Zionist Uganda

Volume II 1953-2069

by David bar Elias

1953 saw the establishment of the Grand Army, drawn from the military of the different nations of the Federation. This was in reaction to increasing anti-colonial unrest that was erupting in Madagascar, Algeria, Sierra Leone, and Egypt. The nationalists in these nations desired for their nations to become part of the ever growing and ever prosperous African Federation.

The Soviet Union tried their best to influence these movements. Resenting the South Africans and Israelis for their interference in Korea, the USSR wanted willing allies throughout the "Third World."

In 1955, a union between the Gold Coast and British Togo produced the nation of Ghana, under the leadership of Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah. He immediately took his nation into the African Federation.

The French were facing severe tensions in Algeria, and were trying desperately to contain a revolt on Madagascar. The Malagasy remembered the much more benevolent rule of the South Africans and Israelis during the Second World War very well. In the end, the French were forced to abandon the island, which joined the AF in 1956. That same year, Sudan, recently fully detached from Egypt, also joined the AF.

At this stage, the African Federation included ten nations. The Federation's Parliament needed a more fuctional way to communicate.

The answer came from the State of Israel. In the 1910s, Polish immigrant, one L.L. Zamenhof had tried to bridge the gap between the African residents and Jewish settlers through an artificial language. This language, Esperanto, had eased helped ease tensions between the two groups.

Continued by his son Adam (who died in the Shoah in another universe), Esperanto had slowly begun to spread. Mostly confined to the urban centers of Israel, the language had begun to spill over into South Africa before the Second World War.

With the establishment of the African Federation, a new language was needed to bind the Federation together. The Akademio de Esperanto, a language institute in Port Shalom that had existed since the 1930s, began dispatching educators to establish similar centers throughout the Federation. Esperanto continued to spread. In the comming decades, it would become the language that would bind Africa together.

In Algeria, the French had decended into a huge morass in 1954, as nationalists, pro-Federation activists, and French loyalists clashed in a bloody fights across the wretched country. Despite Federation Prime Minister Lumumba's calls for mediation, the French, still stinging over the loss of Madagascar, angrilly spurned all efforts at brokering a cease-fire.

Trouble came for the Federation in 1956. Gamal Abdel Nasser, a nationalist Egyptian army officer, had seized power in 1952 from the corrupt monarchy of King Farouk. Bowing to American and Federation pressure, Farouk was allowed to leave unharmed.

The Jordanians, who remained staunch British allies, went on alert.

Nasser had solicited Federation, American, and British support for the building of the Aswan Dam. All was going smoothly until Nasser signed an arms deal with Czechoslovakia. All western aid vanished, and to raise funds for the project, Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal.

Nasser dismissed the threats of Western intervention. Unfortunately, on October 29, 1956, British, French, and Israeli paratroopers seized control of the Canal. That same day, the Federation's Grand Army launched an offensive against Egyptian forces along the Sudanese and Libyan borders. Jordanian troops invaded the Sinai Peninsula.

Coalition forces advanced steadily. Their military might was too overwealming. The Soviet Union threatened to intervene. The possibilty of another world war became likely, until the US backtracked and forced the "coalition" into backing down. Federation forces took their time in leaving Egypt.

In the US, African-Americans, inspired by the stories of equality that blacks in Israel and South Africa enjoyed, began their long campaign for equality.

Meanwhile, the conflict in Algeria was only worsening. The FLN was taking a strident turn for the worse. The Jews of that nation fled en masse to Israel.

The Middle East and North Africa was becoming part of the Great Game that the Cold War brought to the world. In the Middle East, Jordan remained a loyal ally to the UK. Saudi Arabia, bought off with American dollars during WWII, remained generally pro-western. The UK and USA had kept Iran in the western column in the early fifties by installing the Shah.

Sryia, Egypt, and Iraq had become willing Soviet allies, mostly motivated by nationalist tendencies. The Jews of Syria and Iraq had fled en masse to Israel when the Baathists had come to power.

These new Jewish immigrants were Sephardic Jews. The extreme majority of Israeli Jews were Ashkenazi. These new Jews mostly settled in former Somalia, away from the great cities to the south.

The Federation expanded yet again in 1958. Sierra Leone, the Gambia, Guinea, and newly freed Cameroon (having won a three year struggle for independence against France) joined the AF.

Pro-Federation nationalist movements were starting up activity in both Angola and Mozambique. The rebels eyed the great prosperity enjoyed by the super-economies of both Israel and South Africa, and the growing standards of living ejoyed by the other Federation members.

The 1960s would only accelerate the trend towards further African unity.
***


1960-1969:

The 1960s would accelerate the trend towards African unity and prosperity. In 1960, Chad, Niger, Mauritania, Mali, Senegal, Upper Volta, Gabon, the Congo (the old French-ruled section), the Central African Republic, Benin, Togo, Nigeria, and the Ivory Coast gained independence. The African Federation expanded dramatically again.

The old nations of French Equitorial Africa (along with several other Frenh colonies) were combined again in the Union of Baraka in 1961. It's capital would be in a revitalized Timbuktu. Baraka, an Arabic word which literally means "blessing" (and a Sufi word that refers to a sense of divine presence), the Union (between Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, Niger, Chad, the Ivory Coast, Gabon, Benin, Togo, the Central African Republic, and Upper Volta), was meant to give these African nations more representation in the African Parliament. Formerly French Congo was united with the Republic of Congo.

Nigeria, Britain's last colony on the African continent, began to forment due to ethnic tensions between Christians and Muslims. The Federation's Grand Army (mostly Israeli units), was deployed to the nation in 1962 to preempt any spread in tensions. A new constitution, which liberally borrowed from South Africa's and America's, specifically federalized power through checks and balances, secularized the nation, and granted proportional representation to the different ethnic groups.

1962 also saw the war in Algeria come to a shuddering end. Once in power, however, the FLN purged all pro-Federation parties from the new government, making the new nation a one-party state. Dissidents fled to Baraka or Libya. Algeria would remain a trouble spot for many years to come.

In 1963, the Bank of Africa was established. Based in the booming city of Lagos, Nigeria, the BA copied the American Federal Reserve. That same year, the African pound-sterling became the new currency of the AF.

Angola and Mozambique remained hot spots. Portugal, still under a military dictatorship, refused all attempts at Federation negotiation.

In 1964, yielding to Federation pressure, France abandoned its last colony in Africa. The new nation of Djibouti immediately joined the AF.

That year saw Israel secure the Jewish holy sites once and for all. It had already purchased the Dead Sea Scrolls from Jordan in 1947. Now, the State of Israel aimed for something bigger. Approaching the Jordanian ambassador, Prime Minister Golda Meir (whom David Ben-Gurion had once described as the only man in his cabinet), offered to purchase the Western Wall from the Kingdom. King Hussein agreed to the deal; the Israeli offer was very generous.

There was an immediate uproar from the Orthodox community. But Meir defied her Conservative Party "wild men" (as she often called them), and pushed through support for the proposal through the Knesset. Israeli cargo ships began the process in early 1965 of shipping the stones of Saloman's Wall to Eretz Yisrael.

In the Kingdom of Jordan, as the Israeli working crews got moving, they were confronted by the city's old-time Jewish residents. Some even tried attacking the workmen, but were held back by the Jordanian police. After eight months of backbreaking work, the Wall was reasembled in New Jerusalem.

