Literature / New Deal Coalition Retained

The New Deal Coalition Retained timeline is an alternate history where thanks to the death of President Eisenhower's Chief of Staff, it's the Republican Party that pushes for and provides civil rights to African Americans. Changes to the world thus abound greatly.

Has since inspired an ASB spin-off, A Work of Divine Providence (membership required for access), where a bunch of fictional countries (mainly from NationStates) are ISOTed into that world.

Part 1 of the timeline has been completed. It can be read here with reader commentary, or here for just the timeline updates.

Part 2 has been completed and can be read here with reader commentary, or here for just the timeline updates. After the conclusion of the WWIII arc, the author officially declared himself done writing; however, several fans of the timeline have started working on it to keep it going.

Part 3, which contains the bulk of the post-WWIII fan continuation, can be read here.

Due to AH.com's rules on using contemporary politicians, Part 3 was ended and a Part 4 was created to handle the timeline's version of most of the 2000s and The New '10s, which can be found here.

This work provides examples of:

• Adaptational Heroism: George Lincoln Rockwell, the founder of OTL American Nazi Party, in this universe is instead drawn towards the more moderate right-wing philosophies of Freyism, and mellows out somewhat. In fact, he even becomes something of a friend to Martin Luther King.
• Alternate History: Obviously. There are many differences between this timeline and ours.
  • See Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman below.
  • The US wins the Vietnam War.
  • With a British Prime Minister more supportive of Jews backing them, the Arab–Israeli Conflict is mostly curtailed, as negotiations result in most of the West Bank being given to Jordan as a refuge for Palestinians, and Gaza is never annexed.
  • Nicaragua ends with Somoza and his family being shipped off to Mexico with 50 million American dollars. The National government promises not to bring back American imperialism, ending Daniel Ortega’s support due to his increasingly ruthless methods. Eventually ending with his rebel group being bombed out of existence.
  • Cuba ends up split between democratic and communist governments and ultimately unified by the former in the 80s.
  • An attack by an IRA Renegade Splinter Faction results in the death of Prince Phillip and crippling of Queen Elizabeth, who resigns in favor of Prince Charles shortly after.
  • AIDS is wiped out in its infancy when the Zaire military wipes out everyone in the infected region (using a war with Rwanda as a pretext).
  • The Islamist revolutionary regime in Iran is quickly overthrown in turn by Communists.
  • Sanjay Gandhi survives his plane crash, and his reflections following his near-death experience cause him to turn away from his mother's authoritarian rule, leading to a power struggle between them.
  • France never moves from its Fourth Republic to Fifth Republic system of government, due to Charles de Gaulle being assassinated by a rogue Algerian communist.
  • West Germany alters itself from a federal republic to a constitutional monarchy in the mid-80s, restoring the Kaiser as a position appointed by the Reichstag.
  • Ariel Sharon dies in combat in 1988, cutting short what would be a long political career in OTL.
  • Subsaharan Africa becomes much more organized and industrialized, home to many rising world powers, while South America becomes a cluster of failed states plagued by disease, famine, poverty and warlords. Effectively, the two switch their OTL status.
  • A harsh crackdown on hate crimes and hate groups in the 90s leads to laws forcing the removal of the Confederate symbol from all Southern state flags, leading to redesigns on all of them.
  • NATO dissolves in 1998 after France and many other members leave it, due to political and economic differences with the US.
  • Due to WWIII-induced inflation rendering the creation of them as massive net losses, the US ceases production of pennies and nickels. To appease the zinc industry as compensation, the quarter is switched to copper, with the new design featuring Nixon instead of Washington.
  • The late 90s see the dissolution of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (due to new laws shifting the regulation of reservations and tribal lands from the federal government to the state and county level). Also in the same time frame, Daylight Saving Time is discontinued.
  • The resurgence of social conservatism in the 90s cause Las Vegas to start withering economically as less people start visiting it.
  • In the early 2000s, the Department of Agriculture is gutted, with key agencies being reallocated to other departments, while other related polices are shifted down to the state level.
  • Jim Jones heavy-handed yet libertarian administration as Governor of California in the early 2000s causes much of the film industry to leave Hollywood and disperse to other cities across the country. Disneyland, meanwhile, relocates to Albuquerque.
• Alien Space Bats: A Loose Canon entry shows that Semichastny's switch towards liberalization after his near-death experience is because he was visited by the ghost of Rasputin, who warned that hardline-communism would lead to Russia's nuclear destruction.
• The Alliance:
  • The Entebbe Pact, an alliance between Uganda, Zaire, Kenya, Angola, and South Africa, designed to give Africa its own native power bloc. Following WWIII, South Africa leaves the Pact, while several of the ASA members join, as do several South American countries.
  • Opposing them is the African Socialist Alliance of Ethiopia, Sudan, Nigeria, Cameroon, Libya, Mozambique, Congo, Zambia, and Somalia. Just prior to the Central African War, however, Somalia defects to the Pact for Realpolitik reasons, and during the war itself, Libya and Mozambique declare neutrality.
  • In the lead up to WWIII, both NATO and the Warsaw Pact expand membership and alliances worldwide, until most nations on the planet are part of one or the other of the blocs.
  • Post WWIII, a new power bloc called the Concordat is formed between France, Spain, Portugal and the rising power of South Africa, as well as other smaller African nations. Brazil gets in on the act by joining into personal union with Portugal.
  • The various nations run by Freyist political parties form their own bloc post-WWIII as well.
