the European map is the same as normal iron curtain times. Also yes china goes capitalist because neither the USA nor Russia would allow it to be communist (nor a bunch of other powers) make your own ideas for if it’s democratic Russia/china or dictatorship. The countrys hate each other because national pride and economic reasons (maybe even colonialism if you want it in your guess)
WI Cold War between capitalist Russia AND capitalist USA
- Thread starter awesomegamerdog
- Start date
If both are capitalists what kind of ideological conflict is there?
The Cold War would not have been the Cold War if both sides had not seen it as a struggle between two mutually incompatible ideologies; some kind of Great Power rivalry between the USA and Russia would still have been possible, but it would certainly have been less global and intense than OTL Cold War.
The Cold War would not have been the Cold War if both sides had not seen it as a struggle between two mutually incompatible ideologies; some kind of Great Power rivalry between the USA and Russia would still have been possible, but it would certainly have been less global and intense than OTL Cold War.
In the West, man forces man to work with the threat of starvation. In the East, it is the other way around.
If that was the case then WW1 or WW2 should not have happened, not to mention many other wars before and after. Except USSR, all the other so called great powers were capitalist isn't it?
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It’s not an ideological conflict so much as it’s a “we want to be the best” Conflict, also hyper power status
This is rather unlikely. Cold War Europe's borders were contingent on the specific geopolitics of Europe between WWI and the start of the Cold War, which would be radically altered if you prevented the October Revolution.
The obvious one is fascism (or some other form of right-wing authoritarianism) vs liberal democracy: the Axis and the Western Allies were both capitalist, after all.
I do not see how that could be concluded from my statement.
Neither of those conflicts was anything at all like the Cold War.
For example, WWI was the result of a combination of things which do not apply here; from Germany fearing the growth of Russia, interconnected alliance networks, Franco-German disagreements over Alsace-Lorraine, the Balkan powder keg. I do not quite see what their equivalents would be here, Russia and the USA are so far away that without ideological conflicts (not necessarily 'capitalism' vs communism, maybe other ideological conflicts would also work) they might just as well pretend the other does not exist; even if they become rivals for some reason I do not see anything which could lead to equivalents of the Vietnam War or a Cuban Missile Crisis, which nearly leads to WWIII, without the USA going full 'Red-Scare mode' and the Kremlin believing that conflict between capitalism and socialism is inevitable.
The US would probably be the leftier of the two powers, with Russia looking like Sorokin's "Day of the oprichnik".
I think that's a very simplistic view imo. Again, the example of today's geopolitical conflict between two prefectly capitalist powers shows that a cold war as the OP ask it's perfectly possible. No matter the political system, the russians will be pissed if the US encroaches into what they see a their zone of influence and puts their bases near it's borders.
And the examples above imo support that, Germany and Russia went to war even if both were nominally monarchies led by royals from the same family! And earlier the japanese and russian monarchies went to war. And i can cite the example of the perfectly COMMUNIST USSR and China being at eachother's throats for decades due to ideological (!- my communism is better than yours) differences. And i'm sure many more such examples can be found.
This is why also i believe a Hitler in this TL will still attack a capitalist Russia anyway, be it monarchist, republic, whatever, the Lebensraum ideology and xenophobic anti-slavism are still there.
Also of note the cold war "border" was more or less where the former tsarist zone of influence was extending to, with some differences here or there, but it was roughly in the same area.
Of course, for this TL to happen you probably need a POD starting from say the russo-japanese war, to prevent the collapse of the tsarist system and the rise of the communist movements to replace it, though at some point for the purpose of this TL the tsarist system must either be completely replaced by a non-communist system or massively overhauled in order to prevent it's collapse. No matter the system, people still have the same basic needs.
With such a far back POD one can take the scenario wherever one likes, my point being that a cold war between two nominally capitalist powers is perfectly possible.
Anyway, my main interests in this scenario stems from one angle, would capitalist Russia have a weaker or stronger military, and weaker or stronger economy compared to OTL USSR? If the latter, the US must thank their lucky start that Russia fell to communism!
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I thought Germany and Italy were corporatist economies? Not a dig, genuinely wondering if I've misread something.
