The Land of Milk and Honey: An American TL

[TheMann]

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!

Energy crises are already becoming largely a thing of the past. Develop of alternative fuels and considerably-better American can fuel efficiency (not Europe, but considerably better than OTL) have already reduced fuel consumption. The percentage of power generated by coal in the United States declined steadily from 40% in 1970 to 16% by 2010 to the last such plant closed down forever in 2033, so its emissions are mostly history, but coal now has a much bigger new market, that being making synthetic petroleum out of it.

For heating homes, natural gas costs more here and is sufficiently expensive that electrical heating of homes is fairly common, but calthrate exploitation, while admittedly somewhat dangerous, has the ability to end the problems of energy shortages. Modern filters and the wish to collect the carbon dioxide mean that most of the best modern such plants produce little emissions at all.

Renewables' share of electricity production is up in large part due to a number of factors. Ontario ITTL did what Quebec did and built a huge network of hydroelectric dams, allowing Ontario Hydro to make huge profits exporting power to Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Minnesota, thus reducing pollution from coal-fired stations there. On top of that, many new and rebuilt dams on major rivers produce hydroelectric power and pumped-storage schemes have been built in a number of places in the West, taking advantage of growing rainfall there. OTEC is only really viable in coastal regions with warm surface water and colder deeper water, but the Caribbean (including Florida) has this in spades, and the same is true in Southern California and Hawaii. Geothermal power using deep (>10 km) boreholes is being used in several places in the Western US (and Mexico and Canada) based on technology that was developed in the Philippines and New Zealand - Combustion Engineering did a deal with the Filipinos to effectively trade nuclear power plants for geothermal power plants in the 1990s. Between these and tons of wind turbines, solar cells and solar heating power stations, cogeneration at industrial plants and refineries and the growing viability of space-based solar power thanks to the ability to put satellites for it in orbit in pieces and then assemble them up there makes the energy problems easier. Fusion hasn't hit the mainstream there....but its close, and those involved are gathering tritium and deuterium to be ready for when it is indeed viable.

Greenland becoming exploitable means 20% of Earth's freshwater rejoined the ocean, so seas rise enough to imperil coastal cities around the globe.

Not all of the ice is gone by any means, just enough of it that the mines can work. The ice has been receding there for many years, and while not all of it will go, some of it will, and the development of mining able to go through the ice to get to the deposits underneath. The greater water in the atmosphere in this world also reduces some of that concern. Sea levels have gone up, but only in inconsequential amounts (around 10-15 cm), and as carbon emissions in most of the world have started falling, the problems of climate change will balance themselves out.

As a semi-Green, sustainable fisheries is a massive step in the right direction.
Finding solutions to oceanic polution, acdification, and habitat loss could butterfly the worst die-off since the Permian-Triassic boundary @ 252 mya. 95% of oceanic species and 70% of terrestiral species died then.
By some estimates, it took 30 million years for various species to recover b/c the oceanic climate and thermohaline circulation were so jacked up.

The problems of ocean acidification caused by carbon dioxide will be slinking down as carbon emissions fall. As carbon dioxide is now a valuable feedstock to make composite materials, major industrial and power generation systems are capturing it and either storing it or making carbon fiber themselves with it, and by the mid-2030s in this world carbon composite is a material used in literally millions of objects in everyday life, as well as uses in refrigerant, lasers and other inert gas applications and is starting to be used to make isobutanol using genetically-modified bacteria and photosynthesis. The problems of ocean acidification are also why most operations to extract calthrates are quite substantially regulated. Carbon nanotubes and growing graphene usage will also reduce the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere.

For the tl;dr crowd, the earth will be fine, life finds a way, but it doesn't give a fig about you personally.

Clathrate exploitation to me is a rather touchy subject- plenty of energy, but methane's role as a greenhouse gas (60X more powerful than CO2) and how huge the quantitites involved happen to be could really jack the climate up for millennia.

Calthrate exploitation is done very, very strictly for the very reasons you describe. The potential for disaster if done wrong is massive, and as a result the operations of such operations are regulated not terribly different from how nuclear power plants are and the operations must have backup plans in case of primary extraction system failures.

Beyond global disaster to s/t less vexing, like Cuba- hmm...Cuba's not as bloody minded as or delusional as DPRK. Why couldn't it find a migration plan away from socialism a la Yugoslavia or Vietnam or China?

If the gates between Cuba and US were opened in 2005, give folks a decade to process the new info and find ways to exploit the situation with a lot of help from the Cuban-Americans as the Chinese diaspora helped the PRC once it opened up, things could be developing at explosive-levels of growth from 2015 on.
How much the average Cuban benefits from it's another story.

Sure politics are a mess, but I just can't see Cuba imploding that bad.

Cuba petitioning to be a US state?

Really?

NEUMA! Ni en un millon anos! I refuse to say ASB, but no.

The only time I see Cuba becoming a US state is basically butterflying the Platt Amendment and assurances Cubans are American citizens able to vote, regardless of what color they are really early (ca 1905) which would make US Southerners blanch, catch the vapors, whatever.

By the 1930's or 1940's they were used to running themselves and doing pretty well. People talk about how bad Argentina lost ground in the 20th century, but Castroite Cuba barbecued its economy and quality of life to a degree only rivalled by Cambodia when the Khmer Rouge took over.

Puerto Rico's had its massive problems with 1/20th the population that the mainland could comfortably ignore and did.

Cuba OTOH would be a bleeding mess for decades. People in DC and troops on the ground in Cuba in 1900 knew it and wanted no part of it,

It didn't hurt that the Moro insurgency in the Philippines gave the US army and marines a vivid, current example of how ugly that could get.

At any rate, love the TL but find a couple of quibbles.

To be fair on this one, the reality is that Cuba is not gonna be a US state. It will remain an independent country for the reasons you describe, but within a decade or so it will be more or less totally reliant on America for its economy and much of its cultural lead. I've had the idea of a fast-ferry services between Miami and Key West to Havana and seaplanes between them, with the country making great economic headway in the decades to come, but they will end up being a middle point between America and Latin America. The only reason its being talked about now is the country's pitiful economic state and the huge Cuban-American community, which is also massively politically influential in several places in the United States, particularly Miami, of course.

 

[TheMann]

What about Nigeria and Thailand in this timeline?

Nigeria
Nigeria's situation is a bit of a sad one during the 1960s to 1980s, with a violent two and a half year civil war and following serious issues with tribal and social divisions. While this has abated in modern times to some degree, what has helped Nigeria the most in modern times is good governance. As with Latin America and Southern Africa, better economic management surfaced into Nigeria in the 1990s, starting with activists like Ken Saro-Wiwa, Anthony Enahoro, Johnathan Adeyemi and Ganiyu Dawodu and with the political achievements starting with the nation's transition to democracy after the death of military dictator Sami Abacha in 1997. The list of leaders going from there started with former military leader Olusegun Obasanjo (1999-2007), but Obasanjo to the surprise of many of his critics did a good job, and his successors - first Umaru Yar'Adua (2007-2010, died May 2010 from kidney failure), then Goodluck Johnathan (2010-2019), Ken Saro-Wiwa (2019-2027) and Ejimofor Duribe (2027-2031). The common themes of these leaders focused (wisely) on battling out corruption, economic diversification, industrial development and social advancements. Heavy industry set up shop substantially during the times of Obasanjo and Yar'Adua, but Johnathan's focus on more small-scale developments and Saro-Wiwa's lifelong devotion to improving the environment led to many of the excesses of these being curbed.

Nigeria has a fast-growing economy that has in the 21st Century shifted from resource exploitation (principally oil) to developing indigenous industries and improving its economic status. The nation remains massively unequal in terms of income distribution, but per-capita GDP of Nigerians increased four-fold between 1990 and 2030 and the country's mean wages grew by 5.7 times over the same period. Nigeria's national oil companies took notice of the development of oil refineries in the West and copied it in the 2000s, while its agricultural sector began a long series of reforms in the late 1990s which has continued since them, reducing the number of individual landowners but massively raising both productivity and diversity - Nigeria today is the world's largest exporter of cocoa and is a major exporter of several foodstuffs, despite a population of 190 million and thus huge needs of its own - and as a result has made for a large and continually growing agribusiness sector, which when combined with the country's history of corruption and poor planning has resulted in a sector that, while very willing to look at technical changes and invest in them, is more than a little apprehensive about foreign involvement. However, the country's industrial base, neglected through the 1970s and 1980s, has since gained back more than enough strength to provide for these agricultural businesses' needs as far as industry goes. The nation manufactures under license (or indigenous design) most of its agricultural equipment, a sizable portion of its supplies needed for the oil industry, nearly all of its building materials and a growing amount of its domestic consumer goods needs. Mining has swelled rapidly again and now produces iron ore, tin, coal, gold, salt, cement, rare earth metals and uranium, and a sizable chunk of this is exported. Bitumen reserves in Nigeria today are used almost entirely for the production of specialized petroleum products, and both Nigerian firms and oil giants Petro-Canada and Conoco both use the bitumen resources to make high-quality synthetic lubricants, plastics, carbonfiber and petrochemical products. Nigeria produces huge amounts of steel, and its industry takes advantages of this.