The Orthodox at first refused to visit the Wall; it wasn't in the right spot! But as the decades went on, the Orthodox, who were remined that no Jewish state was meant for the Holy Land until the Messiah came, began to trickle back. An extreme minority to this day refuse to worship at the wall. Many of Jordan's remaining Jews immigrated to Israel over the years due to the Wall's relocation.

The rest of the 1960s was spent attempting to further integrate the Federation. Due to ethnic tensions in Sudan between the Arabs of the north and the African tribes to the south, the country was split between the Republic of Sudan and the Union of the White Nile. An attempted coup in the Central African Republic by a former French colonial officer named Jean Bokassa was put down by Grand Army units. Bokassa was executed for treason. Tensions in Biafra required the presence of more Israeli peacekeepers. To preempt possible conflict between the Eritrean subjects in Ethiopia, the Eritreans gained their own parliament in 1967 (along the lines of the Scottish and Welsh assemblies in OTL).

With the large-scale discovery of oil in Nigeria, and diamonds in Baraka (in the old Central African Republic), the AF's economy continued to climb. Esperanto became more and more established as Africa's unifying language. [Unlike in OTL, Esperanto combines many more Africanized words in its vocabulary].

Portugal was now heavily involved in the ongoing guerilla unrest in Angola and Mozambique. The Federation threatened to drive the Portugese out of all of their remaining colonies in Africa unless they agreed to negotiate.

The Portugese, facing bankruptcy from the continuous conflict in the two colonies, agreed to the Kinshaha Accord, signed in 1967. Angola and Mozambique would become Trust Territories of the Federation until self-government could be attained. Huge crowds in Maputo and Luanda gathered to celebrate as the Portugese flags came down, and the blue, green, and white of the AF rose to replace them. The pattern followed with Angola and Mozambique as it did with the other freed colonies: students to Israeli and South African schools (easily the best in Africa), heavy aid to build up a proper infastructure, and adoption of the Federation's unified economy.

Not a few Portugese residents of the two former colonies chose to immigrate to South Africa.

During this time, the AF became involved with the conflict brewing in Yeman. Assisted by the British, AF forces crushed the communistic People's Democratic Republic of Yeman. The Yeman Arab Republic was established soon afterwards. During the fighting, which lasted from 1967 to 1968, the RIAF evacuated Yeman's sizable Jewish population, which was stranded in the fighting. Along with the other Sephardic immigrants, the Yemanites, who had been that nation's best jewlers and craftsmen, they settled in special kibbutzim in former Somalia. Mogadishu itself had a heavy Polish presence from the '40s era DPs.

During the 1960s, the AF became in involved in the Space Race. The Federation's first satellite, Smuts, was launched from the Einstein Rocketry Base [OTL's Malindi]. Similar bases were soon constructed in the Congo and Baraka as well.

The Congo and the nearby locales had yielded some frightening results for the Israeli and South African scientists stationed there. In 1965, a would-be Israeli explorer, one Maurice Netanyahu, had sickened and died after exploring Kitum Cave in Mount Herzl [Mount Elgon] National Park in Israel. The devastating disease had caused him to bleed out horrendously in a New Akko hospital room. The disease was named Akko [OTL's Marburg], after 51 people in the city died from the spread of the infection (mostly doctors and nurses in the hospital).

However, the Congo yielded even worse new diseases, particularly in the Ebola region. Ebola Kinshasa [OTL's Ebola Zaire], and White Nile Ebola [OTL's Ebola Sudan] had extremely high fatallity rates. Ebola Kinshasa (with a fatallity rate of 90%) gained its name by killing over 450 people in the Congo's capital in 1968 [Due to the region's higher development than in OTL, the disease spreads faster and causes more fatallities early on]. Federation troops had to be deployed to stop the city from decending into chaos.

Another disease was discovered during this time. It had all begun in the '50s when Dr. Hilary Kaprowski, competing with Jonas Salk for a polio vaccine, had stumbled on a strange sickness in the Congo while working with patients for his new vaccination program. A tribesman was dying of a disease that seemed to be wasting him away. Several villagers tested positive for the disease. In 1969, the Wietzman Journal of Medical Science dubbed the new virus Kaprowski's Disease [OTL's HIV/AIDS], after the original finder of the virus. The disease seemed to do in years what Ebola did in only weeks or days. Doctors from all over Africa began receiving training on how to recognize symptoms in the hopes of containing the spread.

Unfortunately, the disease had already showed up in people such as gays and prostitutes in the great cities of the AF. It was soon established that straight people could catch the disease as well. (It had also apparently spread out of Africa to urban centers in both Europe and North America [due to more westerners visiting Africa due to the more prosperous economy]). Efforts were soon underway in the great universities of Israel and South Africa on trying to procure a vaccine. This wouldn't be remotely successful for several more decades.

Some Orthodox elements in Israel called the new outbreaks God's punishment for moving the symbols of Judaism out of the Holy Land, but fortunately, they were laregely ignored.

Thus the sixties ended for the African Federation with the challenges of a new era layed out clearly in front of them.
***


"Africa was the birthplace of the human race. With the efforts of our beloved Federation, Africa will become the leader of the human race as well......."

-Prime Minister Helen Suzman of the Union of South Africa, in a speech to the Salisbury Parliament, May 1979.

1970-1979

The 1970s saw the last outposts of colonial Africa fall into the embrace of the African Federation. France granted independence to Comoros (including the island of Mayotte) in 1970, which promtly joined the AF. After the collapse of Portugal's military dictatorship in 1974, Cape Verde, and Sao Tome and Principe gained seats in the Salisbury Parliament. Mauritius and the Seycelles joined the following year. Spain granted independence to Equitorial Guinea, which also joined that year.

In 1970, Gamel Abdel Nasser died suddenly of a heart attack on his way to adress the Arab League [by now little more than a Soviet front group]. His second-in-command, Anwar Sadat, became the President of Egypt.

Sadat began to reverse Egypt's decades of hostility towards the African Federation and the West. He visited Salisbury in 1972 to promote "peace and reconcilation." By 1974, the Egyptians had liberalized their trade with the AF. A year later, Egypt officially came into the Federation.

As part of the deal, Egypt began to liberalize politcally. Dissidents were freed. In the elections for a new Egyptian parliament, the pro-Federation Egyptian Democratic Party crushed the Muslim Brotherhood to attain a solid majority.

Algeria was left alone as one of the few nations in Africa not a member of the AF. Finally, in the spring of 1975, pro-AF members of the army overthrew dicator Houri Boumediene. The former despot died grusomely by firing sqad.

Also that year, Spain granted indpendence to the Rio de Oro. This area was immediently claimed by the Kingdom of Morroco. But the Oro, under the new name of Western Sahara, quickly requested admission to the Union of Baraka.

Morroco threatened war if the Union took in Western Sahara. The union went ahead anyway. Morroco invaded.

The Morrocan War, which only lasted four months, demonstrated the full might of the Federation's Grand Army. Led by the ultra-modern infantry, airborne, and armored units of Israel and South Africa, the Grand Army smashed the Morrocans in every battle, and forced a peace treaty on the Kingdom in late 1975. The Morrocans were shocked to find that instead of being punished with further territorial losses and sanctions, that they were being invited to join the AF.

