An Armistice For Twenty Years

The premise of this scenario is rather simple: the interval between WWIII and WWII is the same as that between WWII and WWI. That puts the date of the start of WWIII at July 12, 1965. To get there, I decided to remove the Cuban Missile Crisis, with Khrushchev refusing the Cuban request to place Soviet missiles on the island. The Cold War seems to be going better than OTL, until in early 1965, when uprisings in East Germany and Czechoslovakia prompt the rest of the Warsaw Pact to send in the tanks. The Americans, still under JFK, denounce this action. Khrushchev responds by increasing the Soviet military presence in Eastern Europe. After a shootout in Berlin escalates into war between the two Germanies, war quickly spreads across Europe. On July 12, 1965, WWIII begins. Far-off fronts like Korea and Vietnam are included in the conflict, but surprisingly, the Chinese remain neutral, much to the rage of the Soviets. The Soviet Army does not perform as well in Europe, stalling on the Rhine, and allowing American forces to make their way to continental Europe. Fighting goes on for months, the Poles and Hungarians revolt against the Warsaw Pact, and the Soviets become desperate enough to move nuclear missiles to Cuba. This is unacceptable to the Americans, and while most of the Soviet Navy is sunk, a few submarines make it to the Gulf and launch their missiles. In response, the Americans launch all of their nuclear weapons, obliterating the Soviet armies in Germany and the Soviet Union itself. The Soviets manage to get good hits against the United Kingdom and the United States. During the ending days of the war, China declares war against the weakened Soviet Union, and seizes as much territory as it can.

The post-war decade was grim. Not only were the economic and political centers of the world all but destroyed, and millions of people dead, but there was also great environmental damage. The soot thrown up into the stratosphere by WWIII blotted out the Sun for nearly a decade, causing widespread famine even in areas that were not hit by nuclear weapons. The Chinese suffered particularly, as the Chinese government went through insane strategy after another to mitigate the starvation failed. The Chinese lost thirty five million to the "Great Struggle of the People" in the 1970s. This would eventually prompt the quiet sidelining of Mao and his acolytes in favor of Deng Xiaoping and other reformers.

Some regimes took advantage of the post-war chaos. The anti-Israeli Arab states, always weary of American assistance for Israel, invaded in the weeks after the end of WWIII, as they felt that the Israelis would not receive any outside assistance. Indeed, the Israelis were eventually defeated, but at tremendous cost to the Arabs. The Israelis had prepared for such an opportunistic attack, doing a number on the invading Arab armies. Without a chance to resupply, the Arab armies were too weak to fight against the Caliphate movement. The Arab Gulf monarchies fell in the early 1980s, what remained of their oil revenue drying up, with the subsequent anarchy being replaced with an apocalyptic Islamic caliphate which believes that the End Times are nigh, and it is their job to finish the work started in WWIII by starting a fourth world war. The Caliphate movement began in Mecca, but quickly spread throughout the Sunni Arab world, toppling the local regime.

It is 1990, and another world war may be brewing. The People's Republic of China reigns supreme. While it has abandoned the Maoism of the past, it is still an authoritarian one-party state, enforcing its iron will across East Asia. China has brought what remains of the Soviet Union to heel. This regime, centered in Central Asia, has a Central Asian majority and leadership, with a plurality of Russian refugees from the wasteland. The Russians chafe at their reduced status in private, not very amused by the irony. The Chinese also compete with Scandinavia over the Arctic. The Non-Aligned Movement, led by India, has become the premier bloc opposing the Chinese and nuclear proliferation. Generally made up of left-leaning democracies and dictatorships, the Non-Aligned Movement combined can challenge China, but none of them alone can. These two powers may be the next combatants in a WWIV. A few powers have attempted to take up the mantle of the old United States. Brazil and Australia have created their own regional unions, attempting to preserve democratic and Western traditions.

The United States was hit hard, but it was not destroyed as a nation-state. The federal government was decapitated, and emergency military rule came over the country. It never left, and a cabal of five generals and admirals rule the country from behind the scenes. The United States has largely retreated from world affairs, but it still professes a fanatical hatred of communism, particularly in its modern, Chinese form. Europe is in shambles, with much of the interior still ruled by warlords. The European National Front was founded by remnants of Operation Gladius, fascist and other far-right elements used as a stay-behind force by retreating NATO forces. The ENF is a tinpot dictatorship, with a love-hate relationship with the American regime. Poland, Yugoslavia, Austria and Switzerland have banded together with the Non-Aligned Movement to keep the peace, and now to resist the ENF. While the ENF has a much lower population than these states, it is fanatical and doesn't seem to realize its own weakness. Africa continues minding its own affairs. Egypt dominates the north, particularly after the defeat of the State of Israel. The apartheid regime in South Africa has become the inheritor of European-dominated regimes on the continent, and is challenging China for hegemony over Africa. Many Europeans fled to the African colonies during and after WWIII, buffing up the white population in the colonies.

Technology is far behind our own, closer to the mid-1970s. Few people have made it a priority to develop fancy new tech when survival is on the mind and a dependence on tried and true methods is necessary. Not to mention, the destruction of the superpowers and the European continent have killed off some of the biggest engines of innovation. Brazil and China have launched men into orbit, and only recently has man walked on the Moon (a Chinese mission). Most new innovations are in the field of agriculture and survival, such as protection from radiation.