The American Retreat (A Near-Future Scenario)
NOTE
This is a scenario of a possible near-future history, not a completely serious prediction. I'd be interested in hearing specific, rationally-based comments on the scenario given.
INTRODUCTION
We are in what future generations may term "The Terrorist War" (if we are unfortunate, what they may term the "First" Terrorist War to distinguish it from future such conflicts). This war embraces not only the campaign in Iraq but also that in Afghanistan and other campaigns elsewhere.
A war has two sides, and hence despite our great strength victory is far from certain. It is possible that America could lose the war politically: that domestic support could evaporate or national leadership fail at the test and cause us to conclude that the war was unwinnable or not worth fighting.
America, under such circumstances, might withdraw from active campaigning against the enemy. This would not signify the end of enemy action against America, but because the enemy's force projection capabilities are essentially limited to covert raiding, it would reduce operations to classical counterintelligence.
Because the war began with an essentially unprovoked and criminal Terrorist attack on American civilians in peacetime, and hence by the best casis bellum that we are ever likely to be offered short of an atomic attack on American cities, it is reasonable to conclude that an America in the wake of such a decision would be politically incapable of military operations anywhere else in the world, for any reason, for many years to come. (The belief by some that we would henceforth confine our operations to those sanctioned by the UN is naive: the UN means very little to American popular culture, and we would not be willing to risk American troops in UN sanctioned operations either under such political circumstances). Nor would America be willing to operate in support of her allies -- she would feel betrayed by her allies, and would probably cancel all her alliances in fact if not by treaty.
Thus, an American withdrawal from the Terrorist War would mean an American return to isolationism.
What would the global consequences of such a return to isolationism? What new power centers would emerge -- and after what sorts of conflicts?
For the sake of exploring this issue, we will assume a fairly "rational" Al Qaeda (though in truth "rational" is not the most obvious word to describe Al Qaeda). By this I mean that Al Qaeda realizes that American withdrawal from the Terrorist War is a good thing from their point of view, and does not respond with a major
attempt to hit America at home (successful major terrorist attacks on America would probably end the period of isolationism). Instead, anti-American terrorism is at a nuisance level, easily ignorable by the American government and population.
We may further assume that the American withdrawal occurs around 2009-10, so we're talking about very near-future technology here.
One general point: the American withdrawal would be(correctly) perceived in the Third World at least (no matter how the European media spun it) as a victory for terrorist tactics. So we may assume that terrorist activity of all kinds, against all targets, increases world wide. After all, it's just been demonstrated to be an effective means of achieving victory.
THE FOURTH INDO-PAKISTANI WAR (THE INDO-PAKISTANI HOLOCAUST)
One immediate effect of American withdrawal is the Pakistani Revolution. This country is, even today, teetering on the brink of an Islamic revolution, and the visible defeat of America tilts the balance over to the radicals. A "Taliban" type government takes power in Pakistan.
The Islamic Republic of Pakistan finds itself with atomic weapons and a strong grudge against India, which is not only a pagan regime in control of what had been dar-al-Islam but specifically dominating an Islamic population in Kashmir. The Pakistanis practice terrorist
tactics against India -- a larger and stronger nuclear power than their own.
The result is inevitable, though details of the timing may differ.
For argument's sake, we'll assume that the Indo-Pakistani Holocaust starts in the spring of 2010 over a terrorist attack which kills most of the Indian Parliament -- it is initially a conventional bomber and missile exchange which swiftly escalates to the use of nuclear weapons.
The target of dozens of nuclear weapons, their effects focused by the Indus River Valley, Pakistan suffers multiple hits to Karachi and at least one hit to every city. Most of the country is contaminated by fallout, because it all drains down the same river. Radiation sickness, plague, and famine are rampant. Pakistan disintegrates into rural warlordism.
India is the target of a smaller nuclear arsenal, and as a result suffers only one nuclear hit each to a number of cities and military bases. However, this is enough to collapse the Indian economy, resulting in secessionist movements in various provinces and general social chaos. There is famine, plague, and some radiation sickness.
Before the central government becomes incapable of supporting further offensive military operations, India wreaks a terrible revenge on Pakistan for the Indian dead. Indian aircraft roam the ravaged land on hunt missions, bombing and strafing every structure and vehicle
that they see. Indian troops slaughter town after town.
By the time the fighting slowly peters out, over 100 million Pakistanis and Indians, about equal amounts from each nation, lie dead. Iran annexes western and India annexes eastern Pakistan, and the troops of both sides glare at each other across the Indus River, ready for Round Two of the carnage.
THE MIDDLE EAST
The most obvious theater in which American withdrawal has consequences is the Middle East, because this is the theater in which the Terrorist War has been the hottest. Here, the power vacuum America leaves is entered primarily by the Shi'ite, Wahhabi, and Ba'athist Terrorist factions; secondarily by other countries interested in the oil resources (especially France, Germany, Russia, and China). What is important about the power shift is that (1) the new foreign entrants are weaker, compared to the Terrorists, in the Mideast than was America, and (2) none of the new foreign entrants are particularly concerned with promoting Mideastern democracy.
The first thing that happens is that the nascent democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq collapse. Afghanistan returns to religious warlordism, in which the Taliban probably succeeds in re-establishing control. Iraq fragments into a tripartite civil war, and possibly into three separate countries. The majority of those who stood up to oppose the Terrorists in the Terrorist War are murdered or forced to flee, meaning that the remainder are those not well-suited to democracy. Even if the Terrorists are driven out again here, these countries will not be democratic again for a generation or more.
The second thing that happens is the total collapse of any nuclear proliferation controls. There are now three main outside actors in the Mideast: Europe, Russia, and China. European leaders are readily corruptible by the Terrorists (as shown by the Oil For Food scandal); Russia desperately needs hard currency, and China is a rising unsatisfied power and thus quite willing to shake things up. With no one clear leader, there is also a "who will bell the cat?" problem -- any Power who tries to impose sanctions for proliferation loses access to cheap oil, but does not greatly improve her own position thereby.
Iran has probably already gone nuclear -- now she reveals her arsenal and ramps-up her weapons construction program. Syria, which has probably in real life received some of the Iraqi nuclear material hidden by the Saddam regime, also goes nuclear. There is probably also secondary proliferation -- the new Terrorist nuclear powers are almost certainly willing to sell everything to another Terrorist power that it can pay for, up to and including fully-functional atomic missiles.
While this is going on the third thing happens: the regimes of the "moderate" Arab states collapse, one by one. America is no longer giving them as much aid and most certainly not providing their regimes the implicit threat of American intervention against Islamic revolutions. In particular, Egypt and Saudi Arabia become Terrorist States; and probably in fairly short order members of the nuclear club (both have considerable wealth -- Egypt due to her population and Saudi Arabia due to her oil).