One of Nigeria's problems was (and remains) its infrastructure. Despite $100 Billion+ spent on this in the 21st Century, one of the problems remains ports and transshipments, as Nigeria continues to demand all goods entering the country be inspected. The nation's railway system, totally rebuilt with British and Canadian assistance in the 2010s, is one of the most modern in Africa despite it running into a break-of-gauge problem as a result. Road quality remains hit and miss (despite very large resources devoted to fixing this) and huge population density in major cities (particularly Lagos and Port Harcourt) and resulting renewal projects in several major cities that were needed to provide halfway-decent housing and infrastructure proved to be a challenging problem, not made easier by population growth. Electric power, an issue going back decades, was fixed due to both hydroelectric development during the 2000s and 2010s and then the adoption of nuclear energy in the 2020s (Nigeria's enormous Perawe Atomic Power Station, completed in 2028, is largest nuclear power station in the world and the second-largest power plant in Africa, with eight nuclear reactors producing 10,800 MW of electricity) both improved the power supply and, thanks to decades of extensive development of home-grown engineering talent, led to the plants being able to be built and operated almost entirely by Nigerians. This talent's development was quite deliberate, as Nigeria had little wish to have its talent in engineering or indeed many of its service sectors dominated by foreigners. In modern times, the focus on redevelopment is on better transport within cities and between cities. Air services in Nigeria are good but expensive, but passenger rail services between the major cities of Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt and Kano are today quite good, and the services between Port Harcourt and Lagos largely follow the ocean and is quite a scenic line. Private cars and motorcycles are hugely common in Nigeria, and in rural areas the relatively low cost of fuel in Nigeria has resulted in American and Japanese light trucks being common in Nigeria, though the cities' massive traffic congestion and difficult road system means that smaller cars are more common among city dwellers, even affluent ones.

Nigeria's biggest geopolitical success, aside from its massive advancements in development, are its tackling its once-massive problem with Islamic fundamentalism. Wahabbism and its followings have a long history in impoverished northern Nigeria, and while many Muslim Nigerians fought alongside their Christian brothers in the country's bitter civil war, violence in the northern provinces swelled in the 1970s and peaked during the infamous Maitatsine riots in Kano in 1980. The jihadi forces there provided numerous fighters to Islamic radicals, a fact first seen graphically in terrorism in Iran, Egypt and Lebanon in the mid-1990s and then again with Al Qaeda's attacks on US embassies in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, in 1998. The growing political advancement in Nigeria in the 2000s helped contain some of this (having Yar'Adua as President helped this, as he personally attempted to narrow the gaps between the Fundamentalists and the rest of Nigerian society), but after Boko Haram's Christmas Day attacks in Abuja, Kano, Kaduna and Enugu, which claimed the live of nearly 550 people and injured nearly 2,500, Nigeria got both pissed off and aware of the scale of the problem. The discovery of arms shipped to Boko Haram from Pakistan in 2012 caused a diplomatic row between the two nations, and the discovery by the Nigerians that Saudi supporters had funded Boko Haram members caused the expulsion of the Saudi Ambassador to Nigeria. Nigeria sought out (and got) foreign help for raids against Boko Haram after the group kidnapped some 275 schoolgirls from a school in Chibok in Bono state, a situation which caused worldwide attention - a situation made worse when it was discovered that some members of the country's security forces were involved. Special forces from America, Britain, Canada and Australia were deployed to Nigeria, and a proud boast by leader Abubakar Shekau that he would sell the girls into slavery was most vocally answered by the Canadian Prime Minister, who ominously said on television "Mr. Shekau should remember what happened the last time Canadian soldiers went to Africa." True to form, some 130 of the girls were rescued from northeastern Nigeria by Canadian and Australian special forces units in a raid in August 2014.

The problems of the early 2010s both caused major problems for the nation and its democracy, but it also led to a major campaign to fix the underlying causes of the conflict by Johnathan to fix the problems, developments helped along by Saro-Wiwa. As the economy grew and new financial support for more-moderate Muslim leaders began to arrive in Northern Nigeria (supported in largest part by Iran, Egypt and Algeria), Saro-Wiwa did a major service by appointing multiple Muslims to his cabinet, cracking down massively on corruption in the northern regions, openly supporting the building of new mosques and places of worship and spending very large sums on services development. When combined with the campaign against Boko Haram reducing both their numbers and capability, ultimately defeated them for fair in 2025. Shekau was offered an amnesty publicly by Saro-Wiwa on two occasions if the group gave up fighting but refused both times, ending up with him committing suicide by blowing himself up inside his surrounded-by-police compound in Borno state in March 2025. The defeat of Boko Haram was one sign of many that religious extremism in many Muslim parts of Africa would ultimately face failure, and as North Africa's Muslim states had by the 2020s developed far beyond where they had been a generation previously, money was making the job of defeating such groups easier.

 

[TheMann]

Thailand

One of the "Second Wave of Asian Tigers" of the latter portions of the 21st Century (along with India, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia, with the First Wave being made up of Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong), Thailand is one of the swelling economies of the latter 20th Centuries, though in more recent times its growth has been slowed by its multiple bouts of political instability - the series of military governments that ruled the nation from before World War II until the Thai student uprising of October 1973 were followed by a bitter communist insurgency which lasted until the fall of 1982, followed by a democratization process that, while briefly interrupted by the events of May 1992 (where Thailand's King personally intervened to stop a quite possible civil war after a series of bloody street riots in Bangkok), took strong root until the growth into power of populist Thaksin Shinawatra in 2001, who was overthrown in a 2006 coup. His sister Yingluck became Prime Minister in 2011 only to herself be overthrown by a coup in 2014. The perpetual instability eventually led to a sizable amount of violence during the summer of 2015. While democracy was restored in 2017, Thailand's politics in modern times has been marked by the massive divisions between Thailand's economically-powerful southern elite and the government, which continues to be dominated by supports of Shinawatra and many of his allies. Yingluck Shinawatra's second government, elected in 2017, was the first of the Shinawatra governments to reach its full term when she was re-elected in March 2022. While the coup problem has largely slid away, Thailand continues to have difficulty dealing with its social divisions.

Helping matters, however, is economics. Having had a spectactularly fast economic growth rate in the latter years of the 20th Century - growth in Thailand between 1985 and 1996 averaged a staggering 12.5% a year - though the imbalance between the wealthy southern regions and poorer northern regions remains an issue. Thailand's economy is heavily export-oriented, though its exports are very diverse which helps insulate the nation from economic shocks, as well as having a vibrant tourism industry. (One problem in the tourism front is that the sex tourism trade is a major issue that remains.) Thailand faces challenges namely in raising its per capita incomes and dealing with the competition in the region, most notably with neighboring Vietnam and Malaysia. The anchor economy of the region, Bangkok in modern times competes with Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Jakarta for business and trade growth, though climate change causes real problems for much of the nation's lower-lying regions and higher energy costs than the world average are causing some issues. The country began working on the use of hydroelectric and nuclear energy in the 1990s in an attempt to counteract this, but the nation remains heavily reliant on natural gas and coal for energy, as well as being a major energy importer. (Thailand's national oil companies and Japanese firms are co-operating on the development of synthetic crude, and the Thais have been working with ExxonMobil on its methanol fuel program.) A major source of growth in the 2000s was the automobile industry, with Thailand being the world's fourth-largest market for pickup trucks (behind the United States, Brazil and Russia) and a major exporter of light and medium commercial vehicles, adding to a very strong electronics industry.

Societally, the growth of the internet, mobile communications and social media has been somewhat disruptive to the nation and its social fabric, as this largely coincided with the rise of Thaksin and his supporters. People power is by no means new to Thailand, but the recent battles between the nation's regions have added to this dimension, as the government has found it extraordinarily difficult to control media outlets, though it has tried. While the country's political instability has had effects on all levels of society, it is widely seen by Thais that the growth in wealth for the country's poorer Isan regions will eventually lead to a major benefit for the nation as a whole. As climate change is a real problem for Thailand (its primary city is now effected by floods on a very regular basis, and flooding is a constant problem for many of its agricultural areas), the country has sought to expand its economic centers of gravity beyond its current centers around Bangkok to further inland regions. The nation also began construction of the Kra Canal in 2018, aiming to diversify the nation's economy and develop its economically-struggling regions to South. The job, completed in 2034, caused a sea change in the politics of the region, as it massively reduced the traffic in and costs of shipping through the Straits of Malacca, and the project - largely financed with Chinese and Indian money - had the very real effect of reducing shipping congestion in one of the world's key shipping lanes, and it proved to be a massive source of income for modern Thailand.

