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Peace in Our Time! - A TRO Inspired Franco-British Union Quest

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Masherov winning is awesome. Even if he only can accomplish half of what he wants it will still inject some much needed lifeblood into the USSR. Making them a very worthy opponent. Since the beginning of the quest I've been excited for what the 60's would hold for us.Very glad it's not disappointing.

As much as I'm a crypto-communist member of Left Labour, I do want to think about how we can properly navigate the coming years.

The first elephant in the room is America. I think if we want to not only weather the storm, but gain new ground in Africa and Asia we will need their help in some manner. The issue is the Yanks aren't going to just help us in our conflicts. Nixon is going to want a piece of the pie too. I think the minimum we can do together would be intelligence sharing. And I wouldn't mind keeping it that way. But ultimately I think they will be most useful in the Pacific Theatre. We should be wary of him overtaking us economically. I have a fear he'll have the potential capacity to pull members of our own sphere closer to his. Australia, South Africa, Rhodesia, and New Zealand being obvious choices.

As for Spain, it's going to be rough. We don't know the specifics yet but France has a direct border with it. Supplies for rebel groups are flowing in. And if Spain is falling apart, I bet her colonies aren't fairing much better. Morocco will surely make moves to liberate Spanish Sahara. And Portugal is right next door to this mess. I wonder if we should assume they will have a civil war as well? Or at least an uprising to some degree. Regardless I reckon we obviously want to utilize our navy to blockade. And reaching out to France to see if any sort of deal can be struck. Otherwise I need to wait to see how exactly the chips fall into place.

Now Guinea and the Congo. We could just try and scold Niger and Gabon and basically pull back. But I think it's something we could win if we are fast enough. Pulling soldiers from places like Italian East Africa and basically wherever else we have allies on the continent could help us have a quicker response. Though I do worry Africa is about explode, so maybe we play this more conservatively? I will admit it's based mostly on vibes. But I just have a bad feeling about it. We should be on standby.

Already talked about Asia in the section on the US. I'll just say this. We can afford to maybe play it safe in Africa, but if we want to knock down Japan several pegs we have to be bold and decisive. I'm willing to try everything.

Anyway, everything I've been suggesting so far is maybe totally obvious, and includes stuff we are already doing anyway. Curious to hear what others are thinking.
 
Whenyouseeyou said:
…..oh shit so the Americans are useful afterall and we can use this to convince them to let France join us
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We are not getting France to join us. They are still full communist and we are not plus everything with Algeria. But we can hopefully use their new leaders more rightwing position and desire for France to stand independently to push them to push back against the USSR's soon be be more belligerent attitude. After all, it will be Paris on the frontlines if the conflict heats up, not Moscow.
 
Fission Battery said:
The West and Japan were blasted by Masherov, who condemned Washington, London, and Tokyo in the same breath.
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Well, at least soviet-Japan alliance is not going to be a thing.

And while the new hardliner course is going to cause a tension with Mitterrand, I fear it will lead to Paris spring rather than Franco-Soviet split...

Then there is the death of Franco...with more agressive Soviet. Would second Spainish Civil War become a thing now? No ammount of pacifism would allow France to ignore Fascist regime exploding right on their border. Maybe we can make some sort of deal for democratic neutral Spain, but that would destroy the ECO creditbility with our other cilent dictators...

If Nixon has not been elected, maybe we can have some sort of informal understanding with Japan to focus on Soviet instead, but that is unlikely to be a thing now. Not that we have much levage to tell the US to not fuck thngs up in Asia-Pacific.

All in all, a good time. We can only hope this won't emmpower the Conservative too muchnext election.
 
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Notable Films of the Cold War - The Peonies, by ProfessorB
  • Apocrypha
    • Notable Films of the Cold War

    Les pivoines ("The Peonies")
    Fiction, romantic drama
    Directed by Louis Roux of Algiers, 1955

    This film concerns two young people, George and Marie, who meet in Algiers after separately fleeing the communists in France. They fall in love and marry. Just before their wedding, Marie shows George a dried French rose that she brought from her house in Marseille.

