Faeelin said:
And since US entry is nigh ineveitable after 1940, it's pretty much impossible for the Nazis to ever win, I know.
Well Here's something I posted long ago on SHWI. The premise is that the US only fights in the Pacific War, Hitler does not declare war and the US does not declare war on him. the European war ends in an armistice of exhaustion.
You may argue that this PoD and war outcome is ASB- but I did make a point of playing out the US-Nazi Cold War afterwards-
Here's some ideas, from a scenario [another thread] where the US fought
a war but only on the Pacific front, and the European War ended with the
scenario you described above, it gives a treatment of cultural
differences in the US, Germany and the USSR, and the geopolitical situation:
The Post-War Era-
Germany and America are clearly the 2 superpowers, with Russia,
Britain, China and Italy
as secondary players, Japan is under US occupation and will only
reemerge later as an
economic force.
Publics in both countries [Germany and USA] clearly perceive things
that way. It's like the Russo-American
Cold War, only worse because there's no pretence of cooperation, or
common
membership in the UN. Instead of two former allies bickering, it's two
countries who
almost went to war, and never were allies at all. The US demobilizes
substantially and
enjoys a consumer boom, but it does not de-mobilize its forces nearly
as much as it did in
OTL, because of the German threat.
In fact fear of Germany and Hitler is such that more
wartime controls may be kept than were in the real OTL Cold War.
The US does have the
outlook of a world power now because of the Japan War, and a National
Security Act is
passed in 1945. The Manhattan Project is still funded and the bomb is
tested in New
Mexico in November 1945. The US doesn't attempt anything like the
Baruch plan for
international atomic control, and begins steady
production of weapons. National security measures are given a boost by
the 1946 food for
weapons deal between Germany and Juan Peron's
Argentina, which is much ballyhooed in the American press. The
American CIA engages
in plotting against the Peron regime, but the most effective US policy
is US support to
Brazil and Chile as counterweights to Argentina. In this way, Getulio
Vargas of Brazil
becomes America's client #1 in South America against the Peron regime,
although the 2
regimes domestic policies are almost indistinguishable.
The Reich continues the final solution, a balanced weapons build-up,
and anti-partisan
operations in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. By 1947 the Germans are
using
helicopter-based tactics in search and destroy operations against
partisans. The Reich
does civil reconstruction and that's what Goebbels emphasizes, people
in the Reich don't
really want to hear much about the naval program. As trade reopens
with Latin America,
the situation of the German consumer improves, in part because costs
are shifted to
occupied peoples, who continue to endure grinding poverty. There is no
US, UK or USSR
trade with Germany [beyond exchange of rare vital minerals], but nobody
can stop neutrals from trading. Also disturbing is growing
South
African-German ties after the Nationalist Party wins power in South
Africa in 1947.
The US bases atomic bombers on Soviet and British territory in the late
40s, to deter
renewed warfare. President Truman manages to make the case for
deterrence, because
its too dangerous to be ambiguous here. The Germans develop the bomb in
1949 or so,
having been shown that its doable and it won't incinerate the
atmosphere. As in OTL, the
US military makes plans and proposals for pre-emptive war on the Nazis
while we have
the atomic monopoly. The plans are more seriously considered in this
TL, because of
Hitler's more unstable nature. Curtis LeMay is the chief military
advocate of preemptive
war. In the end, the administration doesn't support 'an atomic Pearl
Harbor'.
The US is most concerned with German tests of rocket technology, naval
technology and
long-range aircraft in the late 40s. In 1950 the Germans launch the
first space satellite,
prompting a massive response in US scientific investment. The German
atom bomb is
more frightening than the Soviet, because they have delivery systems:
submarines, the
Amerika Bomber, and soon rockets, almost as soon as they get the bomb.
When Olympic
competition resumes, everybody's watching when USA and Germany
face-off, the Soviets
can't afford to field a team. There's more Jesse Owens type stuff.
Black and Jewish and ethnic Americans among others facing off against
Aryan athletes.
Ideologically, we [in the US] contrast our progressivism, liberty and
melting pot ethic with Nazi
racism. Communists are not really suspect in the United States, just
extreme
right-wingers. The German spy network is much less effective however,
than the
Communists' in OTL. Democratic Party civic organizations, and labor ,
don't focus on
purging communists, one of their big campaigns is against racial
segregation. The administration desegregates the armed forces in 1947
or so. Many scenarios with a
surviving Nazi state predict more right-wing US politics, I disagree.
