Democratic Superstate and the Fall of America

On Alexmart's intriguing suggestion on the "Fall of the America", by Bezmenov who presents a KGB plan to subvert and undermine the US through among other things "cultural Marxism". Our ambition in the mod should be that the "Fall of the USA" (or any other greater power) should be possible to realize as a player, without attributing the your self (the USSR "commies" in this case) nefarious dark capabilities to shape the internal politics of your enemy (the US in this case). Instead what you as a player should have is the ability to support existing forces - with justification, and agenda of their own; in your enemy's country - who's ideology leads to the weakling - the Erosion of legitimacy. So no nefarious dark capabilities red scare daemon is required.

So who would these forces be? Bezmenov points to progressives and liberals. In a broader sense internationalists/globalists (just like the commies them selves). In general progressives and liberal - very much sees international binding treaties on climate change as good, free and fair trade as good. So in weakening your enemy you support those internationalist forces that have a in NWO terms - a superstate agenda.

The beauty is that you can actually play as a progressive internationalists (as the US or any greater power democracy) using the same policy as you would as the USSR trying to bring on the downfall of the US.

So why would you as progressive america embark on such suicidal path?

Breaking the nation state - a pathway to stable democratic Superstate

If you have set as your goal to form a liberal democratic superstate - having tons of nationalist POPs with remnant core identities is no good. You need to make your pop's progressive, liberal to reject nationalism, and to make them shun their own nation as special, and preferred to any other nation in the world (in effect accepting you as the superstate ruler as their ruler). Hopefully eventually by migration and assimilation making the province majority non-autochthons. Such policy is the prerequisite for a stable non rebellious stable democratic superstate.

Promote the ideals universal human rights. All people are equal, by taking the reforms "gender equal", "LGBT allowed", "open immigration", minorities "equal" or higher, gives you the the ability support the institutions with those values by giving significant economic support to UN and other international organisations (as series of decisions shall be created for this). This gives progressive among your democratic neighbors a boost.
Use the national focus (the current NGO works poorly) to increase liberal progressive forces in other nations - in particular you GP enemy. The one used will be "increase tension", when tention reaches a certain level the opponent can take the decision to reduce tension but at the cost of increased support for liberal and progressive forces in the state.
With the reforms taken in (1) you will get a decision to "reject the past - embrace tolerance", that will enable you to get the modifiers "forbid hate speech", "social justice" and "responsible publishing", giving you the ability to suppress dissent (they will be removed as reform and instead be a modifier).

This in all gives you a more progressive/liberal population, with hopefully even immigrant majority POPs (thus removing the autochthon majority in some provinces). And it gives you more suppression points to suppress decent form your agenda (forbid hate). It will paint the map in rainbow colors, and make your POPs reject the past and embrace a "norm breaking" society. So in the US case, the POPs would see the past as a representative of racism, sexism and genocide of native Americas and in Europe as the dark force behind the Holocaust. And in it's place you would facilitate the creation of an include minority majority open international rainbow society where people as safe in there space to fulfill their individual inclination free of transnational norms. On the downside, as you reject the militarist, sexist past, will be that your mobilization size will be almost zero (military mobilization in a POP of oikophobes is not possible), and your military ability will be hampered. Also on the downside it will polarize your society, braking down conservatives, but instead giving rice to populism.

Hierarchy of superstates (some nonexistent)

Fall of America

So forget the vanilla Vic2 strategy of breaking up your enemy (US in this case) into small core states (i.e. pinning different nationalists against each other). Instead just weaken the military and economy of you opponent by "national focus" support of progressive/liberals. And in the end devolution will happen anyhow in a progressive nation, as there will be no patriots to defend something that is shunned.

The Fall of America, is simply you as the USSR (or PRC) helping them along their own progressive and globalist agenda (by using national focus) but intercept this US (or any other democracy) ambition for world domination, and interrupt there formation of superstates, leaving them hanging weak with fractured societies, with populist militancy - preoccupied with fighting themselves. And who you can beat military on any encounter.

A game strategy for bringing about the fall of America - with PRC as opponent (in an alt-history the USSR could take it's place)

As the PRC focus on your own economic stability and happiness of your POPs. Achieve the "market Communist" invention and grow your economy with aim of becoming number one.
Contest US sphere at any time. Support regimes that does not embrace western values (non-democratic regimes) - does not need to be communist regimes. This you need to fight wars for. Focus this effort on areas where it prevents or slows democratic superstate formation. If there is an opportunity for devolution - support it.
Use your "national focus" to promote progressive ideas in your opponent (US).

