Great Powers doomed despite the World Wars?

[daveg1967]

Yes, but I don’t think that USA GDP per capita being the highest in 1900 means it will be the highest in 2000. USA in 1900 imported massive amount of foreign expertise through immigration like it do today gaining a lot without having to invest, but without the dollars as the world’s reserve currency and de facto captured market abroad, USA will be in a completely different circumstance by TTL 2000. Without OTL Industrial-Military complex California will be a far different state, no Silicon Valley for one thing, with USA being a debitor nation Wall Street will be a less powerful actor, with a BOP deficit USA will be more dependent on domestic manufacturing and will have to stay competitive to export and gain foreign currency. More manufacturing means stronger unions and labor laws. All in all I expect a slightly smaller population, mostly because USA will see less immigration In the late 20th century (but it mostly make up for it with more earlier).

Here’s also the really major difference; without the Great War and the restriction in immigration and fewer potential immigrants in the interbellum. The Great Migration will be massively weaken, the South will be blacker and the rest of USA whiter. USA will also care less about external pressure for civil right to black people without the Cold War, so we will likely see segregation lasting longer and its end being much uglier, we likely also see much more Black Separatism with several states being majority black. Of course segregation and the civil rights movement will be seen very much as a Southern issue.

UK on the other hand will get rid of a lot of the dross in the decolonization (colonies owned for strategic reasons which cost more to administrate than they gives in), end up with control of much of the world’s oil production, London as the world’s financial centrum, and having the pound as the world’s reserve currency. Of course I also suspect that the median Briton won’t be better off and it’s simply the elite being richer and bigger.

You are making some assumptions. What you are stating as downside risks, sound like benefits to many.
US per capita GDP more then doubled between 1870 and 1910. The US was protectionist at this time. Tariffs were a principal revenue source and much of US production was to satisfy domestic demand. A lot of US trade policy post WW2 has been the US supporting other countries for security benefits at the expense of economic interests.
I don't know if you get the immigration restriction in the 1920s with no World War. Can't really call what population would be now. No Great Depression is a bigger factor then anything else.

 

[Falecius]

Britain treating the colonies as assets to be exploited for the benefit of London.

That's roughly what empires are for, though.

 

[daveg1967]

That's roughly what empires are for, though.

There's a line in the show 1776 where Ben Franking comments, "Never was such a valuable possession so stupidly and recklessly managed, than this entire continent by the British crown."
There is a point in imperial/colonial development when the mother country has to understand when the possessions don't actually need the homeland. In the Roman Republic, there was the Social War which resulted in all of the Italian allies/clients getting Roman Citizenship. The US made a fundamental decision in that any new state would be admitted to the union on an equal basis to existing states. I look at the American Revolutionary Crisis as Britain being an absent father who ignored his son from the time he was 12 until he was 19. In the mean time, the son got a job, his own place, and is thinking about getting married. Dad came back and started treating the son like he was still 10.

 

[Jürgen]

There's a line in the show 1776 where Ben Franking comments, "Never was such a valuable possession so stupidly and recklessly managed, than this entire continent by the British crown."
There is a point in imperial/colonial development when the mother country has to understand when the possessions don't actually need the homeland. In the Roman Republic, there was the Social War which resulted in all of the Italian allies/clients getting Roman Citizenship. The US made a fundamental decision in that any new state would be admitted to the union on an equal basis to existing states. I look at the American Revolutionary Crisis as Britain being an absent father who ignored his son from the time he was 12 until he was 19. In the mean time, the son got a job, his own place, and is thinking about getting married. Dad came back and started treating the son like he was still 10.

The ARW was simply a regional elite betraying their county and becoming a French client for power to the local elite. Yes, it turned out pretty okay, thanks to USA having greater potential than other fringe regions, the states deciding to stay together rather than split into several different countries, avoiding strongmen, and because the French regime collapsed a few years later, but being incredible lucky didn’t change the first facts.

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

Without the World Wars the central and western European Great Powers would be much more developed and populous. Using Spain's (largish European country that wasn't in either World War) growth since 1900 (x2.5) we could roughly spit ball a France of 97.3 million, a Germany of 140.9 million, an Austria-Hungary of 118.2 million, an Italy of 81.2 million, a UK of 111.2 million. (might be high balling the more developed states like France, the UK, and Germany, but probably pretty reasonable for AH and Italy)

I don't think "doomed" would be the right word for such states. With populations like those (and likely economies and militaries to match) then even if they are in a tier beneath the super powers, they're still too big to be easily bullied by Washington or Moscow.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

That's roughly what empires are for, though.

