Challenge: No Superpowers

[Killer300]

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is by the year 2000 for there to be no superpowers. Specifically, in the military sense of superpower. No one can be powerful enough to claim the status, and economically, can't have the ability to support a military like that. There can still be countries with incredibly wealthy economies, but they can't have the ability to use military power on the level of a superpower.

Your POD can be as early as you wish. So, is it possible? A world with no superpowers?

 

[Snake Featherston]

Have the USSR somehow negotiate with the Allies in the wake of the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War, nipping any WWII as we know it in the bud due to Germany being unable to seriously re-arm in secret and the result by 2000 is a world where the Great Powers co-exist and have grown more numerous in the wake of the collapse of the colonial empires, including the Republic of China, which has established a Burma on steroids, the Republic of India, which is actually quite a bit more democratic, the USSR, Weimar Germany, France, Britain, and the United States of America as well as the Empire of Japan.

 

[Killer300]

Hey, that's great! Quite a plausible timeline.

 

[Plumber]

Avoid WWI would be an easy one too.

 

[Lord Grattan]

Have the USSR somehow negotiate with the Allies in the wake of the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War, nipping any WWII as we know it in the bud due to Germany being unable to seriously re-arm in secret and the result by 2000 is a world where the Great Powers co-exist and have grown more numerous in the wake of the collapse of the colonial empires, including the Republic of China, which has established a Burma on steroids, the Republic of India, which is actually quite a bit more democratic, the USSR, Weimar Germany, France, Britain, and the United States of America as well as the Empire of Japan.

Of course then we'll all live together in perfect egalitarian harmony, embracing each others' cultural, political, religious (including the lack thereof), and economic differences as we meet one another's needs.

 

[lothaw]

Aftermath of a nuclear war would be another one.

 

[Snake Featherston]

Of course then we'll all live together in perfect egalitarian harmony, embracing each others' cultural, political, religious (including the lack thereof), and economic differences as we meet one another's needs.

Never said that would be the case. I simply noted that there's no superpowers, lack of superpowers hardly translates into honesty or good-faith dealing, it simply means avoiding WWII. Nothing guarantees that the alternate super-NEP USSR would be anything nice or that the de-colonization process would be smooth, easy, painless, or bloodless. Referring to any China as a Burma on steroids is actually a hint at one dystopia while the reference to Empire of Japan is an indication that future-Japan is rather less than OTL 2011 Japan in the niceness and gentleness sweepstakes.

 

[B_Munro]

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is by the year 2000 for there to be no superpowers. Specifically, in the military sense of superpower.

No one can be powerful enough to claim the status, and economically, can't have the ability to support a military like that.

There can still be countries with incredibly wealthy economies, but they can't have the ability to use military power on the level of a superpower.

These seem contradictory. If you have an incredibly wealthy economy, don't you have the ability to support a superpower military? Perhaps it would be better to say no one wants or needs to maintain a superpower level military?

Bruce

 

[Killer300]

Not necessarily, militaries are quite expensive, and soak up manpower. For example, Japan may have had incredible economic success in the 80s and early 90s, but that doesn't mean they could've supported a superpower size military, or even a rather large military.

 

[asnys]

Not necessarily, militaries are quite expensive, and soak up manpower. For example, Japan may have had incredible economic success in the 80s and early 90s, but that doesn't mean they could've supported a superpower size military, or even a rather large military.

What constitutes a superpower-size military for our purposes here? Mass forces of nuclear ICBMs? Power projection through aircraft carriers and marines? Giant armies of tanks? The power projection one is the one I usually hear, but under that definition it's arguable if the Soviet Union was a superpower.

 

[Killer300]

Basically, no power projection, or so limited that you can't affect global affairs.

 

[asnys]

Basically, no power projection, or so limited that you can't affect global affairs.

Would the Soviet Union count as a superpower then? They obviously weren't devoid of capability in this department, but they were never anywhere close to what the US had and has in this department. What about the UK and France, with their aircraft carriers? Would they count as superpowers?

