Over the past weekend, I had been spending almost the entirety of my time playing the Cold War Enhancement (CWE) mod for Victoria 2. The mod takes the gameplay mechanics of the vanilla game, which focuses on the industrialization of Europe and the peak of colonial empires in the 19th century, and recontextualizes them in a post-1945 context. Set between the years of 1946 and 2091, the mod begins as most narratives of the Cold War do: at the official end, not the legal end, of the Second World War.
Everything described below is my experiences playing the CWE mod for the second time and my recollections of what transpired. After 1950, the actual history of the late 20th century and how it unfolded in my second playthrough of CWE began to deviate in a multitude of ways. Compared to my first playthrough, the geopolitical outcome of the Cold War was radically different, deviating from what had happened historically. I am going to finish the mod at some point because the first half–the most difficult part–is already behind me.
Historical Events
In the years since 1945, the old European colonial empires were on the verge of collapse as Europe has become drastically weakened due to the two World Wars, of which the Cold War was the continuation of World War II. America and the Soviet Union emerged as the two major superpowers, poised to establish hegemonies amid the decolonization of Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. The German Reich was dissolved as Austria and Poland regained independence, Czechoslovakia was reestablished, and parts of the German-speaking world seized by the victors. Meanwhile, in Asia, the Maoists succeeded in driving the Kuomintang out of Mainland China. Korea and Vietnam were split into two, with each half falling under the Soviet and Jeffersonian spheres of influence.
The institutional framework of the Empire of Liberty was quickly established. The United Nations, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Trade Organization, World Health Organization, and so forth were formed. International treaties introduced to address the proliferation of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. The Bretton Woods System established, cementing the US Dollar’s financial hegemony as the Reserve Currency. Neoliberalism has yet to undergo another transformation in the 1970s. While Europe is in the process of being rebuilt, Pan-Europeanism seeks to establish the EU/NATO. It is trapped, however, between whether to support the Jeffersonians or further its own self-interests by becoming a bulwark between America and the Soviet Union.
To begin, for the sake of a giving myself a real challenge, I decided to play as West Germany, taking me two playthroughs over the course of two days to achieve a more desirable geopolitical position. At the start of the mod, West Germany and East Germany are satellite states of the Jeffersonians and Soviets respectively. Austria was also split into East and West, albeit until 1955. The German eastern territories had been annexed by the Polish and Soviets, and an ethnic cleansing of the German population was underway. Before that could happen, I made sure to do four things in my second playthrough.
Domestic Policy Events
First, I had to denounce the literal genocide of the Germans living in the eastern territories by refusing to recognize the “Oder-Neiße Line.” Next, I sought to regain sovereign control from the US, implemented a constitutional monarchy by bringing the House of Hohenzollern back to power, and rebuilt West Germany into an industrial and economic powerhouse. This is obviously not the most ideal way of playing the CWE mod as a West German player is supposed to rebuild West Germany in the historical manner. The economic aspect was the most challenging until I succeeded in restoring the monarchy.
Like in the vanilla game, economic development in CWE is driven by private investors and the national government. It is not a true “free market” per se and more akin to whether one should drive a car using a manual transmission or an automatic transmission. Planned/Command Economies are the former and Market/Mixed Economies are the latter, the key difference being is to what extent can the player (as the government) directly contribute to their nation’s economic development. State Capitalism is the intermediate.
West Germany starts out as a Mixed Economy in CWE, which means that its government cannot build new industries but can only subsidize them. To attract private investors, I needed to make serious investments in higher education and integrate further into the Empire of Liberty, neither of which are desirable. It may seem rather counterintuitive but having a population where the vast majority is university-educated dampens population growth, even though that is in fact the fastest and most surefire way of fostering enough social mobility to achieve a sizeable capitalist class of businessmen and private investors. The problem is that I do not trust the AI to always make the right economic decisions. Just like in real life, government has to be able to intervene in the national economy beyond subsidization of failing industries.
Since I am bound to Parliamentary Democracy, I have no choice but to spend a large portion of the past weekend sponsoring election campaigns and getting the right parties into the legislative branch. Everything changed for the better once I got the chance to implement the decision to restore the monarchy. However, because West Germany was still a satellite state of America, there was only a 40% chance of the US accepting the proposal. By some miracle, the AI decided to let West Germany become a constitutional monarchy, and the West German people elected a political party in favor of State Capitalism.
Only under the introduction of State Capitalism in the 1960s did the national economy begin to grow and prosper. Without it, West Germany would still be a literal backwater deprived of manufacturing, reduced to a nation of impoverished farmers and miners by the end of the 20th century. Furthermore, the political party the West German people chose also had a sizeable majority of its members in favor of amending the constitution, granting the Kaiser the power to appoint the ruling party but still allowing the people to choose their legislators. All of these political trends occurred throughout the 1970s.
Geopolitical Crises
From the 1950s to the 1980s, a series of geopolitical crises occurred, forcing the background of the Cold War. The European colonial empires began to topple like dominoes as new nations declared independence. Decolonization swept the peoples of Africa, the Middle East, and Asia into the opposing camps of the Eastern Bloc and the Western Bloc. A Korean War broke out in the 1950s that ended in a virtual stalemate. It was followed by a Sino-Soviet Dispute that saw the Soviets invading China and ending it with the Chinese as their satellite state. The Chinese would soon regain its sovereignty shortly thereafter.
