A Peculiar Cold War

Inspired by something I ran into on youtube.

[link]

In this world the British managed to hold onto the American colonies, and as a result over the next couple centuries the Empire achieved a level of dickish arrogance so sky-towering as to actually unify against it in the Second Global War the *Fascistic Latin Union, the *Communist Germans, (both fallout from the first Global War) and the Imperial Chinese. (Which in this timeline had had a much luckier run of Emperors in the 19th century). Thanks to the German development of the first atomic bombs and revolutionary outbreaks, the Empire went down (as did it's rather shaky Russian ally) and the spoils were divided between the winners, who soon went into three-way cold war mode after the Latins duplicated the Bomb.

Currently, in the year 2011, an atomic cold peace exists between the three great powers. Ironically, it's Imperial China which has become the defender of Freedom and Liberty: nowadys a constitutional monarchy (the Emperor has power, but mostly on the agreement he doesn't use it ) , capitalist and the world's largest economy (if still a bit poor on a per capita basis) the Empire is increasingly seen as the defender of the little guy both from rapacious French and radical Germans. The other two powers are both relatively in decline, short on manpower and overstretched territorially: and although the Germans have succeeded in creating a cybernetic, computerized Communism that actuallty does things like distribute goods and services efficiently, [1] it still is less creative and productive than the chaotic but fast-moving, demand-driven Capitalist system.

Of late, there have been noises re the United States of Columbia moving out of neutrality to ally with the Chinese - something the Latins and the Germans are both very hostile to: having another of the major economic powers shift to the Chinese side is a destablizing thing, even if the current ban on USC atomic weapons development is maintained. Traditionally a conservative and racist area (it broke gladly with the Empire when it collapsed, harkeaning back to the crushing of the slaveholder revolt by British and northern Abolitionists in the 1830s), as a free neutral it has reformed itself and given equal rights to its darker-skinned residents and quite dropped the anti-Asian rhetoric. Some talking heads wonder if the resulting preponderance of Pacific Power will force the *Fascists and *Communists into alliance: there have been odd alliances before, after all...

(Note that the United States and the Confederation of Columbia are the remaining bits of British North America, which broke in two after the war. The Latin Block is not all Romance-language speakers, any more than the Chinese Block is all Chinese)


[1] Although Communists, the Germans are still German in many ways - for one thing, the notion of _Russians_ coming up with a working Scientific Socialism on their own would inspire hilarity anywhere in the German People's Republic...