THE SIXTH ARAB-ISRAELI WAR
These three processes probably take a decade or so to work to completion, so we shall assume that it is in the late 2010's that the fourth thing happens: the Sixth Arab-Israeli War. Almost anything could have provoked it, but with Islamic fanatics on one side and the Israelis backed to the wall on the other, and both sides equipped with nuclear weapons, the result is an atomic war.
Israel has better technology and probably more weapons than all her enemies put together: this means that she has a good shot at intercepting most of the missiles fired at her. Israel is, however, geographically very confined, which means that each hit on her destroys a much larger percentage of her capabilities than the same hit would on her foes. Israel probably attacks every country "at war"
with her (meaning every Islamic country from Iran west to Libya with the exception of Turkey -- we'll assume that Egypt repudiated the Camp David Treaty and considers herself "at war" with Israel).
The scorecard at the end of the exchange might look like this:
ISRAEL -- Seriously damaged, especially in the far northern territory, the West Bank, and the Negev. Every Israeli city has probably taken at least one atomic hit or near-miss, but (as Hiroshima and Nagasaki proved) that leaves a lot of Israelis in them left alive and not suffering worse than mild radiation sickness. Jerusalem has probably not been hit directly, but its suburbs have been hit repeatedly and the city is temporarily uninhabitable. The Palestinian problem has been "solved," by all sides, because the Palestinians lack the emergency supplies needed to survive their bouts of radiation sickness and nobody is interested in giving it to them.
The follow-up conventional invasion of Israel probably failed, due to the superior equipment and skill of the IDF coupled with the unmatched ability to employ tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield. So Israel is still there, but surrounded by a "moat" of (temporarily) irradiated lands and dead and dying Arabs. It's actually possible that Israel grows in effective territorial control, because Israel has the technology to operate in contaminated areas and her enemies mostly don't.
However, this is far from a "victory." In population and economic terms, Israel is badly shrunken. Probably something like a quarter of the Israeli population, maybe as much as a half, have been killed in the war. The economy has crashed as badly as that of Weimar Germany. All but the most fanatical Israelis emigrate (probably to
America, where they feed a growing tide of hostility to Arabs and to Islam in the sleeping giant). All but the most fanatical Jews avoid immigrating to Israel.
What is left in Israel, if anything is left in Israel, is a small population of extremely militant fanatics, armed with atomic weapons and with a strong grudge against the whole Islamic world. They are murderously anti-Arab: they probably murder or expel any surviving Arabs in any territory held by their forces. They have no great love for America, Europe, or any part of the West: they have been abandoned by them.
The remnant of Israel continues to draw Terrorist attacks but now it is a very tough remnant (tactics like car or truck bombing, for instance, are now impractical as the surviving Israelis shoot any Arabs on sight), and most Terrorists seek softer targets.
Israel is probably doomed in the long term, though, because without the economic base its remaining weapons wear out. Unless someone intervenes, Israel is probably overrun, fort by fort, over the next quarter-century. So in a sense, the Terrorists have achieved their ends.
EGYPT - Is gone. The Israelis hit the Aswan Dam and a wall of water has annihilated not only modern Egypt but most of the remnants of ancient Egypt. Tens of millions of people died, in less than a day.
SYRIA - Is gone as a regional power. Damascus took multiple atomic hits and suffered the death of 80% or more of its population; other cities took single hits and suffered the death of 25% or more of their populations.
LIBYA - Is gone as an urban civilization. Survivors of the atomic attacks here take very heavy additional losses because their water sources have beeen destroyed or contaminated by the bombing. Oil production is interrupted, but quickly restored (probably by the French and Italians, who expand into the power vacuum).
MOROCCO, ALGERIA, TUNISIA - Are probably ok, because they are far from the war and mostly managed to remain neutral. It is possible that Algeria previously went Terrorist, in which case her major ports were bombed.
THE SUDAN - Gone as an urban civilization, because she is even today a Terrorist state and a particularly vicious one, and hence would get a few bombs (all that would be needed to collapse this marginal state).
JORDAN - Gone, because during the "collapse of minor allies" phase the Jordanian monarchy probably fell, a radical pro-Palestinian state took power, and Jordan got to be one of the major battlefields on which tactical nuclear weapons were used like popcorn. The cities are in
ruins, as are most major towns -- existence continues in the smaller towns, enlivened by famine, plague and radiation sickness.
SAUDI ARABIA - Gone _as a state_, because this monarchy almost certainly fell during the "collapse of minor allies" phase, and even "moderate" Saudi Arabia was a Terrorist sponsor against Israel. Riyadh, Mecca, and the other cities and large towns have been hit, and since survival in this arid region is marginal at best most of the survivors of the attack died of thirst. Oil supplies were interrupted but probably resumed as quickly as possible. I'd guess that Britain, here, would move into the power vacuum (because of old and traditional ties). Everything I said here probably goes for the "Trucial States" too, the minor Arab kingdoms of the Gulf and Indian Ocean, though some of them might have avoided Israeli atomic attention owing to their small size and innocuous nature.
IRAQ - Baghdad and Basra get nuked on general principles, because their mini-states are part of the Terrorist Axis. Kurdistan manages to avoid atomic attention. The oil supply is interrupted but restored by the French and Germans, who successfully snatch this plum from the British.
IRAN - As one of the major Islamic members of the Terrorist Axis, and one primarily responsible for the strike on Israel, Iran gets an atomic shellacking. Pretty much every city, base, and strategic target is hit. Iran started off fairly wealthy for a Third World country, but is knocked back down to Fourth World status, with rival
ayatollahs and warlords controlling parts of the country and a shadowy national government pretending to remain in power. The survivors are radically anti-Western. The oil supply here is interrupted for many years, as the chaos of the situation makes repair of the oil facilities dangerous and difficult.
(meanwhile, India, recovering from the Indo-Pakistani Holocaust, annexes the rest of Pakistan from an Iran no longer even remotely capable of holding the place).
GENERAL NOTES: The Sixth Arab-Israeli War (2018) costs some 50-100 million lives (depending on how the death toll is measured), wrecks a whole region, and causes a months-to-years-long interruption of the oil supply. The effects of the oil interruption are somewhat muffled by over a decade of increasing nuclearization of the First and Second World's power grid, but most of the Third and Fourth World are still dependent on oil and the result is massive inflation coupled with economic stagnation -- a worse version of the "stagflation" of the late 1970's. A global econmic depression ensues, which lasts through 2025.
THE EUROPEAN UNION
Europe has gotten what she wanted: an end to American meddling in world affairs. Now she has to live with her decision.
Europe became a target for increasing Islamic terrorism during the 2010's, and was unable to deal with it short of diplomatic protests and heightened security. A massive Islamic Fifth Column grew in many countries, especially France, and the Islamic terrorist groups took law enforcement activities against the Islamic population in Europe as belligerent provocations. In reaction, the European far right gained influence, and many European democracies, particularly France, are menaced by a growing fascist movement.