 

[TheMann]

And while I research the next post for this TL, I'm gonna give everyone a taste of what America's armed forces look like in this world.

The American Armed Forces are made up of four separate branches - Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines - each with their own identity and traditions. (Technically, the Coast Guard could be considered a fifth branch, but they are most of the time under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security, though the President or Congress could order them to support the Navy at any time if the situation requires it. Technically, the commissioned corps of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the United States Public Health Service can also be considered uniformed services, though these are not armed.) The Navy is slightly bigger than the Army by manpower and budget, but only just, and the United States' armed forces all have considerable size and budget and massive capabilities. While other nations have massive armed forces of their own, with a 2030 budget of $749 Billion and a combined active-duty manpower of just under 1.7 million, the armed forces have both a huge effect on the world's geopolitics and major influence at home, with both active-duty and past personnel influencing the politics of the armed forces. America's military spending is by some margin the world's largest, but with its spending being just under 3.6% of GDP, it is by no means massively outsized as a portion of the nation's economy, and as nearly all of the supplies used by the armed forces is spent in America and the biggest single expense of the American armed forces is pay for their members, the money spent has something of a multiplying effect on the nation's economy.

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the world's most powerful Navy, with a fleet of just over 500 vessels centered around 15 aircraft large carriers, a sizable amphibious fleet, a 112-strong submarine force (including 68 nuclear-powered attack submarines and 16 ballistic missile submarines), a massive fleet of cruisers, destroyers and frigates used primarily to escort the carriers and amphibious forces and all of the support ships necessary to support this fleet and its worldwide reach. The carrier fleet is made up of 12 examples of the massive Nimitz-class nuclear-powered supercarrier and the three completed Arizona-class nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, which are expected to eventually completely replace the Nimitz class. (The last oil-fueled carrier, USS John F. Kennedy, was retired in 2014 after 47 years of service, and the first nuclear carrier, USS Enterprise, was retired two years later after 55 years of service.) Each USN carrier has its own air wing, made up primarily of F-25A Challenger, F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, F-14F Supercat, A-6F Intruder II and F/A-24 Viper fighters, though the STOVL Vipers are generally only used on assault ships. The Navy owns most of the fighters, but they have a sizable number of F/A-24s and F/A-18E/Fs which go out on USN carrier groups when they are supporting Marine operations. The air groups also include E-2D Advanced Hawkeye airborne radar aircraft, SV-22 Osprey and SV-22C Sea Venom aircraft for carrier delivery and anti-submarine warfare, EA-6F Intruder electronic warfare aircraft and SH-60 Seahawk and SH-92 Cyclone helicopters for various duties.

The carriers are the most visible and obvious sign of the power of the United States Navy, but the amphibious fleet's flagships, the four mighty Iowa-class battleships, are often called the fleet's most visible status symbols as they are the last battleships left in active service anywhere in the world. (The Iowas have been rebuilt several times, most recently in 2010-2016, where they had their engines and almost all of their electronics replaced, and an agreement between the Navy and the Marine Corps allows the Marines to supply a major portion of the Iowas' crew complements.) The amphibious fleet also includes twelve amphibious assault vessels, sixteen amphibious transport docks, ten dock landing ships, eight fast vehicle cargo ships, nineteen prepositioned vehicle cargo ships, four mobile landing platforms, eight high speed transport vessels and twenty littoral combat ships. The combined fleet is designed to be able to carry and deliver two full divisions of armed troops, ready to land on a beach, with the Iowas operating as their support vessels. The United States Marine Corps is the primary force carried by these vessels, and the amphibious assault vessels also have hangars and facilities to allow the Marines to use their own attack assets - F/A-24A Viper attack aircraft, AH-1Z King Cobra and AH-64E Sea Apache attack helicopters, UH-1Y Venom, CH-47K Chinook and CH-53K Future Stallion helicopters and various versions of the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor. The Marines also operate special VIP helicopters, namely the VH-71 Kestrel, for the exclusive use of members of the United States' executive branch.

The Navy's surface warship fleet - what its operators call "The Real Navy" and what submarines tend to call "Cans" - is primarily divided into Cruisers, Destroyers and Frigates. The Cruiser fleet is made up of the nuclear-powered Texas class and the gas turbine-powered Ticonderoga class, the latter displacing over 17,750 tons and equipped with one of the most powerful radar systems ever put to sea, the AN/SPY-4, along with the AEGIS II combat system. The Ticonderoga class cruisers, along with the Arleigh Burke class destroyers, are equipped with the AEGIS Combat System. AEGIS II systems, only equipped to nuclear-powered vessels because of its immense power consumption, is designed as an all-around defensive system, with its powerful computers, massive radar system and long-ranged missiles, is one of the best air-warfare systems ever produced, and since upgrades have been made to others, it is possible for a single AEGIS II system to guide and illuminate targets for up to 2500 missiles launched from other vessels and even some types of aircraft-launched missiles, and is able to track ballistic targets out to over 1600 miles at full power. The Ticonderoga class, of which 32 were built between 1983 and 1996, 19 remain in service and all that remain in commission were either rebuilt or upgraded between 2004 and 2018. The Texas class, of which so far six have been built, is often used as the air defense HQ in a battle fleet, though the Texas, which is also equipped with pairs of dual 155mm gun mounts, Tomahawk cruise missiles, Harpoon anti-ship missiles and anti-submarine aircraft and ASW torpedo tubes, is fully capable of doing a great many duties aside from air defense, a situation also true of the Ticonderoga class vessels.

The destroyer fleet in the US Navy is made up a dwindling number of Spruance-class destroyers, all of which were rebuilt between 2001 and 2005, and the Arleigh Burke class. The Burke class, which now number 76, are often called the backbone of the US Navy, has seen multiple changes during its life to improve its capabilities, with even the first ship of the class commissioned in 1991 having been upgraded and improved repeatedly. The Spruance class as the Burkes became more numerous were rebuilt primarily as strike vessels, using Mark 41 vertical launch systems for Tomahawk missiles, 155mm gun mounts and attack helicopters, passing their ASW duties to frigates and air-defense roles to the cruisers. The Spruances also spawned classes of vessels built for Canada, Iran, Australia, Israel and Greece in the 1980s and 1990s, some of which also remain in service. While nuclear-powered destroyers are widely seen as inevitable, none yet have been built, and the upgrades to the Burke and Spruance class vessels have kept them plenty capable. The frigate fleet was based heavily on the Oliver Hazard Perry class, which was built between 1977 and 1989, until the arrival of the first of the Miller class frigates in 1998. The Miller class was in itself an oddball in that it was a modified variant of a foreign vessel, in this case the Canadian Halifax class patrol frigate, but the vessel's long range, effective design and strong armament resulted in the USN's development of it and the Canadian originals being considered some of the best of their kind in the world. Some 66 Miller class frigates were built between 1998 and 2008, replacing the Perry class entirely, while the follow-up Kinkaid class had much of the capability of the Millers while also being equipped with better air-defense capability, representing the USN's growing ethos in that regard.

The submarine fleet was all-nuclear from 1991 until the commission of the Barracuda-class submarines, which began in 2007. The diesel-electric, Hydrogen AIP-equipped Barracudas mounted nearly all of the electronics from its nuclear-powered brothers, but were smaller, had smaller crews and cost one-quarter the cost of its Virginia-class nuclear-powered brothers. With a range of 15,000 miles at cruise speed and the ability to spend up to 24 days underwater, the Barracudas proved to be more dangerous than many figured they would be, and it showed as they became the bane of adversaries in wargames. The diesel submarines were followed in the late 2010s by the Poseidon-class submarine tenders, nuclear-powered vessels which replaced earlier submarine tenders which carried hydrogen fuel for the submarines, allowing the Barracudas to join USN carrier groups and allowing nuclear-powered vessels to be used more on independent duties besides supporting the carrier groups. The US Navy also operates a sizable fleet of land-based patrol aircraft, using the Boeing 737-based P-8 Poseidon for these duties after the Poseidon replaced the older propeller-driven Lockheed Electra-based P-3 Orion in the 2000s and 2010s. These are all almost entirely based out of United States territory, but a handful operate out of Kadena on Okinawa, Clark Air Base in the Philippines and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. The Navy also operates a handful of land-based transport aircraft both from the carrying of senior officers (those usually variants of the Gulfstream IV and Gulfstream V business jets, designated C-20 and C-37) and personnel transport (most of these are based on the Boeing 737 but the USN operates three Boeing 747-400s for large loads and long-range personnel transport, the 737s designed C-40 and the 747-400s designated C-33).