  • The Dual Pact, an alliance between India and China after China throws off communism in the mid-90s. They also form an informal alliance with the Entebbe Pact, as do Iraq and Greater Serbia, in order to counter the Western Powers.
• Ambiguous Situation: Whether Pinochet actually dies in an accident, or is killed by his own guards.
• Ancient Astronauts: The Esoteric Communists, a new age religious/political movement that emerges in the early 2000s, are convinced that aliens from Nibiru were worshipped as gods in Mesopotamia, and that Marx and Engels were members of this race who brought communism to Earth in order to restore their civilization's dominance.
• And This Is for...: During a bombing raid on Moscow, the pilot of one of the stealth bombers involved happily claims it as retaliation for a Warsaw Pact bombing on Los Angeles.
• Artistic License – History: Some of the infoboxes depict elections than in reality could not happen because of the way the US Senate works (for instance, having candidates who were not up until 1968 on the ballot in 1966).
  • A number of African-American civil rights figures who generally were far more favorable to liberal viewpoints than conservative or libertarian ones (including Martin Luther King, Jr.) are depicted as embracing right-leaning perspectives.
  • Nelson Mandela is depicted having Teeth-Clenched Teamwork with the apartheid regime to defeat the communists. In reality, Mandela was actually fairly sympathetic to communism as a committed leftist and would almost certainly consider the communists preferable to the apartheid regime.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: Kaiser Georg fights in an F-15 during WWIII.
• Balkanize Me:
  • The US-backed invasion of Cuba leads to the creation of the Federal Republic of Cuba (East Cuba) and the Socialist Republic of Cuba (West Cuba). In 1980, an uprising in West Cuba leads to their reunification.
  • After Czechoslovakia's government becomes pro-Western in the 60s and chooses to join NATO, the Slovakian communists secede from the country and stick with the Warsaw Pact. And then inverted post-WWIII, as Slovakia is defeated and forcibly reunited with the Czechs.
  • When Zambia ends up on the losing side of the Central African War, it gets carved up, with most of its territory being absorbed by Angola, Zaire, and Malawi, with the remnant becoming the New Lozi Kingdom.
  • After Iran is defeated, most of its border regions are stripped away by its neighbors, though the bulk of the country's interior is left untouched.
  • After Romania is defeated in WWIII, several provinces are carved out to recreate Transylvania as a free kingdom.
  • After WWIII, the Soviet Union goes under this even more heavily than in real life. In addition to all the SSRs being granted independence, the resulting civil war results in Russia being heavily divided between Moscow (which becomes a UN-run independent city), the Republic of Yakutia, Tatarstan, the People’s Republic of Baryutia, the Communonationalist Republic of Green Ukraine (OTL Amur Oblast), the Kingdom of Free Altai, the Khanate of Baskortostan, the Russian Republic of Samara, the Kingdom of Kalmykia, the Komi Social Democratic Republic, the Mari El Khanate, the Federal Republic of Mordovia, the Udmurt State, Chuvashia, the Republic of Nenets, the Jewish Far-Eastern Republic (an autonomous oblast for the Jewish citizens in the region), the Republic of Khakassia, the Chelyabinsk Democratic Khanate, the National Siberian State of Russian Peoples (Zhirinovsky's fascist government), the Soviet of Volga (Soviet rump state in the Urals), and the Free Russian Republic (European Russia). Additionally, parts of Siberia are annexed by China, Japan, and the US (who run their territories like Puerto Rico), and other territories are annexed by the Ukrainian Hetmanate, Beloryssia, the new Timurid Empire, and Tannu Tuva.
  • To prevent civil war and genocide in the region, Rwanda is carved out of Uganda and divided among ethnic lines into the micro nations of Hutuland and the Republic of Tutsi Peoples.
  • In the post-WWIII chaos, Uruguay collapses into an anarchic mess of warlord fiefdoms, until Spain invades and occupies the country to restore order. Meanwhile, the Estado Novo government in Brazil abandons its Amazonian territories to indigenous militia warlords, and the northern part of the country to Republican forces, in order to end their civil war.
  • During the Great Southern War, Tanzania loses territory to Uganda, Kenya, Mozambique, India, and a once-again independent Zanzibar (the latter causes the country to change its name back to Tanganyika).
  • In the early 2000s, years of cultural conflict between Belgium's Francophone and Flemish populations lead to a referendum that results in the Walloon region separating from Belgium and instead joining France.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: Li Peng shoots himself rather than face the PLA's revolution.
• Big Rotten Apple: New York City goes through a rough period in the 90s, due to economic problems and its part in the nation-wide drug crisis.
• Cannon Fodder: The Soviets use soldiers of ethnic and religious minorities to bolster their forces on the frontline. This comes back to bite them.
• The Cavalry: British reinforcements serve as this to various fronts in WWIII, shoring up anti-communist forces that were on the verge of being overwhelmed, and in several cases actually helping them win.
  • Egypt entering the war in the Middle Eastern theatre turns the tide in the favor of the anti-communist alliance.
• Child Soldiers: By the end of WWIII, the Soviets are so desperate to hold their lines together that they resort to this en mass, drafting damn near every child in their territory.
• Civil War:
  • The Soviet Union starts dissolving into this once it becomes clear that they're losing WWIII, with rebellions in Chechnya, Central Asia, and Siberia.
  • Brazil breaks down into one after WWIII, between the military-backed Estado Novo regime in the south, communist and Republican rebellions in the north, and indigenous peoples' rebellions in the Amazon territories. Eventually, the Estado Novo call a ceasefire with the Republicans and grant the natives freedom in order to end the fighting and finish off the communists... which only lasts until a plane from Estado Novo territory is shot down in Republican territory, kicking the fighting off again.