The result is that the US will become more and more progressive, and there militarily capability will (in-spite of size) be reduced (think about that the US today is challenged by 5 mil rebellious Sunnis in Iraq and the limiting use of air to intervene in order to avoid boots on the ground). Eventually they will experience internal turmoil or populist (and liberal/progressive) uprisings, if populist win and there agenda for superstatehood is ended as their imperialist democracy demises, if progressives stay on top they stay military limited (consider american politics of today).

I really like this proposal for speeding up the decline of the U.S as it is quite inevitable by now that China and India which are taking steps to industrialising and modernising all sections of their state and economy leaving a almost certain possibility that both of them could surpass the U.S in power in a few decades due to their high population being about several times bigger than the entire population of the U.S. Also in regards to the question of what a populist government in the U.S or any western democracy if they win the struggle for control of the country against the Progressives, I their policies would be very similar to that of Mussolini's Italy, policies that look great as propaganda, making the people happy and symbolizing the glory of their country however in reality these policies are extremely pointless, reckless and is a massive waste of resources and money hiding the true weaknesses of their country. The Fascist government led by Benito Mussolini that dominated Italy from 1922 to 1945 often engaged in actions that sought to increase their international prestige in what they had thought as reclaiming the lost glory of the Roman Empire, examples of these actions would be the invasion of Ethiopia a country that had dealt a humiliating defeat on the Italians in the Battle of Adwa in the First Italo Ethiopian War in 1898 thus the conquering of it seemed like a massive payback for Italy, achieving a Greater Italy and the building of the Autostrade to reduce unemployment and to show how powerful Italy was. In reality these actions only hid the weaknesses of Italy and were actually heavy burdens in which I will discuss these problems below.

The Conquest of Ethiopia The Invasion and later conquest of Ethiopia by Italy only served to massively worsen relations with the international community including their traditional allies in WW1 the UK and France leading to Italy's isolation prompting them to join the Axis in WW2 that pretty caused the downfall of Mussolini and his government, embroil them in yet another complex insurgency just 3 years after the 9 year long Senussi insurgency was pacifieid in Libya and had significantly overextended the Italian military leading to their quick defeat in the East African campaign of WW2.

Greater Italy While the achieving of this idea by Mussolini may have at first demonstrated Italy's glory in reality this only added a few small provinces that didn't do much to contribute to the Italian economy and completely strained relations with the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and later the Independent State of Croatia a supposed ally and fellow member of the Axis.

The Autostrade As like the other two above the building of the Autostrade (motorways) was meant to symbolize Italy's glory as well as a way of reducing the unemployment of Italy. However in reality most of the jobs of building the Autostrade were low paying not really contributing much to the Italian economy and causing focus to be turned away from Italian industry which was in desperate need of expansion and improvement.

This combination of policies caused Italy to largely neglect their military and industry during Mussolini's rule which was to prove vital in winning WW2 resulted in the poor performance of Italy both militarily and industrially during WW2 and ultimately caused the death of Mussolini and his government and the switching of the Kingdom of Italy from the Axis to the Allies in 1943.

I do think were starting to see similar policies arising with the current president of the U.S Donald Trump a populist and his administration. I will discuss three examples that demonstrate this

2017 Nangarhar airstrike On 13 April 2017 the U.S dropped the largest non nuclear conventional bomb in its arsenal the GBU-43/B on ISIL forces killing about 36 to 94 people. This airstrike seemed more like a propaganda piece and an attempt to increase Trump's ego rather than anything of tactical or strategic value as it does absolutely nothing to stop the advance of the Taliban in Afghanistan and its far away from the main ISIL forces stationed in Iraq and Syria.

2017 Shayrat missile strike On 7 April 2017 the U.S launched 79 tomahawk missiles at a military airbase in Syria under the control of government forces, killing from 9 to 16 people without destroying any aircraft or air defense equipment. as stated above this seems to be little more than a demonstration of supposed American power in Syria while being incredibly pointless and reckless as it would damage the already strained U.S and Russian relations as well as adding more tension in Europe over Ukraine.

