SPECIAL NOTE:
If perchance you are not a reader of Harry Turtledove’s works, particularly the so-called “Southern Victory” series (also known unofficially as “Timeline-191″) — this post will have little meaning for you. The series is actually a collection of two trilogies, a tetralogy, and a stand-alone “prequel” that spans from 1861-1945 in an alternate timeline where the Southern Confederacy (hereinafter: CSA) wins the Civil War and a follow-on war to it a generation later… with rather intriguing analogues and twists in the lives of numerous “point of view characters”, some of whom span several generations.

It is an awful lot of reading, and Turtledove’s writing style can get a bit repetitive as well as a touch didactic (he is a history professor, after all)… and as I started at the tail end of the series (and am reading the “back story even now) from which most of this post can be understood - the last tetralogy called “Settling Accounts”.

For the full-blown spoiler-fest at Wikipedia, go here.

SPOILERS ABOUND FROM THIS POINT FORWARD!

I think that balance of power for the post-CSA world will initially be pretty simple:

In North America, The USA pretty much has everything locked down from its border with Russia (at Alaska Oblast) down to whatever state Mexico finds herself in. Texas is a nominally independent Republic, having what may yet turn out to be a Faustian deal with the USA for it not getting completely pummeled by the overwhelmingly angry, powerful, and nuclear (here called “superbombs”) armed US Army.

The CSA is pretty much terminated… Not even a hope of a restoration or partition analogous to OTL’s Nazi Germany (particularly with the USA being the sole conqueror, and acting with what seems to be a far more heavy handed victory’s justice). Add to this liberated Black population of the former CSA, for whom pretty much all bets are off, with rape/pillage/general lack of any consideration for their former social “superiors” being the order of the day at the conclusion of SA:IatD (that’s shorthand for “Settling Accounts: In at the Death” - the final book - so it would seem - for this lengthy series).

I foresee a sort of a variation on the Irish Republican/UK loyalist struggle as a possible development, particularly if there is any remaining sentiment amongst former CS Americans against bein forcibly annexed/assimilated by what will presumably be puppet Southerners or a delayed, massive shift of Yankees to the occupied southern territories to sway things in much the same manner as happened in OTL during the Reconstruction. However, given the 80+ year rift in governance and identity as its own nation, former CS citizens will probably not make things easy, and may result in the USA having to commit far more brutal acts of force than even was done in the repressions of the Mormon in Utah, or the occupation of Canada (many of whom, by indications given in IatD, are well on the way to being Americanized.

That said, what are the chances of seeing the following entities develop by the early 2000’s in Timeline-191 ?

Canada: I foresee the various Canadian provinces being admitted to the Federal Union over time. especially Eastern provinces like the Maritimes (Newfoundland, Prince George Isl. and Labrador) and Ontario as a cultural counter to Quebec. The West might be allowed to form a loose and very weak union of entities, perhaps something along the lines of a “Cascade Republic” with puppets controlled by the USA. Saskatchewan and Manitoba might be the die-hards, either joining the Cascade Rep. or finally seeking admission to the Union late in the century.

Northwest Territories (OTL’s Nunavut and Yukon) might be a foreseeable home to a number of things — a forcibly migrated Mormon* community, various dissident communities or gulags that can be watched over careful (don’t think that the TL-191 USA didn’t pick up a few things from the Freedomist regime of the CSA) … and perhaps most notably, lots of places to site silos for nuked missiles pointing at various parts of Germany, Japan, Russia, UK and possibly… Brazil.

* The Mormon issue would likely shrinks in importance as transportation networks rapidly network the USA: the Mormon rebellions were a particular danger in the late 19th and very early 20th centuries in that they sat on top of a choke point for telegraphy and the rail connections between the coasts. Furthermore, there probably aren’t very many Mormons left who are willing to carry on pitched resistance.