  • Peru erupts into this post-WWIII between loyalists of dictator Francisco Morales Bermudez's corrupt regime on one side, and the Neo-Incan revolutionary movement/cult led by Pachacuti on the other.
• Continuity Snarl:
  • George Lincoln Rockwell goes on to become a leading Freyist despite having been assassinated in 1967 by John Patler, as in OTL.
  • One update has Paul Kagame killed by the Interahamwe, only for a later update to have him alive and well and serving as Foreign Minister of Uganda.
• The Coroner Doth Protest Too Much:
  • Following his ascent to power, Kryuckchov is unable to consolidate his power over Romania due to the hard-line faction suffering from a sudden spate of heart attacks and brain aneurysms.
  • In the power vacuum following Madam Mao's death, Li Peng's main political rival Liu Huanqing is noted to have died of suicide "from the back of the head".
• The Coup:
  • The more successful counterrevolutionary invasion of Cuba causes Fidel Castro to have a nervous breakdown, so Che Guevara kills him and seizes power.
  • After Khrushchev fails to counter the Prague Spring, Vladimir Semichastny ousts him from power and takes over.
  • After Mao's death, his widow Jiang Qing allies with his former rivals to eliminate the Gang of Four and take power for herself.
  • In response to East Germany's increasing liberalization, Markus Wolf uses his stash of blackmail to gain the military and Stasi's support in seizing control of the country.
  • Because of his attempts at reforming the USSR, Alexander Yakovlev is forcibly removed as General-Secretary by KGB director Vladimir Kryuchkov, who proceeds to take over, backed by several other hardline Stalinists in key military and government positions.
  • Pakistan has a bloodless one in 1986. With more and more of the country rising up in protest against Aslam Beg's authoritarian rule, and fearing it leading to an open rebellion, a group of army officers backed by the Muslim League confront Beg and demand he resign. Seeing the writing on the wall, Beg steps down, allowing Army Chief of Staff Tikka Khan to assume the Presidency and negotiate a peaceful conclusion to things with the opposition.
  • When Colombian and American forces overwhelm Ecuador, the ruling Communist government makes plans to retreat to the jungles to wage guerrilla warfare. But seeing the folly of this, Interior Minister Rodrigo Borja Cevallos works with the military to seize power, arresting all Communist Party officials, declaring himself interim President and promptly surrendering the country.
  • When the war in South America continues to go bad for the Communist members, a group of Brazilian military officers tries to take over. They fail, and become the first victims of the subsequent retaliatory purge.
  • Fear of encroaching Soviet power in Europe causes a military junta to overthrow Turkey's left-leaning government, abandon neutrality, and join the war on the Allied side.
  • When Syria is overwhelmed by Allied forces and Hafez Assad decides to fight to the last man, Mustafa Tlass and a group of officers loyal to him respond by marching into Assad's bunker and executing him. Tlass then takes over and promptly surrenders.
  • For fear that she'll break India's neutrality and drag them into the war, Sanjay Gandhi kills his mother, before he and his allies (which includes most of the military) begin working to seize total power from Indira's followers.
  • Two of these happen close together to wrap up the Central African War/African front of WWIII. First, when Sudan is overrun by the Allies and the government is about to go for a Last Stand, Omar al-Bashir executes all his leaders in order to take power and sign an unconditional surrender. Shortly after, the increasingly harsh measures that Ethiopia's government is undertaking to maintain control in light of Allied advances lead to a group of military officers seizing power in order to surrender.
  • While much detail isn't given, it's mentioned that the collapse of Communist lines in South America leads to coups in Bolivia and Uruguay, allowing new governments to seize power and surrender to the Allies.
  • With Iran being overrun by Allied forces, a cadre of intelligence and military officers march into a meeting of the parliament and seize power. Interestingly, given that the General-Secretary of the time was being blamed for Iran's failings, this is welcomed by many in the government.
  • With the Balkans falling totally to the Allies and Romania next on the chopping block, General Vasile Milea ignores orders to prepare futile defensive measures and instead overruns the capital, arresting all the key government officials and taking over so that he can then sue for peace.
  • With Moscow itself overrun and Kryuchkov and his hardliner allies planning to invoke Nuclear Option out of desperation, the few reformers allowed to stay in positions of authority following the December Coup (primarily Semichastny and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn) finally launch their own counter-coup, arresting Kryuchkov's group and taking back power.
  • Due to Li Peng's failures as Premier of China, the PLA — led by Marshal Chi Haotian — rebels against and topples the Communist Party.
  • The CIA backs coups in Colombia and Ecuador to remove narco-friendly governments that had been fueling the drug crisis in America.
  • With Nigeria clearly starting to lose the war, several military commanders take advantage of President Shonekan being at a summit out of the country to seize power and sue for peace.
• Crazy-Prepared: By the time the Central African War breaks out, the members of the Entebbe Pact have had years to set up defenses against invasion, and it all proves decisive in keeping the numerically superior ASA from overrunning them.
• Curb Stomp Cushion:
  • In the Middle East theatre of World War III, communist forces from Iran and Syria overrun northern Iraq and northern Israel, but take heavy losses to do so. Plus, the defenders in both countries manage to fall back to heavy defensive lines, causing the advance of both invasions to grind to a halt.
  • The Soviets manage to invade all of Germany east of the Rhine, but at the cost of almost double the number of casualties suffered by NATO, which allows NATO to counterattack and take back significant chunks of territory.