The support vessels include fast combat support vessels (which are usually the logistical backbone of the group) and dedicated fuel tankers and dry goods ships (which usually deliver everything from food to ammunition), as well as other vessels, including everything from tugboats to hydrographic vessels. The Henry J. Kaiser class tankers and Lewis and Clark class cargo ships have proven themselves capable of operating with the fleets as well, allowing the older Sacramento class fast support ships to be retired (all were, however, sold to other navies allied to the US) and overall improving the ability of the fleet to operate.

The United States Navy operates primarily out of its primary naval bases at Norfolk, Virginia on the American East Coast as well as Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, as well as a series of other bases at San Diego, Jacksonville, Kings Bay, Everett, Kitsap and Newport, as well as dozens of other smaller bases and airfields. The US Navy also operates a handful of major fleet naval bases outside of the United States, most notably at their only carrier-equipped forward operating base at Yokosuka on Tokyo Bay in Japan, while they operate out of numerous other bases that are technically owned by other names, with Faslane, Simonstown, Diego Garcia, Subic Bay, Perth and Bandar Abbas being the most common points for USN vessels to operate out of. Along with its primary bases, the US Navy also has the job of carrying the Army's forces where they need to go in a combat situation, and the result is that the USN maintains a sizable sealift capability to make sure that should the situation require, the Navy can move the Army's vehicles and equipment around the world.

Organizationally, the USN has its organization divided into Fleets. The 1st Fleet is responsible for close to home duties and those in the Caribbean on the Atlantic side, and owing to the range from American air bases primarily is a surface fleet command, and is based in Norfolk, Virginia. The 2nd and 4th Fleets cover the Atlantic Ocean, with the 2nd Fleet responsible for everything west of 20 Degrees West and south of the 1st Fleet territory and the 4th Fleet responsible for everything east of 20 Degrees West and south of the Cape Verde Islands, with 2nd Fleet based at Simonstown Naval Base in South Africa and 4th Fleet based at San Juan, Puerto Rico. 6th Fleet is responsible for the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Oceans around Europe and is has two HQs at Faslane in Scotland and Haifa in Israel, the latter established in 1982 as part of the United States' commitment to Israel's security after the Ottawa Treaty. As with the 1st Fleet, the presence of NATO and several American-accessible air bases around the area of responsibility makes the 6th Fleet primarily a surface warship command, while both the 2nd and 4th Fleets include carrier groups as their battle fleets. The Pacific is occupied by the 3rd and 7th Fleets, the former responsible for everything east of the International Date Line and the latter responsible for everything West of that, with the 3rd Fleet based at Pearl Harbor and the 7th Fleet at Yokosuka, Japan. The 5th Fleet is responsible for the Indian Ocean Region east of 32 degrees East and west of 105 degrees East and south of Indonesia, with this base operating out of Manama, Bahrain and Perth, Australia. The United States' overall armed forces fall under Commands, which are divided into Northern, Southern, European, African, Central and Pacific Commands, with the Pacific, Southern and African commands being Navy commands.

The Fleet

3 Arizona class nuclear-powered aircraft carriers
12 Nimitz class nuclear-powered aircraft carriers

4 Iowa class battleships

2 Tripoli class amphibious assault ships
8 Wasp class amphibious assault ships
2 Tarawa class amphibious assault ships
12 San Antonio class amphibious transport docks
4 Harpers Ferry class dock landing ships
6 Whidbey Island class dock landing ships
4 Detroit class amphibious cargo ships
4 John Glenn class mobile landing platforms
6 Spearhead class high speed transport vessels
2 Guam class high speed transport vessels

20 Independence class littoral combat ships

8 Algol class fast vehicle cargo ships
7 Bob Hope class vehicle cargo ships
8 Watson class vehicle cargo ships
2 Gordon class vehicle cargo ships
3 Shugart class vehicle cargo ships

6 Texas class nuclear-powered guided missile cruisers
19 Ticonderoga class guided missile cruisers

9 Spruance class guided missile destroyers
76 Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyers

66 Miller class guided missile frigates
10 Kinkaid class guided missile frigates

31 Virginia class nuclear-powered attack submarines
4 Seawolf class nuclear-powered attack submarines
33 Los Angeles class nuclear-powered attack submarines
28 Poseidon class conventional attack submarines

16 Ohio class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines

5 Poseidon class nuclear-powered submarine tenders

14 Avenger class mine countermeasure vessels
16 Cyclone class coastal patrol vessels

4 Victorious class oceanographic support ships
4 Powhatan class fleet ocean tugboats
4 Safeguard class salvage and recovery vessels
7 Pathfinder class survey vessels

3 Mercy class hospital ships

6 Supply class fast combat support ships
18 Henry J. Kaiser class fleet replenishment oiler
5 Cimarron class fleet replenishment oiler
22 Lewis and Clark class dry cargo ships

 

[TickTock The Witch's Dead]

How's obesity, the education system, crime, liberal-conservative percentages of the population, and demographics in USA?

 

[TxCoatl1970]

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 of poverty would have massive effects.

A thought that crossed my mind is ITTL Wahhabism has a huge target painted on it and you've gone to great pains illustrating how mainstream Muslim communities have rejected AQ, Boko Haram, et al and cooperated enthusiastically in isolating and destroying them.

You did make it clear Nigerian politics is a mess due to huge logistical and economic and demographic issues to sort out. Based on my experience, education is the big factor.
Muslims lost out big on the good govt jobs b/c average education levels for Christians Igbo and Yoruba especially are much higher, also b/c 90% of the oil and good jobs are in Christian-dominated areas down South.
Up north, there's not much going on economically.

Improving the physical infrastructure of developing countries helps, but the key issue is demographics, controlling population growth and ensuring everyone gets as good a shot at a good life via birth control, education, microlending, and other programs as possible w/o everyone shoehorning themselves into the capital city.

You've done yeoman work showing how this can work and offer my praise and comments for even more pwnage.

Carry on sir!

You picked my former service first to describe.

As an ex sailor on a Spruance class can, they are naked to air threats and really needed to be scrapped (cheapest) or converted to VLS (PITA and needed extensive sensor suite upgrades) ca 2000, which is why OTL they were scrapped.

Where the JCS screwed up ca 1995 was not getting a decent FFG class to replace the Perry's as sub and air pickets, not to mention ace anti-pirate ships. You fixed that, so big ups.

ITTL there's way too many Texas and Tico's CG's running around. YMMDV b/c the Texas CGN have a NGFS role as well as QB role for a CBG. Cool, but kinda unnecessary IMO.

Why risk your quarterback ship firing NGFS? A speedboat or two a la the Cole attack could mission-kill it.
Plus, can you imagine how all that vibration from firing 8' guns would wreak havoc on the AEGIS system?

I'd bin that idea so fast you'd need QID's to detect it even hitting my desk.

WTF in this multipolar world with Canada, the UK, Brazil, and other allies having deployable Carriers does the US have 15 CBG's and 500 ships?

I can see having a decent gator fleet, oilers and fast AE's and so forth for UNREP's as you've described. Yay logistics!

******************** DUMP THE IOWAS RANT***********************
The Iowas IMO were just way too much of a rebuild even in the 1980's to be worth it, b/c rule of cool. WTF are we spending billions refitting those museum pieces AGAIN? They're the ulitmate orphan class.

Still, even with CIWS, they were practically naked to air attack and a sub could eat their lunch as well with AshM's, torpedoes, pretty much anything.
You could put VLS somewhere but why not build s/t from the keel up, with the cells, sensor suite, and other stuff engineered?

Are we hoping for Space Battleship Iowa to be a reality?

We've wasted a lot of time, bytes, and so forth rightly excoriating the Alaskas as hopelessly outclassed even in 1942 when they were considered.

For Neptune's sake, let's stake the idea of Iowas as active combat ships and let them be museum pieces?
****************************************************************

I understand that the retirement of the Baltimore gun cruisers left the Marines w/o much NGFS over 122mm.

Your battalion-in-a-can SCS idea with 8" guns makes infintely more sense to get the gyrenes to the beach, has an organic air component, and useful defenses.

 

[Orville_third]

When you cover the USAF, make sure you do a bit on the Civil Air Patrol, who has most likely done a lot of duty domestically, helping in response to various disasters, to say nothing of their search and rescue duties. (You also need to put in a word for the US Coast Guard Auxiliary, who are likely doing the same on the water.) I can help out with both, if needed.

 

[TheMann]

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.

Thank you. The thing with Thailand is that its economic and social advancement has been in spite of its persistent problem with political unrest. As with Latin America, the civilian government is slowly getting a handle on many of the problems caused by coups, but that process is slow and the Thai Royal Family's tendency to get in the middle of politics (and their persistent distaste towards Thaksin and his supporters and political allies) is continuing to cause some issues. The climate-change caused need for a lot of government infrastructure to move north from Bangkok and the Kra Canal's results on the economic growth of Thailand's south has served to help reduce the wealth divisions. In modern times, Thailand has also been an enthusiastic supporter of democracy movements in Myanmar, largely because they want to develop a path to India through Myanmar and Bangladesh and they don't trust the military authorities in Myanmar.

