New World Order: The Anglo-American Post-War
- Thread starter Star Eater
- Start date
Before that it was since 2012. I used to be really active but I found out fast I didn't know as much about history as I thought so I decided to mature a little bit before coming back.
)bookmark95
Banned
Consider me subscribed, Star Eater.
Whatever happened to your TL, where Nazi Germany and America are locked in a cold war.
Whatever happened to your TL, where Nazi Germany and America are locked in a cold war.
Chapter 3: Peace in our Time
As crises erupted on the domestic front, President Kennedy was granted a rare reprieve as he returned to overseeing the reconstruction of Western civilisation.
The Palace of Nations in Geneva was built to house the old League of Nations, and it was here that the nations of the world met to formalise the creation of the United Nations, on the first of August, 1960. Above all else, what motivated the attendees in the creation of the United Nations was to craft a new international order which would ensure that never again could a great war be sparked. As a result, this organisation had to have the power to prevent tyranny from ever ruling any nation again. So it was that the formal creation of the United Nations would be ratified by each of the attendees. Among the terms was included one of grave consequence for some governments; the principal tool the United Nations would use to prevent dictatorship would be economic. On the belief that democratic states would not wage devastating war against each other or pursue rampant expansionism and conquest, it was decided that membership of the United Nations was reserved only to those countries which were judged to be truly free and democratic. All members of the United Nations would be forbidden from conducting any kind of relationship, political or economic, with non-members. It was this which would force the world to accept democracy, or be crushed under isolation. Even the Swiss, who had resisted going to war, knew they had little option but to accept membership of the United Nations. It would take five years of economic isolation before the men of the country would accept a referendum granting full female suffrage, a basic condition of membership.
The judicial arm of the United Nations was also agreed upon, as the World Court. It would be the highest court in the world for legal matters between states and to prosecute international crimes. Based in Stockholm, it would be this World Court which would see the trials of numerous war criminals from the Third Reich and across Occupied Europe.
Elsewhere there was much effort to ensure that the United Nations would be a democratic body, and this was a major reason for the creation of the directly elected position of Secretary General, the only position in the world which would be elected by all people, in all places. To ensure the winner of such an election would have a majority of the vote, he or she would be elected in a two-round system in which the two winners of the first round would face each other in the second. All elections would be funded by the United Nations budget, with private contributions banned, to prevent undemocratic influence. There was much debate over whether or not a truly parliamentary system should be adopted for the General Assembly. Some delegates called for the United Nations to effectively become a world government, with representatives elected by the people, but this immediately ran into stiff resistance as numerous questions were thrown in all directions. What powers would such a parliament have? Could representatives from one group of states force their will upon another? Should the United Nations be a world government, or simple a forum for resolving international problems? The majority of delegates believed the latter, but the interest in going further was in many cases a symptom of the strain of internationalism which had emerged first among many intellectuals during the war, and now among the general public, a romantic attachment to the idea of world peace through democratic world government. This was eventually realised with the direct election of ambassadors to the United Nations, rather than their appointment by national governments. With just one small change, the vision of world government had, depending on who you ask, been realised, though certainly not to the extent that many craved.
The creation of the United Nations was accepted largely without question in the United States; debates in the Senate over it largely focused on the role of the World Court, amid claims that it overrode American sovereignty. Another major issues for some was the principle of denying relations to non-democracies. At the time, this would have included allies such as China, which the United Nations had judged to be lacking in democracy due to continued repression by President Chiang Kai-shek, who struggled to hold onto his centralised power amid widespread unrest, despite the civil war officially being over. The Democrat majority in the chamber meant these worries were less of a danger, but had ratification failed it would have had grave consequences for all the world. In all likelihood it could have resulted in the abandonment of the United Nations before it drew breath, signalling that the world would fall, not rise, following the war. But these fears were unfounded. The Senate easily ratified membership of the United Nations, and the economic worries proved to be small as the vast majority of economically significant states left out in the cold soon started to reform and find their way into the Palace of Nations. Others such as Saudi Arabia, Brunei, China, Oman, Thailand, Nigeria, Guinea, Paraguay, Iraq, and the rump Siberian states, were left out in the cold.
In a speech to the nation welcoming the ratification of the United Nations Treaty, President Kennedy proclaimed the arrival of a “new world order,” and that “the dream of international peace has been realised.” But this dream was immediately threatened.