• Decapitation Strike: How the Serbian front in the Great Southern War is brought to a close. Anti-government forces leak to the Freyist Pact the location of the bunker from which Milošević and his inner circle are conducting the war effort, allowing them to destroy it in a targeted bombing run. With most of the Serbian leadership dead, their government and military splinter, with a barely-stable legitimate successor government suing for peace while forces elsewhere go rogue and turn guerrilla.
• Disaster Democracy: A little something like the looming, imminent threat of World War III isn't going to stop American elections from going forward.
• Different World, Different Movies:
  • Ronald Reagan joins the cast of I Love Lucy in the later seasons. Richard Nixon also gets a cameo appearance as well.
  • George Lucas is among the main staffs in Star Trek and directs its movie series, butterflying away Star Wars. As a result, the Strategic Defense Initiative is nicknamed "Star Trek" instead.
  • Mariska Hargitay debuts as the heroine of Taxi Driver. She also plays Sarah Connor in The Terminator and is joined by Michael J. Fox as Kyle Reese.
  • Desilu Studios goes on to pioneer the action blockbuster. Its founder, Desi Arnaz, also directs Nautilus, a James Bond movie released in 1973 that went on to be a critical and commercial success despite being a borderline In Name Only entry of the franchise.
  • Frozen escapes its infamous development hell 40 years early as The Snow Queen to massive fanfare.
  • A different version of American Sniper is created in the 90s, based on a soldier who fought in WWIII.
• Driven to Suicide:
  • General Kenzo Fujiyama, a Japanese commander in the Far Eastern Front during WWIII, is relieved of duty after having his troops massacre surrendering Soviet soldiers. Afterwards, he becomes the first Japanese officer since the previous world war to commit seppuku.
  • Alex Jones kills himself after learning of the murders perpetrated by Bundy (whom he's been an ardent supporter of).
• End of an Age: When France and the other Concordat nations in Europe leave NATO in 1998, the US formally dissolves the organization.
• Everyone Has Standards: Iran's use of chemical weapons against Kurdish civilians just to try and discourage the rest of the Kurdish population from rebelling horrifies everyone, even their fellow Warsaw Pact allies.
• The Federation: To avoid being absorbed by America during the chaotic aftermath of WWIII, many of the smaller island nations of the Caribbean reform the West Indies Federation in order to support each other.
• False Flag Operation: When Bundy is assassinated by the below-listed Government Conspiracy, they use tactics similar to those of the cartels that he was waging a war on in order to cover their tracks.
• Fictional Political Party:
  • The Progressive Party founded by Eugene McCarthy in 1968. A political party that follows the ideas of progressivism, pacifism, and libertarianism. While starting as fairly small on the national level, it does become the official opposition of Vermont, a status later shared by other states. By the mid-80s, though, it becomes a stable national party, as the liberal wings of the Democrats and Republicans (disenchanted by both parties becoming dominated by different kinds of conservatism) defect to them in droves.
  • Germany and Japan each become ruled by Gerhard Frey's Freiheitspartei and Yukio Mishima's Rikken Minseito, in respective order. Both political parties adhere to Freyism, which mixes nationalism with a focus on individual freedom while at the same time placing a ceremonial figurehead to prevent the state from failing like their nationalist predecessors.
  • Back in the US, an alternate version of the Natural Law Party emerges in the 90s. Unlike its OTL counterpart, it is socially conservative and libertarian, and is highly popular in Idaho (where it was founded) and other Western states.
  • The Chinese Democratic Revolutionary Party is formed in China in the mid 90s in order to replace the overthrown Communist Party.
  • The three major parties in post-Soviet Russia are the Constitutional Democratic Party (conservative), Social Democratic Labour (democratic socialist), and the National Union (nationalist).
• Foregone Conclusion: There are details scattered throughout various posts which make it clear that NATO will be victorious in WWIII.
• For Want Of A Nail: The divergence point for this timeline is the sudden death of Sherman Adams shortly after Eisenhower's reelection.
• Framing the Guilty Party: Ted Bundy gets away with his murders in Washington by using his position as a prosecutor to pin blame on other serial killers like Ken Bianchi and Gary Ridgeway.
• Government Conspiracy: One pops up in 2001: when Bundy's crimes are uncovered by members of his cabinet, they choose not to publicly expose him (as that would taint the party as a whole) they instead assassinate him and bury the evidence.
• Government in Exile:
  • A Portuguese one is set up in Angola after a communist revolution topples the Estado Novo government.
  • When the African Socialist Alliance overruns Chad and Ubangi-Shari at the start of the Central African War, their governments flee to safety in France and Zaire, respectfully.
  • During WWIII, mainland Greece gets overrun by the Warsaw Pact, so their government evacuates to Crete.
  • When the Entebbe Pact overrun northern Rhodesia during the Great Southern War, including taking the capital of Salisbury, the Rhodesian government flees to Bulawayo.
  • After China occupies Thailand and turns it into a Puppet State, the Prince Regent flees to Japan and establishes a government in exile in Fukushima.
• Hegemonic Empire: The Second Timurid Empire provides a lot of autonomy to its constituent parts, though the central government has final say on everything.
• Historical Villain Downgrade: Idi Amin, while still an authoritarian megalomaniac, isn't the deranged murderer he was IOTL, and manages to keep Uganda prosperous.
• In Spite of a Nail:
  • Lee Harvey Oswald still kills a President it's just Nixon instead of Kennedy.
  • There's still an attempt on Ronald Reagan's life, but it's by Lynette Fromme.
