One friend told me that the United Nations invading America in the name of socialism made about as much sense as the Warsaw Pact invading the Soviet Union in the name of communism. I proceeded to create a semi-believable timeline where something like that actually happens.
Most Patriot Fiction doesn't put much thought into what's happening outside the United States. On the side of evil stands pretty much every national military and even remotely leftist political faction in the world. They are usually lead by communist China and once-again-communist Russia, as well as a unified communist Western Europe (Franco-German axis, usually). How do all these disparate tribes reconcile their own differences and conflicts of interest for such a massive undertaking as an invasion of America? How do they justify it to their citizens? How do they pay for it? Probably better not to ask.
On the side of good, it's usually just America's gun owners and no one else at all. Sometimes there's some throwaway line about bad things happening to Taiwan and the Eastern European states. Israel might play a prominent role on the good or evil side depending on what *kind* of right-winger the author is (Christian For Israel is probably going to portray them in a more positive light than the average Stormfront poster).
The British get a pass too, sometimes. In fact, you very seldom see troops from other English-speaking countries take part in the invasion, and sometimes the whole Commonwealth of Nations fights alongside their American cousins. And, for all the La Raza who tend to show up in Texas in these scenarios, Cuba or at least the regular Cuban people are often portrayed in an oddly-sympathetic light (that one goes all the way back to Red Dawn).
If what follows sounds like a very bad world to live in, well… it is. Remember, however, that one generally does not report on disasters that don't happen. So while certain areas are much worse than in our world, others are much better. The fact that this world managed to avert Congo War '96 and will probably also avert Congo War '04 makes me think that the amount of global suffering is almost balanced out.
Anglosphere
I've already mentioned that the Second American Civil War spilled into Canada, snapping some very ugly ethnic and cultural tensions in that… repressed country (Oka Crisis? In this world, the Quebecois probably gas them). Likewise, Australia's gun owners followed America's lead and took up arms in response to the National Firearms Agreement. Scenes of Parliament Hall in flames and a pike on the lawn with John Howard's head on it doubtless played a major role in the decision of the remaining world powers to smash the rebellion in America before the same could be repeated in Washington DC (or Brussels). So Canada and Australia are both fighting insurgencies of their own against the New World Order and I may even run a game in one of them some day.
Papua New Guinea is dealing with encroachments by Indonesian settlers and continued secessionist activity in Bougainville. New Guinean and Indonesian troops have seen use as peacekeepers in Australia and there is some talk about setting up permanent operations down there.
In this timeline, the Republic of Minerva managed to build its island utopia, although the inhabitants were all eventually gassed by the French. Tonga has resettled the reef, and one day they and the Fijians will likely go to war over it.
Oceania's smaller island nations, for the most part, are pretty boring right now. Many of the more crowded ones sent their populations to work for the UN or resettled them on uninhabited nearby islands—if that failed, they often resorted to the time-honored, traditional method of dealing with a growing population in a closed system. Some followed Bougainville in declaring independence, and those without mineral resources were allowed to have it… for the time being. The global economic slowdown of the last ten years, and a more docile Africa, means that French and Chinese multinationals didn't get quite the chance to ruin the mineral-rich islands in this timeline.
New Zealand housed the Australian government-in-exile during the civil war, and was generally one of the more obedient English-speaking countries. They sent relatively large numbers of troops to work with the UN, in spite of large nationalist, communist/anarchist and indigenous (Maori) insurgencies on their own soil.
Singapore is still more-or-less fascist, and still highly functional. The decline in international trade has hurt them, but they try to make up for it with an arms industry that sells their fine products to all comers. Their weapons are a common sight in Australia and to a lesser extent America.
Burma, minus about a million military-aged males, is pretty much identical to the nation of our timeline.
Sri Lanka and Tamil Eelam eye each other over a slightly-radioactive no-man's-land; the war has gone into a low boil now that both sides have tactical nuclear weapons, but it's only a matter of time before one or the other (or just the cockroaches) is left undisputed ruler of the island.
The International Community has told India and Pakistan to behave themselves, or else. Things are going surprisingly well for those two; like many nations, they've found a way to deal with their excess population by selling them off as UN Peacekeepers, bringing a good bit of the loot from foreign adventures back to their coffers. What happens when they run out of other people's money is something they'd rather not dwell on.