    The two move into a settler village in the Kabylie region. They struggle with not only the primitive conditions, but also harassment from Arabic neighbours. (The film does actually distinguish between Arabs and Berbers, the latter of whom are native to Kabylie, but employs the colonial "Kabyle myth" by presenting a sympathetic Berber character, Jacques, whose only role is to help the French.) The couple are insulted on the street, watched through their windows and George is even targeted in a bar fight started by Arabs. He is a timid man and unable to take a stand, instead backing off during several confrontations.

    All this changes after the birth of the couple's first child, Eve. While on a walk with Eve in a stroller, a man threatens to take her and raise her as an Arab. George is enraged and knocks the tough out with a single blow. He later leads a group of pied-noirs to confront an Arabic elder and demand an end to the harassment.

    George becomes a local leader of pied-noirs and prospers in his business as well. While watching the titular flowers on the mountainside, he reflects on how his soul is becoming tied to this land, despite its trials. Marie comes to join him, takes his hand, buries her French rose in the soil, then picks a peony and puts it into her hair.

    The film ends with an older George and Marie in the village which has now grown to a modern, prosperous town. They are surrounded by their six children, and Eve is about to marry a young policeman. They celebrate her engagement while doting over their youngest daughter, named Pivoine.

    The film is notable primarily as an example of the natalist fixation and blatant racism in mid-century Algeria. It was a favourite of Darlan himself, who screened it at several NPUP rallies and even ordered peonies to be planted around the party's headquarters. (Where they promptly died because Algerian peonies are only native to the Kabylie mountainside and Darlan's gardeners didn't know how to cultivate it elsewhere.)
     
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  • Apocrypha
    • The dice is trying to be funny I see.
    LuxemburgLover69 said:
    I think the minimum we can do together would be intelligence sharing.
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    Fission Battery said:
    Five Eyes: The joint intelligence sharing agency between the FBU, America, Canada, Ireland, and Australia. It has ties to numerous allied governments
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    Been there, done that.

    If the Warsaw Pact threatens us in the North Sea, lets pay them back 10 times.
    We should annualy hold joint military exercises like RIMPAC, Cold Response, Dynamic Manta, Red Flag, Able Archer and since we cannot enter the Baltic Sea, we should create a North Sea Operations(NORSEOPS) to replace BALTOPS.
     
    Alright then, tentative ideas for foreign policy commitments next turn.

    • With Algeria distracted due to the Admiral's death, opening up feelers in Paris can be really beneficial to us atm. Make that commie Belarusian angry enough that he fumbles into doing something, potentially rash. Either a Yugo-Soviet split, or the crushing of the Hungarian Revolution. Win win either way.
    • Using said feelers in Paris, we can maybe do potential under the table dealings with them for a better Spanish outcome. In exchange for Spain losing it's colonies, all those exiled commies across the Pyrenees get a chance to win... at the ballot box in a future election.(We would obviously throw shit loads of money at the non-commie parties, but that is just diplomacy).
    • Delve into the cracks left by Mr. Permanent Revolutions electoral campaign. If letting the SSR's have any semblance of autonomy is counter-revolutionary, why can't that logic apply to say... Scandinavia?
    • Let the US and Japan duke it out in the Pacific. We will obviously help with intel, but we kind of... don't like both countries leaders. Once the Americans come to their senses in 4 years and elect a respectable politician, then more open support can be conveyed.
    • Play general defense till the world bleeds itself fucking dry. Once each country goes through its Vietnam phase, guess who would have the most ready populace in the world?
    • Make green number go up.
    • Find a way for all Commonwealth countries green number go up.
     
    Why did we dismantle all our nukes again? what is actually stopping the soviets from tactically nuking us as much as they please in the event of a war or moment of extreme tension.

    Any time we have a crisis with the soviets they will have the advantage of being able to obliterate us from the face of the planet while we have nothing to respond with.
     
