New Script! What if America lost the Cold War

The Cold War. Decades of shadowy—and not-so-shadow—competition between two great powers: the United States and the Soviet Union. Everybody knows that America won; communism is a fringe ideology, even in “communist” countries, and while Russia is trying to claw its way back to power, it’s struggling to take control of its own backyard. While America loses wars too, we lose wars on the opposite side of the planet. That’s like if Russia invaded and occupied Bolivia for twenty years.

But that raises an interesting question. What if America didn’t win the Cold War? What if the Soviet Union won instead?

Well this is What Why How and that’s what the video’s about. If you like this sort of thing, subscribe and check out my Patreon.

Okay, back to business. When you look at the Cold War, it might seem like an even match, but to be frank the game was rigged from the start: the Soviet Union was never truly competitive with America, but even then it did land a few punches against Uncle Sam. The difference is the US survived those punches; when the Soviet Union fought its own Vietnam War in Afghanistan, it shattered apart. But all this history could have gone very differently if we rewind back to the fork in the road: the Great Depression.

In real life, President Roosevelt won in a landslide election in 1932. His ambitious New Deal policies, while not perfect, kept the US from the brink. But this wasn’t inevitable; early on, the frontrunner was the candidate from the last election, Al Smith, the former governor of New York. Al Smith lost against his popular successor, FDR, and never stopped hating him for it. But Al Smith, who had plenty of party-insider support, could’ve triumphed over Roosevelt in the primary if he jumped in earlier instead of procrastinating. It also didn’t help that he made abolishing prohibition a key issue instead of just focusing entirely on, you know, the Great Depression.

So, let’s say that happens: Al Smith wins in 1932 over his old rival, Herbert Hoover. What then?

The Great Depression

Well, Al Smith was a lot more centrist pragmatic and less visionary than Roosevelt. So the government response to the Great Depression would’ve been a bit weaker. With unemployment remaining high and the economy plunging back into trouble, Al Smith barely wins reelection in 1936.

Meanwhile, Europe and Asia explode into war—Germany invades Poland, Japan invades China—you know what happens.

With Smith’s handling of the economy a failure, the Dems lose in 1940 to Robert A. Taft, a Senator from Ohio and the preeminent isolationist in politics. Taft shrugs off demands to go out of his way to help Britain, France, and soon the Soviet Union against Germany. When Japan invades and occupies European colonies, President Taft shrugs it off as Asia’s problem—he refuses any sanctions and continues to sell them oil, so Japan has no real reason to attack America.

With no lend-lease from America, the Soviet Union is knocked to the ropes by Germany: the German army captures Leningrad and the red capital of Moscow; but Germany’s supply lines across Eastern Europe are just too long and vulnerable. The German army, month by month, starves and freezes. Despite the Fuhrer’s orders that any retreat will be punished by death, the German army crumbles; with titanic effort, the Soviet Union wrestles back Germany, and kilometer by kilometer retakes Eastern Europe. In 1947 the Red Army crosses into Germany and takes Berlin; within a few months Paris and Rome raise the Red Banner too.

The Start of the Cold War

So, entering the 1950s, the world is vastly different. Europe lays in ruins, the Soviet Union straddling the continent and putting into a power a dozen communist regimes. Asia is dominated by Japan, but the military there is running on fumes after bleeding out in its struggle against rebels in China.

And America, a lot poorer and weaker than real life, is the underdog in the new global cold war against communism.

In 1952, the US elects Hubert H. Humphrey, a progressive senator from Minnesota. Humphrey targets workplace discrimination and racial segregation at home, but doesn’t have too many gripes about adding nationalist dictatorships like Portugal and Spain into the new Anglo-American anti-communist alliance: the London Pact.

The Soviet Union, meanwhile, tightens its grip on Europe. The new chairman, General Zhukov, seizes industrial products from Germany and uses extensive forced labor to reconstruct Eastern Europe. This leads to famine for the Germans, with hundreds of thousands dying, but prosperity for the Russians.