On the fifteenth of August, the State Department began receiving alarming news from the Middle East. Saudi Arabia had built its entire economy around exporting oil, but suddenly its customers were gone as they joined the United Nations. Their customers were largely safe from oil shocks; the United States was self-sufficient and a net exporter itself while others such as the United Kingdom, whose government had foreseen this eventuality, had already made deals allowing British Petroleum to begin extensive oil exploration in Russia, Iran, and newly democratised Kuwait, which remained a prime British outpost in the Gulf. For the Saudi king, Saud, the change in the international order was a frightening challenge to his family’s power. He was certain that he faced overthrow if the country’s economy collapsed, which it already appeared to be showing signs of doing as every dockyard and airport became empty overnight. This was the big test of whether the United Nations really could force a dictatorship to become a democracy by turning off all economic relations. Backed into a corner, King Saud weighed his options. Offers for significant reforms including free elections and an end to censorship did not go far enough, because the United Nations still considered power being vested in the hands of the monarchy to be unacceptable. By September, there were growing protests on the streets as unemployment soared and government funds dried up. There were some outbursts of Arab nationalism, but overall the public response was opposition to the royal family, which even saw the flowering of women’s activism as many began leading illegal marches. Across the border, in Kuwait, British troops were watching while a pair of American aircraft carriers stood by in the Gulf, ready if called upon to enforce the calls of the United Nations for the democratisation of Saudi Arabia. Though the Pentagon put together plenty of contingency plans, including one involving a full scale invasion with the use of tactical nuclear weapons, ultimately it was unnecessary. In late September, King Faud proclaimed sweeping reforms which would lead to Saudi Arabia becoming a constitutional monarchy, with the first Prime Minister taking office a year later, ironically being a nephew of the King.
The United Nations had proven its worth, but there were some who claimed that it was imposing Western values on very different cultures. “You have no understanding at all of the Islamic world,” a Saudi diplomat later told the US Ambassador. “You are drunk on victory, believing that because you won a war it means your values are the only ones worth existing. You impose these values upon us, thinking there only exists right or wrong. It shall be your downfall, in the end.”
As crises erupted on the domestic front, President Kennedy was granted a rare reprieve as he returned to overseeing the reconstruction of Western civilisation.
The Palace of Nations in Geneva was built to house the old League of Nations, and it was here that the nations of the world met to formalise the creation of the United Nations, on the first of August, 1960. Above all else, what motivated the attendees in the creation of the United Nations was to craft a new international order which would ensure that never again could a great war be sparked. As a result, this organisation had to have the power to prevent tyranny from ever ruling any nation again. So it was that the formal creation of the United Nations would be ratified by each of the attendees. Among the terms was included one of grave consequence for some governments; the principal tool the United Nations would use to prevent dictatorship would be economic. On the belief that democratic states would not wage devastating war against each other or pursue rampant expansionism and conquest, it was decided that membership of the United Nations was reserved only to those countries which were judged to be truly free and democratic. All members of the United Nations would be forbidden from conducting any kind of relationship, political or economic, with non-members. It was this which would force the world to accept democracy, or be crushed under isolation. Even the Swiss, who had resisted going to war, knew they had little option but to accept membership of the United Nations. It would take five years of economic isolation before the men of the country would accept a referendum granting full female suffrage, a basic condition of membership.
The judicial arm of the United Nations was also agreed upon, as the World Court. It would be the highest court in the world for legal matters between states and to prosecute international crimes. Based in Stockholm, it would be this World Court which would see the trials of numerous war criminals from the Third Reich and across Occupied Europe.
Elsewhere there was much effort to ensure that the United Nations would be a democratic body, and this was a major reason for the creation of the directly elected position of Secretary General, the only position in the world which would be elected by all people, in all places. To ensure the winner of such an election would have a majority of the vote, he or she would be elected in a two-round system in which the two winners of the first round would face each other in the second. All elections would be funded by the United Nations budget, with private contributions banned, to prevent undemocratic influence. There was much debate over whether or not a truly parliamentary system should be adopted for the General Assembly. Some delegates called for the United Nations to effectively become a world government, with representatives elected by the people, but this immediately ran into stiff resistance as numerous questions were thrown in all directions. What powers would such a parliament have? Could representatives from one group of states force their will upon another? Should the United Nations be a world government, or simple a forum for resolving international problems? The majority of delegates believed the latter, but the interest in going further was in many cases a symptom of the strain of internationalism which had emerged first among many intellectuals during the war, and now among the general public, a romantic attachment to the idea of world peace through democratic world government. This was eventually realised with the direct election of ambassadors to the United Nations, rather than their appointment by national governments. With just one small change, the vision of world government had, depending on who you ask, been realised, though certainly not to the extent that many craved.
