if not on OTL's "special relationship" level of closeness. America may have the world's largest economy and bigger military than the United Kingdom, but it's isolationism has kept it from being seen as a superpower on par with the United Kingdom.

Germany started moving to the right in the 1970s, and by now can be described as a one party rightist state. Yes, there are elections but the ruling "National Reform" Party wins them thanks to gerrymandering and shameless blackmail. The Republic of China is Germany's biggest ally and is a poorly run fascist government -- think Burma in the large economy size. Recent intelligence reprots indicates that Nanking thinks that antimissile technology has improved enough to make a war of reunification and reconquest of the north practical. Germany's leaders have spent alot of time in China, trying to convince the KMT's leadership that a nuclear first strike on the soviet union would be a Bad Idea. Germany's other allies outside of Europe include Algeria, Turkey and a Republic of Vietnam whose government was tired of anglo-american complaints re: "Human rights". In recent years, tensions between Germany and the British have appeared and there are those who fear that Britain may someday have to go to war with a german-led european bloc.

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Classical studies is a more popular academic discipline than in OTL in part due to Britain's elites keeping it prestigious and also in part due to it being an example of a quite long-lasting diverse empire. Latin is a requirement in more elite high schools than in OTL.

Consumer goods and aerospace are both ahead of OTL thanks to this world's early globalization combined with Britain's having a lead in the space program thanks to operation "Thimble" where Germany's rocket scientists got kidnapped by British special forces right before the war's end. The first sattelite was in 1950 and Britain landed the first man on the moon in 1965. By now, there are UK and US moon-bases with Germany's leaders announcing plans to send one up by 2020.

Multiculturalism of the sort seen in OTL doesn't really exist. Immigrants into western nations are expected (and encouraged) to turn into British, french, American, etc.
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Comments: 14

AbleArcher1928 [2017-06-27 16:13:41 +0000 UTC]

What is the status of the USSR and France at this point?

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

BIazekien [2013-03-30 03:47:24 +0000 UTC]

Yay! the UK is doing great in this scenario!

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

QuantumBranching [2012-12-12 07:50:23 +0000 UTC]

I think you need a color more distinct from the US and its allies for the neutrals.

Few questions: what happened to Belgium? And in the original writeup the British took Taiwan: did they give it to the Japanese as a kiss and makeup sort of thing? What's the Copenhagen Pact?

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

OttoVonSuds In reply to QuantumBranching [2012-12-12 14:54:16 +0000 UTC]

This is a really old map from 2010 and from well before the first time you offered that suggestion.

In a world with an ealrier end to WWII, pushy nationalism led to a breakup in the 80s, and the economic unsustainability of Wallonia and Flanders led to them joining the netherlands and France a few years back.

Yes they did. I had them give it back after a short period of occupation like okinawa.

copenhagen pact? It's basically a bigger version of OTL's nordic community.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

QuantumBranching In reply to OttoVonSuds [2012-12-13 01:40:28 +0000 UTC]

"This is a really old map from 2010 and from well before the first time you offered that suggestion."

Well, then you've had two years to fix it, lazy.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

OttoVonSuds In reply to QuantumBranching [2012-12-13 02:25:58 +0000 UTC]

Eh, i'd rather do a remake eventually than fix an OLD map.

I haven't reuploaded more because I'm currently in the process of making a backlog.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

mdc01957 [2012-11-25 05:29:18 +0000 UTC]

One does have to wonder how things might have turned out had this happened in OTL.

...although OTL globalization existed prior to World War I at least....

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

FieldMarshalPatton [2012-11-24 04:10:24 +0000 UTC]

Another great map!

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

OttoVonSuds In reply to FieldMarshalPatton [2012-11-24 20:06:24 +0000 UTC]

Thanks. This one actually sat on my computer for over 6 months before I actually got the description done and posted it on CF.net.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

kyuzoaoi [2012-11-24 03:29:03 +0000 UTC]

Preferable to OTL.

👍: 0 ⏩: 2

OttoVonSuds In reply to kyuzoaoi [2012-11-24 20:08:24 +0000 UTC]

Depends on where you are. As GMB said, most of the commonwealth is doing well but the USSR, Chinese, black americans and germans would consider this to be visibly worse than OTL.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

FieldMarshalPatton In reply to kyuzoaoi [2012-11-24 04:09:48 +0000 UTC]

I suppose for most of the Commonwealth area but then again the USSR is still around and Germany is quasi-fascist.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

mdc01957 [2012-11-24 02:20:20 +0000 UTC]

Where was the POD by any chance?

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

AmongTheSatanic [2012-11-24 01:05:34 +0000 UTC]

I like this.

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