In Asia, the Japanese army is slowly starved and bled by guerrilla fighters. The Soviet Union, seeing this weakness, finds a convenient excuse and plunges for the throat: In a merciless campaign, the Red Army wipes up the Japanese army. While the Soviets can’t match the Japanese navy directly, they can use a new wonder-weapon: the atomic bomb. Nuclear bombardment wipes up the Japanese navy, and in 1956 the air force drops two bombs on Japanese cities. Japan raises the white flag, and, after the Red Army occupies, the red banner.

Meanwhile, the Japanese puppet states in China, Indochina and Indonesia crumble in the face of communist revolutions. The bloodshed across East and Southeast Asia is immense; the East goes Red.

Lodge’s America

This disaster costs Humphrey reelection; [in 1956] he’s replaced by the Republican Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., who’s much more aggressive on foreign policy: Lodge directs huge sums of cash to anti-communist forces across the world, including fascist groups in Europe.

The Soviet Union has its own espionage service too, though; the KGB sponsors communist coups and revolutions in Venezuela [57], Colombia [58], and Cuba [59]. Meanwhile, the European colonial empires in Africa finally crumble—most new governments express ideological sympathy to the Soviet Union, but are basically run by pragmatic strongmen.

Now, the Communist Bloc isn’t completely unified; for example, when the new Soviet Premier Khrushchev [58] distances himself from the personality cults of Stalin and Zhukov, Mao and a couple other communist leaders are enraged. But since America cannot project its power onto the Eurasian landmass effectively, they never directly confront the Soviet Union.

While America has difficulty stopping the dominoes of communism, it does develop and test its own nuclear weapons. But it’s far behind the Soviet Union on missile technology; in 1957, the USSR launches its own manmade satellite, Sputnik.

In 1960, American president Lodge wins reelection on a hardline anti-communist platform. But in 1961, Lodge is assassinated by a gunman. Conspiracy theories abound. The youthful Richard Milhouse Nixon, the new president, points fingers at the Soviet Union, since the gunman spent time there. Domestically, Nixon oversees a major crackdown on leftists across the country, with the FBI arresting thousands of people cross the nation, including major civil rights leaders.

In the midst of this crisis, an American spyplane discovers Soviet nuclear missiles on the island of Cuba. With the drumbeats of war growing louder, Nixon imposes a blockade on the island and demands the Soviet Union stand down. But the USSR knows that American missile technology is too far behind to make a serious dent against the Soviet Union. When Soviet ships charge the blockade, America blinks and withdraws.

Nixon and the United States are deeply embarrassed by the Cuban Missile Crisis, which adds to the domestic instability. In 1964, President Nixon is challenged by the centrist Republican governor of New York, Nelson Rockefeller, while the Dems are also split between the progressive John Kennedy and the conservative George Wallace. No candidate wins a majority, so the election goes to the House, where Nixon narrowly wins by cutting a deal with the Southern Dems.

In the Soviet Union on the other hand, Premier Khrushchev leverages this foreign policy success to implement needed reforms at home, including limited liberalization and profit incentivization for economic enterprises [1965 Soviet Reforms come early]. While the USSR in a vacuum is not economically competitive with the US, it essentially climbs atop the back of its colonies in Europe and Asia to stand nose-to-nose with Uncle Sam. But, it’s getting taller.

Nixon’s America

Beginning his second term in office, Nixon is out for blood: he expels the Rockefeller Republicans from the party and puts into power his own guys. Nixon then directs the FBI to dismantle the Democratic Party piece-by-piece by airing their dirty laundry. JFK’s affairs, for example, are leaked to the press. When journalists uncover the dirty tricks used by Nixon during his reelection campaign, the president goes after the newspapers in a campaign of harassment and intimidation.

With the Civil Rights Movement so far unsuccessful in pressing the conservative administrations to address segregation, activists turn to radical solutions, beginning a series of violent attacks against the government. In 1966, Black Panthers break into the Capitol and assassinate ten Congressmen; this begins the American Years of Lead, with the Nixon administration secretly aiding radical groups like the KKK and violating the constitution thousands of times over by assassinating anti-government leaders or imprisoning them without trial at the US military base at the Panama Canal. Plenty of peaceful leftists get swept up too in this new Red Scare. Meanwhile, Congress passes a new Sedition Act that basically censors anything but the mildest criticism against the government in the name of strengthening Fortress America.