The King, realizing that this would give his nation access to the mineral reserves that were reported in the former Oro, accepted. Over time, the Kingdom of Morroco reformed into more of a constitutional monarchy.

Africa was now united under a single entity.

Also in 1975, IDF war hero Maurice Rose died of a heart attack in Ramwat Dawid. He was mourned across the entire Federation for his service in the name of freedom.

In the early 1970s, as a sideshow of the American quagmire in Vietnam, the Maoist Khemer Rouge had begun a campaign of violence against the American backed government of Lon Nol. As the Khemer Rouge neared Phenom Penh, the Israelis decided to act. Not wanting a repeat of the inaction that had doomed so many Slavs in Eastern Europe before WWII, the ships of the Israeli Navy began Operation Rose: the evacuation of southern Cambodia. As Cambodian refugees began to flee their country, the Israeli Navy was there to scoop them up and take them to Israel. ITO agents fanned through Penom Penh, handing out visas to as many as possible (echoing the actions of Swedish diplomat Raol Wallenburg, who rescued many Slavs from their cattle cards by personally handing out visas-he later won the Nobel Peace Prize). In the end, some 500,000 Cambodians were evacuated to Israel. "Little Cambodias" are now common in the big coastal cities.

During this time, the Israeli Navy also rescued countles Vietemese "Boat People" as they fled their homeland. With their devotion to family values and education, these refugees found a welcome home.

The first five years of the 1970s exposed the depth of the Reform/Orthodox split in Israel. The "Radical Reformers" eagerly embraced the "New Laws" of Judaism, proposed by a Tutsi convert named Uriah Tasiru. Tasiru embraced the following "additions" to the Jewish faith:

Openess and Embracing: This New Law basically allowed for fully-fledged conversions to take place without the "restrictivness" of the Orthodox.

Fullness Through Strengh: This New Law called for the "embracement of the martial history of the Jewish people in past, present, and future." The heros of this law include Mordachai Anielewitz, Joseph Trumpledor, and Maurice Rose.

The Brotherhood of Human Goodness: This final New Law basically allowed for fully-fledged "conversion work" to be practised. Tasiru had practised this eagerly, working long and hard to convert his fellow Tutsis to this brand of Judaism.

The Orthodox angrilly refused to have anything to do with this "Gross heresy." Even many Reform Jews felt unconfortable with this new sect of Judaism, as it basically re-wrote whole sections of the Old Testament.

But the Radical Reformers, who were eager to marginalize the Orthodox, embraced Tasiru. Over time, the "Tasiru Sect" of Judaism expanded rapidly, proving popular with the African residents of Israel. The side effect was that a number of these adherents got elected to the Knesset. Elected mainly by the African-dominated areas, they caucused with the Labour Party. This marginalized the Conservatives. If they acknologed this new form of Judaism, they would lose their Orthodox base (the Orthodox were turning to their own parties anyways). But this would permanently ally the African consituents with Labour, turning the Knesset into a monopoly.

The Conservatives, after the death of Golda Mier, acknologed this faith as "perfectly legitamate in our secular democracy of Eretz Yisrael." The words of Menachim Begin did much to keep the "Tasiru Sect" from allying completely with Labour.

Of course, the Orthodox remained outraged. "This insult cannot be tolerated!" thundered MP Meir Kahane. But Kahane was soon marginalized, as his seat went to the Conservative Party in the 1977 elections.

During the latter portion of the 1970s, the pathogens of the Congo were largely contained. Labs worked around the clock to produce cures. Agressive family planning helped prevent the further spread of Koprowski's Disease.

The African Federation maintained a GDP that was rapidly approaching the levels of Western Europe and the USA. Inflation, however, threatened to derail the "Long Boom" for the Europeans, Americans, and Africans.

The Bank of Africa moved quickly to tighten the money supply, causing a recession throughout much of the Federation. However, this did stop inflation from growing worse, and the united economy was well underway to recovery by 1978.

But events in the Middle East threatened to derail the entire World Stage.

Iran, under the Shah, had been a staunch ally of the USA. But political repression and harsh poverty made him ripe for a fall. In 1979, he was ousted by the Ayatollah Khomenei, who denounced the West as a "Great Satan." The Shah fled to Libya with his family and many under dissidents. Iran's Jewish population was evacuated by the Israelis. Khomenei declared an economic boycott on the west, and encouraged Muslim nations everywhere to do the same.

Of course, the AF undermined this by continuing to sell West African, North African, and Sudanese oil at regular market prices. All this did was lead to the economic decline of the Islamic Republic.

1979 also saw the USSR invade Afghanistan to prop up a Communist regeime. The USA, still smarting from Vietnam, began depolying aid from Pakistan to bleed out the Russians.

The Israelis, who had a phobic dislike of all things Russian, began gunrunning operations as well.

The 1980s soon rolled around.


***
"The end of the Cold War is a new chance to remake our planet for the best. The African Federation and her allies across the globe will lead the charge for a new dawn of freedom."

-Federation Prime Minister Judah Kaplan, 1989, in his Adress to Parliament.

1980-1989:

By the beginning of the 1980s, scientists in the Congolese, South African, and Israeli labs had managed to stem the outbreaks of Kaproski's Disease. People suffering the disease were given massive doses of "Kaproski's Cocktail," a combination of various drugs. Administered by doctors all over the Federation, Kaproski's Disease was soon contained.

The Ebola strains were a tougher nut to crack. They easily mutated. This was exemplified by the ourbreak of an airborne version of the disease in 1982 in a lab near the Israeli city of Zangwill. Ebola Zangwill only killed monkeys, but it could have easily spread to humans. This caused an uproar, and severe questions in the Knesset.

By 1980, with Federation aid, Yeman had developed into the most progressive state in the Middle East, with a strong trading relationship with the AF (and Israel in particular). But it was still a surprise in 1981 when Yeman applied for membership in the AF.

This caused plenty of debate in the Salisbury Parliament. Many argued that since this was the African Federation, that Yeman's membership was out of the question. But proponents (mostly Israelis), reminded the body that Mauritius was farther away from Africa than Yeman, and that traders from Yeman had long frequented Africa.

After much debate, Yeman would be admitted into the AF in 1986.

Gunrunning operations to the Afghani Mujahadeen continued unabated. Israeli and South African made weapons were soon being weilded by the guerillas as they ruthlessly attacked the Russian invaders.

Iran and Iraq, in the meantime, had gone to war. The Israelis viewed this as an excellent opportunity to weaken the power of both Fundemtalist Iran and the Soviet-friendly regeime in Iraq, led by the brutish Saddam Hussein. The Mossad, in one of their more daring raids, pulled off the destruction of Iraq's nuclear facility of Osirak, and made it look like an Iranian attack. The Mossad also began gunrunning operations to the Kurds in both Iraq and Iran.

In 1985, the Salisbury Parliament voted to implement the Shamir Plan (named after Israeli MP Joseph Shamir). The plan called for a massive long-term plan to "make the Sahara Bloom." Part of the rational was to provide North Africa with cheaper electricity and to give the AF a corner on global food production.