Partially in an attempt to appease the Islamics, there was at the same time a growth of European anti-Semitism, which became focused on Israel. Before the Sixth Arab-Israeli War, this helped diplomatically and economically isolate Israel: afterwards, the Israelis were viewed by the Europeans as "war criminals" for the large number of Islamics killed by the Israeli atomic strikes. This attitude prevented a junction of the European and the Israeli anti-Islamic sentiment to any good end.
In 2018 there were massive anti-Semitic riots on the part of the European Islamic populations. Only in Britain were these promptly put down by the law enforcement authorities; in most European countries the government forces stood aside or outright delivered Jewish victims to the hands of the mobs, in what were the first pogroms in Western Europe since the end of World War II.
However, the riots surged out of control. Islamic rioters soon turned their fury against European Christians and even atheists. Following the destruction of several famous cathederals, the European governments cracked down on the rioters and launched an organized suppression of Islam within the European Union. And, in most of Western Europe, "fascist-democrat" parties (openly racialist groups committed to the parliamentary process rather than outright Nazi revolutions) came to power.
Muslims were issued special identity papers and had their freedom of movement limited. Islamic organizations were broken up and Islamic leaders either deported or, in some cases, put in "special camps" for "subversive activities." Islamics were barred from most professions
and from government employment. In Germany, with a spectacular sense of either history or lack of history, these laws were first enforced in Nuremberg.
The European Left protested, and in some cases actively intervened to subvert the laws. They found little sympathy from the Fascist-Democrat regimes, who began to suppress them as well, to the limits allowed under the (modified) EU Charter. As a kinder, gentler Facsism descended over most of Europe, things were not quiet east of the EU's border either ...
THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
The events of 2004 had pushed Russia firmly over to anti-Islamicism. The "Russian Nationalist Party," another variety of Fascist Democracy (though the term was anathema to a country that still recalled the Second World War) took power and tightened up internal security controls on Islamics.
Russia economically recovered in the late 2000's and early 2010's, and invested a good deal of its newfound wealth in her military. Maintaining the peace with China and Europe, Russia used her newly regained military might in Central Asia. Newly formed and equipped forces drove into Chechnya and beyond.
Russia in the 1990's and early 2000's had been restraining herself to impress the United States of America. The newly Nationalist Russia, mourning terrorist victims and in a world where America had withdrawn, had no particular reason to hold back against the Muslim Central Asians.
The 2010's saw an anti-Muslim Holocaust in Central Asia. Islamic Central Asians were slaughtered in their villages, or rounded up and sent to "re-education camps" where they were worked to death developing the resources of Siberia. Nobody who Russia cared about protested or cared.
By 2020, about 75% of the Muslim Central Asian population was dead or fled into other countries. The remaineder had mostly been terrorized into complete passivity. Russia had won her War on Terror, using Stalinist techniques, and was not ashamed of her victory. A newly powerful and confident Russian Federation faced the future.
Powerful, confident ... and brutalized. Russia was still a democracy, but of a particularly ruthless and aggressive variety. Russian intellectuals were reviving talk of the "Third Rome." Certainly, Russia had become as murderous as the Roman Republic ever was.
THE FAR EAST
In 2009, as soon as she became aware that America was serious about withdrawing from the world, the People's Republic of China invaded and conquered Taiwan. Now the strongest power in her region, China began to build her power projection forces, with the long-run aim of dominating the trade around the Malaysian Peninsula and becoming the hegemon over Korea and Japan.
The new hegemon immediately faced a crisis when, in the winter of 2009-10, North Korea made extensive tributary demands on South Korea and Japan, to replace the food that America had been sending her.
South Korea complied but Japan did not, trusting to her new ballistic missile defenses and strengthened air force. China engaged in evasive diplomatic tactics, holding the carrot of aid before North Korea as a reward for good behavior.
In the spring of 2010, at the same time that the Indo-Pakistani Holocaust was convulsing Southern Asia, the Korean Holocaust convulsed Northeastern Asia. The North Koreans launched an unprovoked atomic attack on China, South Korea, and Japan, hoping that this would cause a global nuclear war and the apotheosis of the Young Leader.
China took some hits but managed to intercept those aimed at her major cities: the only serious hit she suffered was at Mukden. Japan intercepted almost all the North Korean missiles but suffered a near-miss to one of her smaller cities. South Korea lost Seoul to multiple and most other large cities to single atomic hits.
The sequel saw North Korea cease to exist. China pounded the country unmercifully with a massive atomic strike that saw multiple hits on every city and single hits on every large town. At the same time, the enraged Japanese launched hunt-and-destroy air missions against North Korea, with the intent of killing as many North Koreans as possible. South Korea recovered to the extent of repelling the North Korean invasion, but lacked the strength to begin a counterattack.
This all became moot when the Chinese Army invaded Korea. North Korea, already almost depopulated, was mostly an exercise in NBC survival techniques. South Korea, finding herself accused by the Chinese of "collaboration with the North Korean monsters," made some resistance but by the spring of 2011 all resistance collapsed. China was now the master of both Taiwan and the Korean peninsula.
The Chinese dragon went back to sleep to digest its meal, but the Japanese were outraged beyond all reason. They had been peaceful, and been struck anyway. The time for peacefulness was over. Throwing aside the constitutional limitations on the size of her military, Japan embarked upon a massive air, naval, nuclear, and strategic defense force construction program, with the aim of gaining air and naval superiority in the whole Western Pacific. China was the (unstated) object of the Japanese drive for deterrence.
And America watched from afar, happy not to be involved in foreign broils.
INDONESIA AND AUSTRALIA - THE OCEANIC NAVAL WAR
Indonesia took longer to succumb to the tide of Islamic fundamentalism than had most of the Islamic world. Indonesia had always been liberal by Islamic standards, and cared little about the Mideast or Israel. But with the victories of Islamic fundamentalism in the early 2010's,
the tug was irresistible. In 2015 the Islamic Republic of Indonesia was declared, and promptly set about exterminating and enslaving the pagan native populations under its control. In 2017 the Indonesians acquired atomic weapons from the Iranians, and also began expanding its naval and air forces to obtain the means of delivery.
Australia was alarmed by the rise of Indonesian fundamentalism. The Australians had suffered less from decadence than any other former British Dominion, and had been active participants throughout the Cold War and the Terrorist War. Australia had also remained friendly to the United States of America, and was rich enough to purchase significant air, sea, and ground assets from her American ally.
Australia had long tried to avoid going nuclear -- it had been obvious to them during the Cold War that if she presented little threat to the Soviet Union she would avoid more than a few atomic hits from that superpower -- but the increasing Indonesian threat made such a policy
clearly unworkable. The Australians invested massively in both nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants, using their native uranium to good effect.