But there are ways and ways of exploitation, as it were. Promoting trade and industry so that there's more revenue for the central government to tax is a form of exploitation, but it's a mutually beneficial one, and hence less likely to provoke discontent.

(In Britain's defence, the idea that wealth creation was a zero-sum game, and that promoting economic activity in the colonies would inevitably come at the expense of the mother country, was a common one, and influenced the actions of basically every empire of the time period. Britain, specifically, was no worse in this regard than any of its contemporaries, and in at least some cases -- the white dominions, for example -- was better.)

 

[Jürgen]

Without the World Wars the central and western European Great Powers would be much more developed and populous. Using Spain's (largish European country that wasn't in either World War) growth since 1900 (x2.5) we could roughly spit ball a France of 97.3 million, a Germany of 140.9 million, an Austria-Hungary of 118.2 million, an Italy of 81.2 million, a UK of 111.2 million. (might be high balling the more developed states like France, the UK, and Germany, but probably pretty reasonable for AH and Italy)

I think it’s reasonable for Germany (Germany will likely reach 120 by natural growth and the rest will be immigration mostly from AH and Russia) and AH, I’m not sure about Italy, I imagine it population will be slightly lowered by ongoing mass migration. France depend on a lot of factors, it won’t see the lost generation on the other hand, but there’s also a lot of other factors like Italian and Algerian immigration, and what will happen to Algeria [1]. UK on the other hand I imagine will likely have 80 million inhabitants, purely population-wise it was the least hard hit by the wars and a lot of OTL problems will raise their head.

I don't think "doomed" would be the right word for such states. With populations like those (and likely economies and militaries to match) then even if they are in a tier beneath the super powers, they're still too big to be easily bullied by Washington or Moscow.

IN OTL USA both from a population and political POV was a total winner of both wars, they fundamentally made Western Europe into economic clients, with the European industry in ruin, the European empires in free fall collapse, and the economic networks of Europe completely disrupted. There’s no way USA will do as well as in OTL. American industry will stay geared toward their domestic market and a few captured market in South America and South East Asia, there won’t be a petrodollar, USA will not braindrain much of the European expertise orloot the German patents, and USA will stay a debitor nation.

As for Russia, while the Russian population lost the 20th century, Russia the state as USSR reached its absolute peak of its power and global influence. This won’t happen in TTL, Russia will develop and have a bigger economy than USSR ever had, but it will be mainly exporting raw materials with its industry mainly focusing on domestic consumption, it will lack a universalist ideology to sell abroad and it will deal with a large and growing middle and working class, which will demand democratic reforms, a end to stupid foreign adventures, and the end to their sons dying in stupid conflict on the fringe of the empire.

So not only will the European powers be stronger, USA and Russia will be relative weaker.

[1] Slow continued migration to Algeria from France, Spain, and Italy could keep the French population at 20-25% of the population. It would only demand half a million people from 1914-1954 for this to happen. We could also see French industrialization of Algeria, which would make the Muslim population more urban, French speaking and likely lower the Algerian birth rate earlier. Algeria which stays part of France and with 30 million inhabitants of which 70-80% are Muslim as part of a France with 90 million inhabitant would make France a entire different power than modern France.

 

[Sacer Bubonicus]

As for Russia, while the Russian population lost the 20th century, Russia the state as USSR reached its absolute peak of its power and global influence. This won’t happen in TTL, Russia will develop and have a bigger economy than USSR ever had, but it will be mainly exporting raw materials with its industry mainly focusing on domestic consumption,

Raw materials are themselves very useful when you can supply them at cheaper rates than your competitors and have a gigantic freezer filled with them. IOTL, Russia did not build anything even remotely close in scale to the US oil pipeline network, and only started Nordstream after the collapse of the USSR. Without the USSR, I'd expect pipeline networks going out to Europe and China to start being built in the 60s, and it wouldn't take long afterward for most of Europe to be a captive market for Russian oil, gas, tungsten, titanium and whatever else can be dug up out of central and eastern Siberia.

Russia also has multiple large coal basins which, IOTL, have still not been developed (some of them not even properly surveyed) thanks partly to the population required not being there (what with the loss of 50 million people and a subsequent fertility crash wiping out any chance of colonization of the empty parts of Siberia where the largely untapped basins can be found), and otherwise to communist economic mismanagement.