By early 1986, construction had already begun on the Quattara Canal, which would turn the famous Depression into a large salt-water sea. Plans were soon being drafted for other mega-canals to transport water from the Congo to the Nile, and from Lake Nasser to the Meditteranean. Millions of acres of desert would be transformed into usable farmland. The Shamir Plan called for the projects to be completed by the early 2000s.

Oman became the second non-African nation to apply for AF membership. Fortunately, the ice had been broken by the entry of Yeman. The Omanis, to meet membership requirements, reformed their government to allow women to vote. Oman would join in 1988.

The membership of Yeman and the prospective membership of Oman began to alarm King Fahd of ever amoral Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. True, the Mossad had been instrumental in preempting a planned seizure of the Grand Mosque in 1979 by Islamic extremists. Fahd was beginning to be alarmed because ideas from the African Federation (and from the liberal regeime in Jordan), had begun to influence Saudi society. Women were beginning to pressure for greater rights. The more liberal clerics were calling for the opening of Saudi society.

Saudi Arabia was no longer even as seccure with its oil reserves, not least because the western nations were buying more and more petrol from West Africa, Libya and the Republic of Sudan.

Unfortunately, a backlash was brewing from the more conservative elements in Saudi society; from the plethora of princes and from the growing fundamentalist movement that viewed the democratic and secular ideals from the AF as threats.

Fahd's government began to crack down on both liberal and conservative elements. This promted outrage from both sides, especially from the conservative princes secretly bankrolling these nefarious movements. The tensions led the Mossad to warn Prime Minister Lazar Prozleman that the tense environment in Saudi Arabia could "lead to the French Revolution in reverse," with theocratic elements taking control.

In other developments, 1986 saw the a peace accord being signed between the Republic of Korea and the People's Republic of China, ending almost forty years of hostilliy. South Africa's UN Ambassador, Steven Biko, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in brokering the Treaty of Pyongyang.

China itself was changing. Deng Xiopang's market reforms had improved the Chinese economy. This led to an upsurge in pro-democracy groups, who were influenced by American, European, and African popular culture and political ideals. This would lead to the massacre of students in Tianneman Square in 1989. China would continue to open up economically, but would remain far more closed politically.

In 1987, after the death of Ayatollah Khomenei, Iraq, its economy in shambles, and Iran, having lost much of its zeal, agreed to end the seven-year conflict.

Meanwhile, the USSR had withdrawn from Afghanistan in 1987. The presence of Israeli arms amongst the Afghani rebels had hardened the anti-Semitism that already permeated Soviet society [without the Holocaust, anti-Semitism is far more widespread in the USSR]. The Soviet Union, with its economy utterly dilapadated from the Cold War, Afghanistan, and its own economic system, was collapsing, utterly rotton to the core. Mikhail Gorbachev's economic reforms had led nowhere. One after another, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Albania had overthrown their Communist regiems. The USSR itself was beginning to disentegrate. The Baltic States, Central Asian Republics, and the states of the Caucusus were now rife with independence movements.

Numerous elements in the Soviet hirearchy, influenced by xenophobic and anti-semitic passions, pushed for a crackdown. When Gorbachev refused, he was overthrown in a coup in 1989 orchestrated by several hard-core anti-semites in the army, who viewed his reforms as "Jewish-Imperialist inspired drivel." This led to conflict between the pro-Gorbachev elements in the Soviet Army. Pro and anti-Gorbachev crowds began clashing in the streets of Russia's major cities. Gorbachev himself barely escaped to Finland with his entourage.

Thus, the Second Russian Civil War was sparked. The Baltic States, Belarus, the Ukraine, Modavia, and the Central Asian and Caucusus Republics all took advantage of the growing chaos in Russia itself to declare independence.

Russia proper, by 1989, was a war torn zone in which whole armies clashed in favor of either the now right-wing elements or in favor of the ideals of reform. In some cases, tactical nuclear weapons were used on the opposing sides.

Thus, the 1990s began.....an era that would see the clashes that would decide wether the map would be completely free or stuck with a few tyranical blotches.


***
Note: TheMann deserves credit for several ideas from this decade.

"The New World Order is a multipolar one, but also a democratic one."

-President George Herbert Walker Bush, 1990, in a speech to the Salisbury Parliament.

1990-1999:

The 1990s were decade of great challenges for the African Federation. But this would be the decade that would cement their superpower status for all time.

By early 1990, Russia was in a state of almost total collapse. Anarchy had erupted. Starvation was common in the cities. Columns of refugees snaked away from the rapacious armies fighting every which way.

South Africa invited over 300,000 Russian immigrants that year. Israel, with some reluctance (due to an entrenched phobic hatred of everything Russian), took in 75,000 Russians, settling them in the far north of the country.

As Russia collapsed, the UN Security Council voted to send in peacekeeping forces to Siberia and Central Asia, to prevent Russia's vast arsenal of WMDs from falling into the wrong hands. Russian scientists were hired away by the AF, EC, and USA.

President Bush authorized American troops to secure Russian WMD sites in Siberia. Japan used the chaos further north to justify amending their constitution to rearm. Chinese forces were massing in Manchuria.

With the eyes of the world turned north, Iraq's Saddam Hussein made his move. In April of 1990, Iraqi forces invaded and occupied Kuwait, using the excuse of unpaid debts (when in fact, the opposite was true; Iraq owed Kuwait money). The Kuwaiti Royal Family barely made it out of Kuwait City ahead of the Republican Guard. The Iraqis went on an orgy of rape and pillaging.

Unfortunately, Saddam had grossly misjudged the international situation. His actions threatened the states of the Gulf, all allies of the African Federation.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was thrown into crisis. To appease the growing anger of the conservative elements, the King allowed for the militia of wealthy zealot Osama bin Laden to be deployed against the Iraqis. Bin Laden, the son of one of the Kingdom's most highly paid building companies, had fought in Afghanistan against the Soviets.

This caused strong protests from the liberal elements in Saudi society. So, King Fahd also invited the West to contribute troops to protect his country.

The nearest bloc of western countries was the AF. The Salisbury Parliament authorized the deployment of the Grand Army to the Kingdom.

The USA and Europe, preoccupied with the situation in Russia, were prevented from sending large numbers of troops. Most of the fighting would have to be left to the African Federation.

The full strength of the Grand Army would be put on display for all the world to see. Israeli and South African armored and air brigades, Nigerian, Barakan, and Egyptian heavy infantry units, and multiple divisions from all over the rest of the AF. They were deployed well away from Bin Laden's Militia of God. The MOG was stationed in front of Medina and Mecca.

It would prove in the long run to be a fatal mistake.

Deployed to bolster the collapsing Saudi lines that were being driven south from newly captured Khafji, the Israeli 9th Armored Division and the South African 3rd Armored Grenadiers pulled no punches against the Iraqis. Israeli, South African, and Nigerian Eleazar IIs (similar to OTL's F-15) swept the Iraqis from the skies. Soon enough, the Iraqi advance had been stopped cold.

Meanwhile, Mossad agents were being slipped into Iraq to foster revolts from the Shiite and Kurdish citizens who had long been persecuted by Saddam's Sunni dominated regeime. Egyptian, Sudanese, White Nile, and Ethiopian units were deployed to Jordan to blunt a possible Iraqi incursion there.

By May 1990, the line was fully stable. AF forces recaptured Khafji on May 4. By May 6, the last Iraqi units had fled into Kuwait, which had erupted in a general revolt against the Iraqis.

