QuantumBranching on DeviantArthttps://www.deviantart.com/quantumbranching/art/No-US-in-WWII-197960609QuantumBranching

Deviation Actions

QuantumBranching's avatar

No US in WWII

Published:
14.4K Views

Description

A world in which a US with no FDR was too concerned with internal matters to intervene in WWII: the fight in Europe dragged on untill a late 1945 peace of exhaustion. The war restarted in 1947 with the success of Tube Alloys (the British nuclear program), and the victors were unkind.

The Soviets expanded to the Rhine, and to make up in part for their horrendous losses some 30 million Germans and Austrians (not to mention Sudetenlanders) were exported east over the next decade to labor at repairing the damage they had done to Mother Russia. Few returned alive.

The British and French, facing a Soviet continent with limited nuke-producing capacities (and thanks to the rich supply of Soviet spies in the UK, it would not be long before the Soviets would have bombs of their own) formed the Anglo-French Union that had earlier been proposed in wartime.

The US, having straightened out its internal problems and feeling a bit embarrassed over letting things go to hell the way they had, created a quite generous aid program to help fix things in the battered old world. The surprising lack of gratitude shown by Eurasians, and their snarky "better late than never, I suppose" comments have remained a sore spot.

The Soviets, economically exhausted and with a male population even more shrunken than OTL, soon found themselves with increasing trouble holding onto the enormous empire they had gained, and although supporting third-world liberation movements, was generally less active abroad than in our world over the next couple decades.

Japan was divided into Australian and Soviet zones of occupation. Neither fared very well.

China still ended up going Red, a longer Japanese presence having pretty much finished off the Guomindang as a function institution. Fortunately, Mao ended up being killed in a Japanese bombing raid in 1946, so China avoided some of the more batshit insane events of OTL.

The Soviet Union followed a rather different path than in Our Timeline: the revival of Russian nationalism that took place OTL with some government encouragement during WWII took on a religious tone as Russians tried to reconcile themselves to human losses even more horrendous than in our world. Women also played a bigger part in politics than OTL due to the reduced pool of males.

The long-term result is the development of modern Russian Holy Socialism, in which Orthodox religiosity and socialist ideals and Russian third-rome nationalism join together in a rather heady brew with notions of Russia as a martyr nation that would be familiar to any OTL Serb: combined with the crushing costs of policing the huge empire, under Premier Irina Teffi it led in the 90s to a withdrawal from outlying areas and a reconsolidation of the Soviet empire in its more slavic, Orthodox core regions. Expansion of the Franco-British sphere has been limited to Bavaria-Wurtemberg and Denmark (where the Soviets retain control of the canal leading to the North Sea), the several other nations emerging from Soviet puppetdom have been neutralized, and have joined into a free-market union.

The most of important of these is the "Republic of saxonia", which due to major population movements under Stalin and his successors is roughly 40% German, 40% Slavic, and 20% everything under the Soviet sun. Mutliethnic, it represents a secular multinationalism no longer popular in the Soviet Union, while in turn its inhabitants have developed a sort of shaky nationalism of their own based partly on their dislike of the current Soviet regime.

There has been some talk of reunifying Bavaria-Wurtemberg and the Rhinelands republic, but given that BW has 2/3 the population of the Rhinelands, compared to the more like 1/4 ratio in our (horrendously expensive) German unification, this seems unlikely to happen.

Much of the Third World, as OTL, went left-wing in the aftermath of Colonialism, in spite of British and French efforts to create an all-Empire nationalism. In recent decades, a move back to capitalist economics has become increasingly notable as alienation from the evolution of Soviet society set in (not to mention the re-capitalization of China and increasing economic difficulties at home). Indonesia, nuclear-armed, belligerent and with an eye on Malaya, Brunei and the Philippines, is perhaps the most vigorous of the Socialist powers.

The British and French have been able to hold at least part of their Empires, and although economic recovery in Europe was slowed by the lack of the German economic motor, it has still handsomely outpaced the regimes to the east. India was lost from the start, admittedly, and increasing overtures to African blacks led to South Africa jumping the ship. Still, given the conservative and racist attitudes of this world's US and the menace of the Soviets, the Anglo-French Empire has been fairly successful in building international coalitions, and retains its postion as a major power.

Important allies include Brazil, which became closely tied to the British economy during WWII and has managed to avoid many OTL missteps, giving it by 2010 economic throw-weight comparable to France itself. Italy was nearly lost to Red revolution, but survived to revive as a third power-center in western Europe. Vietnam is a bit of a curious case: France being liberated rather later than OTL, rather more of Indochina was in the hands of rebel groups by the time the Japanese were removed, and the exhausted French largely gave up on restoring order forcibly: so Vietnam was independent by 1950. Unfortunately, without a long war to cement Vietnamese unity, political turmoil and civil war broke out: one faction came on top with Chinese help, but was sufficiently lacking in legitimacy that the south later broke away with Franco-British help...