In 2018, the Indonesian regime was further radicalized by the influx of refugees from the devastated Mideast. In 2019, the Indonesians began actively supporting anti-Australian terrorism, and in 2020 air and naval skirmishing became common between the Indonesians and Australians. The 2020's saw a twilight aeronaval war between Australia and Indonesia, fought mainly on and around archipelagos and with each other's homelands tacitly off-limits to any but covert action teams armed with conventional weapons. However, in 2024 the aeronaval war went nuclear, and by 2025 there was a frequent use of
tactical nuclear weapons. Escalation to strategic conflict appeared inevitable.
AFRICA
Ravaged by AIDS, strangled by interruptions to the oil supply and a depression in world trade, and invaded by mercenaries and refugees from the Mideast, things got worse in Africa. The French managed to maintain order in some of their former colonies -- elsewhere, conditions were truly terrible, with Malthusian dieoffs in many countries amounting to 50% of the pre-crisis populations. The only happy thing was that, for the most part, the factions were too small and poor to afford atomic weapons.
MEXICO, CENTRAL AMERICA, and THE CARRIBEAN
This was the one part of the world, outside North America itself, where the Pax Americana still prevailed. This region actually enjoyed an economic boom in the 2010's, because it became relatively attractive to investors. Furthermore, Mexican, Venezuelan, and Carribean oil allowed parts of the region to actually profit from the oil supply interruption of 2018.
SOUTH AMERICA
During this period, South America evolved to full First World status. South America was also attractive to investors in the 2010's, and enjoyed the major advantage of not having a significant Islamic minority and hence not having an Islamic Fifth Column. Argentina, Brazil, and Chile all became nuclear Great Powers, but avoided war with each other. Argentina and Chile began colonizing Antarctica (who would say nay to them?), while Brazil industrialized and computerized on a massive scale.
AMERICA
The United States of America enjoyed about a decade of holiday from the problems of the rest of the world. Airport, border, and coastal security had improved to the point where Terrorist attacks against America were easily thwarted: the internal Fifth Column was blunted by good counterintelligence and the American talent for assimilating foreigners into the American way of life. During this period the American consensus was that the interventionism of the decade and a half after the Cold War ended had been a mistake, and that things had now returned to "normal" -- the "normalcy" of most of American history, in which America was purely a Western ermispheric Power.
During this period the American economy boomed. Defense spending had dropped overall, though certain categories (especially strategic defense) were still well-funded. Power projection forces were vastly reduced: the US Navy retired most of its aircraft carriers; the US Air Force most of its strategic bombers. New sorts of close defense
forces were invented, including submersible missile boats, ultrafast hydrofoil destroyers, and the armored aerodyne gunship, which could operate from a parking lot or the deck of a freigher. America led in the Information Revolution, gaining in relative terms from the destruction of India and Korea and the re-armament of Japan.
There was a Sino-American Space Race, which led to the deployment of American and Chinese Moonbases by 2010 and a mostly American Mars landing in 2024. In this endeavor, Europe and Russia acted as minor partners to both sides, as the occasion had it.
Meanwhile, America outgrew her phobias regarding atomic energy. When the oil crunch came in 2018, America was independent of Mideastern oil, though America still suffered some of the effects of the global depression (it contracted the American export trade). By 2025, America was powerful, mostly over her bad experience in the Mideast, and by 2030 America was once again ready to get involved in world affairs.
This was a good thing, because by 2030, the rest of the world sorely needed America ...
WHY DIDN'T SOME OTHER POWER FILL THE VACUUM AND KEEP PEACE?
This is an objection that I'm sure many readers, especially Europeans, will have to this future history. The answer is both complex, and simple.
Put simply, a lot of other Powers did try to fill the vacuum left by American withdrawal, but they suffered from handicaps either in their motives or their perceptions which limited their ability to keep the peace. Taken one at a time ...
EUROPE's main limitation was that her elites had conditioned her populations to believe that effective intervention would involve UN resolutions and the dispatch of peacekeeping forces with the consent of local regimes. Thus, when the elites tried to take advantage of the American withdrawal to gain more power abroad, they were limited to dispatching very small and professional contingents with their economies on a peacetime footing. Europe had forgotten the effort required to actually win wars, and thus never put it forth. In a sense, Europe remained isolationist.
Europe's second problem was an anti-Semitic reflex that prevented her from effectively allying with Israel to control Islamic violence. Instead, Europe isolated Israel, a policy which led directly to the disastrous Sixth Arab-Israeli War. The effects of that war further weakened Europe and reduced European interest in involvement abroad.
When Europe finally did recover her courage, it was in a fascist, nativist form which was capable of curbing the domestic Islamic menace, but was incapable of making any sort of positive reach out to stablize the world situation. Again, Europe remained effectively isolationist.
The root cause was Europe's dependence on America for defense during the Cold War, which gave the Europeans an unrealistic attitude towards foreign affairs. When America ended the alliance and returned to isolationism, the Europeans did not have the strength or resolve to
defend their interests abroad.
RUSSIA did fill the power vacuum and stablize the situation -- they restored Russia to its Tsarist-sized empire, crushing the Islamic Central Asians. This was a very nasty and bloody process, because they stablized the situation using Russian methods -- conquest, oppression, and massive internal terror.
CHINA was not interested in stablizing the situation in any mutually beneficial way, they were interested in expansion. (They were an "unsatiated" Great Power). They surged into the power vacuum left in
Taiwan and Korea left by American withdrawal. Once they had done so, they were satiated, and took only a minor interest in further expansion on Earth, devoting themselves to economic expansion and to the Second Space Race.
JAPAN was lost in her pacifist dream until the North Koreans hit her. Then she found herself too weak in power projection terms to do more than harass the dying North Koreans. Humiliated by this, Japan reacted by building up her military. In the future, she will most definitely attempt foreign interventions, but whether this stablizes or worsens the situation remains to be seen.
AUSTRALIA is too weak to "stablize" Oceania, but she is effectively checking Indonesian expansion until either Australia's might waxes or until an ally steps in to change the correlation of forces.
INDONESIA, of course, is a disruptive rather than stablizing force.
INDIA, ISRAEL, PAKISTAN, IRAN, KOREA, and the ARAB WORLD have been destroyed in the initial inrush of forces from 2009 through 2018, at least as significant Powers.
THE SIMPLEST ANSWER is that when a former hegemonic power retreats or weakens, lots of forces rush into the power vacuum left, and they tend to collide violently. Witness the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean after the decline of Crete in the Late Bronze Age, or in Western Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. In the given
situations, including the American Retreat, none of the forces were strong or skilled enough to dominate, and hence they tended to work at cross-purposes to each other, worsening the chaos until a process of Darwinian selection had weeded out the less "fit" competitors and resulted in the emergence of a stabler balance of power.
Such a selection process can be, of course, very costly in human terms. It is estimated that in the deacade from 2009 through 2018 inclusive, a quarter of a billion human beings died in the wars resulting from the American Retreat. Such can be the cost of "giving peace a chance."