May 8 saw the IDF lead the charge into Kuwait. Two days later, with Saddam's air force no longer in existance, Kuwait City was liberated. The streets were filled with celebrating civilians, who greeted the AF forces with flowers and cheers.

With Kuwait liberated, the AF's Ministry of Defense authorized the forces there for a drive on Baghdad.

It was as the first Israeli and South African troops crossed the border that they ran into Saddam's chemical and biological arsenal. This was the result of a crash program that the USA and UK had assisted with during the Iran/Iraq War. Over 4,000 frontline Af troops, mostly Israelis and South Africans perished.

International condemnation was swift. The Israelis and South Africans warned that a similar attack would bring about a mushroom cloud on Baghdad.

Saddam contented himself by launching his scud missles into Saudi Arabia and Jordan. But it was too little, too late. AF planes systematically destroyed every Iraqi military and industrial target that they could find. The retreating Republican Guard was utterly massacred while retreating from Kuwait to Basra, which soon became known as the "Highway of Death."

Meanwhile, Bin Laden's MOG causing trouble for the Saudis. The MOG, which numbered some 70,000 young men (mostly Saudis), was refusing to vacate their positions in front of Mecca and Medina. Instead, they retreated into the city in a bid to solidfy their possitions. A mole in the Saudi defense ministry alerted Bin Laden that Saudi troops planned to arrest him. So he ordered the MOG into the Holy Cities. A stalemate ensued.

Basra fell in late June. Iraq might have had a large army, but it was poorly led and poorly armed. AF forces were soon being held back only by the masses of surrendering Iraqi troops.

Saddam was being forced to deal with a huge Kurdish and Shiite revolt in his nation. The AF took the opportunity to be the first bloc of nations to recognize the Republic of Kurdistan and the Republic of Basra, a Shia state.

For Saddam, the bell was now tolling. Attempting to flee Baghdad to one of his numerous hideouts, his car was ambushed by a Shiite militia that was operating from Saddam [Sadr] City, a slum in Baghdad.

They had been tipped off by the Mossad, of course.

Iraq was now completely collapsing, mirroring the fall of Russia to the north. The opposing armies in the Second Russian Civil War had laregely bled out. Right wingers, led by ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, seized power briefly in Moscow, only to be pushed from power when it was leaked by the Mossad that Zhirinovsky was not purely Russian as he claimed, but that he was of both Khazakh and Jewish extraction. Zhirinovsky's body was found crumpled in Red Square not long afterwards.

Lithuania, in the meantime, had seized Kalliningrad, forcing the Russian residents to accept South African offers of a safe haven. In Siberia, the residents of American-occupied Magadan and Vladivostok petitioned to become full U.S. territories.

Congress had debated long and hard about this. President Bush was not eager to repeat Vietnam on the Russian steppes, but he wanted America to have the ability to disable Russia's vast and now abandoned arsenals of WMD. In the end, both cities became UN Trust Territories of the USA. This came as Siberia split from the rest of the nation to form the Union of Siberia, an authoritarian and xenophobic state. European Russia became the Republic of Russia, a much reduced state depending on European aid to stay afloat. Mossad agents tipped off American and European forces as to the location of the former Soviet missle silos and WMD labs, which were gradually hunted down and destroyed.

Japan, in the meantime, flexed her muscle by taking control of Sakhalin Island and the Kuriles. The Russian residents left en masse for the USA and Canada, which offered them assylum. President Bush recognized that a "New World Order" had formed-one in which the strong democratic blocs (America, Europe, and Africa), would be fighting rogue nations to establish stability and prosperity. Japan also proposed to the US that the two nations establish a "joint-occupation" over the Kamchatka Peninsula. This was eventually accepted by Congress, although it became clear that Japan was building extensive "settlements" in the Siberian vastness under US protection.

The Chinese protested angrilly. Tensions rose over Taiwan and Siberia. America was on alert.

By July of 1990, Iraq was divided into three nations. The Sunni Union of Iraq, the Shiite Republic of Basra, and the Republic of Kurdistan, centered in Kirkuk. Tensions had immediently risen between the Kurds and Turks. In the end, the Israelis brokered a deal in which they would gurantee Kurdistan's borders with Turkey. The Turkish government began "unofficially" encouraging Kurdish immigration to their "homeland."

By this time, the Saudi military had launched an attack on MOG possitions outside of both Holy Cities. The fighting unleased gross civil unrest throughout the country. At the request of Basra, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain, AF units (mostly Yemmeni and Omani troops), were stationed in those respective nations to prevent violence from spilling over.

The Saudi Civil War, fought between religious fundemantalists and more secular reformers, was a brutal one. Bankrolled by their princely backers, the fundementalists fought tooth and nail against the reformers, who had lacked the resources that the religious extremists had. The MOG convinced many Saudi soldiers to defect to their cause of "purifying the lands of Islam of western decadence."

Militias clashed in the major Saudi cities, with the fundemtalists gaining the edge. The House of Saud fell like the House of Usher. King Fahd died at the hands of his own bodyguards. The princes of Saudi Arabia fled to North America and Europe, leaving their homeland to descend into chaos.

Finally, the UN authorized direct intervention in the conflict. AF forces began moving in to destroy the forces of the MOG and their extremist allies. By the time that the fighting ended, in October of 1990, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was no more. A loose network of sheikdoms and emirates had emerged across the Arabian peninsula. The only ones left were ruled over by the pro-reform and pro-democracy Arabians (Bin Laden having been killed by the Commandos and Maccabees in September), who began requesting membership in the AF.

In the end, in November of 1990, after meeting in Riyadh, the liberal sheiks and emirs announced to formation of the Union of Arabia, a confederation of emirates and sheikdoms that would gurantee basic human rights and freedoms, including women's rights. Only then was the Union granted membership in the AF. This was followed by Jordan joining the AF in January 1991.

By early 1991, with the AF having multiple members from off the continent, the Salisbury Parliament in favor of the Truxwald Proposal (named after South African MP Marius Truxwald):

-The name of the African Federation, after July of 1991, would be changed into the Federation of Democratic Nations (FDN).

-The currency of the FDN (after January of 1997) would be the Federation pound stirling.

-A Constitutional Convention would be held in Salisbury to hammer out a new document to further unify the FDN.

-A new capital would be built more easily accesable to the new members of the FDN.

In the spring of 1991, construction began on the city of Baraka near Bangui. It seemed the perfect name for a new capital of this sort of union. By May 1991, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kurdistan, and the Republic of Basra had all requested admission into Federation. All woud be integrated by in by 1993.

1992 saw Nelson Mandela retire after three terms as South Africa's president. The African National Congress narrowly lost power to the South African Progressive Party, led by Journalist Rian Malan. He selected Thabo Mbeki and Steven Biko as the new vice-presidents. Mandela was awarded with his own Federation stamp. He had done well for a man who had started as a prosperous farmer, and the Federation always honored its heros.

1992 also saw New York Governor Mario Cuomo defeat GHW Bush for the presidency. With a lackluster economy, (and no steller American victory in the Gulf War to even give him an early edge), it was as close to a cakewalk as campaigns come in American politics.