Israel leads an alliance of the remaining independent right-wing countries opposing the New World Order. This has led to some very weird situations in terms of friends and foes: American Neo-Nazis and Australian Israelists armed with Uzis and Gallils, SPLC adding Mossad to their list of militant racist extremist groups, Mossad carrying out hits on the ADL. Israel itself is still a weird little secular theocracy and apartheid state… and still the most pleasant part of the Middle East to live. Palestine is an independent state, albeit an Israeli vassal run by Orthodox settlers, Palestinian Christians and mostly-Catholic European expatriates. Lebanon has a similar arrangement on a more independent footing, with Maronite monks still a common presence in hotspots throughout the world. Palestinian and Lebanese Muslims do not like this arrangement of course, but then again there are not many of them left.
Speaking of apartheid, South Africa and Rhodesia are still the bad boys of Africa. As the Northern Hemisphere unraveled, the white minority decided that the black man and his liberal appeaser had proven themselves fully incapable of civilization, let alone democracy. Botswana, Nambia, Swaziland and Lesotho are occupied by the apartheid governments. Whites and Asians comprise a little less than 15% of the population, owing to pronatalist state policies, immigration from the north, and high attrition rates among blacks.
The Azanian People's Liberation Army has created a large insurgent state in the rural areas of those countries. While the Apartheid regime is appalling, Azania is just… scary. The national anthem speaks of chasing down the Boer, bashing open his head and feasting upon his succulent brains. That alone wouldn't be so bad in this world were it not for the fact that they routinely massacre anyone who is insufficiently enthused about the killing and eating of the Boer. So far, the machetes of Azania have killed more of their own people than the neutron bombs of South Africa.
Nigeria is prosperous and active on the international scene, but unhappy at home. They're still smarting from their losses in the 1994 Bakassi War, they've only barely kept the lid on another Igbo uprising, and the Hausa are starting to get restless as well.
Ethiopia is still under the Derg and still a pretty miserable place; Eritrea is even worse. China and Russia are doing what they can to prevent another war between them and Somalia.
Israeli/South African-backed Uganda is at war with Chinese/Kenyan-backed Tanganyika, which has only recently (and perhaps not permanently) retaken French-backed Zanzibar from a reascendant sultanate.
Zambia is involved in an undeclared war with Rhodesia, and Malawi is involved in an undeclared war with Tanganyika. There's not much government left in either country to issue declarations of war these days, which oddly enough seems to do more good than harm.
Kenya is doing fairly well, under the rule of an ambitious dictator looking to expand his country's holdings. Wealthy white expatriates who are too… libertine for the Israelis and South Africans often settle in Kenya, and the Happy Valley Set lives again.
Liberia and Ghana are doing fair, being popular destinations for black American and European expatriates. The semi-socialist, predominately-Christian nations lead a loose coalition of other likeminded nations along the coast, and things are going pretty well for them at present. However, storm(dust?)clouds are forming to the north, with an expanding Sahara pushing the Muslim populations towards the coast. This could be a problem in the future.
All of Ireland is under English suzerainty and the Troubles are still raging, though both sides supported rebel movements in the Americas and Antipodes and occasionally work together against the London and Brussels regimes. The Ulster Volunteer Force and Orangemens' Free Workers Army are no longer loyalist, demanding instead a third state separate from Ireland and England. Scotland, Wales, Cornwall and even the Isle of Man are likewise rebelling against the English and their own puppet governments.
As for England itself? The English press and cultural elites like to drone on about their moral superiority over the colonialist rabble and the need to bring freedom, decency, tolerance, unity and order to the rest of the world. Meanwhile their citizens are squeezed by a barbaric imported underclass from below and an inescapable surveillance apparatus from on high. Entire problem families are locked into solitary confinement, the psychiatric institutions have unquestioned authority over anyone arbitrarily deemed mentally ill, commoners are arrested for owning swords while those in the inner-city who violate the tenets of Sharia law stand to have their heads cut off. It's a nation where every nightmare of Orwell and Burgess has come true… in other words, entirely indistinguishable from England as we know it. English troops are rare outside of Europe, but their political spindoctors are indispensable to the amalgamation of the new global empire.
Francosphere
Madagascar is a quaint, isolationist monarchy that plays little role in international affairs. Comoros, on the other hand, is quite active under the leadership of a Frenchman, one Bob Denard, who can be found personally leading armies across the African Continent and beyond in the name of France, Rhodesia, and just about anyone else willing to pay.
Laurent Kabila, still a communist in this world, is officially in charge of Zaire, but the real power lies with the European and Asian multinationals who have effectively partitioned it into several for-profit ventures. They are running the nation comparatively well—oh, all the careless environmental degradation will be a problem later, and there are unhappy rumblings out of Katanga and elsewhere. The Zairian citizens don't get much say in the affairs of the country (as if they ever did… or ever will), but at least they're still alive, and it's generally a more pleasant arrangement that it was back when King Leopold tried it.