  • Reagan still has two terms as President, it's just just moved up by four years.
  • Gerald Ford becomes Vice President, just under Reagan instead of Nixon.
  • September 11, 2001 is still a prominent date in American history. But rather than it being due to a terrorist attack, it's because it's the day that President Bundy is assassinated.
• Irony: Donald Trump and Robert Mueller working together to expose a President's corruption.
• Karmic Death: Possibly the case with Pinochet, who allegedly falls out of a helicopter while throwing a political opponent out. However, there's in-universe suspicion about whether this is what really happened.
• Karma Houdini: Ted Bundy not only evades being exposed as a serial killer, but goes on to have a very prolific and popular political career. But ultimately subverted when he ends up assassinated by his own cabinet when they uncover his crimes.
• Know When to Fold 'Em:
  • When the West Cuban government faces a very powerful pro-democracy uprising, the Soviets abandon them, and shift their alliances to elsewhere in Latin America.
  • During the Allied liberation of Iceland, the commanding General of the vastly outnumbered Soviet forces ignores orders from Moscow to fight to the last man and surrenders his forces in total.
• La Résistance:
  • The Polish Home Army, a militia formed by Lech Wałęsa after he secretly returns from exile during WWIII, and which rises up against the communists when the war turns against them, thus enabling Allied invasion and liberation of the country.
  • The Timurid Liberation Front, a rebel army in the Soviets' Central Asian territories who rise up during WWIII in reaction to repression and being used as Cannon Fodder on the other fronts.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": Throughout the West following the December Coup, which puts hardline Stalinists back in control of the USSR and Warsaw Pact.
• The Mutiny: As WWIII drags on and it becomes increasingly clear that the Warsaw Pact is losing, their governments become ever harsher with their militaries. This results in numerous units in several fronts rebelling and defecting to the Allies.
• A Nazi by Any Other Name: The Freyists suspiciously feature a German Neo-Nazi, a Japanese ultranationalist, and the OTL founder of the American Nazi Party.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
  • Iran's military gasses unarmed Kurdish civilians in an attempt to warn off others from rebelling. All they do is horrify and anger just about the whole world (including their own allies), give Iraq a massive PR victory, and convince the entire Kurdish population to rise up against them.
  • The Soviets launch coordinated air raids (referred to as the Second Blitz) on several NATO nations in an attempt to break their spirit and bring them to the negotiation table. Instead, it just enrages the various nations and makes them even more determined to fight back.
  • Following onto the above, the Soviets retaliate against South Korea's material support of Japan's Siberian invasion by launching an air raid which devastates Seoul, which causes South Korea and all the other anti-communist nations of Asia to abandon neutrality and declare war on the Soviets. And on top of that, China — which had been planning to declare war on Japan, counting on NATO not wanting to expand the war further by getting involved directly — realizes that it's now not a viable option, so has to resort to merely sending volunteers to fight for the Soviets.
  • The Bolivians practice a particularly hardline version of communism, which involves arresting anyone who even remotely disagrees with those in power. When they do this to a popular army captain in command of a frontline division one the eve of a major battle with the Allies, the whole division mutinies and defects, opening a massive hole in the communists' defenses. This turns the whole battle into a Curb-Stomp Battle in the Allies' favor.
  • The Soviets' repression of their ethnic minorities, including using them as Cannon Fodder, leads to them rebelling.
• Nuclear Option:
  • The one line not crossed during WWIII by either side, for fear of retaliation. When the Soviet leadership tries to invoke it out of desperation at the end of the war, it leads to a coup against them.
  • It finally is broken at the end of the Great Southern War when India nukes Islamabad.
• Operation: [Blank]:
  • Operation Thunder-III: Soviet special forces teams infiltrate Yugoslavia and assassinate Josep Tito, allowing a more pro-Moscow government to take over.
  • Operation Reciprocity: A continuous series of bombing runs and air strikes designed to shut down the Ho Chi Minh trail and destroy North Vietnam's defense network.
  • Operation Dropkick: A combined American/Australian/South Vietnamese/Cambodian assault on North Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge forces in Cambodia.
  • Operation Bombardier: Joint British/Irish efforts to wipe out the IRA for good.
  • Operation Normandy: Massive amphibious invasion of Hanoi and Haiphong.
  • Operation Pegasus: In tandem with Normandy, paratroopers are dropped in order to secure key points along the invasion route.
  • Operation Barak: An Israeli drive to seize control of the Sinai from the United Arab Republic.
  • Operation Hell's Gate: With Iraqi aid, American forces are infiltrated into Tehran to rescue the staff at the American embassy.
  • Operation Gamal: Sudan, Cameroon, and Nigeria launch a blitzkrieg to overrun Chad and Ubangi-Shari, in order to clear the way to unite with other ASA forces fighting the Entebbe Pact further south.
  • Operation Arctic Fist: A Soviet invasion of Iceland to shut down NATO's anti-submarine defense network and open the North Atlantic.
  • Operation Tukhachevsky: The Warsaw Pact invasion of Austria and Czechia, designed to eliminate a potential counterattack of their planned invasion of West Germany.
  • Operation Konstantin: The Warsaw Pact's five-pronged invasion of West Germany.
  • Operation Ivan Grozny: A blitzkrieg by Warsaw Pact armor designed to break through and divide defensive lines in northern Italy, opening the country up to full invasion.
  • Operation Kutuzov: The attempt by the Soviets to break through the stalemate on the Rhine and overwhelm all Allied territories in the region.
