Petroleum-derived products, basic HI inputs(steel/cement), cheaper/lower-end machinery, textiles/mass-manufactured consumer products, and some specialty equipment.
Wuff. Compare that to OTL where the USSR didn't produce much in the way of competitive manufactured goods and exported oil, gold and the rawest of raw materials.
I find the steel exports particularly interesting. Exporting steel to the US in this time frame is a bit like hearing that we have a thriving snow trade with the Inuit.
Also compare to OTL where Soviet steel production was dominated by bulk production of steel of such low quality that even Soviet enterprises didn't want to use it. Even if the TTL Soviet Union still outputs mostly low quality steels, for it to be worth buying for foreigners, its quality must be far better.
It also explains why we have such a colossal steel output - we're not just feeding our own demand, we're feeding a good portion of the rest of the world's demand too. Triple lapping the Americans would be alot easier if their steel industry were smaller due to competition with imports from us as well, so maybe our colossal output isn't quite so colossal as if we had triple lapped the OTL mid-70s USA.
If the pre-energy crisis USA is importing our steel, the French and British may not have any steel industries left. Or if they do have some, it'll be small smelters producing specialty steels. I'd bet the Japanese steel industry is much smaller as well. No demand from the Korean war, no damnfool thing in Indochina and competition with Soviet exports all means much less in the way of heavy industry in Japan. (Though since they somehow have an economy similar to OTL, despite the lack of particularly the Korean War, there must have been a more generous American approach to Japan to compensate... So maybe they do still have their excellent steel industry in this timeline also.)
Of course, as impressive as this is, we're exhausting our reserves of coal and iron ore, producing a low-margin intermediate product that we are then further subsidizing for our own internal development... This is great for the Americans in the long term.
Especially as, once our own iron ore becomes uneconomical, Morocco is the best place to import iron ore from, and you know, our political capital for messing around in North Africa took a recent nose-dive.
Now I'm imagining some politician giving some anti communist speech at a new military base while the army engineers that made it give him a look because a lot of the basic materials they used were from the USSR.
No kidding. This will certainly complicate Ashbrook's desired trade war. We may be so integral to certain sectors that a trade war would just mean importing the same things from us as before, only at higher prices, as we see in the current US-China trade war.
I wonder just how many of the weapons made in the Western bloc are made out of Soviet steel? Though probably our penetration of that market is far lower than, say, the much less sexy market for rebar. France and America might make their gun barrels from their own steel, but their bunkers, roads, buildings and airstrips might all use Soviet steel.
Klimenko was Romanov's second man, very very unlikely he gets past this crisis... he got a 51. I don't think that's enough for Semyonov to tolerate him after all that happened.
Given that Klimenko appears to be the most prominent hardliner and Romanov was a reluctant participant? He's probably going to get it from both sides.
The only way I can see for Klimenko to hang on is if Semyonov needs his help to push other hawks out of the nest, since despite Klimenko's prominence, he is scheduled to retire soon.
Yeah the doves screwed up, and the proletariat of the third world suffered for it.
What ARE you talking about?
Just what you think is going on in our foreign policy, and why?
If smuggling weaponry around blockades is so easy one wonders why France even bothered. Posturing for domestic consumption? Their own brass as deluded as we were? 4D chess hoping for the outcome we got except less dead French sailors?
My bet?
The French government had to do SOMETHING to satisfy their own internal hawks, so they picked something they probably thought looked tough and expected us to give them a symbolic win while just routing things through Egypt and leaving them in the same pickle against the unexpectedly tough Algerian resistance.
Instead we gave them complete and utter victory in return for a cruiser and some change, which we are re-imbursing them for.
Like, seriously, there are some very surprised Frenchmen wondering just HOW they got to be so lucky.
Personally I'm more inclined to push to make the next mnkh doves ministers fail starting from after the next one. (With dove I mean dove, not non hawk)
It will probably be needed to avoid problems with our block when we won't oppose Nato.
Oh yes, let's destabilize the economy so we can dabble more in foreign policy. That sounds absolutely big brain genius.
THE best thing we can do to maintain an aggressive foreign policy is provide the economic sinews so that the country can afford expensive adventures abroad.
Also, in the crises we've had the hawks have: believed our allies are stupid and our enemies are weak. And the doves have: believed our allies were at least minimally capable and our enemies are strong.
These perspectives then lead to different proposals for how to handle the enemies of the Union. But unless you have secret discordburo info, I don't see any of the characters arguing that the imperialist powers don't need to be opposed. Rather, they've been debating how much subtlety to approach problems with.
Regards,
fasquardon
