What if all Axis occupied territories and their maritime EEZs from July 15th, 1943 are ISOT to July 15th 1993?

[raharris1973]

What if all Axis occupied territories and their maritime EEZs from July 15th, 1943 are ISOT to July 15th 1993?

Here are the relevant maps - close enough, maps as of 1 July

European-Mediterranean Theater:

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/1943-07-01GerWW2BattlefrontAtlas.jpg


Asia-Pacific Front:

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/1943-07-01JapWW2BattlefrontAtlas.jpg

Most relevant deviation, July 15th is five days into Operation Husky, the Allied Invasion and Sicily, and all of 1943 Sicily, including the downtime Allied invading forces and the supporting Allied fleet in Sicilian waters, comes with the island. Battlefront map: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_invasion_of_Sicily#/media/File:Sicilymap2.jpg

On land, for the most part, the boundary between uptime and downtime is at the Axis and Allied forward line of troops or no-man's land in between, so the Axis side is downtime 1943 and the Allied side, or across the border into neutral countries is uptime 1993. The divide continues in a vertical column up through the whole atmosphere and down underground to below the earth's crust. so in the skies over Axis lands, its likely to be majority Axis aircraft overall, but Allied aircraft over Axis airspace make the time travel also. In certain cases of mixed occupation of certain islands, like Sicily and New Guinea, the whole island is the downtime version, Axis and Allied militaries both, and the 1943 civilian populations. So 1993 will get reacquainted with Patton, and depending on his travel schedule, MacArthur.

On land in Europe, the 1943 European Axis borders the 1993 Russian Federation under Boris Yeltsin, which has been hammered by late Soviet stagnation and post-Soviet economic collapse and shock therapy. It also borders with neutral 1993 Sweden under Prime Minister Carl Bildt. What the Axis thinks as neutral , but with NATO obligations in 1993, Turkey under PM Ms. Tansu Ciller, and Spain PM Felipe Gonzalez. Britain's PM is John Major. In the wider neighborhood, Yitzhak Rabin is PM of Israel. The Middle East and North Africa and all Africa and South and Central Asia all have their 1993 populations, infrastructures, and leaders.

An important detail here is that the 1993 French President Mitterand, PM Juppe, inner Cabinet, special forces, navy, Air Force, and intelligence services are not overwritten but relocated to the French Caribbean departments of Guadalupe, Martinique, and Guiana.

British forces in continental Europe as of 1993 are relocated back to the United Kingdom. United States forces in continental Europe as of 1993 are relocated back to the United States. Russian Federation forces located in former Soviet and Warsaw Pact lands are transported to unoccupied parts of the Russian Federation instead of being overwritten. The Dutch monarch, PM, special forces, intelligence services, navy, and Air Force are relocated to the Dutch Caribbean instead of being overwritten, and the same situation obtains for the Danish government and services with Greenland.

In Asia and the Pacific, things work similarly. Countries wholly occupied by Japan are overwritten by their 1943 versions. But Russian Federation forces in South Sakhalin and the Kuriles are merely teleported to the nearest unoccupied parts of the Russian Federation. Burmese forces to the nearest unoccupied parts of Burma. Residual 1993 Indonesian forces exist in southwest Papua. 1993 US forces in Japan (incl. Okinawa) and Korea are relocated back to Hawaii.

In China, the Japanese occupied zone of Manchuria and China Proper is the 1943 version, and that includes any Communist or Nationalist 1943 'behind the lines' base areas, groupings, or operatives. Unoccupied China however, is the 1993 version of the PRC, and the air, ground, and missile strength of the PRC is relocated to unoccupied China. So is the leadership from the Beijing area, including Jiang Zemin and 'retired' Deng Xiaoping, whose only remaining title was chairman of the national contract bridge association. As a bonus for China, the ground and air strength of the Republic of China forces on Taiwan and the offshore islands is also relocated to Sichuan province, as is the ROC leadership, including Lee Teng-hui from Taipei. Both the PRC and ROC navies disappear however.

Outside the Japanese perimeter, Oceania and America are all the 1993 versions. Bill Clinton is POTUS. Fidel Castro leads Cuba.