Bush had been challenged in his primary by paleoconvervative Patrick Buchanan, a former speechwriter for Richard Nixon. Buchanan had nearly won the New Hampshire primary. His thinly veiled attacks on the "Israeli and African moneymen who dominate our political system") saw anti-Semitism rearing its ugly head yet again amongst populist politicians on both of the far ends of the American political spectrum.

1993 saw the establishment of the Union of West Africa between Nigeria, Ghana, the Gambia, and Cameroon. Nigeria, as one of the most prosperous states in Africa after Israel and South Africa, was trying to show its political weight in the new FDN.

Also that year, Lebanon would finally taste freedom. In the 1980s, the Syrians, encouraged by the Soviets, had sparked a civil war between the Shiite, Sunni, and Maronite Christian communities. Syrian forces had occupied that nation. But by 1993, with African and Jordanian diplomacy, the conflict had come to an end.

The FDN warned the Syrians that they would enforce UN resolutions calling for their withdrawl through an armed attack. After whitnessing the Gulf War, the Syrians had no desire to suffer the same fate as Iraq. Syrian troops left the nation, and in 1994, Rafiq Hariri became President, promtly taking his nation into the embraces of the FDN.

Throughout the 1990s, a new issue began to haunt Africa. Global Warming was starting to make things tedious for residents of the old AF. From droughts in Israel and South Africa to the creeping sands in Baraka (even as the Shamir Plan made them bloom), and forest fires in the Congo sparked new concerns about the impact of man on the environment (with the industrialization of Africa, Global Warming is starting to have an earlier effect).

The Salisbury Parliament passed new laws mandating the programs to curb gasoline use and cap carbon emmissions. This meant with strong protests among the MPs from Libya, West Africa, Arabia, the Gulf nations, and Sudan. To compensate them, the new laws mandated that the centers of manufacturing for alternative fuels and such would be in the nations most effected by the transitions.

Research into fussion power was among the initiatives started by these programs.

In 1995, the European Union and FDN announced plans to build as massive suspension bridge over the Streight of Gibralter, to symbolize the new prosperity that the two zones enjoyed. The European Union had adopted many of the reforms that had made the businesses of Africa flourish. Now, they were the FDN's biggest trading partners.

Not to be outdone, the USA, Canada, and Mexico, the founders of NAFTA, all signed free trade accords with the FDN. President Cuomo wanted his nation to be at the center of another competitor for the FDN and EU. This had led to a backlash amongst the far right in the 1994 elections, but his liberal policies had brought greater prosperity for the USA, and by extension North America. He would beat Jack Kemp in the 1996 by a fairly healthy margin. Gradually, the nations of Central America and the Caribbean would also enter NAFTA.

The last few years of the twentieth century was spent further integrating the world. An international high-speed railroad would be opened in 1998, connecting London and Cape Town, running through Paris, Brussels, Frankfurt, Berlin, Prague, Budapest, Belgrade, Istanbul, Beirut, Cairo, Khartoum, Tel Aviv, New Akko, Jerusalem, Kinshasa, Luanda, Walvis Bay and Keetmanshoop. A second arm of it would be opened in 2003, running from Cape Town back to Mamodan via Port Elisabeth, Durban, Johannesburg, Bulawayo, Salisbury and Beira. Tourism and trade boomed.

With European aid, the Republic of Russia (including only European Russia by this point), reformed into a democracy, and a free market economy. Central Asia, with FDN and European aid, also began the same sort of reforms. By 2000, Russia, Chechneya, Armenia, Turkey (which was forced to make amends for its genocide of the Armenians in order to become a candidate nation), the former Warsaw Pact nations, and Khazakstan were officially candidate countries for EU membership, while the rest of the former Central Asian SSRs began to looke towards FDN membership.

All of this came as Yugoslavia continued to go the way of Saudi Arabia and Russia. Starting with Slovenia and Croatia, and continuing with Montenegro, Macedonia, Kosovo, and Bosnia, Croats, Serbs, and Bosnians fought each other for over nationalistic and tribalistic squables. Franjo Tudgman of Croatia and Slobadan Melosevic of Yugoslavia were the biggest offenders to the international community. NATO forces, comprising mostly of Israeli and South African forces, had already intervened in 1995 to prevent the Serbs from slaughtering innocent refugees at Sebrencia. In 1999, Israeli and South African troops led the way in toppling Melosovic, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in September 1999. Millions of ethnic Albanians, Bosnian Muslims, and countless others were offered assylum in Israel and South Africa, as well as in the Egyptian and Barakan agricultural colonies.

In 1999, twenty years after the fall of the Shah, the Second Iranian Revolution removed the Mullahs from power, in scenes that made the fall of Houri Boemediene, Saddam Hussein, Slobadan Melosovic, and Vladimir Zhirinovsky look like a walk in the park. The new Republic of Iran reformed into a peaceful democratic state, and became a close ally (though not a member) of the FDN. Membership talks began on a low level, but for the time being, Iran was content to act as the bridge between the FDN and Asia.

India during the course of the 1990s, had begun the process of scrapping it's monsterous beauracracy. By 1999, India was a huge trading partner for the FDN. Indian immigrants to Israel and South Africa began increasing. That year, India also gained Most Favored Nation status with the US when it came to trade, something that the tensions between China and the US negated.

By the year 2000, the world was largely a peaceful one. The nations of North America were preparing to adopt the US dollar as their currency. Israel and South Africa remained centers of freedom and prosperity, being labled by both the UN and Economist as the number 1 and 2 places to live in the world, respectivally. 45 to 50 million Jews (depending on who you ask constitutes a Jew) resided in the world, free from the spectre of persecution for the first time in millenia, with over 80% living in Israel (and the rest remaining scattered in North America, South Africa, and Australia). The Shamir Plan had kept its promises, and the Shahara was blooming. Settlers from all over the FDN (and from Pakistan, India, Malaysia, and Indonesia) were moving the cheap plots of land among the lush greenery. The Gibralter Bridge remained under construction, along with the International Space Station (with a heavy degree of FDN contributions). The glass towers and broad, leafy avenues of the new FDN captial, Baraka, gleamed a healthy glow, as though to symbolize Africa's status as a beacon of light and justice.

2000 saw the Union of Iraq finally join the FDN, a sign that perhaps swords would finally be beaten into plowshares.

That year, Vice President Gephardt rode to healthy US economy and peaceful global situation to the White House over Senator John McCain of Arizona.

Tensions still existed, however. Pakistan and India continued to glare at each other with nuclear weapons. The feifdoms in the Union of Siberia remained frozen hellholes. And international observers spoke of a probable showdown between the People's Republic of China on one side, and of the USA, Japan, and Korea on the other.

But the world was largely stable, largely prosperous, and (for the most part), free. The 21st Century, the world's intellectuals argued, would eventually lead humanity to an age of peace.
***

"Democracy is a right to be fought for, and not an institution to be trampled on....by anyone......"

-Federation Prime Minister Jonas Obawe, in his 2007 Adress to the Barakan Parliament.

2000-2009:

As the 21st Century dawned, the nations of the ever prosperous Federation of Democratic Nations relaxed in the afterglow of the bountious 1990s. The fruits of peace were very enjoyable. From the expanding agricultural colonies of North Africa to the confortable urban centers all over the FDN, an African and Middle Eastern version of the Era of Good Feelings was in full swing. South African and Israeli movies played to crowded theatres around the FDN. Lagos, Cape Town, and Port Shalom became the new ceners for the mostdaring designs, as African, Asian, and European styles were liberally combined in the spirit of Marc Chagall's paintings.