  • Operation Kitsune: Japan's entry move in WWIII, destroying the Soviet Pacific Fleet, invading and occupying the Kurile Islands and Sakhalin Island, and using them as a staging ground to invade Siberia in order to cut the Trans-Siberian Railway and lay siege to Vladivostok.
  • Operation Springbok: The Entebbe Pact's invasion of Zambia.
  • Operation Gamecock: A joint French/Israeli campaign to destroy Syria's air defense network, in order to open the country to a full Allied invasion.
  • Operation Frunze: Mass Soviet attack to smash through defensive lines outside Bologna, allowing the staled invasion of Italy to pick up steam again.
  • Operation Sigrun: The Allied counter-invasion and liberation of Iceland.
  • Operation Vasilevskiy: The Soviets breakthrough the Rhine front through the Netherlands and Baden, in order to create a pincer aimed at Paris.
  • Operation Mjolnir: In response to Vasilevskiy, American and West German forces counter-invade across the Rhine in order to seize Hanover and Hamberg.
  • Operation Fenrir: An Allied blitzkrieg designed to take advantage of the chaos and disorder plaguing the Warsaw Pact nations, resulting in the liberation of East Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Poland.
  • Operation Julius Caesar: The Allied liberation of northern Italy.
  • Operation Sea Dragon: The British liberation of the Falklands.
  • Operation Fist of God: A two-pronged invasion of Iran by all the Allied forces in the Middle East.
  • Operation Sledgehammer: The Allies' four-pronged invasion of the remaining Communist-controlled territories in Europe, to finish rolling up the Warsaw Pact and finally end the war.
  • Operation Arminius: A side operation to Sledgehammer, to liberate East Prussia.
  • Operation Red Dog: A failed attempt by a group of KKK members to seize control of Trinidad and Tobago.
  • Operation Treurnicht and Operation Zebra: The Concordat and Entebbe Pact names for their respective attempts to seize control of the Sabi River border crossing between South Africa and Mozambique, in order to invade the opposing side.
  • Operation Mau Mau: The Entebbe Pact's invasion of Rhodesia.
  • Operation Yama: A week-long strategic bombing of Djibouti by India to enable an invasion of the country by Somalia.
  • Operation Shiva: A three-pronged Indian invasion of Pakistan, composed of a diversionary assault on Gujarat in the south, an attempt to take Kashmir and threaten Islamabad in the north, and a main thrust through the center to split Pakistan in half.
  • Operation Agni: To help spur the stalemated Shiva, India and China launch a continuous series of massive airstrikes to soften up Pakistani forces for an infantry and tank-based assault.
• Oppressive States of America: Under the Bundy administration, the US passes heavily draconian anti-drug laws, and the National Guard is repeatedly used in large-scale roundups of drug users. Simultaneously, hate groups (many of which have started peddling drugs) are banned and similarly rounded up. Critics repeatedly bring up how these actions violate civil liberties and free speech.
• Peace Conference:
  • In 1991, as WWIII enters what's clearly its final phase, the Allies meet in Riyadh in order to hash out terms for the post-war world. While there are numerous arguments over territorial claims, the one thing agreed upon by all parties is to ensure that whatever state succeeds the Soviet Union never becomes a world power again.
  • And after the war is actually over, a conference is held in Warsaw (to be symbolic of the Warsaw Pact's defeat), where the Riyadh Conference's agreements are put into effect via the acceptance of the post-Communist governments of all the former Pact members.
  • In 1993, a conference is held in Geneva, with the Americans, British, and Germans using to mediate a peaceful resolution to the Second Russian Civil War.
  • The Ulaanbaatar Accords are held in neutral Mongolia to end the Third Sino-Japanese War.
  • The Darwin Accords end the Great Southern War.
• People's Republic of Tyranny: China shifts from one form of this to another when the communist regime is overthrown and replaced with a democratically-elected government that is really just a puppet system that answers to the military.
• President for Life: Augusto Pinochet declares himself this after WWIII, using the instability across South America following the war's conclusion as an excuse. He dies shortly thereafter.
• Pretext for War:
  • A firefight at the inter-German border — caused by overzealous West German guards reacting to the East Germans gunning down fleeing refugees — sets off the powder keg that international relations had been sitting on ever since the December Coup and breakout of the Central African War, pushing the world towards World War III. Which is what the Soviet hardliners want, as they see war as the only way to revitalize their failing economy, thus why they sabotage the diplomatic attempts to calm things down.
  • A skirmish along the border between the Chinese and Japanese occupied regions of Manchuria is seized upon by General-Secretary Li Peng as an excuse to act on his anti-Japanese policies and go to war with them. Despite the propaganda spouted about it, no one is fooled about the actual reasons for the war.
  • A South African state police force chasing Lozi separatist terrorists is drawn into a firefight with an Entebbe Pact peacekeeping force at the Lozi border, leading to a tipping point in the escalating tensions between the Pact and the Concordat-aligned nations of Africa, triggering an all out war.
  • When a commercial plane flying out of the Estado Novo portion of Brazil is destroyed by what appears to be a rocket launched from Republican territory, the Brazilian civil war kicks back off, with the other factions coming to the Republicans' defense. Other South American countries then get involved on both sides, for their own reasons.
• Proxy War: The Central African War between the Entebbe Pact and the ASA is one for NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
• Puppet State: Thailand becomes one to China after their defeat in the Great Southern War.
• The Purge:
  • Following the December Coup, the hardliners carry out a soft version of this, relying less on executions and more on imprisonments, house arrests, and meaningless reassignments to dispose of potential enemies. Their allied coups in other Warsaw Pact nations (Poland especially) are less kind.