"Exporting raw materials" sounds like a nice argument until you realize that, when the proceeds are not stashed in the dictator's vault for 'safekeeping', the result can be pretty spectacular (eg. Texas, California, early/mid-20th century Venezuela, Belgian coal industry). Saudi Arabia and Mauritania are both deserts, and thus should both be horrible places to live in, but one of them exports "raw materials" and the other does not. And where there are raw materials to be extracted, there will be an industry to make use of it; viz. Pennsylvania coal feeding Pittsburgh, Moscow coal feeding... Moscow. And need I remind you that early and easy access to abundant coal is the entire reason why Britain and Germany industrialized so well in the first place?

it will lack a universalist ideology to sell abroad

By all accounts, so does the PRC at the moment, and yet it has no trouble making connections in Africa, South America and Europe. It definitely helps if you have an ideology to export, because that means people in foreign countries will help you and act as agents in that country without needing to be bribed, blackmailed or otherwise prompted to do so, but you can do without it if you're big enough.

and it will deal with a large and growing middle and working class, which will demand democratic reforms, a end to stupid foreign adventures, and the end to their sons dying in stupid conflict on the fringe of the empire.

If the other imperialist countries never succumbed to that kind of pressure until they were half-dead anyway, I fail to see why this would apply here.

So not only will the European powers be stronger, USA and Russia will be relative weaker.

USA perhaps, but you have got to be snorting something to believe that doubling the population and increasing the economy up to a level with America, would make Russia weaker compared to OTL, even with the other European powers not being cut down by WW2. Today, the combined territories of the USSR have maybe $3 trillion in GDP, while China and America both sit over $20 trillion. Germany, France and Britain all hover around $3-4 trillion, so the entire post-Soviet bloc is effectively only equal to one of them. 80 years of communist economic self-sodomization turned a country set to be in the 15-20 trillion range and reduced it to that. While I've no doubt that France and Germany were fucked by WW1 and WW2, I doubt they were set to be 4-6 times bigger than they are IOTL.

 

[Gancio The Ranter]

USA perhaps, but you have got to be snorting something to believe that doubling the population and increasing the economy up to a level with America, would make Russia weaker compared to OTL, even with the other European powers not being cut down by WW2. Today, the combined territories of the USSR have maybe $3 trillion in GDP, while China and America both sit over $20 trillion. Germany, France and Britain all hover around $3-4 trillion, so the entire post-Soviet bloc is effectively only equal to one of them. 80 years of communist economic self-sodomization turned a country set to be in the 15-20 trillion range and reduced it to that. While I've no doubt that France and Germany were fucked by WW1 and WW2, I doubt they were set to be 4-6 times bigger than they are IOTL.

Hard agree on Russia being stronger than OTL, but 15-20 trillion OTL dollars gdp range is very hard to accomplish. I don't see Russia having more than 400-500 million people and more than 15-20k per capita gdp without communism, so not much different than OTL Portugal or Greece on a per capita basis. I agree with your take on pipelines but I also suspect that without the world wars nuclear energy would be much more widespread due to countries looking for clean, powerful and independent forms of energy, not even mentioning the military applications.
But yeah a surviving Russian empire would be the main provider of most resources I can think of bar phosphorus and copper, from wheat to gold to uranium. I simply suspect oil and gas would be cheaper due to more competition and no OPEC

 

[Gancio The Ranter]

My main point regarding Great Power competition without WW1 is that I believe a vaguely German led Continental European Coalition or Union would arise due to Economic integration and non European power competition. Many people from before WW1 thought so as well.

 

[Sacer Bubonicus]

I don't see Russia having more than [...] 15-20k per capita gdp without communism,

So literally just Russian gdp per capita in 2013, before it came crashing down due to sanctions.
I'd bet somewhere between Italy and France.

Edit: actually, scratch that. I'd bet higher. Between France and Germany.

Also, that phrasing makes it sound like you think communism improved the number, instead of dumpstering it.

 

[Sacer Bubonicus]

Speaking of per capita, let's talk about what happens in a non-communist China.

While I wouldn't expect it to be anywhere in the same league as America in terms of per capita, certainly not with this late POD and the amount of shit that's already happened to fuck China over, I would at least guess that it would be double or triple what it is IOTL... which would, even with the conservative estimate, make it the #1 economy on Earth, ahead of even America in GDP despite the low per capita. And much of that economy would be fueled by Russian coal, oil, etc, moving south by pipe and rail.