Nigeria doing better is a major Good Thing. An axis of South Africa, Nigeria, and Egypt pulling Africa out of poverty would have massive effects.

What's largely happening in Africa is that economic growth began with four starter nations (South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Egypt) and has spread from there. Resource money gave Nigeria major problems in the 1970s and 1980s, but starting in the 1990s the country began to use its resource wealth to rebuild its other economic sectors, and the results showed. The largely-Muslim north has benefitted more per capita than much of the South, but the main reason for that was that they had farther to go, but it has shown in conditions in the region. Improving roads and efficient rail transport makes it easier for those seeking opportunities in the north to do so, and more jobs exist for them to do so. Lagos is still be some margin the largest city in the country (and is one of the largest in the world, with a population of 16.4 million), but the wishes of Nigeria's government to spread its efforts outside of the crowded coastal regions is why Abuja has grown into a major city and why much of the nation's industrial development is being focused further north. In modern times, a fair bit of that oil produced in Nigeria is refined there as well, shipped by pipelines to northern refineries and then the refined fuels sent back down to Lagos and Port Harcourt for export.

A thought that crossed my mind is ITTL Wahhabism has a huge target painted on it and you've gone to great pains illustrating how mainstream Muslim communities have rejected AQ, Boko Haram, et al and cooperated enthusiastically in isolating and destroying them.

Hard-line Islam still has plenty of support in a lot of areas, but the situation in Nigeria is much the same as it is some parts of North Africa, namely that they cannot see the likes of Boko Haram's actions being anything like what the Prophet and God would approve of. Furthermore, Goodluck Johnathan and Ken Saro-Wiwa forced the Nigerian Army to reel in its excesses and economic growth in the area reduced the recruits to Boko Haram. When one side are kidnapping children and blowing up markets and the other side is building schools and hospitals, giving you new opportunities and providing for the families of those Boko Haram members who get arrested, it easy to see who the good guys are. Hence, Boko Haram ends up with both the carrot and stick headed their way. Johnathan did a good job running Nigeria, but Saro-Wiwa did an even better one (he left office with nearly a 80% approval rating), and the end result was that Boko Haram's support collapsed, and it allowed Nigeria's authorities to systematically destroy them.

Al-Qaeda in its original form went largely into history when bin Laden went to ADX Florence and al-Zawahiri was executed for involvement in 9/11. There was no "Dead or Alive", "Axis of Evil" or "We're Gonna Smoke 'Em Out" garbage in the post-9/11 world here, as Clinton and Wellstone looked at 9/11 as a terror attack and an abomination committed by apostates in Islam's name. Most of the Middle East agreed, and so where America went to get the terrorists, they had civil engineers and teachers and doctors and the like behind them. Between that and the enthusiastic support of those among Muslims who want to return their civilization to the forefront of human civilization like it had before the Renaissance, Islam has a big wedge driven right through it, with those who believe in Islam's being compatible with the modern world being only too happy to face off against those who don't believe this, and America has noticed this. The quite large communities of Muslims in Brooklyn, Inglewood, Dearborn, Minneapolis, Fort Worth, Alexandria and Quincy have good reputations among their communities, and the mosques and community organizations have proven quite a number of times to be willing to toss to the authorities would-be terrorists among their ranks.

Islamic Terrorism remains an issue in much of the Middle East and India, more than anything because wealthy people from Pakistan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia have little issue teaching jihad, and Tehran, Amman, New Delhi and Jerusalem are getting a little sick of it. I am debating having the alliance between the House of Saud and the Wahabbis break down and having the Saudi Kingdom explode as a result, forcing an intervention by somebody. (My first idea on this one was an Indian-led coalition.) Pakistan I'm debating having them fall apart or have them piss off New Delhi one too many times. Questions, questions....

You did make it clear Nigerian politics is a mess due to huge logistical and economic and demographic issues to sort out. Based on my experience, education is the big factor.
Muslims lost out big on the good govt jobs b/c average education levels for Christians Igbo and Yoruba especially are much higher, also b/c 90% of the oil and good jobs are in Christian-dominated areas down South.
Up north, there's not much going on economically.

Improving the physical infrastructure of developing countries helps, but the key issue is demographics, controlling population growth and ensuring everyone gets as good a shot at a good life via birth control, education, microlending, and other programs as possible w/o everyone shoehorning themselves into the capital city. [/quote]

See above. Nigeria's birth rate has slowed dramatically (really, it has pretty much all around the world) in the last few decades, and economic progress has been deliberately directed towards the northern regions, both to take advantage of mineral resources there. Climate change is helping this, as the greater rainfall of this world has filled up Lake Chad and is expanding rainfall in the region, and Lake Chad's growth and the refilling of Lake Bodele, which has massively expanded agriculture in the Sahel and given a new reason for the region's existence. One proposal existing today under consideration a heavy-hauler railroad meant to haul grain, minerals and goods from Khartoum in Sudan across Darfur, into the increasingly-arable Chad region, across into Niger and then south into Nigeria, going to hook up with the Nigerian rail system at Nguru before going southwest to Abuja and then to Lagos. From Khartoum, the line can go north to Cairo and Alexandria as well.

Microlending is a way of life in Nigeria, and most of it in Nigeria is done by their home-grown banks, who make substantial profits doing it. The idea first came out of India and Bangladesh in the 1980s, but African began adopting it during the 1990s, and Nigeria is one of the best at it. The higher per-capita incomes of Southern Africa have largely seen the practice become less important there, but in much of Africa, the idea has huge support, and with the repayment rate of the microlending systems in Nigeria running at about 97%, the system works well for most. Nigeria has been working on its education system since Obasanjo, and it's showing the results, though their results remain rather behind North American, Asian or European norms, though that is changing.

You picked my former service first to describe.

Sorry, but I had to.

As an ex sailor on a Spruance class can, they are naked to air threats and really needed to be scrapped (cheapest) or converted to VLS (PITA and needed extensive sensor suite upgrades) ca 2000, which is why OTL they were scrapped.

The Spru-can here is a rather different beast. The original plan was an anti-submarine ship, but the introduction of the Perry class and the big numbers of Knox class frigates made that idea less important, and so while the first few of them were built as OTL, but from Arthur W. Radford (DD-968) on, the rest were built in a very similar way to the OTL Kidd class, though with a slightly longer hull than them and greater electric power capacity. The OTL design Spruances were retired in 2000-2002 to free up money for the rebuilds on the later ones, and as built the Spru-cans of this world had Mark 26 missile launchers in the back and ASROC units up front, with SPS-48 radars for anti-aircraft work. The VLS rebuild pulled both of these in favor of 64-cell VLS units. The OTL Kidd class were sold to Iran after all (Iran ordered four more in 1982, bringing the total fleet they had to eight), and similar vessels were built for Canada (eight), Israel (two), Australia (five) and Greece (three), with six of the eight Canadian vessels and three of the give Australian ones built in their own shipyards, with the Canadian variants modified further with a even-longer hull and a higher and longer helicopter pad and larger hangar for the Sea King helicopters used by Canada.

The American Spruances of today can still shoot SM-2 and SM-6 missiles, but AEGIS ships tend to take these jobs, so the Spruances carry more Tomahawks, as well as pulling the 5" guns on both ends for 155mm units in two-gun mountings. They can still defend themselves rather better than OTL, and in modern times the Spruances also got used to test out the Rolling Airframe Missile, which gives them pretty good short-range capability.

Where the JCS screwed up ca 1995 was not getting a decent FFG class to replace the Perry's as sub and air pickets, not to mention ace anti-pirate ships. You fixed that, so big ups.

That needed doing. The Perrys are tougher and more effective little ships than people figured they'd be (I wonder how many of these people would admit that to Elmo Zumwalt? ), but they are getting and troublesome by the time the new ones would be coming online. The Miller class is a derivative of the Canuck Halifax but its rather better armed than the OTL Halifax - 5" gun, 48-cell Mark 41 VLS, two Mark 48 VLSs for Sea Sparrows (and ESSMs later on), ASROC in the middle (taken out on some later on) and a rather large helicopter deck, because it was sized for Canuck Sea Kings rather than American Seahawks.

ITTL there's way too many Texas and Tico's CG's running around. YMMDV b/c the Texas CGN have a NGFS role as well as QB role for a CBG. Cool, but kinda unnecessary IMO.

Why risk your quarterback ship firing NGFS? A speedboat or two a la the Cole attack could mission-kill it.
Plus, can you imagine how all that vibration from firing 8' guns would wreak havoc on the AEGIS system?

I'd bin that idea so fast you'd need QID's to detect it even hitting my desk.

