Kuusinen on DeviantArthttps://www.deviantart.com/kuusinen/art/The-World-in-1958-Military-Economic-Blocs-435352156Kuusinen

Deviation Actions

Kuusinen's avatar

The World in 1958 - Military-Economic Blocs

By
Published:
38.9K Views

Description

-------------------------------------------------------------------
This image is part of the alternative history series: USSR 1958. For more information see: kuusinen.deviantart.com/journa…
-------------------------------------------------------------------

This map shows the political situation in the world in 1958. Since the Second World War in Europe and Asia concluded ten years ago, the world has been strictly divided into three spheres of power. Some scholars and politicians have termed the situation a "Cold War", others an "Interim Peace" due to escalating tensions between them. All three blocs are mostly isolated from the others due to different economic systems and strained political relations.

The communist bloc is completely closed off from the others. These nations live by a completely different social and economic order than the rest of the world. The SWR, lead by the USSR, really is more than a political alliance and economic zone; it is a new world order, naturally bent on eventually converting or breaking the old order. The orange observer and associated states depicted on the map are former European colonies who are not state-socialist or Marxist-Leninist by official policy, but are politically and economically dependent on either the UES, the USSR or both.

The US lead "Western World" is a collection of democratic (some of those states are only de jure democratic) and capitalistic societies. Ever since normal free trade with continential Europe and large parts of Africa was discontinued, or reduced dramatically, in 1948-1951, the remaining capitalist countries of the world bound themselves together by a treaty of economic cooperation and free trade. The USA "woke up from a bad dream", a term coined by the hawkish president Thomas E. Dewey in the mid- 1950s who initiated a U-turn approach in foreign policy, forming a military alliance with a great number of Central and South American states. Despite many attempts by Washington to include the British Commonwealth in this alliance, the United Kingdom has, since the armistice of 1941, not engaged itself in any military alliances and still hold itself strictly neutral and inward looking when it comes to defense strategy.

The Japanese Sphere of Co-Prosperity was originally formed by military conquest but since the end of the Third Sino-Japanes War in 1947, more East Asian states have joined the alliance. Unlike the other blocs, the Sphere does not contain a single way of living or an economic system. It is more of a Greater Japanese Empire, built upon center-periphery economic relations between the Japanese producing center and the South-East Asian supplying periphery. The observer states depicted on the map are countries who are not formally within the Sphere, but are very decisively entangled in its economic web.
----

Later, when I have time, I shall add a bit more detailed information about each important country in the world, which can better explain how this situation came to be and how things are currently within the power blocs.
Image size
3015x2361px 8.45 MB
© 2014 - 2024 Kuusinen
Comments50
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
Imperial-Advocate's avatar

What would be the future of this world? Lets say by the 1980s or so...