Also, with the latter stages of the Chinese Civil War and the Maoist famine avoided, China has a few hundred million more people today than IOTL. Of course, the result could just be that there are a hundred million more Chinese immigrants to America, Mexico, Peru, Brazil, etc, etc, which would indirectly boost their economies as well. America in particular might also get plenty of German and Russian immigrants too... perhaps America really can get bigger than IOTL, even if it isn't as dominant as IOTL.

 

[Typho]

I think it’s reasonable for Germany (Germany will likely reach 120 by natural growth and the rest will be immigration mostly from AH and Russia) and AH, I’m not sure about Italy, I imagine it population will be slightly lowered by ongoing mass migration. France depend on a lot of factors, it won’t see the lost generation on the other hand, but there’s also a lot of other factors like Italian and Algerian immigration, and what will happen to Algeria [1]. UK on the other hand I imagine will likely have 80 million inhabitants, purely population-wise it was the least hard hit by the wars and a lot of OTL problems will raise their head.



IN OTL USA both from a population and political POV was a total winner of both wars, they fundamentally made Western Europe into economic clients, with the European industry in ruin, the European empires in free fall collapse, and the economic networks of Europe completely disrupted. There’s no way USA will do as well as in OTL. American industry will stay geared toward their domestic market and a few captured market in South America and South East Asia, there won’t be a petrodollar, USA will not braindrain much of the European expertise orloot the German patents, and USA will stay a debitor nation.

The first two paragrapghs contradict eachother somewhat. So as we know, Western nations became client states post-ww2, they followed every incremental socio-political change of America, mimicking them at every opportunity. The European immigration policy you are referencing was a mimickery of US immigration, so if Europe isn't American client states they would have their own independent influenced migration policies.

Which your sugggestion for Austrian & Russian migration for Germany seems like it could happen. But, for France the migration would likely be in the other direction, French and Italians migrating to Algeria, this maks more sense with the Citizenship policies of the time & general social attitudes. As for the UK, 50 million is what I would guess the population would capp at, the general idea was that people were leaving because it was already too overcrowded, (this was recognized at 30 million), so excess British population would probbaly migrate to primarily US/Dominions, somewhat to colonies. And many of these western states are at the end of their demographic transition.

My main point regarding Great Power competition without WW1 is that I believe a vaguely German led Continental European Coalition or Union would arise due to Economic integration and non European power competition. Many people from before WW1 thought so as well.

I can see this too, however a much more loose association, and one that includes Russia as standard European partner.

Raw materials are themselves very useful when you can supply them at cheaper rates than your competitors and have a gigantic freezer filled with them. IOTL, Russia did not build anything even remotely close in scale to the US oil pipeline network, and only started Nordstream after the collapse of the USSR. Without the USSR, I'd expect pipeline networks going out to Europe and China to start being built in the 60s, and it wouldn't take long afterward for most of Europe to be a captive market for Russian oil, gas, tungsten, titanium and whatever else can be dug up out of central and eastern Siberia.

How far would these pipelines go? Would France (Italy) & Britain rely on them? Or instead use Algeria/Libya. This would encourage strong stable military position in North Africa, becauyse they would lose access to their energy supplies. And make them self reliant without Russian. I do expect Germany/AH the rest of Europe to be powered by Russian oil/gas tho

Russia also has multiple large coal basins which, IOTL, have still not been developed (some of them not even properly surveyed) thanks partly to the population required not being there (what with the loss of 50 million people and a subsequent fertility crash wiping out any chance of colonization of the empty parts of Siberia where the largely untapped basins can be found), and otherwise to communist economic mismanagement.

"Exporting raw materials" sounds like a nice argument until you realize that, when the proceeds are not stashed in the dictator's vault for 'safekeeping', the result can be pretty spectacular (eg. Texas, California, early/mid-20th century Venezuela, Belgian coal industry). Saudi Arabia and Mauritania are both deserts, and thus should both be horrible places to live in, but one of them exports "raw materials" and the other does not. And where there are raw materials to be extracted, there will be an industry to make use of it; viz. Pennsylvania coal feeding Pittsburgh, Moscow coal feeding... Moscow. And need I remind you that early and easy access to abundant coal is the entire reason why Britain and Germany industrialized so well in the first place?