I reduced that number to 24 Ticos, but the Texas class is eventually gonna replace most of them. The CGN doesn't often use its 155mm guns, but they are there for the same reason they are there on the Ticos. They may not get used often, but they are there if you need it, and the 155mm guns used on the warships have a maximum range of over 40 miles when using rocket-assisted shells, and the use of the 155mm guns means that the ships equipped with it can use GPS-guided Excalibur shells. With range like this, NGFS can be quite safely, and the Texas and Ticonderoga class vessels have systems allowing them to put 20 rounds of MRSI at up to 40 km range. If what's shooting at you can put 20 rounds on your head at one time, with accuracy of within ten feet, you're gonna have a really bad day. The Ticonderoga, Burke and Spruance class vessels can all also use these, but the Burke only has one two-gun mount and the Spruance class, which is near the end of its life, doesn't have the radar or electrical power to use such a system.

And BTW, 155mm is just over six inches. 8' guns are 203mm units, which yes is too much for ships like these.

WTF in this multipolar world with Canada, the UK, Brazil, and other allies having deployable Carriers does the US have 15 CBG's and 500 ships?

Firstly, having them reduces the load on the other carriers. With 10 carriers, you end up with little to no strategic reserve, and with a lot more aircraft carriers going around (UK, France, Canada, Australia, Brazil, India, Japan, China, Russia and Argentina have them), the US figures it better to have them than not. The 15 carriers here have slightly smaller complements (USN warships in general tend to be overmanned to a fare-thee-well) which helps reduce the operational costs.

The 500 ships here (actually, 488) includes everything that is painted Navy gray and is crewed by blue-suiters, which means the OTL number is about 360. Of that 500, a sizable chunk is logistics ships, amphibious vessels, submarines (of which there a few more vessels, as five Barracudas have the same crew as two Virginias. The Littoral Combat Ships here are less the awful ones of OTL but more like the war-in-a-can ship I mentioned earlier. The fleet is somewhat bigger than OTL, but not insanely so. This also includes the Marines' fast cargo ships, three hospital ships, the fast vehicle cargo ships and so on.

 

[Ming777]

I'm curious as to the differences between this timeline's Halifax-class and the Calgary-class frigates?

Here is my rough guess for the composition of the RCN circa 2030

2 Terra Nova class CVNs (HMCS Terra Nova, HMCS Constellation)
14 Province class DDG
14 Halifax class FFH
8+ Calgary class FFH/FFG(?)
6 Kingsmills class SSN (Trafalgar class)
3+ Rocky Mountain class AOR

Any others?

 

[THE OBSERVER]

I have questions about the "American Education Improvement Act" a few updates back. How did it transform America's education exactly?

 

[TheMann]

I'm curious as to the differences between this timeline's Halifax-class and the Calgary-class frigates?

Here is my rough guess for the composition of the RCN circa 2030

2 Terra Nova class CVNs (HMCS Terra Nova, HMCS Constellation)
14 Province class DDG
14 Halifax class FFH
8+ Calgary class FFH/FFG(?)
6 Kingsmills class SSN (Trafalgar class)
3+ Rocky Mountain class AOR

Any others?

The RCN fleet is somewhat similar to this, but a little different.

The Province-class destroyers are the Royal Navy's Type 45s, which in this universe saw twelve made for the Royal Navy, ten for the Royal Canadian Navy, six apiece for the Royal Australian Navy and Indian Navy and one for the Royal New Zealand Navy, and the Type 45 ITTL is longer by seventy-five feet (500 ft to 575 ft) and was designed to be used both with the Sea Viper system (which the British and Indian Type 45s use) and the Mark 41 Vertical Launch System (which is used by the Canadian, Australian and New Zealander ships). The ITTL Type 45 also is equipped with a double 155mm gun turret (British and Indian vessels use British guns, Australian and New Zealander vessels use American guns, the Canadians use their own guns) and is fitted with twin OTO Melara 76mm guns up front (think the French/Italian Horizon-class vessels for the placement of this) on the Canadian and Indian vessels. All Type 45s are designed to be used with RCN-style autonomous ASW helicopters (Canada pioneered this, but it has since been adopted by most NATO navies and their allies). The ITTL PAAMS uses the same data transfer systems as the USN, meaning Canadian vessels can use data from American warships if necessary. The Province-class saw the earlier destroyers retired in the late 2000s, with the last retiring in 2012 after 25 years of service.

There were ultimately eighteen Halifax class vessels built, the first twelve as OTL aside from the use of 5" main guns. The 'Block II' Halifax class ships were almost identical to the American Miller class and included the Mark 41 VLS and ASROC system. Canada and the United States co-operated on the development of the Sikorsky CH-148 Cyclone as a complement to the Halifax/Miller class, and the Canucks even trained the Americans in tactics in independent helicopter sub hunting. (The Type 45 of ITTL was also designed with a bigger flight deck and beartrap system, for the same reason.) The Block II vessels were also built with the same Rolls-Royce Orenda WR-21 gas turbines of the Province-class, and two Halifax-class vessels which suffered big engine failures also had WR-21s installed, further improving the gargantuan range of the frigates.

The Canadian submarine fleet is twelve vessels strong, all nuclear and all built between 1986 and 1997. The vessels are variants of the Trafalgar class, but with Canadian-developed heavy-water reactors for power and a twelve-tube Mark 36 VLS for the use of Tomahawk missiles, with the last five vessels being also equipped with the RN's awesome Sonar 2076 systems and Canadian-developed electronics. HMCS Chicoutimi is further differentiated from the others by its repairs after it sideswiped a large reef in the Queen Charlotte Strait in September 2000, an accident which cost the lives of eleven Canadian Navy sailors and resulted in three Cross of Valour awards (one posthumous) for crewmen whose actions stopped the submarine from probably being lost with all hands. A 35-foot section of the submarine was cut out during the repairs, but what was installed instead was a 90-foot section, pre-built by Versatile Pacific Shipyards in Vancouver, that includes a section for special forces operators, sizable gear lockers and equipment for collecting things from off the ocean floor. The Chicoutimi's new capabilities were first shown off in June 2002 on her maiden voyage after repairs, when while cruising at periscope north of Sarawak they got a distress call from a yacht attacked by pirates. The team of Canadian SAS troopers deployed aboard to test out the capability of the Chicoutimi as a special forces platform deployed to rescue the attacked yacht, literally coming out of the water near the attacked vessel and attacking the pirates, rescuing the vessel before the pirates even knew what happened....then having Chicoutimi surface near the yacht, the operators take off and then the sub go back to its previous tests. (Needless to say, this got more than a little media attention.) The Canadian Oberons numbered eight, built between 1964 and 1969, and all were retired between 1989 and 1998, with Ojibwa, Okanagan and Onondaga preserved as museums in Rimouski, QC, Port Burwell, ON and Port Arthur, BC.

The logistics train of the Canadian Army is made up of the Rocky Mountain and Canadian Shield class supply ships, each class made up of four vessels. The Rocky Mountain class is identical in hull design and most technical aspects to the American Supply class fast AORs, differing only in above-water aspects (Canadian vessels have beartrap systems, a bigger hangar and a wide foredeck meant for use as a secondary landing pad). The Canadian Shield class vessels are slightly bigger, but carry massive cold stores and armament supplies, with the two classes both able to supply their group but often as not with a Rocky Mountain acting as a fuel tanker and parts depot and a Canadian Shield carrying food, weapons, ammunition and other supplies. Both are designed for 27-knot speeds and are designed to be the logistical backbone of Canadian carrier groups, as well as amphibious units.

The country also operates a small amphibious fleet made up of a pair of Juno Beach-class amphibious assault ships, two Cyprus-class landing vessels and four examples of the Rainbow-class littoral combat ship. The Juno Beach vessels are derivatives of the French Mistral class, but modified by Canada through a slight (35-foot) hull stretch meant to give a bigger helicopter hangar as well as the carrying of LCVPs. The Cyprus class are Rotterdam class vessels, identical to the larger Johan de Witt of the Royal Netherlands Navy, while the Rainbow class is a Canadian design. All are often used as Canadian groups abroad and have seen extensive use in disaster relief and evacuation situations, most famously after the Boxing Day Tsunami in Sri Lanka. All classes are equipped with LCAC hovercraft, LCVP landing craft, Combat Boat 90 fast boats and plenty of aircraft, including the Bombardier CA-200 Scorpion and Boeing V-22 Osprey tiltrotors and CH-147 Chinook and CH-151 Vulcan helicopters.