END
This is a scenario of a possible near-future history, not a completely serious prediction. I'd be interested in hearing specific, rationally-based comments on the scenario given.
INTRODUCTION
We are in what future generations may term "The Terrorist War" (if we are unfortunate, what they may term the "First" Terrorist War to distinguish it from future such conflicts). This war embraces not only the campaign in Iraq but also that in Afghanistan and other campaigns elsewhere.
A war has two sides, and hence despite our great strength victory is far from certain. It is possible that America could lose the war politically: that domestic support could evaporate or national leadership fail at the test and cause us to conclude that the war was unwinnable or not worth fighting.
America, under such circumstances, might withdraw from active campaigning against the enemy. This would not signify the end of enemy action against America, but because the enemy's force projection capabilities are essentially limited to covert raiding, it would reduce operations to classical counterintelligence.
Because the war began with an essentially unprovoked and criminal Terrorist attack on American civilians in peacetime, and hence by the best casis bellum that we are ever likely to be offered short of an atomic attack on American cities, it is reasonable to conclude that an America in the wake of such a decision would be politically incapable of military operations anywhere else in the world, for any reason, for many years to come. (The belief by some that we would henceforth confine our operations to those sanctioned by the UN is naive: the UN means very little to American popular culture, and we would not be willing to risk American troops in UN sanctioned operations either under such political circumstances). Nor would America be willing to operate in support of her allies -- she would feel betrayed by her allies, and would probably cancel all her alliances in fact if not by treaty.
Thus, an American withdrawal from the Terrorist War would mean an American return to isolationism.
What would the global consequences of such a return to isolationism? What new power centers would emerge -- and after what sorts of conflicts?
For the sake of exploring this issue, we will assume a fairly "rational" Al Qaeda (though in truth "rational" is not the most obvious word to describe Al Qaeda). By this I mean that Al Qaeda realizes that American withdrawal from the Terrorist War is a good thing from their point of view, and does not respond with a major
attempt to hit America at home (successful major terrorist attacks on America would probably end the period of isolationism). Instead, anti-American terrorism is at a nuisance level, easily ignorable by the American government and population.
We may further assume that the American withdrawal occurs around 2009-10, so we're talking about very near-future technology here.
One general point: the American withdrawal would be(correctly) perceived in the Third World at least (no matter how the European media spun it) as a victory for terrorist tactics. So we may assume that terrorist activity of all kinds, against all targets, increases world wide. After all, it's just been demonstrated to be an effective means of achieving victory.
THE FOURTH INDO-PAKISTANI WAR (THE INDO-PAKISTANI HOLOCAUST)
One immediate effect of American withdrawal is the Pakistani Revolution. This country is, even today, teetering on the brink of an Islamic revolution, and the visible defeat of America tilts the balance over to the radicals. A "Taliban" type government takes power in Pakistan.
The Islamic Republic of Pakistan finds itself with atomic weapons and a strong grudge against India, which is not only a pagan regime in control of what had been dar-al-Islam but specifically dominating an Islamic population in Kashmir. The Pakistanis practice terrorist
tactics against India -- a larger and stronger nuclear power than their own.
The result is inevitable, though details of the timing may differ.
For argument's sake, we'll assume that the Indo-Pakistani Holocaust starts in the spring of 2010 over a terrorist attack which kills most of the Indian Parliament -- it is initially a conventional bomber and missile exchange which swiftly escalates to the use of nuclear weapons.
The target of dozens of nuclear weapons, their effects focused by the Indus River Valley, Pakistan suffers multiple hits to Karachi and at least one hit to every city. Most of the country is contaminated by fallout, because it all drains down the same river. Radiation sickness, plague, and famine are rampant. Pakistan disintegrates into rural warlordism.
India is the target of a smaller nuclear arsenal, and as a result suffers only one nuclear hit each to a number of cities and military bases. However, this is enough to collapse the Indian economy, resulting in secessionist movements in various provinces and general social chaos. There is famine, plague, and some radiation sickness.
Before the central government becomes incapable of supporting further offensive military operations, India wreaks a terrible revenge on Pakistan for the Indian dead. Indian aircraft roam the ravaged land on hunt missions, bombing and strafing every structure and vehicle
that they see. Indian troops slaughter town after town.
By the time the fighting slowly peters out, over 100 million Pakistanis and Indians, about equal amounts from each nation, lie dead. Iran annexes western and India annexes eastern Pakistan, and the troops of both sides glare at each other across the Indus River, ready for Round Two of the carnage.
THE MIDDLE EAST
The most obvious theater in which American withdrawal has consequences is the Middle East, because this is the theater in which the Terrorist War has been the hottest. Here, the power vacuum America leaves is entered primarily by the Shi'ite, Wahhabi, and Ba'athist Terrorist factions; secondarily by other countries interested in the oil resources (especially France, Germany, Russia, and China). What is important about the power shift is that (1) the new foreign entrants are weaker, compared to the Terrorists, in the Mideast than was America, and (2) none of the new foreign entrants are particularly concerned with promoting Mideastern democracy.
The first thing that happens is that the nascent democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq collapse. Afghanistan returns to religious warlordism, in which the Taliban probably succeeds in re-establishing control. Iraq fragments into a tripartite civil war, and possibly into three separate countries. The majority of those who stood up to oppose the Terrorists in the Terrorist War are murdered or forced to flee, meaning that the remainder are those not well-suited to democracy. Even if the Terrorists are driven out again here, these countries will not be democratic again for a generation or more.
The second thing that happens is the total collapse of any nuclear proliferation controls. There are now three main outside actors in the Mideast: Europe, Russia, and China. European leaders are readily corruptible by the Terrorists (as shown by the Oil For Food scandal); Russia desperately needs hard currency, and China is a rising unsatisfied power and thus quite willing to shake things up. With no one clear leader, there is also a "who will bell the cat?" problem -- any Power who tries to impose sanctions for proliferation loses access to cheap oil, but does not greatly improve her own position thereby.
Iran has probably already gone nuclear -- now she reveals her arsenal and ramps-up her weapons construction program. Syria, which has probably in real life received some of the Iraqi nuclear material hidden by the Saddam regime, also goes nuclear. There is probably also secondary proliferation -- the new Terrorist nuclear powers are almost certainly willing to sell everything to another Terrorist power that it can pay for, up to and including fully-functional atomic missiles.
While this is going on the third thing happens: the regimes of the "moderate" Arab states collapse, one by one. America is no longer giving them as much aid and most certainly not providing their regimes the implicit threat of American intervention against Islamic revolutions. In particular, Egypt and Saudi Arabia become Terrorist States; and probably in fairly short order members of the nuclear club (both have considerable wealth -- Egypt due to her population and Saudi Arabia due to her oil).