ASBs, in addition to all this teleporting and ISOT'ing, also bend the laws of physics in a couple other important ways. They prevent any and all man-made nuclear fission and fusion reactors and reactions from happening, rendering all forms of nuclear weapons, nuclear power plants, and nuclear propulsion instantly, and consistently, ineffective. They also completely negate the harmful effects of radioactivity on all living things.

So, how do the big 5 - Clinton, Yeltsin, Major, Jiang Zemin, Mitterand, deal with the sudden surprise appearance of the Axis powers in their midst, with their nuclear tools all suddenly rendered ineffective, and independent minded sovereign states throughout the world from Latin American to Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Oceania in place of formerly reliable colonies? How do they deal with the sudden loss of the 1993 continental European and Pacific rim states from the global supply chains and substitute by other means? How do they match their exquisite quality and technology, but numerically small forces against the Axis primitive, but more massive and redundant forces?

 

[raharris1973]

For Russia, the 1st military priority is relieving the siege of St. Petersburg. It might have to be a liberation and revenge for massacre, in case the St. Petersburg police department and national guard equivalent, caught by surprise, is unable to withstand being overrun by a Nazi bum-rush.

On the southern front, modern NATO, 6th Fleet and Allied Fleet units in the Med would have to figure out quickly how to provide continuing support to Patton and Monty on Sicily, and to the 1943 Allied fleet and air units close offshore. No Tunisia based support is available anymore.

For the western/ Atlantic front, Jersey and Guernsey will be lost.

The uptime western Allies will not strictly speaking have to do an opposed beach landing in France. As a NATO member, Spain should be granting all the Allies permissive access through northern Spanish ports for two operations in fairly close succession, Pyrenean Shield and Pyrenean Storm.

Depending on the amount of forces available and Turkish receptivity under the Ciller-Demirel regime, this could be complemented by Op Thracian (or Balkan) Storm. The Turks may insist on feigning neutrality for a bit while evacuating civilians from the Axis border.

One thing Clinton and Major will be compelled to do by political outcry whether it is operationally effective for hastening German surrender or for reducing civilian killings, or not, is long range bombings and missile strikes on Auschwitz and other death camps and rail lines leading to them.

MacArthur and his forces may need a rescue in New Guinea with their downtime external supply lines cut.Nobody is in a really great position to provide it. If anybody could, it would be the Australians probably more than the Americans.

One other area I didn't mention so far is the interplay between the downtime war and the uptime Middle East and North Africa. The Israelis will have an objective of punishing Nazis and rescuing Jews while protecting home neighborhood security. Meanwhile, Hitler and Mussolini on the one hand, and Qaddafi, Hafiz Assad, Saddam Hussein and the Islamic Republic of Iran (led by Khamanei) and Bashir of Sudan and his guest, Osama Bin Laden, will see the USA, UK, Israel, and Russia as common enemies, and each other as possible Allies of convenience.

 

[raharris1973]

Let's look at economic consequences - For the Axis, already under blockade, fewer direct ill effects, except those that come from impact of alterations to military operations of their besieged economies. However, In the case of Germany, its borders with several 1943 neutral nations see those neighbors replaced with their 1993 uptime equivalents and alter trading relationships accordingly. So this changes Nazi, Italian, and minor Axis trade with Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, and Turkey.

All four of the uptime versions of those countries have decent arguments that any 1943 delivery contracts or payment contracts with the Axis are void or expired, and vice versa. The only thing moderating thing in this is any potential fear of getting invaded, which is most severe for Switzerland. So Switzerland, and possibly the others, may do some trade with the Axis under implicit duress for some days while evaluating and preparing their defenses. People who have discussed Sweden ISOTs on boards in the past have pointed to sheer limited quantity of modern Swedish forces and lack of martial attitudes hobbling Swedish ability to successfully resist a hypothetical Nazi invasion, despite the vastly more advanced technology of the modern Swedes. These have all been from discussions I've sampled in the 2010s and beyond. I do not know if the quantitative disadvantage and loss of martial sharpness would have been quite so lopsidedly severe for 1993 Sweden. For Spain and Portugal and Turkey, the moral repugnance all uptime countries will have for any trade/diplomatic relations with the Axis powers will be compounded by the NATO obligations of their modern incarnations and post-WWII abandonment of neutrality. Even here, the three may not blindly jump into declared hostility with the Axis for a few days as they assess their vulnerabilities, exposure, and capabilities, and plans of other uptime nations they find have come with them.