No Congo War(s) means that Rwanda and Burundi recover as in our world, only moreso. Both are regional breadbaskets with isolationist foreign policies.
The Central African Republic, on the other hand, is a more typical high-resource low-stability hellhole. The UN, mostly French-backed Congolese, Chinese-backed Chadians and British/Russian-backed Sudanese eventually tired of Emperor Bokassa II's antics and removed him in favor of direct rule.
The People's Republic of the Congo is still communist. Cameroon and Gabon are under communist governments/UN occupation. Equatorial Guinea is similar to Mugabe's Zimbabwe of our world… so not dissimilar to the Equatorial Guinea of our world: same disregard for human rights but poorer and further to the left politically.
Benin is still communist, and the revolution has spread (albeit in a watered-down form) to Cote d'Ivoire and Togo. So essentially the entire coast from Pointe-Noire to Freetown is a band of commie-red or socialist-pink, with Islamic-green in the interior, Igbo-yellow/Bakassi blue in the middle, and the odd Israeli spy, Rhodesian mercenary, or American fanatic looking to make a mess of the local petroleum industry. Interesting place overall.
There are no less than five major secessionist movements operating in France (Basque, Breton, Catalan, Occitan, Savoyan) and three irredentist movements (Nice, Corsica, and Elsass-Lothringen). Much like Britain, they blame the Americans for giving their people the wrong ideas and spend their time putting out faraway grassfires in the hopes that it'll make their own country into less of a tinderbox.
Islamoshpere
Muslims are disproportionately represented in the armies of Europe and this has lead to quite a few problems. Different, historically rival tribes tend to congregate in different, historically rival armies (Turkish Muslims in the German Army, Arab Muslims in the French army, Asian Muslims in the British Army, etc) and this is a bad situation, considering that things were already strained in the polygamous shotgun marriage that is the European Union.
Al-Qaeda still exists as a worldwide terror network, but their relationship with international authorities after the 1998 death of Osama bin Laden is quite confusing. An early ally of the American rebels and enemy of the UN and US Federal Government, it can now as often as not be found as a mercenary force, sending footsoldiers to overthrow any Arab regime that the Western Democracies don't like (not unlike the Al-Qaeda of 2013 then, come to think of it)
Djibouti has had a pretty boring decade. There was no civil war in this timeline, and apart from some standoffs with the Ethiopians there has been very little trouble for the little nation.
The nations of the Sahel, on the other hand, are pretty much all in terrible shape. This, along with the Balkans, was a popular spot for Clinton's 1990's Wag the Dog adventures, but it all seemed to do more harm than good and nowadays the world has better things to worry about.
Sudan, Chad and Burkino Faso are all deep in the North/South, Arab/Black, Herder/Farmer, Muslim/Christian civil wars. Niger is a bit better off, but still far from pleasant.
Mauritania is weird, and more than a little scary. It's now calling itself the New Bafour Empire and is making a lot of noise about rolling back the Arabian cult of Islam and driving the communist infidels from Africa with fire and sword. Their leader makes long speeches invoking the dark gods of Africa to eat the brains of his enemies. It's at war with pretty much all the neighboring countries and, oddly enough, seems to be winning. Most of Mali has been conquered, and the nations to the south are under threat of a full-scale invasion.
Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau merged due to financial hardship and the looming Bafour threat. They, Senegal, and Guinea-Conakry are all Muslim theocracies. Senegal must also contend with Christian rebel forces in the Casamance region.
The Gambia clings tightly to it's riverside territory. A major regional breadbasket, it rightly fears that one of the neighboring powers may invade them for it.
Things get a little more boring further to the north. Western Sahara is an independent country and Morocco is a corrupt absolute monarchy too scared of the Spanish and Bafour to dispatch their military on any endeavors to take it back. Algeria is a military dictatorship and vassal of the European Union (in particular the French). Tunisia, Libya and Egypt are all absolute monarchies (latter two are close British allies). The Russian/Chinese-backed Hashemites are back in charge of Iraq and those parts of Jordan and Syria not occupied by Palestine or Lebanon. Saudi Arabia and the gulf states, apart from still-communist South Yemen, are Japanese/Indian allies, a bit poorer, and otherwise all but indistinguishable from our timeline.
Turkey is a member of the European Union and major supporter of international UN operations. They've overrun Cyprus and some of their hotheads are talking about having another go at the Ottoman Empire. While that wasn't enough to get them kicked out of the European Union, it did lead a bad taste in the mouths of the Russians, British, French, Greeks, Arabs and Iranians, and the situation in this region could get ugly at any moment.