Completing the Navy is the small boats, the Kingston-class Coastal Defense Vessels and the Orca-class patrol boats. The Kingston class was one of the world's first trimaran warship designs and was wild in terms of propulsion, with the vessel equipped with four electric Z-drive thrusters powered from two huge Chrysler-Alco V-24 turbodiesel engines producing 20,000 horsepower allowing the Kingston class to achieve a top speed of 26.5 knots (they were designed for 21-22 knots, but nobody cared that they were faster ) and be able to turn in their own length. Equipped with state-of-the-art mine-hunting gear and armed with a 76mm OTO Melara gun a Mark 48 VLS, the Kingston class is often described as a Corvette, but the Kingstons are rarely deployed abroad, instead often as not being used for coastal patrols and use to help with Canada`s Caribbean commitments. (The vessels can, and when deployed in the Caribbean usually are, be equipped with CH-152 Little Bird observation helicopters.) The Orca-class are identical to the Australian Armidale-class aside from using the same Chrysler-Alco diesels as the Kingstons and being stretched in the hull by fifteen feet for additional fuel capacity and supply storage. (The austere cabin of the Armidales were here also used for supply storage rather the accommodations.)

The Arctic fleets Canada has are centered around the three enormous nuclear-powered Robert Stanfield (Polar 8) class Icebreakers, which are (aside from the carriers) the largest displacement vessels in the Navy, each one displacing over 40,000 tons. Powered by two AECL MRW-20 nuclear reactors and Canadian-made steam turbines, the monsters produce no less than 120,000 horsepower, capable of making the Polar 8 capable of 17 knots in any ice and weather conditions. Equipped with six helicopters, two LCVP landing craft and six hovercraft, as well as having sufficient facilities and food stores for a 180-day deployment and capable of breaking through any ice found in the Arctic, the Polar 8s, first commissioned in 1991, are the ultimate in Arctic tours, and their huge compartments usually provide support for those exploring Canada`s Arctic regions. The vessels are armed with Goalkeeper CIWS systems and twin .50 cal machine gun mounts, but the best protection for them in the troops that are usually stationed on board the vessel. Canada's Arctic fleet also includes the Terry Fox class patrol ships, which are a heavily-modified Norwegian Svalbard-class vessel with a hull strengthened to handle Polar Class 2 conditions.

 

[TickTock The Witch's Dead]

Hi TheMann, I really like your TL! Have you answered my questions?

 

[TheMann]

I have questions about the "American Education Improvement Act" a few updates back. How did it transform America's education exactly?

The American Education Improvement Act, signed by President Kennedy in August 1986, was designed to create improve curriculum standards in science and technology fields, while at the same time providing better funding and rewards for those states which achieve higher graduation rates and average SAT scores. Standardized Testing is still used ITTL but it is not a determining factor in professional advancement as it is in some places IOTL, but one of the results of the growth in education spending and standardized curriculum elements (School Boards and States remained free to make their own curriculums, but they had to be within the bounds of the AHEIA) was a growing in average SAT scores in pretty much every state. Higher funding in many states led to slightly longer hours and greater study of what worked and what didn't, with what worked being brought into schools. Better schools and the equipment in them was a regular improvements, particular after about 1990 once the peace dividend and a rapidly-growing economy began to allow greater funds for the purpose. The law also restored the targeted education funding that had been nixed by Nixon in 1971.

The American Higher Education Improvement Act in 1993 expanded funding and provided schools incentives to expand their leadership in STEM fields and in many arts fields, causing these areas to grow while the growth of humanities students slowed somewhat. The dramatic growth in the STEM and many design fields contributed to a major growth in the R&D capabilities of many companies in the 1990s, and actions by both government and private groups to expand minority school involvement added to the dividends.[1] The effects of the growth in funding was also that several states which previously didn't have state university systems created them to grow their knowledge base, and the growth in such funds also allowed many universities to use the money on undergraduate studies, freeing up greater funds for R&D research.

Short form: Major funding boost both reduced student debts and created tens of thousands of new students in higher-demand fields, causing an innovation boom in the 1990s and 2000s that the Business-Labor Alliance openly encouraged in the interests of growing their firms and in the hope of them being the discoverer of a major innovation which would make them rich. For RCA (Plasma video displays), 3M and Kenosha Material Science (Washington Process for producing carbon fiber), Intel (three-dimensional CPUs), ExxonMobil (methanol and isobutanol production through natural processes), Bethlehem Materials (numerous new steel, aluminum and titanium alloys and processes), Apple (newer computers and smartphone products), Cisco Systems (telecommunications network improvements), Element Visual (Laser Phosphor Display televisions), Lockheed Martin (Graphene water desalinization), Futura Biotechnics (bioplastics), Bigelow Aerospace, Planetary Resources (private space travel and commercial space ventures), Tesla (electric cars), Altairnano Technologies (batteries and charging systems), Sarif Industries (robotics and bionic implants), American Robotics (personal robotics), Cincinatti Milacron (3D printing), Google, Facebook (should be obvious on both fronts), Combustion Engineering (geothermal and OTEC electrical generation), General Electric (magnetic refrigeration, VHTR nuclear reactors), Eastman Kodak (digital imaging technology), Proteos Systems (optical computing), American Ballard (fuel cells) and Atari (gaming systems, online gaming), the discoveries made by their products of the American education system changed their worlds, to say nothing of all the companies who had their products or services made better or more efficient as a result of their actions.

[1] One of these students was Dr. Paul Washington, degree from USC in 1996 and PhD from UC San Francisco in 2002, who went on to develop the Washington Process of getting carbon fiber from carbon dioxide, a move whose good exploitation of both caused a revolution in materials science and environmental studies and made him the wealthiest black man on Earth by a wide margin.

 

[TheMann]

Hi TheMann, I really like your TL! Have you answered my questions?

Working on the demographics. That takes rather a lot of research, but I have most of it now.

 

[TheMann]

How's obesity,

Considerably lower than OTL. Active lifestyles are encouraged by just about everyone at every level - healthy people pay less in health insurance costs, most places tax high-fat, high cholesterol and heavily sweetened products while exempting many forms of fresh food from grocery and sales taxes. Beyond that, corn subsidies for agribusiness are long gone and the growing use of corn for ethanol, combined with import restriction removal and a growing crop due to climate change, has spelled a shift back to natural sugar and away from corn sweeteners in many sweetened products. (FU Archer Daniels Midland.) Deep frying was largely replaced by most fast-food providers with flash cooking systems which had largely the same effect but did not raise many of the problems the use of deep fryers do. Portion sizes remain growing, but more slowly now, and sales of thousands of healthier food products have swelled dramatically, and many major fast-food chains have started experimenting with different kinds of meals in an attempt to find new markets, with varying degrees of success. 'Sin' taxes on alcohol (as well as tobacco and in many places marijuana) have served to both raise revenue and reduce the usage of such products, though several firms have attempted to make good drinks with lower alcohol content, again with varying degrees of success.

It's worth noting that hundreds of school districts have pushed for local sourcing of school lunch and breakfast program foods, eleven states (California, New York, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Washington, Michigan, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Illinois) have completely outlawed the sale of soft drinks and artificially-sweetened drinks in schools and federal education laws require physical education courses in every year through primary and secondary schools. Also notable is that professional sports leagues in North America actively and on a large scale support sports programs for both children and adults, and a great many purveyors of gym equipment and clothing run programs of their own making it easier for people to get into the sports they enjoy, as well as most gyms not having programs for younger people that are free or very low cost. (The marketing benefit for all three is creating more gym goers and equipment buyers later in life and/or fans of various sports.) In modern times, millions of Americans of all ages engage in such leagues, and the NFL, NBA and several car racing organizations in particular have many of their individuals out watching these leagues, seeking out the new big talents for their sport. 3D printing and more advanced materials has made much of the clothing needed for such endeavors inexpensive and widely available.

Several pharmaceutical firms are working on medications to reduce the incidence of obesity, though nothing concrete has come out of this yet.

the education system,

See above, but the short synopsis is that the hope is to get kids to learn and develop skills at young ages, then gain knowledge and life skills later on. The usual reading, writing and math still have plenty of precedence, but science, history and geography, physical education and various life skills programs have great attention in this world. Sex education in most states starts at Grades Nine and Ten, and most secondary education is six years (Grades 7-12) - the first four years being continuing to learn, the last two trying to help students go into the field they wish to go into with their lives. There are federal standards, but beyond that states have wide latitude to decide their own policies on education, and some get better results than others.

crime,

Rather less than OTL. Drug addiction being treated as a societal problem and a focus on rehabilitation of those convicted of offenses makes a big difference, though America looks down quite viciously on those who traffic drugs and even more so on those who traffic arms and humans. (Human trafficking for the purposes of abuse of any sort is a potential capital offense in several states, including California, Arizona, Florida and Texas, and arms trafficking carries stiff prison penalties pretty much across the board.) The country's murder rate peaked in 1980, forcible sex crimes in 1985 (though this number took a sizable jump in the early to mid 1990s as more such cases were reported to police), robbery in 1986 and aggravated assault in 1989. Since then, the numbers have decreased across the board, and federal pardon law was changed in 2005 at the insistence of President Wellstone to allow those who had small criminal records to apply for them to be wiped clean, allowing many to be able to rise above their past. The overall result is that the nation's violent crime rate fell from 584.5 cases per 100,000 population in 1990 to 205.4 cases per 100,000 in 2020, while property crime numbers, which peaked in 1982, has fallen from 4,710.8 cases per 100,000 population in 1990 to 1,445.1 cases in 2020, falling very quickly in the 2010s as nearly-universal GPS tracking systems massively reduced the rate of motor vehicle theft.