The creation of the United Nations was accepted largely without question in the United States; debates in the Senate over it largely focused on the role of the World Court, amid claims that it overrode American sovereignty. Another major issues for some was the principle of denying relations to non-democracies. At the time, this would have included allies such as China, which the United Nations had judged to be lacking in democracy due to continued repression by President Chiang Kai-shek, who struggled to hold onto his centralised power amid widespread unrest, despite the civil war officially being over. The Democrat majority in the chamber meant these worries were less of a danger, but had ratification failed it would have had grave consequences for all the world. In all likelihood it could have resulted in the abandonment of the United Nations before it drew breath, signalling that the world would fall, not rise, following the war. But these fears were unfounded. The Senate easily ratified membership of the United Nations, and the economic worries proved to be small as the vast majority of economically significant states left out in the cold soon started to reform and find their way into the Palace of Nations. Others such as Saudi Arabia, Brunei, China, Oman, Thailand, Nigeria, Guinea, Paraguay, Iraq, and the rump Siberian states, were left out in the cold.
In a speech to the nation welcoming the ratification of the United Nations Treaty, President Kennedy proclaimed the arrival of a “new world order,” and that “the dream of international peace has been realised.” But this dream was immediately threatened.
On the fifteenth of August, the State Department began receiving alarming news from the Middle East. Saudi Arabia had built its entire economy around exporting oil, but suddenly its customers were gone as they joined the United Nations. Their customers were largely safe from oil shocks; the United States was self-sufficient and a net exporter itself while others such as the United Kingdom, whose government had foreseen this eventuality, had already made deals allowing British Petroleum to begin extensive oil exploration in Russia, Iran, and newly democratised Kuwait, which remained a prime British outpost in the Gulf. For the Saudi king, Saud, the change in the international order was a frightening challenge to his family’s power. He was certain that he faced overthrow if the country’s economy collapsed, which it already appeared to be showing signs of doing as every dockyard and airport became empty overnight. This was the big test of whether the United Nations really could force a dictatorship to become a democracy by turning off all economic relations. Backed into a corner, King Saud weighed his options. Offers for significant reforms including free elections and an end to censorship did not go far enough, because the United Nations still considered power being vested in the hands of the monarchy to be unacceptable. By September, there were growing protests on the streets as unemployment soared and government funds dried up. There were some outbursts of Arab nationalism, but overall the public response was opposition to the royal family, which even saw the flowering of women’s activism as many began leading illegal marches. Across the border, in Kuwait, British troops were watching while a pair of American aircraft carriers stood by in the Gulf, ready if called upon to enforce the calls of the United Nations for the democratisation of Saudi Arabia. Though the Pentagon put together plenty of contingency plans, including one involving a full scale invasion with the use of tactical nuclear weapons, ultimately it was unnecessary. In late September, King Faud proclaimed sweeping reforms which would lead to Saudi Arabia becoming a constitutional monarchy, with the first Prime Minister taking office a year later, ironically being a nephew of the King.
The United Nations had proven its worth, but there were some who claimed that it was imposing Western values on very different cultures. “You have no understanding at all of the Islamic world,” a Saudi diplomat later told the US Ambassador. “You are drunk on victory, believing that because you won a war it means your values are the only ones worth existing. You impose these values upon us, thinking there only exists right or wrong. It shall be your downfall, in the end.”
Last edited:
This doesn't come across as realistic, even in an unrealistic world, but rather as a forced contrivance.
Given that Britain would be in a world of economic, industrial and general trouble in this story, having the last vestiges of its traditions trampled are not the greatest concern. All the same, it simply reads as something that doesn't follow from the premises of the story, but rather as something tacked on for good measure.
Put simply, Britain would be facing a Super 1947, or a true Annus Horribilis. The economy has been focused on war production and rationing has been in place for 20 years, the country has been hit with nerve gas rockets, ongoing Lend Lease would have strangled British export capacity and the war has been fought in a manner contrary to British strengths and capabilities.
I expanded on this in August 2011:
In 1946, after a shorter and less destructive war, the British were selling ships for scrap to pay basic government costs such as civil service wages.
