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What's the most Cringeworthy Alternate History you've ever read?

Since I think they would count as cringey by default; are there any (no doubt neocon loving) TLs where Dubya is convinced to not go for Iraq and focuses entirely on Afghanistan?

Unrelated, but The Boys comic somehow having the Pakistani government be a-okay with a full scale NATO invasion of their country just because the CIA bribed the government.
 
king of hybrids said:
Since I think they would count as cringey by default; are there any (no doubt neocon loving) TLs where Dubya is convinced to not go for Iraq and focuses entirely on Afghanistan?
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I wouldn't call "George W. Bush doesn't make probably the most monumentally stupid decision of his life" inherently cringeworthy as a concept. Although any TL using that as a jumping-off point had better acknowledge that starting another war when they were heavily committed and not making much progress with the first one was far from the only reason Afghanistan ended up being a total waste of lives and dollars.
 
Romney's Response is an amusing time capsule from 2016. In hindsight it reads like a naive wish fulfilment fantasy from the sort of Republicans who never understood what their own party was about.

A tedious read overall though, because much of it consists in quoting entire OTL speeches with just a few tweaks here and there.

Here is Romney choosing his running mate:

Romney ultimately was down to Ryan, Bachmann, Rubio, and Jindal. He even had some pros and cons:
Paul Ryan
Pros - Very smart, Romney clicked with him. Had the guts to tackle entitlement reform. Would solidify fiscal conservatives.
Cons - Already was a target over the Ryan budgets. Also, Wisconsin might not flip.

Michelle Bachmann
Pros - Very intelligence, Romney's closest ally in Congress, brings the Tea Party aboard.
Cons - Would be Palinized by the media, had stage fright at times(*)

Marco Rubio
Pros - Brought superb communications skills, would provide credible Hispanic outreach, could flip Florida
Cons - Less than two years' experience as Senator, did have some small scandals (the Florida GOP credit card thing)

Bobby Jindal
Pros - Very intelligent, knew health care, solidifies base, provides outreach to immigrants and Asian-Americans, good story as governor
Cons - Doesn't flip a swing state, paper rail from extensive government service

Ultimately, Romney narrowed it down between Bachmann and Jindal, with Jindal coming out on top.
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Hendryk said:
Romney's Response is an amusing time capsule from 2016. In hindsight it reads like a naive wish fulfilment fantasy from the sort of Republicans who never understood what their own party was about.

A tedious read overall though, because much of it consists in quoting entire OTL speeches with just a few tweaks here and there.

Here is Romney choosing his running mate:
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Bachmann was not in any way intelligent. She called W a Marxist, pushed for Intelligent Design in schools AFTER it was officially proven to be bunk in a court of law, called for the end of social security, and was a full on Birther.
 
It says something about the state of OTL current affairs that Romney's considered one of the semi-sane ones these days.
 
What are people's opinions on Alternate History Hub's "axis victory" scenario? Quite honestly, it's one of the more realistic ones I have seen, one that doesn't rely on Germany winning every battle.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FME3eEcvhss


TL;DW

Dunkirk fails, utterly. There is no rescue, no miracle. BEF is just completely defeated due to weather not allowing evacuation and taken as POW. This craters British morale, as there are now hundreds of thousands of POWs that pro-peace faction will use as rallying cry, to demand "bring our boys home". Fundamentally, Germany does not win through force of arms, but through British will to fight not being there, and a peace talks are started little while later. End result is a Germany that doesn't need to concern itself with Western Front, nor one that loses most of its experienced pilots in Battle of Britain.

As such, Barbarossa ends up being more lopsided as Germany now has still fully functional Luftwaffe to support their operations, as well as being able to deploy almost all of its forces to East, rather than needing to split between various fronts. Extra ammo, extra manpower, and functioning Luftwaffe might not mean complete defeat of USSR, but either Stalingrad or Moscow is going to end up falling, and there won't be Lend-Lease this time to stabilise Soviet front and keep them in the fight. Why?