The Pacific theater is far less affected by neutrals. The only new neutral added to the borders of the Japanese Empire is 1993 Portuguese Macau. Given its isolation and small size, the Portuguese authorities will not try to make themselves anti-Japanese heroes by picking fights with them, and will parley cautiously with the Japanese across the wire to the extent the latter are prepared to reciprocate, for the few days or week it takes for the uptime PLA to blast the Japanese occupiers out of the adjoining portion of China's Guangzhou city and Guangzhou province.

The uptime global economy of the 1993 world, in relative terms, takes a huge hit, and is thrown into trade and financial chaos, or at least disruption. Ultimately, mass disruption and disorder may be a better term than chaos, because the latter implies an inability to reorder things. But there are strong actors with the ability to organize and settle a revised order of things, no matter how different, incomplete, and painful adjustments to the new order is.

Looking at the G7 Economic Powers of 1993 - The USA, Canada, Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Japan..... -- the last four out of the seven are vanished, along with all their corporate headquarters, central banks, finance ministries (except perhaps some refugee French officials in Caribbean), domestic productive bases, infrastructures, domestic supply chains, ports, etc.

So, the G3, the USA, Canada, and Britain are the dominant advanced economies of the world. "France-1993" is a scattering of tropical islands and some random naval and military forces and companies and properties and financial holdings in the form of the Franc or the Euro (not sure if the switch was complete) and foreign currencies, lacking its metropolitan core, so a deflated 'holding company' of a nation. In place of France, Italy, Germany, and Japan are the 1943 versions which are besieged, more primitive, enemy and enemy-occupied lands, autarkically separated from the uptime world.

The American, Canadian, and British economic concerns, focused on middle-management downsizing, loss of manufacturing competitiveness, and soft 'jobless' recovery from the 1990-1992 recession are immediately replaced by an *entirely* different set of economic problems in this brave new world, often 180 degrees in opposition to their previous problems, with the sudden vanishing of the global export powerhouses of the Federal Republic of Germany, Japan, and the Asian "Tiger Economies" of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and up-and-coming lower end Southeast Asian manufacturing centers like Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia. Even China was by 1993 starting to make a global impact on very low-end manufacturing and assembly sectors, but its most active 'enterprise' zones of the time like Shenzen are either overwritten by Japanese occupied coastal territory, or have their export and transit routes to world markets closed off.

Suddenly, there is *very little* competition to American, Canadian, and British manufacturing, and a paucity of expected manufactured industrial and consumer imports. And now there are demands for military products, like precision-guided munitions, or even just 'dumb' but adequate 1980s-level military tech, on a truly industrial, rather than boutique scale. Consumer and industrial price *inflation* is indeed the order of the day, and manufacturing employment and wages should indeed *rise* compared to other sectors.

Of course economic planning and forecasting is difficult in this environment.

Presuming the ISOT changes are permanent, the vanishing of continental Europe and the Pacific Rim at their 1993 developmental level should be considered a long-term factor that will take decades to resolve. Even with postwar technological spread and any Marshall Plan like subsidy for technological/educational upgrade and uplift, cultural and full socioeconomic convergence of 1943 Europe and Pacific Rim to a 1993 world is not a task that can be realistically be expected to be accomplished in less than a full generation. It is not the work of a mere decade.

However, since the war to defeat the Axis is of uncertain length, and may be fairly short, likely shorter until the end than it was downtime, many required wartime manufacturing activities are setting up the Allied powers and people around the world for major wartime boom and postwar bust, with the abrupt drop-off of demand.

Immediate demand for consumer and wartime production, and availability of manufacturing jobs, and inflation, removes controversy away from NAFTA, and indeed presents opportunities for any offshoring or re-shoring of lost Pacific Rim manufacturing to occur in Mexico, and from there possibly in Central America, the Caribbean, and South America. The disappearance of Pacific Rim export-led growth competitors, and hunger to fill their void, may ironically make the 1990s period of economic neoliberalism and enthusiasm for everyone to try liberalization and export led growth in Latin America, actually work out much better for the region than it actually did.
If Mexican manufacturing growth does well enough, in an optimistic scenario, this might substantially crowd out the informal/criminal/cartel sector and reduce some of the endemic violence in the country, while increasing the breadth of increased national income.