    Cbman said:
    Why did we dismantle all our nukes again? what is actually stopping the soviets from tactically nuking us as much as they please in the event of a war or moment of extreme tension.
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    They dismantled most of their nukes too, and we would ideally have air superiority or better yet...we don't go to war with the soviets.

    Worst comes to worst the Americans will nuke them.
    It is because of Bevan, nothing more nothing less
     
    Don'tTrustMe said:
    They dismantled most of their nukes too, and we would ideally have air superiority or better yet...we don't go to war with the soviets.

    Worst comes to worst the Americans will nuke them.
    It is because of Bevan, nothing more nothing less
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    Why would we have air superiority? the USSR has the entirety of mainland europe as their industrial base they prolly shit out jets at 5x our pace additionally that means not much when ICBM's will be a thing, also the US has to look out for itself first and formost, if we get into a Cuban Missile Crisis we will have no choice but to back down because the USSR has far less to lose than us and the USA won't kill themselves and the world over our interests.

    It was extremely short sighted to get rid of literally every single one of our nukes, we could have kept a hundred or so to keep a fleet-in-being effect.
     
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    The absolute most copium silver lining is that Mikoyan was rejected by the Bolsheviks not because of dovism but because of domestic policy. It belies that actual appetite for adventurism within the party itself should still be limited and that Masherov could only push it so far if he doesn't do concessions elsewhere.

    This does mean that if we just deliver him an L somewhere, most probably irt France and Spain we'd give him some amount of trouble internally, preferably ousting him but that's too good to be true.

    I am in accordance with playing 'defense' in Africa but defense ≠ passivity in this regard, if there's a time to try and defuse african radicalism with just a little bit of redirection of colonial redistribution it's now.
     
    Cbman said:
    Why would we have air superiority? the USSR has the entirety of mainland europe as their industrial base they prolly shit out jets at 5x our pace additionally that means not much when ICBM's will be a thing, also the US has to look out for itself first and formost, if we get into a Cuban Missile Crisis we will have no choice but to back down because the USSR has far less to lose than us and the USA won't kill themselves and the world over our interests.

    It was extremely short sighted to get rid of literally every single one of our nukes, we could have kept a hundred or so to keep a fleet-in-being effect.
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    Bevan made the bed, now we gotta sleep on it.
    If the Soviets went back on their words well...two can play that game and we would be very justified to do so.
     
    Cbman said:
    Why would we have air superiority? the USSR has the entirety of mainland europe as their industrial base they prolly shit out jets at 5x our pace additionally that means not much when ICBM's will be a thing, also the US has to look out for itself first and formost, if we get into a Cuban Missile Crisis we will have no choice but to back down because the USSR has far less to lose than us and the USA won't kill themselves and the world over our interests.

    It was extremely short sighted to get rid of literally every single one of our nukes, we could have kept a hundred or so to keep a fleet-in-being effect.
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    Why would we ever want to get into a Cuban Missile Crisis situation in the first place? The only way nukes comes into play is if both sides massively blunder diplomatically. A possibility yes, but not if we're careful. I don't envision the soviets trying to go for an invasion of the U.K without France's cooperation in the matter. I think you're being a bit too frantic about the prospect.
     
    01paradox01 said:
    Why would we ever want to get into a Cuban Missile Crisis situation in the first place? The only way nukes comes into play is if both sides massively blunder diplomatically. A possibility yes, but not if we're careful. I don't envision the soviets trying to go for an invasion of the U.K without France's cooperation in the matter. I think you're being a bit too frantic about the prospect.
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    What's stopping one side to play hardball if the other has no nukes? We won't even get the brinkmanship and stalemate if we have no nukes.
     
    Fission Battery said:
    Unfortunately for Suslov, he was dealing with a veteran partisan, a skilled practitioner in protracted people's war, a man that knew when to be subtle and when to be direct. Masherov went straight for the fucking throat by publicly condemned Suslov at the party congress as a revisionist, a bigot, a demagogue, a crook, a criminal, a low life, and many, many other insults.
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    Suslov: "I am going to be subtle about this-"
    Masherov: "Fuuuck youuu!!"
     