While Germany is not
really competing for the friendship of non-white nations as the USSR
was, we often like to
define ourselves by the way we contrast ourselves with the enemy.
Because our enemies
are Fascists, its very hard to tar socially progressive
movements with the brush of national security threat. The Deep South
still resists
integration, the main factors determining events are still domestic.
It's a tough struggle,
but it gets underway earlier. There's a subtle impact also from the
greater American
exposure to China, and the substantial number of Chinese war brides and
Japanese
occupation brides ---Of course not nearly as many as Australians. Asia
is a little less
strange, even if Americans learn to have even more contempt from
certain aspects of
Chinese culture. There's probably also a bigger drug problem from
Chinese opium/heroin,
as more people pick up the habit over in China.
**************************************************************
The upshot of this scenario is that by the late 1950s the United States
is a much more
advanced country, technologically and socially-from an early space
program and early civil
rights movement and an early drug problem. At the same time defense is
a bigger burden
on GDP [although still distributed more towards Air, Naval, and
Strategic weapons than
ground forces compared to OTL] and trade with China is a poor
substitute for trade with
continental Western Europe. [resulting in a smaller US economic
surplus] As long as Hitler's around, the chances of nuclear war are
greater. He may purge the military a bit. I suspect a mellowing after
his death, but I'm not
sure what form it would take, or when he would go.*
***********************************************888
The arenas of US-German rivalry would be Latin America, Asia, the
Middle East and
Africa. The US would have the allegiance of black Africa by default.
Castro might be a
fascist dictator eventually. Seriously, he was an admirer of Mussolini
and Juan Peron.
Germany would attempt to woo China, in order to trade, and to outflank
the Soviet Union.
Strategically Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan-Pakistan and China would be
considered most
important to Germany in the 3rd world. Germany could offer Chiang
military support and
support territorial claims on the USSR. Chiang may flirt with it, but
probably would not
break
irrevocably with the US, especially while the US atomic monopoly lasts.
US-Chinese
relations may not be that rosy with issues of drug smuggling, human
rights/Tibet
concerns, and Chinese resentment of US advice and any policies that
rebuild Japan. At
the same time, initially he would be the recipient of a larger US aid
package.
In the Argentine-German relationship, the Germans will be glad to have
a source of raw
materials and a vaguely ideological ally. They will roll their eyes at
a Jewish policy which is
discriminatory, but not so bad that Buenos Aires really loses any of
its large Jewish
population. The Nazis will enjoy racial solidarity with South Africa,
but will be exasperated
by continued democratic procedures applied to the white population.
Still, conditions in
South Africa may become unattractive enough that most Jews and
English-speaking
whites leave.
A later, mellowed Nazi regime in the 50s and 60s may shift some of its
racial policies to
imitate the South African 'homelands' policy. Strategic corridors of
Poland and East
Europe will be German settled, and Polish and Ukrainian laborers will
have to go back to
scattered reservations at night. They will probably give up on the
goal of completely
replacing the occupied Slavic populations. Some of the more prominent
dissident groups
may be fundamentalist Christians of various sorts; Baptists, Jehovah's
Witnesses,
Mormons, Mennonites [akin to the Amish], who fail to accept National
Socialist 'Volkische'
principles. If this timeline has an equivalent to the Soviet Jewish
emigration issue, it may
be Mennonite-Amish persecution and emigration.
In the shrunken Soviet Union, wartime toleration and encouragement of
religion may
persist through the postwar years. The Soviets will do a crash
rebuilding program and will
get some reconstruction aid from America. They will accept the
presence of US nuclear
bombers as insurance, but do whatever they can do get the bomb for
themselves. Their
espionage and development efforts will be redoubled after the Germans
develop their own
bomb, because Stalin will doubt that America will trade New York for
Moscow. Worldwide,
communism will be a more minor force, operating in coalition with
liberals and socialists.
If any spy rings are exposed and prosecuted, the reaction in Britain
and the US will be
more mild, it will be treated as if the French or Israelis were spying
in OTL.
Well, that's as far as I'll take it. What do you think.?