Well, US is happy to sit this one out. Without Britain in the fight, US administration has no real reason to get involved. They might not like Germany winning, but they won't get involved without Britain serving as their connection to Europe.

End result is that, effectively, Germany has won. They will proceed to take a break and start working on challening Britain on the seas with new Kriegsmarine. Japan attacks Pearl Harbour and drags US to the Pacific War. Axis powers effecticely dominate at this point. D-Day without Soviets draining Wermacht is not really possible.

Of course, he does end with the note that US is still going to finish Manhattan project, and in this time line, once new conflict starts with Germany joining Japanese and challenging British on the sea, the original plan to bomb German cities with nukes is propably going to go ahead. And those nukes will be game changers.

TL;DR

Dunkirk is disaster and British will to fight collapses. Germany doesn't suffer losses in Battle of Britain, and is able to throw its entire might at Soviets, who don't get Lend-Lease as Lend-Lease program is never started to support Britain. Germany will be able to achieve at least one of it's goals, which makes achieving other two goals easier. End result is pacified Soviet Union. Next conflict will end up with US dropping nukes on Germany, as those are only way to break their hold over continental Europe.
 
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Honestly, any Nazi Germany wins would result in them being defeated in either short term (i.e: AANW) or long-term (i.e: TLM).
 
Mister Anemone said:
Honestly, any Nazi Germany wins would result in them being defeated in either short term (i.e: AANW) or long-term (i.e: TLM).
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Not sure what AANW is, but Cody does not that US is going to finish developing nukes no matter what, and eventually Germany will want to challenge Britain on the sea and end up being recipient for some sunshine in a can
 
Mister Anemone said:
Honestly, any Nazi Germany wins would result in them being defeated in either short term (i.e: AANW) or long-term (i.e: TLM).
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Mandemon said:
Not sure what AANW is, but Cody does not that US is going to finish developing nukes no matter what, and eventually Germany will want to challenge Britain on the sea and end up being recipient for some sunshine in a can
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I recognize AANW (Anglo-American Nazi War); basically, Germany wins Europe, builds up to early 1950s, but then loses the vicious fight for Europe after a failed Amerikabomber attack and the Kriegsmarine basically becoming artificial reefs after fighting the Anglo-American fleet followed by a vicious battle to retake Europe.

Don't know what TLM is, though.

There's also Fatherland where it's implied that Nazi Germany's hanging by a thread due to a horribly mismanaged economy and the promised Lebensraum is a heavily contested nightmare full of angry Soviet and Polish guerrillas making life hell for anyone who speaks German. And Thousand Week Reich (TWR) where rather lasting the promised 1000 years, it barely lasts 1000 weeks (or 19 years and a bit) due to, again, horribly mismanaged economy, inability to loot any further lands for wealth (Germany managed to take Europe but lost everywhere else, and only has the Syrian Nationalist-lead Syria as an ally) and increasing demands for democracy by a dissatisfied populace.

Basically, the theme continues. Nazi Germany's idea of economic development was stealing resources and labor from everyone else, which is a horrible misunderstanding of how economic development works (and Benito Mussolini had the same 'understanding', so he was a hot mess with the economy himself and kind of needed his much-hyped coming empire to pay for everything). Germany had no real plans to fight anything outside of Europe beyond "build up and then invade", so America building up webs of alliances with African, Middle Eastern and Central Asian nations would really hem the Germans in, and with no Japan to distract America, there's nothing much Germany can do on the global stage when their general understanding of diplomacy is either "make wild threats and hope nobody notices we're bluffing", "make treaties only to break them later" and "invade other countries to loot them". I mean, at least the USSR could make common grounds with other nations on the basis of fighting Western/Capitalist Imperialism and Socialism for the Greater Good. Nazism only has "Heil the Aryans, we are best", and those weren't going to be in good supply outside of Europe itself, no matter how much the Nazi definition of racial purity is contorted to sweet talk people.