In 2002, the members of the NAFTA trade bloc adopted the U.S. dollar as their currency. Idle speculation of a possible political union remained idle, as no one in Canada or the US was ready for a version of the Barakan Parliament, although Mexico's Vicente Fox continued to push hard for a North American version of the EU and FDN.

South America as a whole remained prosperous. Trade with the FDN and NAFTA had led to growing economies all over the continent. Despite the attempts of clowns such as Venezuela's Hugo Chavez to throw monkey wrenches in the geopolitical situation of the day. Brazil, Ecuador, and Colombia were receiving technical aid from both the USA and FDN.

Chavez, however, would foister a backlash against "The Imperialist money lenders in Washington and Baraka." Bolivia and Peru elected similar governments to his in 2002. An attempt to overthrow Chavez in 2003 (backed by the USA and the FDN), failed.

By contrast, an FDN-backed coup in Syria sucessfully removed the Assad dynasty from power. A new democratic government assembled in Damascas, and promtly petitioned to join the FDN. After technical aid and "reconstruction" of infastructure, Syria would join in 2005.

In 2004, the Republic of Iran declared war on Afghanistan after yet another Iranian diplomat was murdered in Herat by agents of the theocratic Taliban. Such actions had brought the two nations to the verge of war in 1999, before the Second Iranian Revolution. Now, the gloves would come off. The Barakan Parliament offered its aid to the Iranians, who accepted.

Unfortunately, this touched off a crisis with one of the Taliban's few allies-Pervez Mushareff's Pakistan. The Pakistanies weren't eager to be surrounded by the power of India on the one side and the FDN and its allies on the other. Pakistan mobilized its army, and stationed them close to the border with both Afghanistan and India.

The 2004 Afghan War brought the Grand Army's full might on display yet again. By the latter part of the year, the FDN/Iranian-backed Northern Alliance, under the command of Ahmed Shah Massoud (who had survived far longer than in another universe), soon entered Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif. The ubiquitous Mossad agents assisted in the capture of Mullah Omar, along with several of the old Iranian clerics who had barely beaten the lynch mobs in 1999.

It was during this time that illegal immigration from the Union of Siberia and Manchuria into America's Siberian Trust Territories became a major controversy. Stories of PLA soldiers gunning down desperate would-be refugees caused outrage amongst the American public at large. Warlords in the UOS were the targets of many Special Forces operations, among other things.

In late 2004, Massoud called a Loya Jurga to vote on a new constitution. Afghanistan, under his leadership (and with extensive aid from the FDN), finally began to recover from decades of war and repression. Roads, schools, hospitals, and other African luxuries were being rapidly imported. Afghanistan now joined Iran as a staunch ally of the FDN.

Pakistan remained a problem for several reasons. For one, the Saudi expatriates who had been driven from their homeland after the Saudi Civil War had mostly fled there. Groups such as al Qaida ("the base"), and the Sons of bin Laden operated in the North-West frontier Province, and recruited shamelessly from the madrasses and mosques throughout the country. With the Union of Arabia cracking down on Wahabism, Pakistan, along, to a lesser extent, with Indonesia, became the focal point of Islamic extremism. The Hambali became one of the more infamous of these "new terrorists), especially after his bombing a Bali nightclub frequented by Australians in 2005 and the Israeli and South African embassies in Jakarta in 2007. The Hambali was captured in 2009, and sentensed to death soon afterwards.

May of 2004 saw Poland, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Malta, Cyprus, and Slovenia officially join the EU. As the Balkans simmered to a historical lull in violence, the Republic of Russia and the Republic of Khazakstan negotiated 2015 as their date of entry into the EU, along with Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, and Chechneya.

Azerbaijan, by contrast, applied for membership in the FDN. That nation, after settling its border disputes with Armenia, entered the FDN in 2007.

The Middle East was settling down into its new situation. The fifties-era plans for revitalizing Baghdad by Frank Lloyd Wright were dusted off and applied with full enthusiasm. Massive deselization plants, modeled closely on the original Benghazi facility, began terraforming portions of Arabia, Mesopotamia, and Jordan in the spirity of the old Shamir Project. Massive solar plants went up all over the Middle East. Lebanon's Bekaa Valley became the site of major housing and aqueduct projects. The International Railway Line (IRL) was extended to Baghdad, Riyadh, Tehran, and Alma-Ata.

The 2008 Olympics were held in Cape Town. China remained to closed off to even consider granting the '08 games to Beijing. Instead, Africa was honored with its third Olympiad (after the 1968 Lagos Olympics and the 1996 New Jerusalem games).

In Siberia, the situation remained tense between the Chinese on one side and the Japanese, Koreans, and Americans on the other. Japan had rapidly expanded its colonies in the Kamchatka Peninsula, to the protests of China. The American military bases at Magadan and Vladivostok were strenghened. A new mini-Cold War had developed between China and the United States. The Chinese, during the 2000s, were forced to contend with unrest in Xinjiang from the Uighirs. Every time the Chinese introduced a resolution condeming the Japanese and Americans for their "disgusting imperialism" in Siberia, the Japanese countered with resolutions demanding that the Chinese halt persecution of its Uighir and Tibeten minorities. To counteract the charges of "imperialism," the Japanese UN Ambassador, at the culmination of a fearsome debate with his Chinese counterpart in early 2009, pulled out satellite images of the continued Chinese build-up in Manchuria. "You can run, Mr. Ambassador, but you cannot hide," became the new catchprahse of the year.

The UN Security Coucil's Permanent Seats (numbering only four since the collapse of Russia), finally expanded in 2009. With American and British sponsership, Israel, Japan, South Africa, Brazil, and India gained permanent seats. The Democratic Bloc was dramatically strenghened.

As 2010 rapidly approached, the divisions between the Free World and the "Tyrant's Bloc" would become more and more clear. A confrontation was bound to occur sooner or later.
***

"This newest struggle between the forces of good and evil must end in Ayman al Zawahiri's complete and utter destruction."

-Anwar al-Husseini, Egypt's Ambassador to the UN in a speech to the Security Council after the devastating terror attacks of 7/7/17.

2010-2019

2010 opened with massive celebrations in both Israel and South Africa, as both nations celebrated the 100-year-anniversary of the granting of their Dominion status. Queen Elizabeth II was greeted by roaring crowds of both African nations during her royal visit.

On February 28, 2010, the Gibralter Suspension Bridge was completed after 15 years of work. Moroccan Prime Minister Mohammed Al-Kuan and Spanish Prime Minister Hector Salvador would officially open the 31-mile-long bridge on April. With 16 lanes for highway traffic, along with two IRL lines cross it. To further celebrate

Afghanistan had finally acheived full stability, as Prime Minister Massoud finally retired. Israeli agricultural aid bore fruit as Afghanistan's infamous opium fields were plowed over.

That year, Turkmenistan joined the FDN, while Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgestan contented themselves with observer status in the Barakan Parliament.

Pakistan fortefied her borders, and tried to hunker down against the spread of the democratic winds blowing through the region.