THE SIXTH ARAB-ISRAELI WAR
These three processes probably take a decade or so to work to completion, so we shall assume that it is in the late 2010's that the fourth thing happens: the Sixth Arab-Israeli War. Almost anything could have provoked it, but with Islamic fanatics on one side and the Israelis backed to the wall on the other, and both sides equipped with nuclear weapons, the result is an atomic war.
Israel has better technology and probably more weapons than all her enemies put together: this means that she has a good shot at intercepting most of the missiles fired at her. Israel is, however, geographically very confined, which means that each hit on her destroys a much larger percentage of her capabilities than the same hit would on her foes. Israel probably attacks every country "at war"
with her (meaning every Islamic country from Iran west to Libya with the exception of Turkey -- we'll assume that Egypt repudiated the Camp David Treaty and considers herself "at war" with Israel).
The scorecard at the end of the exchange might look like this:
ISRAEL -- Seriously damaged, especially in the far northern territory, the West Bank, and the Negev. Every Israeli city has probably taken at least one atomic hit or near-miss, but (as Hiroshima and Nagasaki proved) that leaves a lot of Israelis in them left alive and not suffering worse than mild radiation sickness. Jerusalem has probably not been hit directly, but its suburbs have been hit repeatedly and the city is temporarily uninhabitable. The Palestinian problem has been "solved," by all sides, because the Palestinians lack the emergency supplies needed to survive their bouts of radiation sickness and nobody is interested in giving it to them.
The follow-up conventional invasion of Israel probably failed, due to the superior equipment and skill of the IDF coupled with the unmatched ability to employ tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield. So Israel is still there, but surrounded by a "moat" of (temporarily) irradiated lands and dead and dying Arabs. It's actually possible that Israel grows in effective territorial control, because Israel has the technology to operate in contaminated areas and her enemies mostly don't.
However, this is far from a "victory." In population and economic terms, Israel is badly shrunken. Probably something like a quarter of the Israeli population, maybe as much as a half, have been killed in the war. The economy has crashed as badly as that of Weimar Germany. All but the most fanatical Israelis emigrate (probably to
America, where they feed a growing tide of hostility to Arabs and to Islam in the sleeping giant). All but the most fanatical Jews avoid immigrating to Israel.
What is left in Israel, if anything is left in Israel, is a small population of extremely militant fanatics, armed with atomic weapons and with a strong grudge against the whole Islamic world. They are murderously anti-Arab: they probably murder or expel any surviving Arabs in any territory held by their forces. They have no great love for America, Europe, or any part of the West: they have been abandoned by them.
The remnant of Israel continues to draw Terrorist attacks but now it is a very tough remnant (tactics like car or truck bombing, for instance, are now impractical as the surviving Israelis shoot any Arabs on sight), and most Terrorists seek softer targets.
Israel is probably doomed in the long term, though, because without the economic base its remaining weapons wear out. Unless someone intervenes, Israel is probably overrun, fort by fort, over the next quarter-century. So in a sense, the Terrorists have achieved their ends.
EGYPT - Is gone. The Israelis hit the Aswan Dam and a wall of water has annihilated not only modern Egypt but most of the remnants of ancient Egypt. Tens of millions of people died, in less than a day.
SYRIA - Is gone as a regional power. Damascus took multiple atomic hits and suffered the death of 80% or more of its population; other cities took single hits and suffered the death of 25% or more of their populations.
LIBYA - Is gone as an urban civilization. Survivors of the atomic attacks here take very heavy additional losses because their water sources have beeen destroyed or contaminated by the bombing. Oil production is interrupted, but quickly restored (probably by the French and Italians, who expand into the power vacuum).
MOROCCO, ALGERIA, TUNISIA - Are probably ok, because they are far from the war and mostly managed to remain neutral. It is possible that Algeria previously went Terrorist, in which case her major ports were bombed.
THE SUDAN - Gone as an urban civilization, because she is even today a Terrorist state and a particularly vicious one, and hence would get a few bombs (all that would be needed to collapse this marginal state).
JORDAN - Gone, because during the "collapse of minor allies" phase the Jordanian monarchy probably fell, a radical pro-Palestinian state took power, and Jordan got to be one of the major battlefields on which tactical nuclear weapons were used like popcorn. The cities are in
ruins, as are most major towns -- existence continues in the smaller towns, enlivened by famine, plague and radiation sickness.
SAUDI ARABIA - Gone _as a state_, because this monarchy almost certainly fell during the "collapse of minor allies" phase, and even "moderate" Saudi Arabia was a Terrorist sponsor against Israel. Riyadh, Mecca, and the other cities and large towns have been hit, and since survival in this arid region is marginal at best most of the survivors of the attack died of thirst. Oil supplies were interrupted but probably resumed as quickly as possible. I'd guess that Britain, here, would move into the power vacuum (because of old and traditional ties). Everything I said here probably goes for the "Trucial States" too, the minor Arab kingdoms of the Gulf and Indian Ocean, though some of them might have avoided Israeli atomic attention owing to their small size and innocuous nature.
IRAQ - Baghdad and Basra get nuked on general principles, because their mini-states are part of the Terrorist Axis. Kurdistan manages to avoid atomic attention. The oil supply is interrupted but restored by the French and Germans, who successfully snatch this plum from the British.
IRAN - As one of the major Islamic members of the Terrorist Axis, and one primarily responsible for the strike on Israel, Iran gets an atomic shellacking. Pretty much every city, base, and strategic target is hit. Iran started off fairly wealthy for a Third World country, but is knocked back down to Fourth World status, with rival
ayatollahs and warlords controlling parts of the country and a shadowy national government pretending to remain in power. The survivors are radically anti-Western. The oil supply here is interrupted for many years, as the chaos of the situation makes repair of the oil facilities dangerous and difficult.
(meanwhile, India, recovering from the Indo-Pakistani Holocaust, annexes the rest of Pakistan from an Iran no longer even remotely capable of holding the place).
GENERAL NOTES: The Sixth Arab-Israeli War (2018) costs some 50-100 million lives (depending on how the death toll is measured), wrecks a whole region, and causes a months-to-years-long interruption of the oil supply. The effects of the oil interruption are somewhat muffled by over a decade of increasing nuclearization of the First and Second World's power grid, but most of the Third and Fourth World are still dependent on oil and the result is massive inflation coupled with economic stagnation -- a worse version of the "stagflation" of the late 1970's. A global econmic depression ensues, which lasts through 2025.
THE EUROPEAN UNION
Europe has gotten what she wanted: an end to American meddling in world affairs. Now she has to live with her decision.
Europe became a target for increasing Islamic terrorism during the 2010's, and was unable to deal with it short of diplomatic protests and heightened security. A massive Islamic Fifth Column grew in many countries, especially France, and the Islamic terrorist groups took law enforcement activities against the Islamic population in Europe as belligerent provocations. In reaction, the European far right gained influence, and many European democracies, particularly France, are menaced by a growing fascist movement.