In the 1960s, the Vietnam War was in full swing and so was the Six Day War. The US-backed South Vietnamese and the Soviet-backed North Vietnamese became embroiled in a proxy over which of them will unite Vietnam. That war ended in the 1970s with Vietnam united by North Vietnam. In the middle east, Israel managed to defend itself against an Arab-speaking world, even annexing the Sinai Peninsula in the process. However, evidence of its nuclear program was exposed, resulting in the country’s diplomatic isolation. Parts of Palestine were absorbed by Jordan.
The 1950s, 1960s and 1970s saw independence movements in other parts of Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East. Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and Papua New Guinea gradually became independent of the British and Dutch Empires. However, they fell into the sphere of influence of either China, the Soviet Union, or America. Neither of those three great powers kept them in their spheres of influence for long as those Asian nations preferred to join the Non-Align Movement.
In Latin America, Cuba briefly abandoned the US sphere of influence in the 1960s. The Soviets did support them for a time, except the US managed to bring Cuba back into its sphere of influence. Parts of Latin America also stayed in the US sphere of influence. The whole continent switched back and forth between pro-Soviet, pro-Chinese and pro-Jeffersonian political parties throughout the late 20th century. The real exception of these trends was Nicaragua, which adopted a Marxist-Leninist regime, albeit one that is isolated and constantly at risk of being toppled.
Although US relations with Saudi Arabia never went anywhere, the Ayatollah failed to overthrow the Shah, and the same was true for the Iraqi Ba’athists. As a result, the Iran-Iraq War did not happen because the two countries were ruled by pro-US regimes within the Jeffersonian sphere of influence. However, Turkey and Syria continued to remain as thorns on their side.
The decolonization of Africa by the Europeans led to local conflicts that led to certain nations being annexed by others and other parts of Africa entering the spheres of influence of their former colonial masters. The British and French, still reluctant to let go of their former holdings, chose to keep some within their spheres of influence.
The Diplomatic Offensive
Once the 1980s began, a new political party appeared in West Germany, espousing a “free, socialist and united Germany,” a German-speaking world free from the geopolitical machinations of the Jeffersonians and the Soviets. They advocated for a diplomatic offensive to invite East Germany into West Germany and the recovery of the eastern territories from the Polish and Soviets. To integrate East Germany without annexation, they argued, West Germany must adopt a true Command Economy and promote a genuine Pan-Germanism untainted by Hitlerism and its historical failures. Their proposals came at a time when the Soviet Union was stagnating, Poland and Czechoslovakia were declining and at risk of disintegrating alongside Yugoslavia. Perestroika and Glasnost were already in full force, China was embarking on its Socialist Market Economy, and the Soviets were bogged down in multiple overseas proxy wars with the US and separatist movements at home.
The diplomatic offensive occurred in two stages. East Germany was integrated into West Germany and the old eastern territories were occupied by the newly reunited German armed forces. Sporadic skirmishes were fought with Polish and Soviets. The Eastern Bloc and Western Bloc countries quickly retaliated, resulting in economic sanctions, diplomatic isolation, followed by declarations of war by the US, Soviet Union and their allies. The declaration of war came when Germany annexed Austria and Luxembourg, followed by imposing regime change on Czechia and Slovakia, Switzerland, and Sweden.
What should have been a literal repeat of the farcical tragedy of 1945 did not happen. Not every Western Bloc nation sided with the US: Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Denmark, Iceland, and Netherlands remained neutral, while Norway had become a Marxist-Leninist regime and was part of the Eastern Bloc since the 1970s. Only United Kingdom and France participated, both of which were still great powers despite the loss of their colonial empires. In the Eastern Bloc, the Soviets and their allies lacked enough manpower to wage a full-scale offensive due to their hostilities with China over India and Pakistan. China and the Soviet Union had spent decades waging proxy wars through India and Pakistan until India became its own great power. Thus, any hostilities with China over the course of the diplomatic offensive boiled down to strained diplomatic relations and the occasional naval engagement across international waters.
More importantly, the diplomatic offensive could have spiraled out of control as Germany, the US, and the Soviet Union all had nuclear weapons. Playing as Germany, I realized that the diplomatic offensive needed to be won quickly and without it being drawn into a prolonged conflict. Letting things drag on increased the risk of nuclear retaliation. As soon as it became apparent to the Western and Eastern Blocs that they will not succeed in reversing the gains of the diplomatic offensive, the 1990s ended with all hostilities ending in a formal truce. A new German Reich had emerged and survived a major war that saw the reunification of the German-speaking world.
However, uncertainty morphed into paranoia as the world enters the 21st century. Should the new German Reich dismantle the Empire of Liberty in Europe and perhaps even the score with the Jeffersonians? The question loomed large due to the Soviets and Chinese succeeding in bringing portions of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East into their spheres of influence. India, Japan, Brazil, and Pakistan continue to remain as viable great powers despite what had just happened.
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