Texas appears to be a state - no, a republic - interested in the preservation of its identity to the exclusion of any future enmity or hatred it may incur for its eleventh hour backstab of the CSA. From almost any other perspective, a sensible move when the enemy at the gate has a bucketful of nukes and they don’t have anything to fight back with. Turtledove doesn’t develop Texas petroleum resources at any great length — so the USA might have also dickered for TX independence to make the fight go quicker, point more force down the Sherman… erm, Morell schwerpunkt into Atlanta, Birmingham, and Huntsville, as well as the (probably meaningless at that point) cutting the CSA off from its Pacific Coast (Sonora) and, by the way, just to generally end the war quicker. Not to mention all those dead bodies in Camps Determination and Humble.

As such, Texas escapes being shoe-horned back into the Union against her will, and in time, may have considerable wealth as a petroleum state, a technological leader (esp. if a few ex-Confederates get snuck in who know a thing or two about rocketry, possibly an analog to the Soviet roundup of ex-Nazi rocket scientists)… and who knows, maybe pulling off a nuclear bomb out of the woodwork without the USA knowing about it. Just the sort of thing to keep the USA from getting tooooo frisky and rolling an excessive amount of barrels over the Sequoyah border.

Another Texas item to explore: a substantial part of the non-Latino population of TX is of German ancestry. In Texas’s bid for security with the USA (as it probably won’t be allowed by the USA for quite a long time to maintain armed forces beyond the TX Rangers, and a very small Nat’l Guard and Coast Guard, ala the Japanese Self Defense Force of OTL)… it might attempt to leverage cultural recognition with the German Empire as a means to appeal to the Germans should the US get to heavy-handed, or possibly even trade some technologies around should a US-German cold war/trade war develop.

Sonora and Chihuahua: get directly annexed into the USA, along with Baja California Norte and Sur. The USA won’t even ask nicely, because they have the guns AND the butter to make it happen, just as in Canada. Numerous oil deposits are found, making some Sonorans and Chihuahuans rather rich very fast, and possibly allowing for an easier time assimilating into the USA than Tejanos/Latinos/Chicanos of OTL… also eased by 60-ish years of integration with the largely Anglo-Celtic culture of the CSA.

The remnant of the former CSA: Eventually, I see no way that it survives to make trouble again. At worst, the southern white population could be put into a diaspora status and scattered across the USA, and droves of Yankees offered opportunity to replace them in the choicest places. The southern blacks might be given a few of the Gulf Coast states to govern exclusively - perpetuating a somewhat disturbing but comparably more palatable form of “optional, rationalistic apartheid” which could go in any of a number of directions of varying pleasantness or unpleasantness. If the Freedomist holocaust is given similar treatment to the Jewish Holocaust of OTL, it is possible that a lot of the racial strife that beset us in the 1960’s OTL would be far, far lighter in scope for TL-191 — where prior to 2GW, even USA whites could be expected to be openly racist toward USA blacks… and afterwards, the concept of publicly speaking ill of blacks may be expected to become as taboo as doing so against Jews in Germany, along with criminalization of Holocaust Denial as hate speech.

At the very best, perhaps a Socialist administration or (more likely) Congress could tire of so many decades of garrisoning the most of entire continent, and so gradually draw down the military as in OTL, on the premise of allowing various puppet governments for the many occupied territories to govern whilst occasionally tossing the region(s) various bones, more on the model of the Pax Romana. True restoration of sovereignty would likely never come, or be held out as a very distant carrot.

The USA: Reigns as undisputed master of North America, and wields considerable influence, and perhaps even Monrovian dominance, over Latin America as well — likely to be far more so than what no small influence OTL-USA holds today in the Western Hemisphere.

While the USA appears to be significantly more of a market-driven socialist government that is very authoritarian compared to OTL, it is also one of the strongest consumer economies, if not the strongest, at the end of the Second Great War (proposed acronym: 2GW). Therefore, in my opinion, it is extremely unlikely to disintegrate as the USSR did in OTL’s 1990s.