  • Brazil undergoes one after a failed coup by a group of military officers.
  • When Zhirinovsky decides to secede Irkutsk from the Soviet Union, he has every KGB agent and political officer in his territory massacred.
  • In early 1991, the increasingly delusional Soviet leadership enact massive purges of the governments and militaries of all Warsaw Pact nations still under Communist control.
• Realpolitik:
  • Somalia defecting from the ASA to the Entebbe Pact in order to nab territory from Ethiopia.
  • Iraq switches its allegiances from the Soviets to the Americans after Iran goes Communist, and the Americans eagerly accept them as a strong ally in the region.
  • China is allied to the Soviets, but stays neutral in WWIII in order to maintain the security of its own sphere of influence in Asia. They only get directly involved when Japan enters the war on NATO's behalf and invades Siberia, and even then it's just because a Soviet collapse would allow Japan to claim massive territory claims; China makes sure everyone knows it's only fighting Japan, to avoid getting dragged into the larger war. And they sue for a separate peace as soon as it becomes clear the Soviets are losing.
  • Libya sits out most of WWIII, but keeps a neutrality that is clearly communist-friendly, no doubt because the Soviets and their allies seem to have the upper hand. Near the end of the war, however, when it becomes clear that the Allies are winning, they declare war on the Warsaw Pact and help defeat the last remaining communist countries in Africa.
  • Slobodan Milošević is placed in charge of Yugoslavia by the Soviets to try and shore up Communist control of what territories they still have. However, unlike the increasingly delusional hardliners in the Politburo, Milošević realizes that the Allies are going to win, so abandons communism in favor of Serbian nationalism, reaching out with an offer of working with the Allies in exchange for control of a Greater Serbia carved out of Yugoslavia post-war. And while the Allies are hesitant (due to wanting to divide Yugoslavia along ethnic lines) they're more desperate to weaken Warsaw Pact forces in the Balkans, so they accept Milošević's proposal.
    • And when NATO realizes post-war what a horrible mistake was and start putting sanctions on Serbia in response to its human rights violations, Milošević responds by forming close ties with various former Allied or neutral nations (primarily the Entebbe Pact, Iraq, India and China) which are seeking increased influence to counter that of the major powers.
  • The CIA backing coups of narco-friendly regimes in South America that are fueling the drug crisis in America. They specifically state that they don't care if the new rulers they install become dictators, as long as they don't continue that trend.
  • During the Great Southern War, the Entebbe Pact finances separatist militant groups in Freyist and Concordat nations, with them doing the same to such groups in Pact nations, to weaken their enemies' war efforts.
• Regime Change:
  • The Soviets assassinate Tito so that a more Moscow-friendly government can take over Yugoslavia.
  • During the 90s, the CIA backs coups in Latin America to remove narco-friendly governments.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: The timeline has numerous examples. Among the more notable:
  • After Eisenhower, you have Presidents Richard Nixon in 1960 (R), Nelson Rockefeller in 1963 (R), John F. Kennedy in 1964 (D), George Wallace in 1968 (D), Ronald Reagan in 1976 (R), Donald Rumsfeld in 1984 (R), Lee Iacocca in 1992 (D), Ted Bundy in 1996 (R) James Meredith in 2001 (R), and Rick Santorum in 2008 (D).
  • Charlton Heston becomes a Congressman.
  • Ted Bundy becomes a County Prosecutor in Washington, and later Governor. And finally, as noted above, President. Also, he marries Jennifer Aniston.
  • Jim Jones becomes Mayor of San Francisco. Later, he serves as Chairman of the Progressive National Committee, and eventually Governor of California.
  • Charles Manson attempts to assassinate Martin Luther King Jr.
  • Barack Obama Sr. becomes President of Kenya. He later gains custody of his son after his mother and stepfather die in a car crash; Barack Jr. goes on to serve as personal aide to his father's ally Idi Amin, before eventually succeeding his father as President.
  • Prince Charles marries Julie Nixon instead of Diana Spencer and becomes King of Britain in the 70s.
  • Jane Fonda is tried and executed for treason after she travels to North Vietnam and speaks in their favor, condemning the American war effort.
  • Robert F. Kennedy becomes a Supreme Court Justice.
  • Leslie Nielsen becomes Prime Minister of Canada.
  • John Glenn becomes Governor of Ohio.
  • Antonin Scalia becomes Governor of Texas, and later a Senator.
  • Unlike reality, Robert Bork's nomination for the Supreme Court is confirmed, and he ends up as Chief Justice.
  • Henry Kissinger becomes Director of the CIA.
  • Dick Cheney serves as Secretary of State, until a near-fatal heart attack causes him to resign. He is then replaced by John Danforth.
  • Instead of Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham marries John Heinz, who in turn becomes Governor of Pennsylvania. Clinton, meanwhile, marries Maria Shriver and eventually becomes the US's ambassador to the UN.
  • Mitch McConnell acts as President Rumsfeld's Chief of Staff.
  • Colin Powell is appointed commander of NATO forces in Europe.
  • Enrico Berlinguer's disagreement with hardline Stalinist thought leads to him splitting from the Italian Communists and forming a more center-left workers' party, which partakes in an anti-Communist coalition. In this capacity, he serves as Minister of Justice, and later Prime Minister.
  • Gerhard Frey moves away from Neo-Nazi thought to more mainstream right-wing politics, and ultimately Chancellor of Germany, a position from where he engineers the restoration of the Kaiser as a constitutional monarch. Georg Friedrich is chosen to be the first to hold this title.