Response too the first point: this is honestly mostly to get ideas going the map is most likely going to be different but it’s for my curiosity to see what divided all capitalist Europe would be
a thought I had about this is: what about trying to make the others companies move to you buy abolishing wages and basically doing what china does with cheap labor and low taxes and lots less restriction on economy. Basically the companies play them off each other to get more power either political or monetary, maybe even becoming the leaders of the country. My thoughts on this is that both have High gdp
At its most base level, the Cold War was a competition between two nations who had mutually exclusive geopolitical goals but where open war was undesirable. With that in mind, an ideological chasm isn't strictly needed for a Cold War to take place. The Sino-Soviet split could be considered a regional variant of the Cold War despite China and the Soviet Union both being "Communist" and both depicting themselves in propaganda as being part of a revolutionary vanguard to liberate the workers of the world. In contrast, the United States enabled the authoritarian colonialism of its European allies for the sake of geopolitics despite them all being liberal democratic "Capitalist" countries. Under different geopolitical circumstances I'm sure the United States could've listened to the better angels of its nature and been the main opponent of Western European colonialism. All this to say, there's a lot of ideological wiggle room when something is contrary to perceived national interest.
So let's say there's a capitalist Russia that's competing with a capitalist United States. What motivates the competition? Perhaps for the sake of national security, alt-Russia is highly protectionist and pursues an autarkic form of capitalism where it has a closed market economy that only itself, its allies, and its subordinates can participate in. Every country in the Russian sphere would then be perceived, in a mercantilist sense, as a direct loss for the American economy, and so there's a global scramble for Russia to obtain more allies for its closed market while the United States seeks to prevent this and encourage globalization.
Another possibility: with a neutralized or otherwise stable Europe, alt-Russia decides its next greatest goal for national protection is control over the Indo-Pacific. The United States has exerted significant influence in the Pacific for decades and so the two begin a regional conflict for control which escalates into two rival blocs on the global stage.
Yet another possibility: Because of differing historical events Russia becomes a semi-constitutional monarchy. For a while it's led by the likes of the Kadets or Octobrists. After a series of liberal reforms, the ruling party is eventually coopted by the aristocratic old guard, industrialists, and landowners. A dominant-party system comes into place with limited democracy but a fully capitalist economy. Russia's vast natural resources are successfully exploited through a mix of corporatism and Gilded Age-style self made robber barons. Meanwhile, the United States enters a violent but inconclusive war with one or more Western European powers. The United States believes that it will win the next war if its enemies in Europe don't have colonies to draw resources and manpower from. In response to that belief, it begins to style itself as an anti-imperialist champion in Africa and Asia (while having to reconcile its own record in Latin America). Seeing an opportunity for global prestige and influence, Russia steps in as the first among equals of the European colonial powers and becomes America's rival. Russia depicts itself as an elite, educated, and responsible government in contrast to the contradictory and disorganized mob rule of American democracy.
So let's say there's a capitalist Russia that's competing with a capitalist United States. What motivates the competition? Perhaps for the sake of national security, alt-Russia is highly protectionist and pursues an autarkic form of capitalism where it has a closed market economy that only itself, its allies, and its subordinates can participate in. Every country in the Russian sphere would then be perceived, in a mercantilist sense, as a direct loss for the American economy, and so there's a global scramble for Russia to obtain more allies for its closed market while the United States seeks to prevent this and encourage globalization.
Another possibility: with a neutralized or otherwise stable Europe, alt-Russia decides its next greatest goal for national protection is control over the Indo-Pacific. The United States has exerted significant influence in the Pacific for decades and so the two begin a regional conflict for control which escalates into two rival blocs on the global stage.
Yet another possibility: Because of differing historical events Russia becomes a semi-constitutional monarchy. For a while it's led by the likes of the Kadets or Octobrists. After a series of liberal reforms, the ruling party is eventually coopted by the aristocratic old guard, industrialists, and landowners. A dominant-party system comes into place with limited democracy but a fully capitalist economy. Russia's vast natural resources are successfully exploited through a mix of corporatism and Gilded Age-style self made robber barons. Meanwhile, the United States enters a violent but inconclusive war with one or more Western European powers. The United States believes that it will win the next war if its enemies in Europe don't have colonies to draw resources and manpower from. In response to that belief, it begins to style itself as an anti-imperialist champion in Africa and Asia (while having to reconcile its own record in Latin America). Seeing an opportunity for global prestige and influence, Russia steps in as the first among equals of the European colonial powers and becomes America's rival. Russia depicts itself as an elite, educated, and responsible government in contrast to the contradictory and disorganized mob rule of American democracy.
This is a really good thought project and I would like to congratulate you On it, this is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for when I posted this originally.