Many folks who comment on Turtledove’s development of the USA in TL-191 like to compare it to OTL-USSR in terms of his overlay of parallels - which is largely accurate especially in the denouement of the Settling Accounts tetralogy. Unlike the OTL-USSR, the TL-191 USA is slightly less authoritarian (there is still multi-party politics and at least within US borders, a significantly less repressive regime, and certainly no pogroms on the scale of any in OTL, much less the CSA’s holocaust — unless you happened to have been a Mormon. And they were just persecuted instead of ethnically cleansed, for the most part… although TL-191 Custer might have thought differently). Against Canadians and Confederates in particular, however, the TL-191 USA certainly played as rough as any of its contemporaries would have, and certainly more roughly than OTL-USA authorities handled the average German in the defeated Third Reich. Naturally, the revanchist sentiment sown in aftermath of the 1862 and 1881 wars against the CSA-Canada-UK-French alliance did bunches to augment the spirit of Vae Victis against defeated Canada and the CSA by the time things wrapped up in IatD. Even with the nature of the TL-191 Negro Holocaust being as horrifying as it should be, the prejudices of the typical USA white soldier seemed more incline to “get even” with the defeated Confederates, humiliating them even after defeat just because they had the temerity to secede in 1861 (and thus invite four generations of warfare).

If viewed from the perspective of what North America is likely to become by the late 20th/early 21st century TL-191, the USA would be more of a parallel of OTL-s People’s Republic of China (Red China) — or perhaps if that comparison is discomfiting, a monolithic EU with some very nasty fangs and numerous big sticks… where the economy (still mostly free market as in OTL) is checked by a much more paternalistic and socialist state than the USA of OTL.

In short, wherever the TL-191 doppelgangers of the Clintons and the Bushes are, they’d likely be very, very much happier than their OTL counterparts, if they gotten to rule *there*as they have *here*.

Quick Round-Up of the other TL-191 Powers and Superpowers:

TL-191’s situation thus far leaves us initially with three nations I’d readily call “Superpowers” -

- the USA, by virtue of its gigantic size and military power (inclusive of an undisclosed and presumably far more numerous amount of atomic bombs than OTL), and already discussed at great length…

- the German Empire, by virtue of her mastery of the European Continent, turbo (jet) powered Luftwaffe, and at least a majority of atomic bombs, with whispers of a “sunbomb” (H-Bomb) perhaps in the works (who, for never having had a bunch of Jew-hating Nazis run her into the ground, had plenty of physicists and probably rocket scientists to spare)…

- and the Empire of Japan, who by way of remoteness, aggression, and the UK and the USA being tied up in rather nasty wars of their own, managed to snarf up large chunks of Pacific East Asia - perhaps relaizing the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” without any significant let or hindrance by any of OTL’s colonial powers. They also likely have the greatest navy on the surface of the planet’s oceans, although no nukes. Yet.

Lesser powers who might be considered “allies”:

- Austria-Hungary (with a fairly nice bank of scientists and such, but who are quite worn down by the hodge-podge of ethnic warfares it must contend within and without: by the line up of things at the end of IatD, it contains the equivalent of OTL’s Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Montengro, etc. etc. ad infinitum… in all likelihood, I’d expect a convenient marriage between a Hohenzollern princeling and a Hapsburg somewhere in the line of succession to more or less ensure the Austrians follow the Kaiser’s way of thinking.

- the various Scandinavian nations, who might be easily “encouraged” by the Kaiser to stay in his orbit given likely UK nastiness from either Great War, and the threat of future Russian peskiness.

- Republic of Texas (as discussed above, would play a similar role to the USA as the A-H Empire to Germany)

- The Ottoman Empire, though also on the decline, might be played off against the Persian “Empire” and/or Russia to keep it weakened

- Australia/New Zealand - could conceivably swing into US orbit, turn to republicanism more readily (with a greatly and far more speedily weakened UK) with the Royal Navy loosing many ports of call, and conceivably being required to attend to Home Islands duties, leaving the ANZUS increasingly at the mercy of an increasingly encroaching Japan and her IJN.

- “Free” China … whilst not mentioned in TL-191 at any great length, I’ll presume to include that part of China as yet unsubdued by either Maoist factions or the Japanese. It’s still a pretty big country, and might look to either Russia (meh) or either Germany or the US to help check Japan.

Lesser powers who were considered “axis”:

- The UK: Got a few nukes, but no means to deliver them, nor not much of an economic base to make more… at least for the time being. Having signed an Armistice of some kind with the Kaiser, she will likely have to pay reparations and suffer some punitive restrictions on the size and scope of her most potent force - the Royal Navy. Indeed, even by though she might recover as an “economic miracle” after a fashion, Victoria’s Sun will has finally set.