Iran's ayatollahs, weirdly enough, are close allies of Israel and enemies of Russia, Turkey, and the Arab monarchies. Their nuclear arsenal is the only thing saving them from invasion, and even that may not be enough. Even more weird is the exiled Qajar and Pahlavi dynasties, both still claiming the Iranian throne and operating their own anti-UN resistance cells in America.
Speaking of Israel, while it is still the will of Allah that the blood-sucking Jew and his craven Christian lackeys be driven into the ocean… his followers don't seem to be in a hurry to do it. The Occupied Palestinian Territories are less of an issue in this world when there's no Palestinians left to reoccupy them, and the corrupt monarchies and might-as-well-be-monarchies of the Arab world simply have other things on their minds; wars cost money that might better be spent on new palaces, you see.
This is a world where all the upper-middle-class surplus Arab males find fulfillment in wearing UN blue rather than suicide vests, though it remains to be seen what'll happen when they return home with first-world training, battlefield experience and even less future prospects than their dads had when they came home from Afghanistan.
Bangladesh is in surprisingly good shape. Many of the 90's-era famines were averted and while it's still not a pleasant place, it is tolerable. Malaysia has annexed Brunei and Indonesia still controls East Timor, and both make no secret of coveting Singapore.
Orthosphere
The former Yugoslavia is still a mess. This timeline saw more UN troops die at Srebrenica, leading to an earlier and more vigorous UN response. They fought a surprisingly-costly war against Serbs and had to go back a few years later, when the Bosniaks and Albanians transitioned seamlessly from victims to victimizers. Drafting all the military-aged males doesn't work to pacify a region where the women and children take their places in the death squads, and the only time they stop fighting each other is when they unite to kill UN troops instead, so commanders are increasingly divided over whether they should ignore the region or go ahead and nuke it.
Greece keeps close ties with Russia in the face of Turkish aggression. So too does Bulgaria and Romania. Moldovia, the Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic States have been reoccupied as part of Russia's "near abroad."
Finland, Slovakia and Hungary are essentially vassals of the New Russian Empire. Germany and Russia invaded Poland and the Czech Republic to remove their nationalist governments, though insurgent movements are still going strong in the Carpathians and elsewhere.
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia ran back to Russia's arms in exchange for not being fed to Turkey. Russia dropped a neutron bomb on Groznyy as a warning for the others in that region to behave. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are all under Russian control. The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan is still communist and manages to hold its own against Islamic insurgents, and for the most part is doing well.
Russia itself is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Old-school communists, New Russia entrepreneurs, ultranationalists, the Mob, the Church, and at least one self-proclaimed Czar all hold sway in the Kremlin, but it's hard to say who really runs things (conspiracies abound of course: the Jews, the Jesuits, even extraterrestrial influence are popular theories among the Russian people).
Sinosphere
In the early-90's China was one of the first foreign countries to take interest in the worsening American domestic situation. They, like the Russians, initially sold weapons to both sides in the Civil War, but eventually came to support the Federals exclusively and were instrumental assembling a UN mission to the United States.
Taiwan developed tactical nuclear weapons to protect themselves from China. China overran them anyway, feeling that they could live with a little fallout if it meant squashing Taipei while they had the chance. This scared the Philippines into relinquishing their claims on the Spratley Islands. It remains to be seen if it'll be enough to keep the Red Dragon at bay.
Vietnam and Cambodia are Chinese vassals. Laos is as well, albeit on somewhat more unstable footing, owing to a strong royalist insurgency.
Nepal and Bhutan are both more-or-less under the rule of China and local Maoist quislings, though British and Indian-backed insurgents are quite active throughout the Himalayas. Tibet has once again risen up in rebellion and the Chinese have yet to fully pacify some parts. Trouble here prevent the Chinese from exerting more influence in the former Central Asian Soviet Republics. They did manage to make a sort of vassal out of the Mongol People's Republic (still communist, but now Chinese-style communist).
China hopes to be a force to be reckoned with on the greater world stage, and has an active presence throughout much of Africa and Asia (they remember their own history, and figure it better to colonize than be colonized).
East-Asia Co Prosperity Sphere
Japan has just enough troops devoted to UN operations to justify an independent command. For the most part, though, the Japanese government prefers to work closer to home, stepping in to fill a void left by America's departure from world affairs. The Japanese emperor and military have much more power now than was agreed upon in 1945, but at least superficially Japan remains one of the few democracies left in Asia. They are now a nuclear power and, unlike Taiwan, actually have a quality and quantity of warheads to harm any rivals.