In this case, things will be much worse.
Even the break in hostilities will not allow for necessary economic reconstruction, the recovery of export trade and anything like the necessary shift of expenditure from the the military to the civilian sector that lead to the ultimately constrained economic recovery that Britain experienced in the 1950s in @.
Continued Lend Lease is the only thing that could maintain some semblance of the required level of military production, but that is a double edged sword economically.
We have the further indications that Australia and New Zealand have shifted decisively towards the American orbit and the remnants of the British economic interests in South America that went in 1941 will have also been swallowed up. That leaves very few markets for British goods, further compounding their misery.
Rationing will still be going strong, and with the necessity to feed larger parts of Europe than in the late 40s (which bought about bread and potato rationing), won't stop any time in the next half a dozen years. There will be Britons who have gone quarter of a century without seeing a banana, to pluck one potential example out of the air.
Military burdens are larger than in @, where the capacity to deploy forces and supply funds ran out relatively shortly after the war. To pacify a large swath of Eastern Europe, at least two corps will be needed. That will be pushing British capacity to the absolute limit and leaving the cupboard rather bare for anywhere else. I cannot see a peacetime army of 9-10 divisions (as envisaged in @ with the early 50s build up) as sustainable in this circumstance, which will lead to problems later down the line.
The British couldn't achieve a total of 240 V-Bombers in peacetime, and lost over 330 in a rather uncharacteristically profligate attritional campaign. It would be likely that something close the the postulated 480 strong light bomber force was built and suffered similarly heavy casualties. This little chunk of expenditure is significant in and of itself both in terms of manpower and treasure.
The unconventional weapons attacks would have pushed the UK just that little bit closer to the abyss. This will be a Britain with a moribund economy, minimal export markets, heavy infrastructure damage, excessive foreign commitments above and beyond its capacity to pay, institutionalized austerity, deep social and psychological wounds and a potential manpower crisis.
On top of this, there doesn’t seem much short term hope - a postwar welfare state can’t be afforded, which will be the final straw for many; migration to Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa is likely to be very heavy over the 1960s and 1970s.
India should have overtaken Britain in GDP by 1960, and Canada just might leapfrog them during the 1960s or early 70s if more things go wrong for Britain. It will have lost an empire just as in @, and it may discover that discovering a subsequent role is rather difficult.
Having done more research and work on the period in the intervening 4 years, I'm even more convinced that Britain would be in a world of hurt in this 1960. Combine a postwar economic crash and recession with mass migration to the former Dominions by ~10+ million people and the extra burdens of maintaining a huge field army in Eastern Europe for good measure.
Rather than having a GDP of $452 million, the British economy would be around the level of 1939 or 1940 ($300-330 million) and falling. There would not have been any BBC television for 20 years, no new civilian cars since 1939, a disappearance of certain types of food and a host of other problems.
Forced changes to the House of Lords is just the last kick in the nuts after being run over by a bus, falling out of the back of the ambulance onto a pile of broken glass and thumbtacks and getting a bill for 2/6 from an irate sock merchant. It doesn't matter much compared to what has come before, but is just another nice indignity.
I don't think CalBear really went into the economic side of things, but after 20 years of total war I think the British economy would have become essentially an extension of the American one. They had tons of time to work out standard designs between the two powers, and conduct a through rationalization of British Industry during the Cold Peace. I expect at this point, given American inclinations, British companies have been consolidated and most are jointly owned between the UK and the US. An entire generation of young American men have been living in the UK their adult lives, presumably taking British wives, and thoroughly exposing them to American culture. The major American decision makers will also have been working with Brits, Aussies, Canadians and Indians for their whole professional careers, I expect the bonds forged to make the OTL special relationship look like a passing fancy.
There won't be any real question of Britain resuming it's postwar place as an independant super power; the decades of war will have disabused them of this. There will however have been serious planning at all levels of the allied governments for an integrated post war world, along with the British place in it. The Pre War generation of British politicians who remember the Empire will be gone, replaced by men who have been working their entire adult lives as partners, albeit junior ones, in an Alliance to save Civilization from barbarism.
There won't be any real question of Britain resuming it's postwar place as an independant super power; the decades of war will have disabused them of this. There will however have been serious planning at all levels of the allied governments for an integrated post war world, along with the British place in it. The Pre War generation of British politicians who remember the Empire will be gone, replaced by men who have been working their entire adult lives as partners, albeit junior ones, in an Alliance to save Civilization from barbarism.
