Alternate Foreign/Diplomatic Crises?

[AndrewH]

I’m typing this out on my phone so I apologize if there’s any errors or if I’m not conveying my ideas over correctly, but I’m curious about the ideas of alternate “crises” - not necessarily a war, but events on a similar scale to the Iran Hostage Crisis, the invasion of Grenada, the tiff between America and Iran earlier this year etc. etc.

Greek leaving NATO over supposed American partiality to Turkey is one that I find particularly interesting to see if it could escalate, and there’s also the fact that Laos for a brief moment was seen as the next battleground of the Cold War instead of Vietnam.

 

[Yokai Man]

Not sure if it’s the right thing,but in case the Panama Canal Treaty wasn’t nearly approved by Congress,Operation Huele a Quemado would have been launched at Torrijos’s orders and led by Noriega,who along with troops would attack the canal and destroy it with explosives,then proceeding to carry out guerrila warfare against possible invading U.S troops.

The 1976 Korean axe murder incident is also something that could escalate into a bigger crisis.

 

[Doctor Sulemain]

Not sure if it’s the right thing,but in case the Panama Canal Treaty wasn’t nearly approved by Congress,Operation Huele a Quemado would have been launched at Torrijos’s orders and led by Noriega,who along with troops would attack the canal and destroy it with explosives,then proceeding to carry out guerrila warfare against possible invading U.S troops.

The 1976 Korean axe murder incident is also something that could escalate into a bigger crisis.

I'm curious at to how a 1976 2nd Korean War would go. Assuming the Soviets/Chinese don't get involved that is.

 

[Coiler]

There's a countless amount of alternate crises and possibilities, especially in areas with some degree of constant "simmering", either real or in alternate history. In fact, it's considerably more plausible to have a small (even if violent) crisis than a big war.

I'm curious at to how a 1976 2nd Korean War would go. Assuming the Soviets/Chinese don't get involved that is.

From what I've read:

The mid-1970s was a kind of weird period in the northern/southern military balance. From the 1953 armistice until then, you had two aid-fueled blobs, and the south had the bigger blob. From the late 1970s through the mid and maybe late 1980s, the north had its biggest spherical cow on-paper advantage against the south. At this point, one of the north's biggest on-paper advantages is its air force of all things.

The problems the north had was the combination of them being doomed without external help if the US intervened (which, given that Americans were already stationed there en masse, would be probably inevitable even in the post-Vietnam low), and how, even with the most lopsided force balances and least American help, a victory against the south, particulary with warning, was not guaranteed, unlike 1950.

 

[ShortsBelfast]

Military coup against DeGaulle in 1962 would have huge repercussions for NATO and the proto EU.

 

[Simon]

How about France leaving the EEC in 1963? De Gaulle apparently threatened to do so in negotiations about the creation of the CAP but it was all hot air, as shown by his not doing so when Germany called his bluff. Find some way for him to feel it necessary to follow through on the threat and things get interesting.

 

[RyanF]

What if Alec Douglas-Home did not have any beer the night those students came to kidnap him? A short sensationalised investigation and standoff followed by the Conservatives winning the 1964 election.

Not sure if that counts as foreign or diplomatic, but makes a nice contrast to all the stuff going on with leaders on the continent on in the states.

 

[ShortsBelfast]

What if Alec Douglas-Home did not have any beer the night those students came to kidnap him? A short sensationalised investigation and standoff followed by the Conservatives winning the 1964 election.

Not sure if that counts as foreign or diplomatic, but makes a nice contrast to all the stuff going on with leaders on the continent on in the states.

Douglas-Home winning in 1964 might have some interesting butterflies. Wilson would probably have to go and we might see Callaghan or even Michael Stewart contesting 1968/69. And Douglas-Home was very good on foreign affairs, might have successfully urged a more nuanced line by Johnson in Vietnam and with a Conservative Britain in 1968 and a (possibly) slightly less distracted and overstretched USA, would the USSR have dared to overthrow Dubchek? Might have joined the EEC slightly earlier and on better terms as well. Probably not, some of the issues were with France not wanting to see its dominant influence weakened but not totally impossible either.

 

[Simon]

Douglas-Home winning in 1964 might have some interesting butterflies. Wilson would probably have to go...

I think Wilson would probably be safe. Blackadder Mk 2 did a timeline about a 1964 victory and made the convincing argument that he'd only have been in post for about a year, combined with any Conservative majority likely not being too large and Labour's traditional reluctance to defenestrate its leaders.

And Douglas-Home was very good on foreign affairs, might have successfully urged a more nuanced line by Johnson in Vietnam...

Alternatively Britain ends up in Vietnam, albeit in a limited capacity, to take advantage of the offer to help prop up the economy.

 

[Charles EP M.]

Alternatively Britain ends up in Vietnam, albeit in a limited capacity, to take advantage of the offer to help prop up the economy.

Not long after the Malayan Emergency, mostly fought under Tory governments, so Douglas-Home may think "we can handle this" ("OH SHIT WE CANNOT")

 

[Simon]

Not long after the Malayan Emergency, mostly fought under Tory governments, so Douglas-Home may think "we can handle this" ("OH SHIT WE CANNOT")

Whilst the number of large differences between Malaya and Vietnam making direct comparisons fairly useless I'd suggest that the experience from it, plus not acting like idiots, would mean that British forces would be able to do fairly decently. This being helped by any deployment being limited to the smallest and quietest province that could be found.

 

[Charles EP M.]

Whilst the number of large differences between Malaya and Vietnam making direct comparisons fairly useless I'd suggest that the experience from it, plus not acting like idiots, would mean that British forces would be able to do fairly decently.

I'd expect it to work out much like Australia's involvement

 

[ShortsBelfast]

The Americans were very keen on the UK either supporting them or relieving their overstretch elsewhere in the Persian Gulf. A Tory Government could have asked a relatively high price. If that included insisting that someone like Templer was inserted in the command structure at a high enough level the changes could have been considerable.

 

[OHC]

A couple ideas:

- Some events might have become international scandals with different political leaders in place, even if they'd unfolded in the same way as OTL - I'm thinking in particular of the many US citizens killed by right-wing governments and militias in Latin America during the 80s. If people other than Reagan, Al Haig and Elliott Abrams had been in power, maybe there would have been some real diplomatic consequences for the murder of the American nuns in El Salvador or Ben Linder in Nicaragua.

- The Pristina airport standoff is kind of a staple of these discussions, but it's a good example of something that almost certainly wouldn't have led to a larger war but could definitely be a bigger and nastier international incident if NATO and Russian troops had actually exchanged fire.

- In April 2001, an American military intelligence plane and a Chinese fighter jet collided over Hainan Island; the Chinese pilot was killed and the American crew were captured and held for ten days while their plane was stripped for classified information. It was all resolved peacefully in a rare foreign policy success for the Bush admin, but could it have dragged out and worsened? What if the American plane had gone down, too? (One of the American pilots involved, Shane Osborn, later went into politics and was an early frontrunner for the Nebraska Senate seat that Ben Sasse picked up in 2014, so you've got a Hipster-PMs-n-Presidents pick out of it too.)

 

[Oppo]

On September 11th, the pilots on Korean Air Flight 85 accidentally issued a hijack alert. NORAD was close to shooting down the plane over Canadian airspace. Had the plane been shot, it would have intensified the anti-Western sentiment of 2000s South Korea.

The debacle could have also led to the resignation of PM Chrétien. In 2001, the Martinites did not have as strong a grasp over the party. It’s possible Allan Rock or Brian Tobin could have emerged on top instead, though Martin would remain the front runner.