In 1968, President Nixon opts to run for a third term; while breaking norms, there is no formal rule saying he can’t, since nobody has so far. In the general election he emotionally, strategically, and politically crushes the Democratic nominee using his usual dirty tricks.

In foreign affairs, Nixon goes on the offensive: he meets with Mao Zedong and formalizes relations with the PRC, then meets with the French premier and does the same with Red France. In the Middle East, Nixon provides aid to Islamist groups to challenge the pro-Soviet puppet governments. These Islamist groups go on to spark civil wars in Lebanon and Iran; the quicksand pulls the Soviet Union into a religious war.

Nixon also devotes huge sums of the federal budget to competing with the Soviet Union in the Space Race. But the American program faces several hurdles; Nixon’s aim of landing on the moon by the end of the decade passes, with the Soviets growing ever-closer. The swelling federal budget, alongside other economic issues, leads to prolonged economic stagnation in the 1970s.

Stagnation and Growth

Premier Khrushchev, in his elderly years, steps down from power in 1970. The throne passes to his anointed heir, Alexei Kosygin: a reformer who prioritizes increasing the Soviet standard of living rather than inflating the military budget. To do this he furthers Khrushchev’s economic reforms, including greater decentralization and liberalization. While the Soviet Union experiences economic issues in the 1970s just like America, it begins to catch up with its rival across the pond.

In 1972, Nixon gracefully agrees to be renominated by the Republican Party. The Democrats get some additional votes when, in the months leading up to the election, Soviet cosmonauts land on the moon and plant the red banner, winning the Space Race. But Nixon wins his election again—and in 1976, of course, he wins too. America has become what it created in the Cold War: an illiberal, authoritarian dictatorship.

In the mid-1970s, Islamist revolutions flick over the dominos of Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. Immense violence occurs as the Soviet Union struggles to maintain a fragile grip in the Middle East. In 1977, Premier Kosygin finally throws up his hands and withdraws with his tail between his legs. While America hopes this marks the end of the Soviet Empire, these wars ironically help the Soviet economy by wiping out a competitor in the oil market.

President Nixon does not learn from the mistakes of the Soviet Union; when the pro-American governments in Colombia and Nicaragua face revolution from radical communists, he sends in the US army, overextending America’s military capabilities.

New Blood

In 1980, the world is shocked: both President Nixon and Premier Kosygin drop dead.

In America, Nixon’s successors scrabble for power. The new president, Spiro Agnew, only lasts until 1982 before he’s forced out of office by a corruption scandal. George HW Bush takes the throne next.

In the Soviet Union, on the other hand, the party chiefs coronate the young Mikhail Gorbachev, who promises to continue the reforms of his predecessors.

While Gorbachev attracts foreign investors and brings the Soviet Union closer and closer to overcoming the American economy, the US army is dragged into exhausting jungle warfare in Colombia. Communist guerrillas receive aid from Cuba and the Soviet Union and begin to raid American-held territory in 1984. In that year’s election Bush is thrashed about by a primary challenge from the arch-conservative Pat Buchanan. In the general, the Democratic Party nominates Jesse Jackson, a civil rights leader who calls for America to withdraw from war and implement much-needed reform. Jackson rallies African Americans and young voters and, in a twist, topples President Bush. In January 1985, America inaugurates the first Democratic president in thirty years.

Jackson struggles with the bureaucracies of the executive branch and the old guard of Congress, which drag their heels when he proposes progressive policies [social security, food stamps, a universal basic income, and a federal prohibition on racial discrimination in businesses]. He does, however, reform the FBI and throws out the Sedition Act; this allows all sorts of dissident political groups to blossom. In foreign affairs, Jackson extricates America from the jungles of Colombia; by 1987, most of Latin America is red.

Premier Gorbachev in the Soviet Union implements similar liberal reforms; the two leaders shake hands and promise a brighter future.

