@ Stategos' Risk
The US has moments of realpolitik, but there's always this strain of exasperation (and befuddlement) with any foreign govt that doesn't immediately snap to attention whenever the US or its various interests want something.
Trying to explain US foreign policy from...
@ThePest179- Look up Backfire by Loren C Baritz.
Really, the US did everything it could to lose in Nam from 1965 on.
Barring letting Operation Vulture go ahead (nuking Hanoi) or physically invading DRVN- there's not much else the US could do to mess up worse.
The f'd up irony lately...
Gaelic hasn't been dominant in Eire for the last 1000 years, and for many, the required Gaelic is seen as a silly imposition by sentimental politicians, not a clamored-for groundswell of folks rediscovering their culture.
The folks that preserved Irish were Westies that had a reputation...
Gotta pimp phx's TL Stop the Plague of Sprawl and TheMann's Transport America and The Land of Milk and Honey for discussions of common-sense alternatives to OTL sprawl.
Milk and Honey butterflies dergeulation really getting going by Reagan getting thoroughly discredited by Iran-Contra and...
I just caught your latest updates!
Big ups for your piece on Thailand as well. Well-researched and crafted, showing the dynamics behind its troubled politics. The Kra canal's genius.
Nigeria doing better is a major Good Thing. An axis of South Africa, Nigeria, and Egypt pulling Africa out...
@ObsessedNuker
I think we both agree that with a functional chain of command, the Iranian military would obliterate the Iraqis.
You're correct that revolutionary political paralysis in Teheran would be horrifically detrimental to Iranian military performance, morale etc.
One huge butterfly...
@ObsessedNuker
Timing is everything as you point out, but Tudeh trying anything by themselves is about like an armed insurrection by the Republic of Texas folks against the Fifth Armored. Their only hope is the treadheads die laughing or run out of fuel or ammo or hit their designated kill...
Um, the Tudeh would get couped by the military so fast you'd think they were magicked away by the djinn.
The Iranian military didn't want to fight 90% of the country which the islamists claimed to represent.
The Tudeh OTOH were never more than fringe of leftists in universities and a few...
@riggerrob Excellent points about air conditioning and the hydroelecrtic projects that did so much to improve quality of life and access to modern conveniences like A/C but I implied that by how adaptable folks became.
As a native Texan whose Anglo ancestors came two and three generations...
@riggerrob Excellent points about the Dust Bowl and BC agricultural set-asides. Thumbs up sir!
@zoomar Not to necro old points in the thread but read my old posts about why US housing stock stagnated from 1929-1945. Sure folks always wanted a space of their own, but look at the tremendous...
Thanks for answering my comment.
Very effective writing on the Pat Nixon vignette.
What's so tragic is that with politics becoming so $%^& personal is the collateral damage to the kids, S/O's and friends. TheS/O's and friends are adults who volunteer. The kids just get dragged along...
I caught the latest update TheMann! Very tasty stuff.
Being a techie, seeing fusion take off, as well as OTEC and meaningful clathrate exploitation, plus SPS, geothermal, and other sources developed and exploited means energy crises are done. Sweet!
Greenland becoming exploitable means...
@polyharmonic
About the only hope you've got of faster progress on nuclear tech is butterflying the barbecue of people and resources in WWI.
There was a bit of a pause in physics research from 1910-1930 where great work went on, but at a slower pace b/c other things were much closer to hand-...
When you look at how nukes were developed-- they were developed in a crash program with 80-90% of the world's best physicists, chemists, and engineers trying to make them happen as part of an existential conflict against pure fucking evil with a wide open wallet and carte blanche to do whatever...
Love the TL
I grew up raised by hippies who HATED Nixon.
However, with a bit more perspective, I found I liked Nixon's pragmatism and vision.
Looked at one way, the whole 1970 invasion of Cambodia and Laos RMN ordered showed the US military the folly of thinking it could "win" Vietnam...