I disagree that the UK will be the economic basket case some theorise. In the original story it was noted that a lot of reconstruction had taken place in the 1947-54 period, when there was largely peace except for at sea, and when the Reich bombed Britain again in the Saint Patrick's Day Raids, it only targeted London, leaving the other cities largely untouched. Later chemical weapon attacks would not have caused structural damage. Considering the scale of the defences in Britain by that time, it's very unlikely that bombers could ever have reached its cities again without being knocked out of the sky, and in fact I can't recall any mention of it being attempted post-Saint Patrick. Furthermore, it was by the Bombing Holiday pretty clear that the war was going to drag on for a long time since Germany was effectively entrenched. I doubt that this could have been realised without the British planning effectively for when their economy would need to return to peacetime. Also bear in mind the mention of American debt forgiveness, and I think that while Britain certainly isn't going to have an easy time of it, they're likely to be in no worse position in a lot of ways than they were post-war in our timeline, but perhaps in some ways better off; industry would likely have been forced to modernise by the longer war and widespread technological advancement, much of the bombing damage would already have been repaired, many colonies such as India were by 1960 independent in all but name, new export markets in a more developed South America and Africa, and there would certainly have been a widespread demobilisation in many areas.
But as it is, this isn't a timeline about the UK, it's about the US, so in a way I suppose you can come to your own conclusions about what's going on behind the scenes elsewhere in the world.
But as it is, this isn't a timeline about the UK, it's about the US, so in a way I suppose you can come to your own conclusions about what's going on behind the scenes elsewhere in the world.
The economic side of things ultimately decides what the nice gear and interesting politics can achieve. You are making two points at cross purposes - firstly, that the Britain would become an economic satellite of the United States and secondly that this would involve something like the Special Relationship.
The first point is true. It would not involve rebuilding potential rivals to US firms, but either absorbing them or driving them out of competition. No US interests are served by propping up Britain. This would impact on a lot of industries that enjoyed some measure success in the 1950s and 1960s, such as shipbuilding, automobiles, steel and aerospace. The loss of exports and hard currency earners is compounded by a lot of factors, including having to keep up huge forces in the field, having to keep up a big import programme, extra reconstruction costs and a real collapse of domestic demand. These factors combine to become the triggers of a collapse/exodus.
Regarding any Special Relationship, there simply doesn't seem to be any drivers or any point. The US forces present in Britain for the longest time would be airmen, with the large numbers only coming when war broke out again after 1954. The cultural impact would not be any more than the historical experience of 1942-1945, which was rather one-sided.
US decision makers, as they have been characterized, have been calling the shots and controlling the purse strings of Allied operations for decades. They have done so no on a bilateral level between the USA and the British Empire or Commonwealth, but on bilateral levels between the USA and the former individual components of that organization.
US political and military authorities were no supporters of the Empire or Commonwealth as structures with any meaning in @ and here have succeeded in completing the breakaway of Canada, breaking away Australia and New Zealand and ending the vast majority of the rest of the Empire.
None of these drivers suggest that there would be a reversal of form postwar.
British politics would likely turn inwards in a manner never seen in @. There is no external Big Bad threat remaining and the nation has been shattered in many ways. A quite likely course of action would be to leave the global policing to the Americans, cutting loose anything that remains of the Empire and focusing on reconstruction and a welfare state. The forces that supported such policies in @ would be greatly magnified by the enormous cost in blood and treasure and the thorough wrecking of the economy.
I can see something like the US-Canadian defence relationship developing in Britain. Australia and New Zealand are in deep, deep trouble given the longterm losses of the British market for meat and dairy products, which were the mainstay of their export trade. In wartime, things worked differently. If the US purchased the entire wool clip as it did during the Korean War, that would tithe them over, but only really delay their problems.
The position of the USA isn't what it was in 1945, but one that is several orders of magnitude greater. It isn't just USA first and daylight second, but second, third, fourth and fifth.
The first point is true. It would not involve rebuilding potential rivals to US firms, but either absorbing them or driving them out of competition. No US interests are served by propping up Britain. This would impact on a lot of industries that enjoyed some measure success in the 1950s and 1960s, such as shipbuilding, automobiles, steel and aerospace. The loss of exports and hard currency earners is compounded by a lot of factors, including having to keep up huge forces in the field, having to keep up a big import programme, extra reconstruction costs and a real collapse of domestic demand. These factors combine to become the triggers of a collapse/exodus.