- France: *may* have had a nuke in the works, but seems to have been behind even the CSA in its development cycle. I would expect France to be partitioned, and some more provinces to be annexed to Germany. Perhaps a north/south split, with a puppet regime (I call it “Normandie” containing the radioactive ruins of Paris, and provisional capital at the very, very, very heavily Hochseeflotte garrisoned seaside capital at Brest. Perhaps a widespread “Normanization”, that is a heavily German-filtered national identity campaign might speed along the development of the new nation). The southern partition is occupied and demilitarzed, but still called “France”. As a part of the armistice, all French colonial and territorial possessions come under direct German control.

- The Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg) - come under close German scrutiny, Netherlands and Lux. less so and Belgium more so because of ancient antipathy. Pretty much puppets kept on a short leash.

- The Ukraine, Poland and Baltic nations - ditto as with the Benelux, although from indications in Turtledove’s writings, by the wrap -up in IatD, the rebellious Slavs who “would not have the Kaiser as their ruler” were pretty much systematically slaughtered. Unlike the CSA… there’s no proof.

- CSA: Dissolved, as discussed most tiresomely above.

- South Africa: Large enough to have developed a nuke in OTL, there is no reason it might not be able to do the same in TL-191, if it can manage to dissociate herself from the UK in a manner pleasing to the Germans (who by now, also rule most of Africa in France’s stead) Might have room to do something unexpected, like make an alliance with another up-and-coming nation, say like…

- Brazil: was linked to the “allies” in both GWs as a check against the British-dominated Argentina, and possibly some undisclosed (by Turtledove) agitator neighbor nations. Having considerable natural resources, relatively friendly relations with all superpowers, including and especially Germany and Japan (in OTL, there are more Japanese expatriates living in Brazil than any other nation — and there is no indication that the immigration patterns between Japan and Brazil that took place in the early 20th century did not also occur in TL-191) — it may decide to make herself able to challenge the US dominance of the Americas sometime in the future. OTL-Brazil was also reputed to have developed a fissionable weapon in the 1970s, so… who knows what may happen yet?

- India will most likely gain independence from the UK, and may either stay friendly to her former leige, or may swing into Japanese orbit.

- Russia is probably way too exhausted and impoverished by the misfortunes of war and having lost a city to nuclear fire, but it would be unwise to count her out. While IatD and earlier books reference the analogs of Stalin and other Russian Communists as having been purged from before the Tsar’s government, there may still be a enough people who have animus against the Tsar for allowing the Germans to run rampaging through the Motherland… to say nothing of creating a few handy, German friendly buffer states and perhaps even gaining some “lebensraum” out of various Russian concessions, to boot. Perhaps a certain demagogue along the lines of CSA’s Featherston might arise - a “Federov” mayhap… but if the Tsar doesn’t get him first, the Prussians are certainly likely to jump on that sort of thing with both feet, and fast.

MY OVERALL CONCLUSIONS:

The TL-191 equivalent to our cold war will probably play out in a multi-polar world, with careful alliances of a few very powerful superpowers, and a big handful of major powers who will either become nuclear capable as WMD and WMD delivery technology progresses. Proxy wars are likely to be very common, but far less likely (at least among the superpowers with ungodly amounts of WMDs: Germany, Japan and the USA) to develop to a level like the Cuba Missile Crisis in OTL.

Minor powers and non-state entities (say, a group of nutjobs who want to restore the CSA) may display a willingness and a readiness to deploy low-yield WMDs or RDWs, and that may draw the superpowers and thier leading allies to reign in the superabundance of their weaponry, as well as begin the TL-191 parallel to our mostly economically driven move towards massive globalization.

Economically, the postwar boom/bust may be much more localized at first, with a technological leap in the TL-191’s 1950s-60s with a drive to explore space and potentially weaponize it, but a distinct slowdown (except for whatever Middle Eastern power arises, if not the Ottoman/Persian powers) as oil supplies start to dwindle in the 1970s. I would expect technological parity between the timelines by the mid 1980s, and perhaps a steady matching pace from there.