All the Middle East and North African and Sub-Saharan African oil exporters exist in their 1993 incarnations and productive capacity. And they've just lost their European and Pacific Rim industrial consumers. So the 1990s, post Persian Gulf War low energy price trend should be accentuated.

The thing working against it is the oil-hungry Allied war effort. Luckily for the Allies, they should be exercising enough naval supremacy that the Libyans, Iranians, and the like are not going to be getting much in the way of oil trade done with the Axis powers except for some lucky small-scale smuggled shipments.

Long term, the fossil fuel exporters should benefit from nuclear energy not working.

The Chinese retain some of the knowledge to down the line become the workshop for Walmart, but need to run the pesky Japanese out of their country first.

If the Indians and Pakistanis are clever and wise, they can capture a greater share of the offshoring-re-shoring manufacturing pie in this world, if they can only get out of their own way soon enough.

When the Allies ultimately defeat the Axis across the board, in some places there may be more damage from conventional weapons, but there will overall be less damage to physical structures due to smarter bombs and more rapid operations. This will retard European and Japanese 'urban renewal' to the extent that was helpful to postwar rebuilding.

Postwar Europe and Japan will have their social capital, but given worldwide increases in education by the 1990s, to some extent, they may be competing only at the same level as Russia and China and third world countries in the quest for development, attracting foreign investment, and innovation. On the other hand, with their 1940s and wartime experiences, even once exposed to uptime technologies, they won't price themselves out of competition with the third world, Russia, and China with high wage and standard of living expectations, the way 1990s Europeans and Japanese would have.

 

[ChrisNuttall]

I’m thinking about the present-day rather than the past.

I think we can say that whatever agreements the Third Reich had with its neighbours no longer exist - the Reich itself ceased to exist in 1945 and, in many cases, the other states went through changes too. The Reich’s ability to intimidate its neighbours is not as bad as it seems - I doubt they could invade Sweden (despite the Swedes weakening their own military over the last decade), Switzerland or Turkey. The Turks might even take advantage of the chaos to liberate Greece, which would put the cat amongst the pigeons. It’s possible they could invade Sweden from Norway, but IIRC the Norwegian garrison was not equipped for an invasion of 1943 Sweden, let alone the current version. The Swedish Air Force to be able to prevent the Germans from sending supplies to either Norway or Finland.

The really interesting question is just how big a bite this would take out of Russia. Reports disagree on how much of Russia’s frontline force is currently in Ukraine, but everything that is there has vanished. So has Ukraine. Putin might see this as a chance to liberate Ukraine before anyone else can get there, and it would be difficult to stop him. On the other hand, if the Russians have been crippled by the ISOT, they might go nuclear.

The Chinese might have the same problem. If they lose the territory occupied by Japan in 1943, they’re going to be crippled military and economicly …

 

[raharris1973]

I’m thinking about the present-day rather than the past.

OK, I see you're modifying the premise of the OP a bit to have the 'modern' world be present day, 2023, and not 1993. That will increase modern forces' tech, but I think on the edges of Europe in particular (Britain, Spain, Russia, probably Turkey, Sweden) that should reduce the *quantity* of modern forces quite a lot. And I think you decided to ignore the idea of modern forces getting shift from borderlands that would have been Axis controlled to areas they still control, and have them get overwritten instead, because I think that's the only way to explain how the Chinese are as cippled as you suggest and Russia loses all its forces. And you ignored the denuking of all the modern forces, which I did to make things a 'fairer' fight, because with nukes in British, American, Russia, Chinese, and French submarine hands, it will also be over for the Axis very quickly and predictably.

The Reich’s ability to intimidate its neighbours is not as bad as it seems - I doubt they could invade Sweden (despite the Swedes weakening their own military over the last decade), Switzerland or Turkey.

Yes the aircraft and every other category of weapon for these countries in 2023 is way more advanced, but would the Swedes or Swiss have anything like the quantity to stop wave upon wave of Nazis or any ability to keep themselves supplies. I imagine the Turks, no matter what, even if losing Thrace and Istanbul to Axis human and tank waves, would be able to use modern tanks, air, and naval technology to make any Axis crossing of the straits insurmountable.