Regarding any Special Relationship, there simply doesn't seem to be any drivers or any point. The US forces present in Britain for the longest time would be airmen, with the large numbers only coming when war broke out again after 1954. The cultural impact would not be any more than the historical experience of 1942-1945, which was rather one-sided.
US decision makers, as they have been characterized, have been calling the shots and controlling the purse strings of Allied operations for decades. They have done so no on a bilateral level between the USA and the British Empire or Commonwealth, but on bilateral levels between the USA and the former individual components of that organization.
US political and military authorities were no supporters of the Empire or Commonwealth as structures with any meaning in @ and here have succeeded in completing the breakaway of Canada, breaking away Australia and New Zealand and ending the vast majority of the rest of the Empire.
None of these drivers suggest that there would be a reversal of form postwar.
British politics would likely turn inwards in a manner never seen in @. There is no external Big Bad threat remaining and the nation has been shattered in many ways. A quite likely course of action would be to leave the global policing to the Americans, cutting loose anything that remains of the Empire and focusing on reconstruction and a welfare state. The forces that supported such policies in @ would be greatly magnified by the enormous cost in blood and treasure and the thorough wrecking of the economy.
I can see something like the US-Canadian defence relationship developing in Britain. Australia and New Zealand are in deep, deep trouble given the longterm losses of the British market for meat and dairy products, which were the mainstay of their export trade. In wartime, things worked differently. If the US purchased the entire wool clip as it did during the Korean War, that would tithe them over, but only really delay their problems.
The position of the USA isn't what it was in 1945, but one that is several orders of magnitude greater. It isn't just USA first and daylight second, but second, third, fourth and fifth.
Reconstruction is a deceptive word. There was a lot of damage that needed to be repaired in @, with housing construction being a significant factor right through the 1950s. Here, it has to occur under circumstances of war production and rationing. The timber and steel needed for reconstruction is still going to be needed for the Armed Forces. That puts Britain behind the eight ball to start.
Nerve gasses don't do structural damage, but they do inflict deaths and cause an exodus from cities. That would impact on war production and general economic activity. Even with this lack of European level damage, there is still a lot of dislocation and general destruction in a small, heavily populated island.
Planning for the postwar economy did start in wartime and would start here, but it would be under the strange circumstances of the Bombing Holiday, which amounts to a similar state to the Phoney War. This isn't a basis for a shift to peacetime production and there was no clear indication as to how long it would last. Specific planning would therefore be difficult until such time as Allied victory was obvious.
Debt forgiveness from the Americans isn't a panacea for all of Britain's ills. It still has other debts, the disappearance of invisible earnings and more importantly a massive balance of payments problem. This is compounded by necessary defence expenditure of ~40% of GDP to maintain bare minimum defensive forces during the period from 1947-1954 and then ~60% for the resumed war; the far larger cost of all the lovely 1950s V-bombers and jet fighters compared to WW2 equipment costs in @ and half a dozen other factors. It amounts to the type of nadir faced in 1947 without any of the positives.
There are no drivers that suggest industrial modernization. If anything, it entrenches the patterns of building what can be built and not taking productive capacity offline to modernize it. Britain has limited space, limited electrical power generation and a limited workforce; building brand new American style steelworks and shipyards is far harder said than done. It might work in the aircraft industry, but this would be focused entirely on military aircraft; there won't be the postwar sales markets given the capacity of the Americans to undercut them.
Those independent colonies? American markets. South America? An American market with the British locked out. Africa? Extremely limited demand. Nigeria, Egypt and Abyssinia don't make up for the loss of Russia, the USA, Germany, the Low Countries, France and the Far East.
It isn't about Britain and it is your timeline; it isn't an Anglo-American postwar order anymore than it was an Anglo-American Nazi War, but it is a merry story with certain authorial decisions and that is completely fine.
My one issue with it the concept that Britain would merrily rip up the House of Lords and alter its voting system and constitution out of some contrived notion that it is anti-democratic. That would be a kick too far and simply doesn't make sense. The thinking on the street would be that "We gave up our Empire, our nation's wealth and the blood of our sons for this?" and in the higher echelons of the British government and Parliament, there would be shades of the confrontation over nuking Germany.
Given this story is the first one I read before signing up for this forum, I'm very interested with reading another take on the events after WWII.