 

[Killer300]

Well, here's an example. You know the influence the USA has over South America? Yeah, that needs to be significantly diminished somehow. No replacing governments in South America at will. You can still have influence, but you can't control.

For the USSR, it's similar. They can influence nations near them, but not to the point where they almost de-facto control them.

This also applies to Europe, they better lose their colonial empires soon, and lose influence over those nations. Same goes for countries like Japan.

 

[B_Munro]

Not necessarily, militaries are quite expensive, and soak up manpower. For example, Japan may have had incredible economic success in the 80s and early 90s, but that doesn't mean they could've supported a superpower size military, or even a rather large military.

They had an economy at its relative peak nearly half the size of the US and larger than the USSR in its final phases: they could have supported a quite large military. The US military budget, big as it is, is not cripplingly large compared to the overall size of the economy(apologies to my fellow liberals, but it is not) and there is no reason a Japan which didn't get into WWII would not be able to maintain a similar military/total budget ratio. The US spends about half of all military spending on the globe: Japan would then be 1/4 of current global spending...

Perhaps you mean "a country can be very rich per capita", but not large enough overall to support a superpower military? In which case, we definitely need to kneecap the US.

Bruce

 

[Killer300]

Thank you, I mean the last one. Now, I would argue US military spending right now significantly hurts it, but more because of HOW it is spent, not just the amount, but that's another debate.

But yes, a country that is rich per capita, in that many people have high income, but not one that can support a large military. So yes, kneecap the USA, a lot.

 

[B_Munro]

Would the Soviet Union count as a superpower then? They obviously weren't devoid of capability in this department, but they were never anywhere close to what the US had and has in this department. What about the UK and France, with their aircraft carriers? Would they count as superpowers?

Well, the USSR did intervene fairly energetically in Cuba, Angola, etc. And one's power projection is multiplied if nobody is going to challenge your navy getting bases in Africa, etc. for fear of nuclear war, and nuclear weapons with global delivery can to some extent substitute for men on the ground (note the Soviets waving the nuclear big stick during the Suez Crisis and the Yom Kippur war).

Plus, the USSR had a big advantage in it's geography: by being located at Mackinder's "pivot area", it was located within spitting distance of more than half the human race, including China and (more so after the Afghan occupation) the Indian subcontinent, and the main areas of industrial power outside the US (Western Europe, Japan), and the main world source of oil. The USSR didn't _need_ too much power projection, since most of the non-US important stuff was nearby...

Bruce

 

[Killer300]

That's doable, the USSR was also an international pariah, which significantly hurts its power projection. Attempts to do so is part of what led to WW2 after all, with nations joining the Axis to take down the USSR. WW2 is also what got the USSR to superpower status despite Stalin, and got it a lot of power projection. Without it, it would've been stuck with International Pariah status, forcing it to either somehow expand, or go the route China eventually did in OTL.

 

[Riain]

The Soviet Union had borders with so many coutries that it didn`t need aircraft carriers for a lot of power projection, for a lot of regions the SU was right there on the spot.

As for no superpowers then the best way is for the OTL superpowers not to accrete the way they did. Perhaps the US doesn`t form as OTL, maybe the Spanish parts and the South form their own countries so the US is divided into 3 countries. Similarly the Russians don`t get Ukraine, Belarous, Poland and some `stans which reduces its power and pushes it away from other centres of power.

 

[Lord Grattan]

The Soviet Union had borders with so many coutries that it didn`t need aircraft carriers for a lot of power projection, for a lot of regions the SU was right there on the spot.

As for no superpowers then the best way is for the OTL superpowers not to accrete the way they did. Perhaps the US doesn`t form as OTL, maybe the Spanish parts and the South form their own countries so the US is divided into 3 countries. Similarly the Russians don`t get Ukraine, Belarous, Poland and some `stans which reduces its power and pushes it away from other centres of power.

But you're (the world) just going to have alternate superpowers who do have the military might rise up and project that might. How long does the "mountain" stay empty in the game "King of the Mountain"? Not very long.

 

[Riain]

There will be great powers, but not two or three (Germany being the only potential thrid candidate) huge, contiguous, continent-spanning supwerpowers which dwarf all others.