Partially in an attempt to appease the Islamics, there was at the same time a growth of European anti-Semitism, which became focused on Israel. Before the Sixth Arab-Israeli War, this helped diplomatically and economically isolate Israel: afterwards, the Israelis were viewed by the Europeans as "war criminals" for the large number of Islamics killed by the Israeli atomic strikes. This attitude prevented a junction of the European and the Israeli anti-Islamic sentiment to any good end.
In 2018 there were massive anti-Semitic riots on the part of the European Islamic populations. Only in Britain were these promptly put down by the law enforcement authorities; in most European countries the government forces stood aside or outright delivered Jewish victims to the hands of the mobs, in what were the first pogroms in Western Europe since the end of World War II.
However, the riots surged out of control. Islamic rioters soon turned their fury against European Christians and even atheists. Following the destruction of several famous cathederals, the European governments cracked down on the rioters and launched an organized suppression of Islam within the European Union. And, in most of Western Europe, "fascist-democrat" parties (openly racialist groups committed to the parliamentary process rather than outright Nazi revolutions) came to power.
Muslims were issued special identity papers and had their freedom of movement limited. Islamic organizations were broken up and Islamic leaders either deported or, in some cases, put in "special camps" for "subversive activities." Islamics were barred from most professions
and from government employment. In Germany, with a spectacular sense of either history or lack of history, these laws were first enforced in Nuremberg.
The European Left protested, and in some cases actively intervened to subvert the laws. They found little sympathy from the Fascist-Democrat regimes, who began to suppress them as well, to the limits allowed under the (modified) EU Charter. As a kinder, gentler Facsism descended over most of Europe, things were not quiet east of the EU's border either ...
THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
The events of 2004 had pushed Russia firmly over to anti-Islamicism. The "Russian Nationalist Party," another variety of Fascist Democracy (though the term was anathema to a country that still recalled the Second World War) took power and tightened up internal security controls on Islamics.
Russia economically recovered in the late 2000's and early 2010's, and invested a good deal of its newfound wealth in her military. Maintaining the peace with China and Europe, Russia used her newly regained military might in Central Asia. Newly formed and equipped forces drove into Chechnya and beyond.
Russia in the 1990's and early 2000's had been restraining herself to impress the United States of America. The newly Nationalist Russia, mourning terrorist victims and in a world where America had withdrawn, had no particular reason to hold back against the Muslim Central Asians.
The 2010's saw an anti-Muslim Holocaust in Central Asia. Islamic Central Asians were slaughtered in their villages, or rounded up and sent to "re-education camps" where they were worked to death developing the resources of Siberia. Nobody who Russia cared about protested or cared.
By 2020, about 75% of the Muslim Central Asian population was dead or fled into other countries. The remaineder had mostly been terrorized into complete passivity. Russia had won her War on Terror, using Stalinist techniques, and was not ashamed of her victory. A newly powerful and confident Russian Federation faced the future.
Powerful, confident ... and brutalized. Russia was still a democracy, but of a particularly ruthless and aggressive variety. Russian intellectuals were reviving talk of the "Third Rome." Certainly, Russia had become as murderous as the Roman Republic ever was.
THE FAR EAST
In 2009, as soon as she became aware that America was serious about withdrawing from the world, the People's Republic of China invaded and conquered Taiwan. Now the strongest power in her region, China began to build her power projection forces, with the long-run aim of dominating the trade around the Malaysian Peninsula and becoming the hegemon over Korea and Japan.
The new hegemon immediately faced a crisis when, in the winter of 2009-10, North Korea made extensive tributary demands on South Korea and Japan, to replace the food that America had been sending her.
South Korea complied but Japan did not, trusting to her new ballistic missile defenses and strengthened air force. China engaged in evasive diplomatic tactics, holding the carrot of aid before North Korea as a reward for good behavior.
In the spring of 2010, at the same time that the Indo-Pakistani Holocaust was convulsing Southern Asia, the Korean Holocaust convulsed Northeastern Asia. The North Koreans launched an unprovoked atomic attack on China, South Korea, and Japan, hoping that this would cause a global nuclear war and the apotheosis of the Young Leader.
China took some hits but managed to intercept those aimed at her major cities: the only serious hit she suffered was at Mukden. Japan intercepted almost all the North Korean missiles but suffered a near-miss to one of her smaller cities. South Korea lost Seoul to multiple and most other large cities to single atomic hits.
The sequel saw North Korea cease to exist. China pounded the country unmercifully with a massive atomic strike that saw multiple hits on every city and single hits on every large town. At the same time, the enraged Japanese launched hunt-and-destroy air missions against North Korea, with the intent of killing as many North Koreans as possible. South Korea recovered to the extent of repelling the North Korean invasion, but lacked the strength to begin a counterattack.
This all became moot when the Chinese Army invaded Korea. North Korea, already almost depopulated, was mostly an exercise in NBC survival techniques. South Korea, finding herself accused by the Chinese of "collaboration with the North Korean monsters," made some resistance but by the spring of 2011 all resistance collapsed. China was now the master of both Taiwan and the Korean peninsula.
The Chinese dragon went back to sleep to digest its meal, but the Japanese were outraged beyond all reason. They had been peaceful, and been struck anyway. The time for peacefulness was over. Throwing aside the constitutional limitations on the size of her military, Japan embarked upon a massive air, naval, nuclear, and strategic defense force construction program, with the aim of gaining air and naval superiority in the whole Western Pacific. China was the (unstated) object of the Japanese drive for deterrence.
And America watched from afar, happy not to be involved in foreign broils.
INDONESIA AND AUSTRALIA - THE OCEANIC NAVAL WAR
Indonesia took longer to succumb to the tide of Islamic fundamentalism than had most of the Islamic world. Indonesia had always been liberal by Islamic standards, and cared little about the Mideast or Israel. But with the victories of Islamic fundamentalism in the early 2010's,
the tug was irresistible. In 2015 the Islamic Republic of Indonesia was declared, and promptly set about exterminating and enslaving the pagan native populations under its control. In 2017 the Indonesians acquired atomic weapons from the Iranians, and also began expanding its naval and air forces to obtain the means of delivery.
Australia was alarmed by the rise of Indonesian fundamentalism. The Australians had suffered less from decadence than any other former British Dominion, and had been active participants throughout the Cold War and the Terrorist War. Australia had also remained friendly to the United States of America, and was rich enough to purchase significant air, sea, and ground assets from her American ally.
Australia had long tried to avoid going nuclear -- it had been obvious to them during the Cold War that if she presented little threat to the Soviet Union she would avoid more than a few atomic hits from that superpower -- but the increasing Indonesian threat made such a policy
clearly unworkable. The Australians invested massively in both nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants, using their native uranium to good effect.