The US is socially conservative, Very Capitalist (although with actual banking regulations :) ), at least as prone to religiosity as in our world and has never really got over the Race Thing: blacks are still segregated, although the government is actually spending some serious money nowadays to make the "equal" part of "seperate but equal" more than a bad joke (this has had some pleasant side effects in term of improved funding for poor white schools). It has a formidable navy and air force, but a small army, not having any Fulda Gaps to keep an eye on. The highway system is worse than OTL, but the railroads are doing much better. Competition for market share with the Anglo-French and their allies can be pretty razor-sharp at times.

The rise of liberal anti-racism and continued prevalence of "leftier" economics in Europe and the Empire (during the later stages of the war, Britain was doing a better job of being a Planned Economy than the Soviets were) has led to a fair degree of alienation from the "Liberal Block" nations: the continued near-impotence of Blacks on a national politcal stage means that the US can swallow being allied to a still racially hierarchical South Africa (it's white population somewhat swollen by exiles from Soviet Europe). It is also allied to China out of mutual hostility to the USSR (even sans Mao, there was a political split on the 60s which has only widened with time) and mutual profitability: although the 'coporatist' socialism of this world's China is a bit less capitalistic than OTLs "Communism with Chinese Characteristics" they are still interested very keenly in investments and exports.

US black nationalism is increasingly militant, and the "redeem Africa" movement has already had a success to point to, with the establishment of more-or-less stability in war-torn Liberia by a private army paid for by wealthy black private funds (much to the embarrassment of the US government).

In the early 2000s South Japan invaded the socialist north after a successful first strike against their nuclear facilities. A few million dead and wounded later, the Japanese nation is reunited under an only slightly fascist government. This worries the Koreans, a reforming Communist regime a bit nastier than OTL Vietnam (the Soviets "liberated" the place, and put someone more dependably pliable than Kim on the throne), which have remained carefully neutral since they broke with the USSR: the Chinese and the Soviets are unpleasant enough neighbors, but a reunited Japan as well? Perhaps it's time to revise this "neutrality" gig...

India is (loosely) allied to the Soviets, and politically turbulent: thanks the survival of Gandhi ATL, it is a looser federal structure than OTL, with more states and "special status" cases. Difficulties in center-periphery relations have recently led to calls for a constitutional convention, to rebuild the framework of the Indian nation into something more solid and efficient.

Africa is a bit less screwed up than in our world in a number of places, if a bit more so in a couple. Mozambique managed to negotiate independence sans falling into civil war, and although the same guy has been running the place for thirty years, he knowns enough to steal only so much of the countries income, so a moderate prosperity exists, unlike most of fragmented Angola. Backed firmly as a British ally, Selassie managed to stay on the throne, and his heirs have managed to actually extend the empire, and are the allies and protectors of the (mostly) Christian and Pagan south Sudan. Egypt, on the other hand, went Baathist, and although richer than OTL is a nasty-ass dictatorship. They have puppetized Yemen and north Sudan, and rule a sizeable chunk of the Middle East and North Africa. A nuclear weapons race has started between them and the other major bearer of the banner of Arab Union, the Arab Confederation.

There is no state of Israel, too few Jews surviving to escape Nazi Europe to push the independence movement over the top. Guilty about doing squat about the Holocaust, the British set aside some land for Jews in one of their less densely populated colonies: this attracted enough people that currently Herzland is about 70% Jewish, although that African minority remains a pain.

Tech is a bit less advanced than ours, with an even more damaged Europe and a less intense Cold War. There was no "Space Race" [1] as OTL, and the US was slower to expand higher education.

[1] Although the Anglo-French finally launched an "on the cheap" lunar mission last year. This as been denounced by the Soviets as picking the pockets of the working people for circuses (they really don't want to spend the money to duplicate it) and much angry talk in the US congress and senate re America falling behind western Europe technologically.
Image size
1360x822px 170.37 KB
© 2011 - 2024 QuantumBranching
Comments16
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
oldgringo2001's avatar
The real weak point of this TL is the Anglo-French Union. The concept is only famous because it was in Churchill's memoirs, not the most meticulously accurate historical resource. The non-participation of the United States would have made France even weaker in 1940: No purchases of American aircraft because the Neutrality Act would have still been in force.

I think it would be more plausible to have a postwar France wracked by political turmoil, perhaps even a bit of civil war. That's not a big step at all considering how quickly the Fourth Republic fell apart. The French Empire falls away much as it did in OTL, but probably faster.