Valkyrie Victorious

Valkyrie Victorious:

A request by Void-Wolf. In this world the Operation Valkyrie of 1944 succeeds, Hitler is assassinated, the Nazi government is decapitated and a short civil war erupts that sees the SS overwhelmed by the Wehrmacht. A provisional military government is established that moves as quickly as possible to surrender to the Western Allies. The Americans and British accept the surrender, worried about the USSR' encroachments into Eastern Europe. The Soviets, realising they have lost support of the Western Allies and may have to face them should they continue their advance, finally accept the German ceasefire. The European Theatre officially ceases conflict at the end of 1944.

The Pacific Theatre continues much as it did in OTL though the early end to conflict in Europe allows the US, Britain and USSR to redeploy more soldiers against Japan than OTL. Japan surrenders in 1945 when the US, after a long development and much deliberation, drops an atom bomb on one of their cities. By that point the USSR had practically taken Korea and was even poised to begin an invasion of the Home Islands.

Once again a surrender had snatched potential conquests away from the USSR and handed them to the Western Allies.

Relations between the Western Allies and the USSR continued to degrade and even the threat of mutual nuclear assault (at least after the USSR got their own nuclear capability) eventually failed to halt the onset of war in the early 50s. The Third World War was short and just as brutal as both its predecessors, eventually ending with a US/British victory and the destruction of several cities in the USSR, Germany, China and Japan (and the US via an aerial assault on Alaska). Casualties via atomic weaponry were reduced due to the lack of intercontinental launch systems aside from delivery via aircraft.

By 2014 the world is still comparatively peaceful but the American hegemony is finally being challenged.

The USA has been the sole superpower since the 50s and has had an unchallenged hegemony over the earth. They have also supported a strong global interventionist policy, especially when they were overseeing the occupation (such as it was) of the old USSR and the rebuilding of a Russian state. The US is still rather militant as a result of their attempt to establish a military hegemony and the recent rise of new opponents. A War on Terror of sorts has even taken place that the US is still calming down from.

Without the fear of communism the US has had more time to adopt an increasingly liberal political stance. This has been exacerbated by the widespread rise in right-wing authoritarianism elsewhere in the world. At the same time the lack of a Vietnam War and a victory in another world war that is perceived as righteous has prevented the rise of counter-cultures like OTL. More recent military activities have drawn criticism and helped the public adopt these new liberal stances but not in the same manner as the OTL 1960s (which were this Tls confident period). US politics are even more polarised than OTL as a result of this though the political right have not teamed up with the more extreme elements of the religious community. The long period of relative safety allowed numerous counter-cultures to develop to counteract the more militant and traditional lifestyles of the wartime generation of the 40s and 50s. Whilst the development of various counter-cultures did take place, with many of them originating in America, their sheer diversity did prevent unified movements from developing into larger subcultures with a few exceptions (Civil Rights, feminism and environmentalism are still things in this world). These groups still have some impact on politics and have helped the liberalisation of American politics over the past few decades.

As a result of their more active stance in global politics the US runs a sphere of influence with several nations practically being satellites. The existence of these dependencies is a matter of controversy in American politics though their treatment of such nations never changes no matter which party takes power. The recent War on Terror also saw them stage armed interventions in states they believed were harbouring radical terrorist groups and other threatening sources of disruption.

The damages incurred during WWIII and the American belligerence after the end of the war had unfortunate consequences in Europe. With the USSR neutralised the nations of Europe were far less willing to accept American 'suggestions' regarding their interactions with the world at large. The Third World War had also incurred a lot of damages and left Europe with a substantial military force, two factors that served to alienate Europe from the USA. The Euro-American split of the 1970s was a turbulent event that upset the balance of power that had been established in the 60s.

The European Community is a rather loose organisation. It is much closer to an economic bloc than an actual political union but they have drafted a constitution and have been growing closer with time, organising and reorganising their centralised authority. A hierarchy of sorts has even developed. They do try to uphold the same human rights but the finer details of issues like immigration, women's rights and similar things have become very divisive. Right-wing groups are becoming increasingly popular especially since American interventionism unsettled the nations of the Middle East. Immigrants from West Asia and Eastern Europe have been moving into the EC for decades and their presence has been one of the factors behind the increasing extremism and polarisation of EC politics.

The EC is usually more concerned with policing its own territories and tends to leave the position of global peacekeepers to the Americans. The EC does have a united military force composed of all of the armies of the member nations. This is the most controversial move by far and is a recent development. The standardisation of equipment has ensured that every nation has the latest weaponry that the EC can provide.

Butterflies led to China never falling to the communists. A short lived socialist Chinese republic did exist in Manchuria until the Third World War where it was invaded, dismantled and annexed. China liberalised but has always remained a rather right-wing and authoritarian nation. America and the EC both supported their modernisation and were integral in promoting the integration of modern technology and the expansion of the infrastructure. China is now an industrial powerhouse and unfortunately split from their formerly close relationship with the US shortly after the EC did the same.

China is a very conservative and traditionalist nation. One of the reasons behind their split with America was what they saw as the pervasive infiltration of American culture into their nation. Though technologically progressive the Chinese state is still socially conservative with the government constantly supporting traditionalism. The expansion of the middle class is beginning to change some things in the Chinese political system but on the whole the Chinese people remain a deeply conservative society. The economy initially saw little regulation which has helped them expand their industry and infrastructure but has also led to worrying levels of pollution. Some minor regulation for things like pollution, wages and workers compensation have finally been worked out but on the whole Chinese businessmen are left to conduct their businesses as they see fit.

Despite falling out with America they are still very involved with the USA economically with many of their businesses now dependent on America for customers. This has kept relations with the USA fairly cordial. They have a closer relationship with the EC and are also making moves to form a better connection with Russia who is rapidly becoming their main source of oil and natural gas.

Russia has mostly recovered from the destruction of the USSR. The Russian Federation that was built to replace it limped on for a while before collapsing again when the US pulled their occupational forces out of the area. It took several years for order to be restored and when that happened the new constitution handed a lot of power over to the army (officially its because of their involvement in rebuilding Russia). The restrictions on Russia's development and military forces have all been repealed and the reparations they were forced to pay have all been paid. They have spent the last few years focusing on rebuilding their nation and returning to the world stage. Russia is a militant and hierarchical society. The police state of the USSR has been dismantled but its remnant is maintained so that the government can enforce their rather authoritarian rule. Their 'not-fascist' regime aside the rest of the world does see Russia as an invaluable source of natural resources, especially the EC and China who are now dependent on them for natural gas and oil.

Technology is at about the same level as OTL. The lack of a Cold War to promote rapid development and investment has been counteracted by expanding the available pool of talent from what would be Comintern countries in OTL. The internet of this world was cobbled together from numerous separate systems and has only recently become the utility it is in present day OTL. The world also has produced fewer communist economic money-sinks and is somewhat richer. The Space Race was much slower and Earth's orbit is somewhat less developed than OTL. Only recently more satellites have been put in orbit now that Europe and China's space programs have developed enough to launch more than communication satellites. The US may still be on amicable terms with the two emerging powers but they're not that close and the US has been getting paranoid lately.