2017 Korean Crisis The most reckless and dangerous action of the three examples. In April 2017 an American Carrier Strike group was sent to off the coast of the Korean peninsula to monitor nuclear weapon activity in North Korea. This has provoked North Korea to become extremely hostile to both the U.S and South Korea threatening a nuclear exchange, in spite of this the Trump administration has remained adamant that North Korea would have to disarm its nuclear arms at all costs. This response has only worsened the crisis by drawing China into crisis over possible damaging consequences a North Korean collapse might have on itself. Given the nuclear capability of the U.S, China and North Korea there are fears that this crisis might provoke WW3 and it has drawn comparisions to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

@arandomperson5000 thinking a bit more. Your comment really nails it :+1: , Over reacting, over doing, being "reckless" is many times part of populism. It does not matter what the electoral platform was or supporters wanted. In NWO, an ideology is defined by the actions by leaders, carried to power with their support, not the land of unicorns in opposition. Thus communism is the common denominator of Mao's China, Brezhnev's USSR etc policies, not what some communist opposition party want in the west. Similarly populism has to be accountable. But not to get to anti-Trump, as you know of cause there are differences between Italian traditions of the last century and Trumps America. Mussolini acted on the platform he ran on - chauvinistically. To my understanding Trumps actions in Syria, Korea is contrary to the platform he ran on - thus many of his supporters would agree on your point in it being reckless.

So, from a mod perspective, yes definitely, Trump America is part of it's downfall. In the US we see the development towards desire for more executive power "when your side is in government". This leads to a more divisive society, and with democratic "checks and balances" in place, a dysfunctional governed - which in its term leads to even more divisiveness and "desire for more executive power ...", etc. The endgame is to remove the "checks and balances" (think about Patriot Act, removal of habeas corpus).

@ARR8 "Plus, the logic for the downfall of America coming from internationalist progressives is a bit of a stretch for me.". Why? Take the example of European integration into EU. Surely if France is integrated in EU, it is the "downfall of France", as the nation no-longer exists - and in that new entity it is not the ruling supreme nation. A similar argument is to be made for the US under similar circumstances.

I'm not sure I agree on the necessity to adopt regressive policies which limit political freedom in order to create a stable 'democratic' superstate. In fact, this would if anything create an unstable democracy due to the state's curtailing of civil liberties such as free speech, which would in turn lead to revolution (as has happened throughout history to authoritarian regimes).

I understand the idea of having a shadowy 'Illuminati' style cabal which controls and censors discourse, but when the censorship and authoritarianism is so obvious I don't think the people would stand for it at all.

Since the issue has come up - if the conspiratorial aspect of the New World Order as some dark manipulating power shaping the world - The answer is unequivocally NO. The mod should be realistic within the framework of the game engine - at the same time entertaining for a player.
Thus, in the mod we use conspiratorial symbology (and at time had an event with "tinfoil hats" as reward if you could find those symbols) - because it is cool that the US great seal has new world order written on it novus ordo seclorum :). But the fantasy conspiracy is not in the mod.

With that out of the way; what does exist, however, is the democratic and progressive value of good from international law, cooperation and human rights, and in part what those rights entail. In the end law includes exercise of power. That is the view expressed and policy of a (political) new world order perused. In the mod you should as a player be able to use those values to formant your own power, and take the lead as a proponent of that vision - as leader of the free world.

This does not include some 'illuminati' cabinet (other than that you the player is the illuminated). But it does include a democratic society response under strain be it from populist opposition or from terrorism.

That's all well and good, but the issue was about political oppression which is apparently required for a stable democracy. How does censorship and inequality toward the majority constitute a democracy? That sounds more like an authoritarian regime putting up a facade of democracy. This in itself is also fine, but outright censorship and creation of 'safe spaces' is a bit too blatant for the majority to let stand I believe. These policies are not liberal, they are a form of extreme-leftist regressivism: the curtailing of freedom for the sake of supposed 'social justice'.

My comment about the Illuminati was just a concession in case that's what you were going for. If not, all the better to be honest. Also I'll admit that I might just be completely misunderstanding your model for this whole thing.

Having thought about this issue a little bit, I think an ideal situation for the PRC in an effort to weaken the U.S is to have the political landscape of the U.S completely stalemated between two or more very ideological opposed parties as a divided administration would be completely ineffective in both domestic and foreign policy such as being unable to pass major reforms e.t.c. I think the Trump administration of the U.S is a clear example of this problem, half of Trump's promises during the 2016 election were either stalled, broken or not started during the first 100 days of his presidency, he has the lowest approval rating of any president after 100 days in U.S history at about 42% and there have been very large protests against his administration throughout the U.S with many exceeding the size of his inauguration crowd. This shows what perhaps a ideal situation for the PRC for the fall of America may look like,

Considering moving this issue post 2.00 as it requires a lot of balancing to get right. After the 2.00 release I plan to make a couple of play through games (that may end up as strategic outline AAR's). First out will be the US. The US AAR will have a strategic optimal main line but with inroads to failed polices (i.e. Vietnam war, failure to divide China etc..), including failing to form TPP(or NAFTA) due to economic woes and populism.