In 2018, the Indonesian regime was further radicalized by the influx of refugees from the devastated Mideast. In 2019, the Indonesians began actively supporting anti-Australian terrorism, and in 2020 air and naval skirmishing became common between the Indonesians and Australians. The 2020's saw a twilight aeronaval war between Australia and Indonesia, fought mainly on and around archipelagos and with each other's homelands tacitly off-limits to any but covert action teams armed with conventional weapons. However, in 2024 the aeronaval war went nuclear, and by 2025 there was a frequent use of
tactical nuclear weapons. Escalation to strategic conflict appeared inevitable.
AFRICA
Ravaged by AIDS, strangled by interruptions to the oil supply and a depression in world trade, and invaded by mercenaries and refugees from the Mideast, things got worse in Africa. The French managed to maintain order in some of their former colonies -- elsewhere, conditions were truly terrible, with Malthusian dieoffs in many countries amounting to 50% of the pre-crisis populations. The only happy thing was that, for the most part, the factions were too small and poor to afford atomic weapons.
MEXICO, CENTRAL AMERICA, and THE CARRIBEAN
This was the one part of the world, outside North America itself, where the Pax Americana still prevailed. This region actually enjoyed an economic boom in the 2010's, because it became relatively attractive to investors. Furthermore, Mexican, Venezuelan, and Carribean oil allowed parts of the region to actually profit from the oil supply interruption of 2018.
SOUTH AMERICA
During this period, South America evolved to full First World status. South America was also attractive to investors in the 2010's, and enjoyed the major advantage of not having a significant Islamic minority and hence not having an Islamic Fifth Column. Argentina, Brazil, and Chile all became nuclear Great Powers, but avoided war with each other. Argentina and Chile began colonizing Antarctica (who would say nay to them?), while Brazil industrialized and computerized on a massive scale.
AMERICA
The United States of America enjoyed about a decade of holiday from the problems of the rest of the world. Airport, border, and coastal security had improved to the point where Terrorist attacks against America were easily thwarted: the internal Fifth Column was blunted by good counterintelligence and the American talent for assimilating foreigners into the American way of life. During this period the American consensus was that the interventionism of the decade and a half after the Cold War ended had been a mistake, and that things had now returned to "normal" -- the "normalcy" of most of American history, in which America was purely a Western ermispheric Power.
During this period the American economy boomed. Defense spending had dropped overall, though certain categories (especially strategic defense) were still well-funded. Power projection forces were vastly reduced: the US Navy retired most of its aircraft carriers; the US Air Force most of its strategic bombers. New sorts of close defense
forces were invented, including submersible missile boats, ultrafast hydrofoil destroyers, and the armored aerodyne gunship, which could operate from a parking lot or the deck of a freigher. America led in the Information Revolution, gaining in relative terms from the destruction of India and Korea and the re-armament of Japan.
There was a Sino-American Space Race, which led to the deployment of American and Chinese Moonbases by 2010 and a mostly American Mars landing in 2024. In this endeavor, Europe and Russia acted as minor partners to both sides, as the occasion had it.
Meanwhile, America outgrew her phobias regarding atomic energy. When the oil crunch came in 2018, America was independent of Mideastern oil, though America still suffered some of the effects of the global depression (it contracted the American export trade). By 2025, America was powerful, mostly over her bad experience in the Mideast, and by 2030 America was once again ready to get involved in world affairs.
This was a good thing, because by 2030, the rest of the world sorely needed America ...
WHY DIDN'T SOME OTHER POWER FILL THE VACUUM AND KEEP PEACE?
This is an objection that I'm sure many readers, especially Europeans, will have to this future history. The answer is both complex, and simple.
Put simply, a lot of other Powers did try to fill the vacuum left by American withdrawal, but they suffered from handicaps either in their motives or their perceptions which limited their ability to keep the peace. Taken one at a time ...
EUROPE's main limitation was that her elites had conditioned her populations to believe that effective intervention would involve UN resolutions and the dispatch of peacekeeping forces with the consent of local regimes. Thus, when the elites tried to take advantage of the American withdrawal to gain more power abroad, they were limited to dispatching very small and professional contingents with their economies on a peacetime footing. Europe had forgotten the effort required to actually win wars, and thus never put it forth. In a sense, Europe remained isolationist.
Europe's second problem was an anti-Semitic reflex that prevented her from effectively allying with Israel to control Islamic violence. Instead, Europe isolated Israel, a policy which led directly to the disastrous Sixth Arab-Israeli War. The effects of that war further weakened Europe and reduced European interest in involvement abroad.
When Europe finally did recover her courage, it was in a fascist, nativist form which was capable of curbing the domestic Islamic menace, but was incapable of making any sort of positive reach out to stablize the world situation. Again, Europe remained effectively isolationist.
The root cause was Europe's dependence on America for defense during the Cold War, which gave the Europeans an unrealistic attitude towards foreign affairs. When America ended the alliance and returned to isolationism, the Europeans did not have the strength or resolve to
defend their interests abroad.
RUSSIA did fill the power vacuum and stablize the situation -- they restored Russia to its Tsarist-sized empire, crushing the Islamic Central Asians. This was a very nasty and bloody process, because they stablized the situation using Russian methods -- conquest, oppression, and massive internal terror.
CHINA was not interested in stablizing the situation in any mutually beneficial way, they were interested in expansion. (They were an "unsatiated" Great Power). They surged into the power vacuum left in
Taiwan and Korea left by American withdrawal. Once they had done so, they were satiated, and took only a minor interest in further expansion on Earth, devoting themselves to economic expansion and to the Second Space Race.
JAPAN was lost in her pacifist dream until the North Koreans hit her. Then she found herself too weak in power projection terms to do more than harass the dying North Koreans. Humiliated by this, Japan reacted by building up her military. In the future, she will most definitely attempt foreign interventions, but whether this stablizes or worsens the situation remains to be seen.
AUSTRALIA is too weak to "stablize" Oceania, but she is effectively checking Indonesian expansion until either Australia's might waxes or until an ally steps in to change the correlation of forces.
INDONESIA, of course, is a disruptive rather than stablizing force.
INDIA, ISRAEL, PAKISTAN, IRAN, KOREA, and the ARAB WORLD have been destroyed in the initial inrush of forces from 2009 through 2018, at least as significant Powers.
THE SIMPLEST ANSWER is that when a former hegemonic power retreats or weakens, lots of forces rush into the power vacuum left, and they tend to collide violently. Witness the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean after the decline of Crete in the Late Bronze Age, or in Western Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. In the given
situations, including the American Retreat, none of the forces were strong or skilled enough to dominate, and hence they tended to work at cross-purposes to each other, worsening the chaos until a process of Darwinian selection had weeded out the less "fit" competitors and resulted in the emergence of a stabler balance of power.
Such a selection process can be, of course, very costly in human terms. It is estimated that in the deacade from 2009 through 2018 inclusive, a quarter of a billion human beings died in the wars resulting from the American Retreat. Such can be the cost of "giving peace a chance."
END