Korea is a hermit kingdom again, with North Korea having little contact with anyone except China and South Korea having little contact with anyone except Japan. North and South Korea are both working on building their own nuclear arsenals, and will likely soon have them. Oddly enough, less involvement in and from the outside world means that both sides coexist on better terms, and North Korea does slightly better economically.
The Marcos regime fell on cue in the Philippines; the new government is more efficient but not much freer. Japan has signed a defensive pact with them and has stationed a military force in the Philippines to keep an eye on China and Indonesia.
Japan has close relations with Thailand and to a lesser extent Malaysia, likewise owing to thinly-veiled distrust of the Chinese. Beyond that, Japanese international interests tend to focus on South America rather than Africa, which they feel is overly crowded by westerns interests. Japan has fairly strong relations with Brazil, which has recently led to fairly bad relations with France and some Hispanic countries.
Lusosphere
Portugal retains strong relations with the UK and even stronger ties with Italy, but for the most part is a non-issue internationally.
Brazil, on the other hand, is quite active throughout much of the former Portuguese Empire (lots of IMBEL products showing up in Timor, Mozambique and Angola). Many UN missions in the Western Hemisphere have large Brazilian contingents and they are fairly heavily involved in Southern Africa. They've also become quite expansionist on their own continent, annexing Suriname and Guyana. This has unnerved the French and made many of the surrounding states very unhappy as well.
Their socialist government has been unable to solve the problems of the urban or rural poor, nor has it been able to stop the spread of insurgent and secessionist movements throughout the country, in particular a "gaucho" uprising in the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, and Parana. Vast swaths of the Amazon rainforest are under the de facto control of anarchists, fascists, drug cartels, black-market loggers and miners, indigenous tribes and… radical Mormons.
Hispanosphere
Spain sees a mix of French-style secessionitis and Portuguese-style impotence, though they did manage to get portions of their former African colonies back.
Mexico is in bad shape, with the American Civil War having spread there and a strong secessionist movement going in the northern regions. The Chiapas Rebellion began on cue, and spread to other parts of the country and region. A large Mexican Army contingent was sent into the America Southwest and the UN has set up a puppet government in Mexico City, but it is about as popular and effective as the regime of Emperor Maximallon.
Cuba is doing somewhat better, being a major staging point for operations in the United States. Cuban exiles supported by American rebels made another attempt to topple Castro a few years back, and a vicious insurgency rages in the interior of that island.
Nicaragua and Guatemala are controlled by communist governments. Costa Rica and Honduras are fascist. El Salvador changes by the week. Belize and Panama (minus the Chinese-occupied Canal Zone) are occupied by Nicaragua and Columbia respectively.
Venezuela went socialist earlier and is now a major supporter of UN operations further north. Ecuador and Peru are communist, ruled by Chinese-backed governments. Columbia is fascist, still seething from a treaty forced on it which gives de facto rule of a large portion of the country to FARC. Their generalissimo, one Luis Garavito, makes long speeches about the coming day when the stain of communism will be washed away in blood from the unified fabric of Gran Columbia. Boliva, much like El Salvador, has shattered into a multifaceted civil war.
Pinochet still runs Chile, which still has very close relations with the UK and Israel, and very strained relations with Peru and Boliva (fought a limited war with them several years ago). Argentina is still upset about the Falkands, the Beagle Channel and their Antarctic Claims, but is too busy worrying about Brazil to put much effort into things below Tierra del Fuego.
Eurosphere
If devolution is the popular forbidden trend in Britain and France, irredentism is the popular forbidden trend in Germany. There have been increased economic integration with Austria and Switzerland, and some of their politicians talk of a day when a unified German sub-state of the European super-state stretches from Jutland to South Tyrol to Walloonia to Silesia. Of course no one else likes it when Germans make plans, so the British, French and Russians keep a very close eye on them.
Italy has its own aspirations of becoming a leading player in the European Union and perhaps restoring the glory of Rome. At the moment, though, they have to be content with leading a bloc of other dysfunctional Mediterranean has-beens: Spain, Portugal and Greece. They work close together politically to defend their interests in the European Union, and close together militarily just in case the northern states decide to feed them to the Germans or Muslims.
The Scandinavian states are still insufferably sanctimonious in this timeline, but less likely to believe their own rhetoric (it was the Swedes who suggested restoring absolute monarchies in third-world nations as a means of increasing long-term regional stability). They're all essentially politically correct, passive-aggressive police states, Denmark in particular being even worse than Britain. Nonetheless, peacekeeping operations have given the Nordic male a chance to awaken his inner Viking, and that might be enough to keep his tribe from going extinct in the next century.
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