What do mean by dividing China, is it a North and South Korea type of situation or is it more like the warlord era of China.

Within the context of an expectation of a Nationalist victory in 1946, I am talking about the more nuanced aspects of US policies in China Hands. Including the US brokered ceasefire . Dividing Chinas was not a explicit policy, but in effect you would end up with a divided country.

Would it be possible to have an event path that would see the US disintegrate like the UK does? Maybe if losing in a war, falling behind a certain rank and bankruptcy could see breakaway states (California, Texas, New York and New England) or a total breakdown of the US into different nations (such as the Soviet breakdown path). Would give a greater goal for countries seeking to challenge US hegemony.

Though such breakup may be a possible future, I don't see any remotely realistic path to it, given the current opinions of US pops, and existing political movements. So, it is difficult to have inte the mod without violating the prime directive of realism. Instead I see a scenario where the US federal state becomes extremely weak and inept, that could be in the mod. And as an opponent of the US your goal is to in a game play bring US to that state.

Recently, I've found a quite interesting article that details about Johan Galtung, a noble prize nominated sociologist who predicted the collapse of the USSR and his prediction for a sort of a collapse of the USA during the 2020s specifically its domestic, military and soft power not a situation where the US breaks up into multiple countries which I found to be a little bit similar to the scenario you've posted above with the major difference being the US goes through a phase of being incredibly reactionary in complete disbelief about its decline in power and is therefore very cocky in a similar way to how the Bush jr administration completely overestimated American power in Iraq and Afghanistan, leading to decade long insurgencies that have cost the country over a trillion dollars despite sustaining less than 10,000 killed in both of these conflicts. I do find his scenario of the US becoming a sort of a confederation in the future quite interesting as while the US wouldn't breakup as a singular entity it would essentially lose a lot of direct control over domestic affairs over its various states and territories, dooming its superpower or even possibly its great power status if the majority of its states are controlled by autonomous regions or states and would create a power vacuum in which other Great Powers compete for influence in the autonomous region of the US. Also what I do think is another scenario that could cause the US to decline is if the country becomes isolationist again as the US could potentially stagnate due to the country's government becoming more inward looking possibly neglecting it's military, industrial and foreign power. This scenario is sorta based on two examples of countries going very isolationist that in the long term caused them to stagnate severely the Qing Dynasty in China and the UK during its policy of splendid isolation. 1.The Qing Dynasty of China While this is a rather extreme example, I do believe its quite important as it highlights the long term dangers of adopting an extremely isolationist policy for centuries. From the 15th to 19th centuries, first under the Ming and later the Qing Dynasties, the Chinese Empire embarked on a centuries long policy of isolationism although they still traded with European and other powers unlike Japan. For centuries it may have looked somewhat fine for China as it only grew in size over time and it seemed like it would last as a the dominant superpower for many more centuries. However European and other outside powers began to encroach on China through various treaties, wars and interventions, the isolationist policy had only produced a decadent and stagnant Chinese Empire that was about 2 or 3 centuries technologically and economically behind the Great Powers leading to much chaos in China from the 19th to mid 20th centuries.

The United Kingdom For much of the 19th century it seemed like the British Empire was doing very well under the policy of Splendid isolation under the belief that it was an unchallengeable superpower immune to the effects of the balance of power in Continental Europe and the Americas however by the start of the 20th century, the UK began to withdraw from this policy as it fell behind rising powers like the US and Germany in economic and military power. During the Second Boer War the antiquated nature of the British military really began to show as through outdated tactics the despite having very modern weaponry and overwhelming numerical superiorly a,the irregular Boer guerilla forces managed to inflict 3 times as many British casualties. I think this goes to show that the British military at that time was more a less a military to fight Colonial conflicts not a major European war. Their lackluster performance led the British to reform their military to better prepared for any major war which would come in the form of WW1. I do believe that this is a more suitable comparison to the US as if today as their military has become more accustomed to fighting insurgencies rather a major war with a great power as a result of their more than decade long conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. https://www.google.ie/amp/s/motherboard.vice.com/amp/en_us/article/d7ykxx/us-power-will-decline-under-trump-says-futurist-who-predicted-soviet-collapse https://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2016/08/24/u-s-army-sees-major-war-within-five-years-but-lacks-the-money-to-prepare/amp/

simsulla / nwomod

Democratic Superstate and the Fall of America #1026