Do you think a non-Communist Russia has the ability to settle Siberia? They managed it in the past through forced relocations. You are right about raw materials, they encourage posperity, but requires high social trust. Otherwise high ups just pocket the money.

 

[daveg1967]

The ARW was simply a regional elite betraying their county and becoming a French client for power to the local elite. Yes, it turned out pretty okay, thanks to USA having greater potential than other fringe regions, the states deciding to stay together rather than split into several different countries, avoiding strongmen, and because the French regime collapsed a few years later, but being incredible lucky didn’t change the first facts.

That's a rather odd take on things and not supported by the facts. Look up the Olive Branch Petition for example. The Continental Congress was trying to prevent a breach with Britain even after blood was spilled at Lexington and Concord. The US wasn't a very good French Client. We sold them out and signed a separate peace with Britain. Britain remained our main trade partner after the revolution. The US was also fortunate in it's political arrangements after the war. Some call it luck, others call it Providence. A different way of looking at it is that the American colonies had over a century of legislative and local governance before the revolution. The revolution was a change in form but not really in function.

 

[James Ricker]

Depends on the date of the PoD and if overseas territories are included. Given favourable circumstances,  Britain could encompass ¼ of the world's land and ⅓ of its population.

Britan would have to get rid of many of its unimportant money losing colonies to remain competitive

 

[Suzon]

it would likely be a “big 4” with Germany, Britain, America and Russia.

And then a smaller group slightly behind them with France, Japan, and China

 

[Jiraiyathegallant]

Hard agree on Russia being stronger than OTL, but 15-20 trillion OTL dollars gdp range is very hard to accomplish. I don't see Russia having more than 400-500 million people and more than 15-20k per capita gdp without communism, so not much different than OTL Portugal or Greece on a per capita basis. I agree with your take on pipelines but I also suspect that without the world wars nuclear energy would be much more widespread due to countries looking for clean, powerful and independent forms of energy, not even mentioning the military applications.
But yeah a surviving Russian empire would be the main provider of most resources I can think of bar phosphorus and copper, from wheat to gold to uranium. I simply suspect oil and gas would be cheaper due to more competition and no OPEC

Portugal is at 26k and Greece 22.5k per year.

 

[DocJamore]

A lagging GDP per capita has an important consequence for Russia. There would be a significant brain drain of Russians leaving to work in Europe. It wasn’t uncommon (and still isn’t) for Russians to emigrate for being at odds with the Russian state politically or economically (or they just want higher salaries). I’d expect that to be the case in this timeline even if the Russian economy becomes the biggest in Europe.

 

[Sacer Bubonicus]

How far would these pipelines go? Would France (Italy) & Britain rely on them? Or instead use Algeria/Libya. This would encourage strong stable military position in North Africa, becauyse they would lose access to their energy supplies. And make them self reliant without Russian. I do expect Germany/AH the rest of Europe to be powered by Russian oil/gas tho

Certainly as far as Germany, and probably toward France as well, with plenty more being exported by ship to Britain et al.

Do you think a non-Communist Russia has the ability to settle Siberia? They managed it in the past through forced relocations.

There was plenty of natural migration there too. By the late 19th century, there were also strong efforts to encourage migration.

 

[Hugh Third of Five]

America would rise as a superpower, but Russia's rise was far from certain. Also even though I think Britain would lose almost all of its empire, I think France would stand a chance of integrating a larger portion of theirs without the world wars; I'm not saying it would happen, just that there would be a chance

The world wars to a degree delegitimise the concept of empires in both the USA and USSR offered an alternative. Before that even when the USA did intervene in places it acted more like a European power (see the Philippines). So an ascendant USA without the world wars might have to play the game more (even if it ends up as the strongest player).

The USSR like the USA espoused anticolonial rhetoric, but it absolutely functioned an imperialist, neo-colonial power. It propped up authoritarian regimes just like the USA did and it occupied most of Eastern Europe.
.

My impression of the Monroe doctrine, French interference, VZ crisis was competition rather than anti-imperialism. Keeping competitors out of their sphere of influence.

There was a strong anti-imperialist component to it. The Spanish-American war had a lot of support from anti-imperialists who saw it as a way to help the Cubans and to a lesser extent Filipinos gain independence from Spain. Of course there was also realpolitik, self-interest, and hypocrisy, which is why the Philippines became a colony and there were numerous interventions in Latin America, including Cuba, but there was also an anti-imperialist component to the Monroe Doctrine.