What also helps this is the treatment of criminal organizations. Organized crime still exists of course (and indeed these groups have gotten more sophisticated and cosmopolitan over time), but street gangs are often widely reviled not only by law enforcement but also by the communities they inhabit. Violent clashes between vigilante civilians and such gangs are not unknown, and the most famous cases - the Harlem Four riot in July 1977, the Baisley Park Incident in Queens, NY in May 1987, the 'Cabrini Pogrom' in Chicago in January 1997 and the 'Bloody Monday' in Detroit in August 2001 all got national attention, though local attention on the groups seeking rid themselves of organized criminal elements is widespread and several organizations in major cities have programs and legitimate businesses meant specifically to give opportunities to ex-gang members. (One of the most famous of these is Philadelphia City Auto Dealers, a company formed by black dealer Ivan Vassall Sr, who took it upon himself to train and employ hundreds of ex-criminals in dealerships. His efforts saw him land a hugely-lucrative deal to sell AMC and Renault cars in Pennsylvania that rapidly spread to several other states. Vassall became a member of AMC's board in 1986 and remained there until his death in 1997, and his company continues to be well-known for philanthropism.) While crime has remained a major source of material in both films and television, it is looked down upon a lot in real life, and a lot of the criminal backgrounds of hip-hop music evaporated after that world got violent in the mid-1990s. Culture in most communities has in modern times looked down massively on crime, and the falling rates of drug addiction and distaste towards drug dealers of all levels have led to the problem of drug dealing become less common as well.

 

[SactoMan101]

I believe that the cooking at fast food restaurants are done nowadays with air convection ovens for the hamburger patties and computer-controlled induction heating flash fryers, which results in very fast frying without the grease on the food. That's what they do at McDonald's with French fries, chicken nuggets, chicken patties for chicken sandwiches and the croquette (actually the Japanese korokke patty that was successfully introduced to the USA in the early 2000's) patty for certain sandwiches. While the chicken croquette sandwich is the most popular, the shrimp croquette sandwich is also popular, but mostly on the US West Coast and Hawaii.

 

[TheMann]

I believe that the cooking at fast food restaurants are done nowadays with air convection ovens for the hamburger patties and computer-controlled induction heating flash fryers, which results in very fast frying without the grease on the food. That's what they do at McDonald's with French fries, chicken nuggets, chicken patties for chicken sandwiches and the croquette (actually the Japanese korokke patty that was successfully introduced to the USA in the early 2000's) patty for certain sandwiches. While the chicken croquette sandwich is the most popular, the shrimp croquette sandwich is also popular, but mostly on the US West Coast and Hawaii.

This is true for most fast-food restaurants. The ovens used by most of these restaurants are a combination of high-temperature base heat and superheated air convection with air filtration. It's slightly slower but incalculably healthier than the use of deep-fryers, even ones using vegetable oil, even if it uses considerable quantities of electricity to make these ovens work. It's also worth noting that several major restaurant chains have started to use more local suppliers of food products in an attempt to reduce the number of additives and preservatives in their food and make for healthier choices, and the bacon used by many restaurants in modern times is more often back rather than side bacon, done to reduce the fat content of bacon used in restaurants, though this has met with some complaints about taste differences. Also happening in the slowly-decreasing usage of monosodium glutamate, both because of its effects and because it can cause serious allergic reactions in some.

One of the trends in food in the 2010s onward was a falling share of the restaurant business going to fast food restaurants, with more people wishing to eat at faster casual dining restaurants, which have a tendency to produce good of higher quality. Beyond the croquette patties you mentioned, other new ideas have grown in popularity in North America, particularly Middle East-style Shawarma, Croquette rolls and sandwiches made with smaller quantities of bread around the meat. (Croquette rolls are most common in the Northeast and coastal portions of the south, though they have gained major popularity in the Pacific Northwest.) Sushi, Sashimi and chicken Yakitori has massively grown in popularity in modern times on the West Coast and parts of the Northeast, while 'Dutch Fries', French fries served with a sauce, is now common in many restaurants. Many aspects of Canadian cuisine have also gained popularity in many northern parts of the United States, with Poutine (now usually made with poutine sauce rather than gravy), Montreal-style smoked meat and bagels and smoked salmon are very common, while various styles of regional American cuisine can now be found in many places across the continent.

 

[SactoMan101]

One of the trends in food in the 2010s onward was a falling share of the restaurant business going to fast food restaurants, with more people wishing to eat at faster casual dining restaurants, which have a tendency to produce good of higher quality. Beyond the croquette patties you mentioned, other new ideas have grown in popularity in North America, particularly Middle East-style Shawarma, Croquette rolls and sandwiches made with smaller quantities of bread around the meat. (Croquette rolls are most common in the Northeast and coastal portions of the south, though they have gained major popularity in the Pacific Northwest.) Sushi, Sashimi and chicken Yakitori has massively grown in popularity in modern times on the West Coast and parts of the Northeast, while 'Dutch Fries', French fries served with a sauce, is now common in many restaurants. Many aspects of Canadian cuisine have also gained popularity in many northern parts of the United States, with Poutine (now usually made with poutine sauce rather than gravy), Montreal-style smoked meat and bagels and smoked salmon are very common, while various styles of regional American cuisine can now be found in many places across the continent.

In fact, a number of non-American fast food have become quite popular in the USA since the 1990's. One is the Russian pirozhki, which has become quite popular in the Northeast, upper Midwest and West Coast USA, especially they have become viable alternatives to hamburgers. Another is jiaozi or gyoza, better known by their American name "potstickers"; both versions are very popular street food. So are onigiri (rice balls), which have become very popular in Hawaii and the US West Coast.

The current big trend in coffee culture is Turkish coffee, where powdered grounds with water are heated in a tiny pot called an ibrik and served lightly sweetened in small cups. Another one is yingyang, a mix of 50% coffee and 50% red tea with cream and sugar from southern China (it's really popular in Hong Kong but in recent years spread to the US West Coast).

 

[TickTock The Witch's Dead]

Is it possible that the EU will become a united nation? Also, what is going on in Central Asia and the Caucasus right now?

 

[TheMann]

Is it possible that the EU will become a united nation? Also, what is going on in Central Asia and the Caucasus right now?

EU as a unified nation, no. The European Union is all about in modern times expanding the trade relationships and diplomacy to resolve crises all across Europe, and they have a substantial amount of diplomatic clout to do so with. There is a European Parliament and they do have some power to make laws and regulations, but the job is rather less than OTL. In modern times, the EU Parliament focuses its efforts on disputes between nations, basic economics (namely those relating to the Euro) and foreign policy issues as well as wider-scale aid efforts and the like, leaving domestic policy to the individual member states. NATO's Secretary General in modern times is decided by an agreement between the EU Parliament and Canada and the United States, and with Russia knowing about it and being able to comment about it during the selection process, and NATO largely handles the stick end of making sure the problems the EU tries to solve. NATO's Supreme Commander here is also chosen by agreement of the countries between qualified applicants, and there has been British, German, French and Canadian SACEUR's as a result. (Canada's first SACEUR was General Romeo Dallaire, was the first one approved of by their Parliament, but by then he had a Victoria Cross for gallantry in Rwanda and has served over a decade in Jerusalem.)

One must remember that this EU includes over all the OTL ones as well as Norway (in as a result of Norway being allowed to keep its resource wealth to itself, a tactic the UK and the Netherlands copied as a result), Iceland, Croatia, Montenegro, Turkey, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia (The EU forced Turkey to accept Armenia's existence and accept its past actions before they could become members of the EU), Israel, Palestine and Lebanon, with Morocco, Cape Verde, Belarus, Moldova, Azerbaijan and Russia looking to eventually be members and with Canada becoming an observer in 2014. This group has even bigger divisions than before, but the EU and Canada have both grown reputations as being neutral intermediaries, and that gives Brussels considerable power in the world.

Central Asia is largely the same as OTL politically, but economically they are looking in a different direction than OTL, largely looking to Iran for inspiration and funding, though Russia is now once again able to influence matters in many of these states. The Caucasus Regions are different - Georgia settled its geographic disputes as a result of its EU entry process, and Turkey and Armenia buried the hatchet on theirs, though Armenia continues to be one of Russia`s key allies in the region namely because them and Turkey and Azerbaijan are not all that friendly, though in modern times Georgia and Armenia work closely with Russia on a lot of issues, while Turkey co-operates with Azerbaijan. Economically, though, they are way ahead of OTL, particularly Georgia, and their societies are a lot more advanced than OTL, with a much more friendly (and completely unwilling to accept threats to its democracy) Russia also helping in this regard.