Do you believe the United States, and the future Soviet Union, would still have collided in a 'Cold War' had the Triple Alliance beaten the Entente during World War 1?
That’s a difficult question because how WWI ends shapes Europe to include the Russian Revolution and the formation of the Soviet Union. But I get to worldbuild our actual world now, which I enjoy as much as worldbuilding pure fantasy worlds.
If, for example, the Schlieffen-von Moltke plan worked, and Germany crushed Belgium and France in the timetable that the German High Command was expecting, it’s entirely possible that Germany forces a ceasefire in 1914-1915, and depending on the terms, Russia might not be weakened enough to permit the Revolution, and Lenin might still be sitting in Zurich or Bern instead of ever going to Russia (and his radical politics would quickly run him into hot water in a victorious Kaiserreich). Autocracy would be heralded as the triumphant European answer, having beaten the French Republic not once but twice in this mechanized age, and you might see a movement in Europe toward more authoritarian styles of regimes, Tsarist Russia already being one of the most autocratic regimes of the 20th century. von Moltke would be heralded as a military genius for his flawless execution of winning a two-front war, Central Europe would be a far more dominant player on the world stage, and France, Great Britain, and the United States might be seen as antiquated traditionalists who refused to adapt their governments in the face of growing mechanization mandating a one-party dictatorship to ensure mobilization is at its most rapid.
Conversely, if the United States stays out and Ludendorff wins WWI with his Kaiserschlact, then while much of that stays the same, you would see growing antagonism between the victorious German Empire and the Soviet Union (Ludendorff despised socialism) and you would have had the Western powers picking which of the two they wanted to support for the next great conflict. Ireland would have probably become a full socialist state rather than the Irish Republic, and other new countries that were birthed in the breakup of WWI might adopt socialism as well. Would the United States continue to support Great Britain and France or would they look to sell to the winning team? I’m not even going to touch the Middle East since it would look completely, well, alien to our modern understanding. Maybe the United Arab nation actually materializes, maybe it collapses under the strain of factionalism and arguments over who is in charge. We’re in completely new territory.
If the United States enters and the Germans win anyway, then the US would probably be extraordinarily isolationist (at least until technology forces globalization), since interventionism hurt them so significantly.
Then, you have to wonder whether the Soviet Union in this new world sticks with Stalin as the successor to Lenin, or if Trotsky manages to become the leader and he follows his “Revolution in All Countries” mantra and export dissidents and communists to other nations, in which case you would certainly still have conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States, but the shape of it would be very different.
After all, the Cold War was very much a competition of models of government (as Nixon’s Kitchen Debates shows), and the loss of the autocratic powers (to include Russia) in World War I and World War II went a long way to discrediting fascism and dictatorship in the early 20th century in the West. So instead you might see a Cold War between democracies on one side, socialism on another side, and autocracy on the third for a sort of feeling that honestly resembles Europe pre-World War I to a frightening degree.
Either way, that world would be very different.
Thanks for the question, Cle-Guy. It’s always fun to build new 20th centuries.
SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King