    Cbman said:
    Why did we dismantle all our nukes again? what is actually stopping the soviets from tactically nuking us as much as they please in the event of a war or moment of extreme tension.

    Any time we have a crisis with the soviets they will have the advantage of being able to obliterate us from the face of the planet while we have nothing to respond with.
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    It should be remembered the the Soviet Union does not treat nuclear weapons like America does. It was America that had schemes to nuke neutral powers and never renounced first strike as a policy. In the course of the Cold War time and time against America proved to be the deranged and aggressive power, constantly wanting to use their nuclear weapons for any and all conflicts. Internal documents revealed how absolutely insane America was about its nuclear arsenal and how often they nearly used them. The Soviet Union treats them as a deterrence. They're ultimately a defensive weapon to persuade countries not to attack them.

    If the Soviets wanted to start WW3 in this quest, they'd have done so already. They had a monopoly on nuclear weapons for several years, in addition to a larger military than either CAN or CPS.

    Don'tTrustMe said:
    Bevan made the bed, now we gotta sleep on it.
    If the Soviets went back on their words well...two can play that game and we would be very justified to do so.
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    I was planning on including a sort of 'reactive' phase to forpol in light of unfolding events. The FBU is still allowed an arsenl of 50 tactical weapons according to the arms limitation treaty it signed.

    RwconHD said:
    What's stopping one side to play hardball if the other has no nukes? We won't even get the brinkmanship and stalemate if we have no nukes.
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    You'll notice nobody's started WW3 yet, even without the threat of nuclear weapons hanging over head.
     
    RwconHD said:
    uggh where are our nuclear arsenal?

    Thank you comrade Bevan.
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    >Starts nearly a decade of political violence
    >Propagandises the TV and radio
    >nearly triggers a coup in a famously stable democratic state
    >Destroys all FSB nukes while letting rivals keep a large amount
    >heavily pushed for neo-colonialism in the new african states
    >Rolled back FBU influence on the world stage
    Why do we like this guy again?
     
    Fission Battery said:
    It should be remembered the the Soviet Union does not treat nuclear weapons like America does. It was America that had schemes to nuke neutral powers and never renounced first strike as a policy. In the course of the Cold War time and time against America proved to be the deranged and aggressive power, constantly wanting to use their nuclear weapons for any and all conflicts. Internal documents revealed how absolutely insane America was about its nuclear arsenal and how often they nearly used them. The Soviet Union treats them as a deterrence. They're ultimately a defensive weapon to persuade countries not to attack them.
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    >In the course of the Cold War time and time against America proved to be the deranged and aggressive power
    Woah, thats a statement and a half, because the Soviets were oh so famously peaceful, non-aggressive and not deranged.

    And Im pretty sure Soviet nuclear policy dramatically changed between premiers, Khruschev promoted this policy while subsiquent premiers were more agressive with their use, Additionally America uses nukes as a deterent as well, having a no first strike policy is redundant as any conflict between nuclear armed states, especially the USSR and USA, would have nukes flying anyway, it wouldn't really matter who shoots first when mutual strikes were inevitable anyway because no nuclear power would tolerate losing WW3 conventionally.
    Calling America the more deranged and aggressive power is a silly statement considering that the USSR had to frequently crush democratic uprisings in their puppet states while America did not and both powers invaded other countries and sponsored civil wars and coups.
     
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    Cbman said:
    Woah, thats a statement and a half, because the Soviets were oh so famously peaceful, non-aggressive and not deranged.
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    yes, that is correct, most of their derangement consisted of internal paranoia, they didn't have quite the same Jack Rippers and Buck Turgidsons with the same levers of power and ability to shape policy as SAC and the CIA in the good old US of A. Instead they had the NKVD, KGB, GRU, etc...
     
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