In 1988, Jackson runs for reelection. The Republicans nominate Pat Buchanan, but leftists, centrists, and fascists nominate their own candidates, sensing the weakness of the political system and hoping to seize power.

Pat Buchanan and the old Nixonite news apparatus riles up Americans across the country, prophesying a communist take-over if Jackson wins again. Violence escalates. Militia bands in Utah begin attacking federal agents. South Carolina threatens to secede if Jackson wins again. In DC, tens of thousands of protesters occupy the streets, with the military dispersing them only with reluctance.

On election-day, voters across America are split across the major candidates, but when Jackson starts to inch ahead, several conservative states freeze the vote-count or use other means to block Jackson’s victory. Jackson threatens to use the military to force the states to respect democracy.

The Downfall of the Union

It’s about then when several high-ranking Pentagon chiefs, who’ve been chatting with the Buchanan campaign for some time, begin to implement what they believe is a last-ditch effort to stop communism from taking over America.

As President Jackson oversees the legal battle from the White House, a specialized task force enters the building, tells Jackson there is a threat on his life, and rushes him to Airforce One. Airbound, Jackson finds he cannot communicate with anyone on the ground. His captors present him a piece of paper: a letter of resignation, already typed up, ready to sign. The message is clear: get out while you’re still alive.

Jackson, in the face of an obvious threat against his life, signs.

Next, the Pentagon chiefs present Jackson’s letter of resignation to Congress. Power transitions to Jackson’s vice president, Ted Kennedy. But with the deadline for a new presidential inauguration inbound, the winner of the election unclear, and the union about to explode, Kennedy calls for a new constitutional convention to reform the US government.

This opens pandora’s box: Texas passes a bill declaring its secession from the United States. South Carolina follows, then a series of southern states one after another. President Ted Kennedy desperately tries to hold the country together with diplomacy, but with the military in mutiny, he has no ability to actually get anything done. The Union ends not with a bang, but a whimper.

The Cold War is lost.

The New Union

In the 1990s, the United States struggles with complete economic and political collapse. The old republic is done away with and a new single-party state, the American Union, is created. All parties are done away with too except for the new Institutional Progressive Party, with Ted Kennedy as its head. Economically, the Union welcomes in Soviet planners; in 1992, America implements its first 5-year plan; major swathes of the economy are seized by the government while the prices of things like food are regulated by the central planning commission. This is of course a disaster. Unemployment, crime, and the black market skyrocket.

While the dissolution of the United States was mostly peaceful, war is inevitable; civil wars quickly begin in several Southern states between Black Nationalist communists and Neo-Confederate fascists. With the help of American soldiers and international peacemakers, new pro-communist multiracial governments come to power; these soon become highly corrupt dictatorships. But the instability also spills over; when separatists take control of Oklahoma City, the American government bombs the city to ruins in a message to any further secession.

In 2000, Premier Kennedy hands the reins of power to his chosen successor: David Petraeus, the darling of the military industrial complex. Once in power, Petraeus sets off on a slow mission to challenge the Soviet Union’s supremacy over the planet. America allies with the Soviet Union’s rivals, including China and Brazil, and gives guns to troublemakers like Argentina and Turkey. Petraeus also brings the violence to America’s backyard: when North Carolina makes moves to join the USSR’s alliance, America invades and occupies key cities. This alienates Southerners; in 2014, Texans overthrow their pro-American government. In retaliation, Petraeus invades, snatching the city of Dallas. However, the American army slows to a stop on the highways of Texas; the Texan army, soon armed by guns gifted to them by the Soviet Union, stops America in its tracks. Ten years of trench warfare beneath the hot Texas sun begins. But, today in the Soviet Union, the will to keep sending billions of rubles worth of military aid to Texas is drying up.

So, the future is uncertain. What do you think will happen? Will America reunify and begin a Second Cold War against the fading Soviet Union? Will war break out between the great powers? Comment below to let me know, and why not support this channel on Patreon? For a buck a month you can get your name in the credits like USERSEQ, MARKLIN, SHIBA, SKINNYMEMEDUDE, CALIBER, and LEHON WHALE.

Adios.