Russia can be in trouble and has morale problems. Real Nazis/Axis would be more trouble. Although them firing, attacking, taking the offensive and murdering could supply a whole new motivation to modern Russians. Of course, with tactical and strategic nukes, the Russians could change the situation in an hour or so. Even if denied nukes, modern Russians could probably deny Germans prospects for offensive movement through use of chemical weapons.

The Chinese might have the same problem. If they lose the territory occupied by Japan in 1943, they’re going to be crippled military and economicly

The Chinese with their 2023 equipment and production capacity in their western and southern military regions, should far outclass the firepower and ground mobility and armor strength of what the Japanese had and could churn out in the 1940s. Even if refraining totally from using nuclear or chemical weapons, the Chinese with their vintage 1980s or better Soviet style equipment should start rolling up the Japanese throughout mainland China within days as badly as the Soviets did in August Storm 1945. If it were 1993 China, they could largely do the same, just with vintage late 50s Soviet style equipment, and less production capacity. The main thing they would lose there though would be the ability to have an impressive civilian export sector for the postwar, since their nascent consumer industrial export centers were mostly in Japanese occupied areas, which are now regressed to wartime 1940s levels.

To avoid fratricide, and excessive damage to the land, the Chinese may hesitate to use broad area, persistent chemical agents on territory they are liberating or nukes with persistent radiation, especially as their ability to succeed conventionally becomes apparent. No hesitation though about mounting all those 'dirty' weapons on MRBMs and IRBMs aimed at the Japanese homeland and Navy though. No need to be so dainty about standoff attacks on Japanese air bases in Vietnam and Indonesia, for example as well - dirty persistent weapons are just fine for them.

 

[ChrisNuttall]

To be honest, I misread the original post. Sorry.

As far as I recall, the German occupation forces in Norway were not sufficient to invade Sweden, which is a difficult country to invade at the best of times. The Nazis would need to rush suppliers and equipment to Norway, in order to launch an invasion, which even the much-reduced Swedish Armed Forces of the modern day would be able to sink before they reached their destination. The Nazis would have very few options for retaliation. It’s quite possible, in this timeline, that Finland would hastily back out of the war in exchange for Swedish/NATO guarantee of military protection and territorial integrity. It’s true that if that the Nazis could invade over a land border they would give a modern military some trouble once the advanced weapons ran out, but the Swedes don’t have a land border with Germany. I can’t see them agreeing to honour whatever deals the 1943 Swedes made with the Germans, if only because they know the outcome of the war – an end that will come quicker with modern day NATO waging war on the Third Reich. We’re looking at ISOT America 2002 to 1942 territory here, with the added advantage/disadvantage of Russia not being the flavour of the month right now and therefore no political reason to give the Russians their 1939 or 1945 borders.

Chris

 

[iainbhx]

It won't take that long to bring down every useful bridge over the Rhein even without Instant Sunshine. Similarly for the Oder.

 

[raharris1973]

It won't take that long to bring down every useful bridge over the Rhein even without Instant Sunshine.

At first I was thinking that might not be too helpful to do unless the Allies had an invasion force ready to storm the French beaches right away. But then I remembered that the uptime NATO allies have Spain as a modern-day assembly point, so should be able to gather and start an invasion pretty soon, and cutting cross-Rhein transit would be nice. Then the western Allies will have to continue dropping the munitions to keep destroying pontoon bridges and other improvised reconstructions the Germans keep coming up with with.

Similarly for the Oder.

The allies/Russians may want to focus on bridges closer to the then Russian front, possibly Dnepr (but maybe not) or the Bug river, Dniester, San, or Vistula, and win intermediate Eastern European ground before messing with the Oder. Also, depending on their rapidity of advance, the Turks and any other NATO forces advancing out of Turkey may, or may not, want to drop bridges going over the Danube

 

[Arthur_Phuxache]

Every extant U-boat could be successfully found (if not sunk) by most trawlers. I don't think Bremen-Vegesack, or even Elbe II in Hamburg would last very long after a few PGM hits.