  • As a child, Narendra Modi's family flee India as refugees after a war with Pakistan, and end up in the US. He still goes into politics, though, and ends up as a Representative from Texas.
  • Mishima Yukio, while embracing nationalism as in OTL, never attempts the infamous failed coup but instead start a populist political movement and successfully becomes the Japanese Prime Minister.
  • Steve Bannon serves as a merchantman commander during WWIII.
  • John Hinckley composes the Academy Award-winning score for the movie about Bannon's exploits in the Atlantic during the war.
  • Colin Mitchell becomes Prime Minister of Britain. And when he's killed during the Second Blitz, Winston Churchill the Younger is elected to replace him.
  • Slobodan Milosevic serves as a Warsaw Pact military commander during WWIII.
  • Lech Wałęsa's political policies lead to him being exiled from Poland by the communists after the hardliners retake command. He's then smuggled back into the country during the chaos of WWIII and forms a secret rebel army which eventually rises up to help liberate the country.
  • Vladimir Zhirinovsky serves as Governor of the Irkutsk Oblast during WWIII and ends up seceding from the Soviet Union when it becomes clear they're losing, becoming the leader of a Fascist rump state in Russia.
  • Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn gets into Soviet politics during its reformation phase and eventually stages a coup at the end of WWIII, dissolving the Soviet Union and becoming President of the Free Russian Republic.
  • Gennady Yanayev denounces the insane hardliners running the Soviet Union during WWIII and establishes a breakaway state in the Urals which becomes the last Soviet remnant after the USSR is dissolved.
  • Donald Trump serves as President Bundy's Secretary of the Treasury, while Mitt Romney is his Secretary of State.
  • Vladimir Putin still serves as President of a post-Soviet Russia, but due to stricter term limit laws than OTL, is only able to hold office for six years. Afterwards, he becomes Russia's ambassador to the UN, and is quickly elected Secretary-General.
  • Pablo Escobar abandons the drug trade during WWIII (correctly foreseeing that the government will crack down on the cartels as part of the homefront), enlists in the military and becomes a war hero. He goes into politics post-war, but is driven from the country before he can successfully get elected President.
  • Bernie Sanders becomes Mayor of New York.
  • Elon Musk becomes a resistance leader in Entebbe Pact-occupied parts of South Africa during the Great Southern War.
  • Steve Jobs goes into the field of privatizing space flight instead of personal computers.
  • Andy Griffith becomes a senator.
  • Howard Schnellenberger and Paul Ilyinsky both serve as Governor of Florida.
  • Tom Clancy becomes a senator.
  • Ruth Bader Ginsberg becomes a senator instead of a Supreme Court justice.
  • Mariska Hargitay goes into politics after Law & Order wraps up, and succeeds Sanders as Mayor of NYC.
• Rightful King Returns:
  • Gerhard Frey, as a Chancellor, restores the monarchy of the Hohenzollerns in Germany.
  • Many post-Soviet states after World War III become monarchies, even if they didn't have any monarchs in their past history.
• Running Gag: Every politician who meets Ted Bundy notes that there's something off about him.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • When it becomes clear that the Warsaw Pact is starting to lose WWIII, Markus Wolf cuts a deal for asylum in Chile and flees East Germany.
  • With Brazil, the last Communist nation in South America, on the verge of being overwhelmed by the Allies, President Carlos Marighella flees to the jungle and countryside in order to undertake partisan resistance.
• The Siege:
  • Athens is besieged by the Warsaw Pact early in World War III, as they cannot directly take it without heavy loss of life. This finally ends when Athens and other major Greek cities are all hit with massive sarin gas attacks, weakening defenses enough for the Pact to overrun.
  • Japan's entrance into WWIII takes the form of invading Siberia and laying siege to Vladivostok.
• Straight Edge Evil: Ted Bundy, after getting away with his murders and becoming Governor of Washington, sets up and enforces draconian anti-drug laws that many of his opponents feel violate civil liberties. This gets even worse after he becomes President.
• Suddenly Significant City: China's capital is moved from Beijing to Nanking following the Military Coup against the Communist Party.
• Take That!: The execution of Jane Fonda because of her condeming the American war effort is a rather harsh take on this trope.
• Vorpal Pillow: How Sanjay Gandhi kills his mother.
• We ARE Struggling Together: In the 80s, the Communist bloc begins fracturing into factions. In addition to China and their sphere of influence becoming increasingly independent of Soviet input, nations throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America that are controlled by more hardline traditionalists begin chaffing at the oversight of the reformers now controlling the Soviet Union.
• World War III: Breaks out in 1988, and due to the various pro- and anti-Communist alliance pacts, it technically includes all but a small handful of the world's nations (though many of the Asian allies of the Soviets, like China and India, stay neutral).
• Young Future Famous People:
  • Junichiro Koizumi becomes Mishima's secretary.
  • A young KGB Senior Lieutenant named Vladimir Putin becomes General Secretary Semichastny's bodyguard after all his previous guards were killed in a plane crash.
  • Steve Bannon rescues the Iranian military chief of staff as a naval lieutenant after they tried to defect in a Cessna.
  • Bernie Sanders runs for mayor of New York City in 1981 as the Liberal (NYC affiliate of the Progressive Party) candidate. However, he would come in a distant third.
  • H.R. McMaster commandeers a tank in WWIII, with Marco Rubio as the tank's loader.
  • Alex Jones is a White House intern during WWIII.
• Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: The Neo-Incan guerrilla movement that plagues Central and South America during and after WWIII.

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