There's also the much-discussed TNO, but it openly acknowledges that Nazi Germany has nowhere to go but down unless it takes some drastic moves to reform, and such reforms are going to be hard fought every step of the way.
 
Germany being able to "throw its full might" at the Soviets doesn't mean the Soviets lose all that much harder, and without Britain actually aligned with Germany, they still lack the oil from the Middle East - further, Japan's still gonna bring the yanks in on broadly the same timetable, and Britain having lost the "will to fight" doesn't mean they're going to say "oh no FDR, we couldn't possibly let you base troops here"

Hell, even the concept that Dunkirk would make Britain "lose the will to fight" is... broadly wrong, I'd say.

It is genuinely crazy to make a whole AH timeline about Germany being able to win and the steel core holding the whole thing up is "pretend Pearl Harbor doesn't happen" because otherwise the yanks get involved and none of this matters.
 
veteranMortal said:
Hell, even the concept that Dunkirk would make Britain "lose the will to fight" is... broadly wrong, I'd say.
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Based on what? Loss of BEF would basically mean Britain no longer has an army, and there was genuine fear even in OTL that Britain might lose. Miracle at Dunkirk was massive morale boosters, nations don't keep fighting until bitter, most of the time. Without something to really rile up British public, what exactly is there to keep them in the fight?
 
Mandemon said:
Based on what? Loss of BEF would basically mean Britain no longer has an army, and there was genuine fear even in OTL that Britain might lose. Miracle at Dunkirk was massive morale boosters, nations don't keep fighting until bitter, most of the time. Without something to really rile up British public, what exactly is there to keep them in the fight?
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I mean, largely that the Germans can't touch them, so there's no urgent need to surrender, "not surrendering" has a colossal majority in Parliament, and that Britain had, like, another million men under arms, outside of the BEF?

I don't really know where people get the idea that the BEF was the entire British Army, its crazy. That's not the case at all!

Even if Britain did agree to an armistice, that only lasts until December 1941; as soon as the Japanese attack British Malaya, they're back in the war. Which means the Germans have, like, six months of free reign against the Soviets? That's not super different from IRL!

The whole concept is silly - Britain wasn't going to drop out of the war, and if they did, they'd be right back in the war before their absence could make a real difference - Britain was not sufficiently damaged by the Battle of France as to take any sort of peace which substantially advantages the Germans.
 
veteranMortal said:
It is genuinely crazy to make a whole AH timeline about Germany being able to win and the steel core holding the whole thing up is "pretend Pearl Harbor doesn't happen" because otherwise the yanks get involved and none of this matters.
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They get involved against Japan. An ATL where Germany does not make an alliance with Japan does not seem too out there.
 
veteranMortal said:
I mean, largely that the Germans can't touch them, so there's no urgent need to surrender, "not surrendering" has a colossal majority in Parliament, and that Britain had, like, another million men under arms, outside of the BEF?

I don't really know where people get the idea that the BEF was the entire British Army, its crazy. That's not the case at all!
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Their army is tied up in their colonies, and again: there is difference between "surrender" and "negotiate peace". Just because we know today that German invasion of Britain is impossible, British certainly at the time didn't think so.

This logic you are applying here is one that should dictate that US won Vietnam War, is still in Afghanistan and Iraq, and so forth. Again, remember that at this point entire war has been just one disaster after another for British. Morale is going to be at all time low. Without Dunkirk to boost that morale, there is very high chance that peace faction would prevail. Churchill might be someone who wants to keep fighting until the end, but he was not some undisputed ruler of Britain.

veteranMortal said:
Even if Britain did agree to an armistice, that only lasts until December 1941; as soon as the Japanese attack British Malaya, they're back in the war. Which means the Germans have, like, six months of free reign against the Soviets? That's not super different from IRL!
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That assumes Germany declares war on Britain, which it might not under its current circumstances. Remember, Japan did not declare war on Britain when Germany did. And that will force British to focus on Asia, and need to decide how to they are going to fight both Asia, and breach into continental Europe. Britain alone was never going to do D-Day style landing. It is entirely possible Germany decides not to resume conflict right away, seeing how they are busy elsewere.

It's rather unrealistic that Britain would instant launch some sort of D-Day without any aid from US, or Soviet Union having ground down most German forces. D-Day was already extremely risk even with OTL.

I think you are falling into mistake of looking what happened in OTL, and just sort of assuming everything proceed exactly like it did because it is some sort of fixed point in history. German victory is always unlikely, but their defeat was not written in stone. Hell, if we just look at numbers France should have been able to defeat Germany alone, with their superior tanks and far greater man power from the colonies... and yet, we know this went in OTL. France surrendered. Despite all the reasons you give supposing they would never surrender.
 
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Mandemon said:
Their army is tied up in their colonies, and again: there is difference between "surrender" and "negotiate peace". Just because we know today that German invasion of Britain is impossible, British certainly at the time didn't think so.

This logic you are applying here is one that should dictate that US won Vietnam War, is still in Afghanistan and Iraq, and so forth. Again, remember that at this point entire war has been just one disaster after another for British. Morale is going to be at all time low. Without Dunkirk to boost that morale, there is very high chance that peace faction would prevail. Churchill might be someone who wants to keep fighting until the end, but he was not some undisputed ruler of Britain.



That assumes Germany declares war on Britain, which it might. Remember, Japan did not declare war on Britain when Germany did. And that will force British to focus on Asia, and need to decide how to they are going to fight both Asia, and breach into continental Europe. Britain alone was never going to do D-Day style landing.

It's rather unrealistic that Britain would instant launch some sort of D-Day without any aid from US, or Soviet Union having ground down most German forces. D-Day was already extremely risk even with OTL.

I think you are falling into mistake of looking what happened in OTL, and just sort of assuming everything proceed exactly like it did because it is some sort of fixed point in history. German victory is always unlikely, but their defeat was not written in stone.
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It's really weird to claim that I said Britain would launch a D-Day "without any aid from US" - I never said that! I said Britain would rejoin the war, at which point the Germans need to increase their garrisons out west, and move some of the Luftwaffe over there to prevent the RAF from dropping fat ones on their cities, which puts their Soviet Campaign crashing back into its OTL path towards getting Bagrationed.

And no, my logic is that there was, and remained, a strong majority for continuing the war in Parliament - Churchill might not be an undisputed ruler of the UK, but Parliament is.

Britain might negotiate a peace - I think they probably wouldn't, actually, but they wouldn't give up a great deal in so doing, and they'd almost certainly continue rearming.

Given the parlous state of US-German relations, the Japanese - allied with the Germans for five years at this point - attacking the Americans would inevitably draw them into this war.

"What if Germany had just Won Dunkirk" isn't like, a shiny new concept for AH? It's actually really explored, and none of the consequences of it are remotely as broad as people think they are.
 
You might be forgetting that with peace ends the blockade of Germany.

You know, the main reason Germany was so desperate to get those oil fields.
 
It's also a huge mischaracterization of the UK peace-faction to say that Halifax would have been fine with an armistice that leaves Hitler in the position of hegemon of Europe in control of France and the Low Countries instead of, in his own words, a treaty that afforded Germany "the position to which its greatness entitles her, without prejudicing the freedom of other nations." Parliament isn't going to make any peace where the new Napoleon is given control of western Europe, especially when the RN and RAF so obviously prevent any potential naval invasion.

Also, contrary to what Mandemon is implying, the Isles themselves are still garrisoned even with the loss of the BEF. Not just the home guard, there's an entire South African division in SE England as well as a good number of Canadian regulars, with more arriving (and in training).
 
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So since Kamandi's a bit too far in the speculative future to be alternate history beyond diverging in thr 70's it's probably not wholly appropriate but on the other hand 'Mao-Tse-Tigers', 'United States of Lions' and 'Wolf Napoleaneks'
 
Seems pretty reasonable to me. No New Zealand tho.
 
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