In the Far East, Japan officially annexed the Kamchatka Peninsula, to harsh Chinese condemnation. Tensions increased dramatically.

However, the events that would cause some of the most contentious trouble on the World Stage in this decade came in South America. A political rival assasinated Hugo Chavez while he was reviewing a military parade. This led to a brutal three year civil conflict as various militias attempted to seize the country.

Finally, in 2013, Brazil drafted a UN resolution to send peacekeepers into the rapidly desintegrating country. American, Mexican, Canadian, and Brazilian troops enter the country in August 2013 to destroy the militias. However, the Venezuelans don't trust either the North Americans or the Brazilians. Venezuela's UN ambassador drafts a resolution asking the FDN to send a peacekeeping force instead. After due deliberation, the Barakan Parliament votes to send in a substantial force-a force of 45,000 South African, Israeli, West African, Barakan, and Arabian troops. The Brazilians and North Americans withdraw in October 2013.

This causes somewhat of a backlash in the United States. Senator William Sali (R-ID), called the withdrawl "a shamless kow-tow to the rivals of these United States." Sali, a nasty man and closet anti-semite, was the darling of the far-right. Most Republicans refused to associate themselves with him at all.

By 2014, Venezuela had stabilized. Brazilian President Luis Mila de Silva Dirani, in a conference organized in Santiago, Chile, called for a South American organization to compete with the European Union, NAFTA zone, and the FDN. This mementous conference led to the signing of the Rio Accords in 2015, calling for the establishment of a legislative body to meet in the city of La Paz, Bolivia, modeled off the the FDN's Barakan Parliament. The plan called for the peso to become the continent's new currency by 2020, and for the South American Confederation to assemble in the La Paz assembly by 2018. Brazil, Argentinia, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador became the founding members of the SAC.

May 1, 2015 saw the European Union expand yet again, with the Republic of Russia, Turkey, Montenegro, Belarus, Bosnia, Khazakstan, Chechneya, Armenia, Georgia, and the Ukraine finally joining as full members. Moldavia took the opportunity to join itself with Romania (which had joined in 2007).

2015 also saw the United States return to the Moon, laying the groundwork for Tranquility Base, the first permanent human settlement. Scientists from the EU and the FDN were also stationed there. Plans for an international mission to Mars by 2030 were soon being layed out in Baraka, Brasillia, Brussels, Tokyo, Canberra, and Washington.

By 2016, other than the tense situations in Pakistan and China, the world truely was a peaceful place. Vietnam began moving towards free market reforms, and finally fully buried the hatchet with the United States with a free trade agreement in May 2016.

Unfortunately, that played into the hands of the "Nativist Wing" of the Republican Party. The ideological heirs of Barry Goldwater and Phyliss Schafly, the Nativists used the discontent among the Republican base to give Bill Sali a shocking win over the incumbent Republican President, Mitt Romney. Romney angrilly refused to endorse Sali at the Republican convention, and led the group Republicans for Warner, referring to the campaign of Virginia senator Mark Warner.

The presidential election of 2016 was never really close at all. Sali's campaign, already far behind in the polls, suffered a fatal blow when Sali was cought remarking to a reporter from The American Conservative: "Yeah, the f*cking Jews, n*ggers, and sand n*ggers have total control over everything in this whole damn country."

On election night, Mark Warner became the first American presidential candidate to win every state since George Washington's unanimous victory in the late 18th century. Sali was eventually arrested in Boise for drunk driving, where he made yet another anti-semitic rant to the arresting officer.

No great loss.

2016 saw the FDN suffer directly from the attacks of Ayman al Zawahiri's al Qaida. Zawahiri, an Egyptian expatriate who had fled Egypt in the 1980s to Saudi Arabia, and from there to Pakistan, organized a devastating attack on the IRL's Gulf Line not far from Dubai on March 11. 208 people died as the train derailed at 185 miles per hour.

Pervez Mushareff was immediently accused of aiding an abetting terrorism. Al Qaida claimed responsibility.

Indian Prime Minister Shami Aiwase demanded that Mushareff root out and destroy the "barbarians who would perpatrate such an attack." The Pakistanis dragged their feet on the issue.

Then came September 5, 2016.

That day, forty bombs detonated in Mumbai, killing over 700 Indians. The same day, al Qaida gunmen opened fire on the Indian Parliament while it was in session, killing 4 MPs.

Ayman al Zawahiri again claimed responsibility. The attacks had caused their intended effects. Mob violence had broekn out in India against Muslims. The Indian Army was deployed to stop the violence, which lasted for weeks. Prime Minister Aiwase offered direct compensation to the victims of the mob violence, and offered them the chance to leave for another nation if they so desired. In the end, some 600,000 Indian Muslims immigrated to Arabia, the UAE, Oman, and Yeman, settling in the big cities and agricultural colonies.

The Barakan Parliament began rushing through anti-terror legislation. The nations of the FDN began severing diplomatic relations with Pakistan. The Barakan Parliament also passed a "total embargo" on the Pakistanis until al Qaida was rooted out of that nation.

Pakistan's economy, which was dependent on trade from the FDN and their allies, began to collapse under the strain.

In 2017, al Qaida would pull the attacks that would doom both it for all time.

On July 17, 2017, suicide bombers attacked a luxury hotel in Mogadishu, killing 24 people. Similar attacks were launched in Cape Town, Maputo, Port Shalom, and New Jerusalem. On that terrible day, some 450 people were killed.

The Barakan Parliament's action was swift. The entire body voted unanimously for a declaration of war on Pakistan. Iran and Afghanistan soon followed.

On July 25, the Israeli and South African navies began shelling Karachi. Iranian Eleazar IVs began attacking Pakistani air bases in the Northwest Frontier Province.

Ayman al Zawahiri was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Quetta. Mossad agents arranged for Mushareff to die in an ambush by rivals in the Pakistani military.

Pakistan then collapsed into the same chaos that had torn apart Russia, Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Saudi Arabia. Al Qaida's de facto head, Jehangir Mashar al-Ramadi was killed by the Maccabees in the Kyber Pass on August 8.

Finally, Pakistan sued for peace. Troops from Baraka, Arabia, Basra, and West Africa were stationed throughout the country until democratic elections could be held.

In November 2017, Pakistan gained its first democratic goverment in decades. President Mahmoud Letani would be sworn in on January 10, 2018. FDN aid began pouring into the devastated country.

The Pakistani War finally became the cataylst for Iran and Afghanistan becoming full members of the FDN in 2018. Pakistan became an associated member of the organization, gaining observer status that same year.

That same year, the first hydrogen fuled jetlineer, the African Aeorospece Type 415, entered the fleets of El Al, British Airways, Royal South African Aiways, KLM, and Emirates Airways. Flying at Mach-2, and with a range of 9,000 miles, the plane soon becomes yet another symbol of African strength and vitallity.

The airforces of the FDN also saw a major update in their jet fighters. The hydorgen engines were utilized for the Israeli Eleazar V, the South African Impala F-70, and the West African K7 Avenger. All would enter active service in 2025.

2019 saw the invention of the K-1 Formula at the Weitzman Technical Institute. The new formula proved its weight in gold, as it was able to make barren land bloom in a matter of weeks with a minimum of water. The inventor of the formula, Dr. Paul Rosenwieg, would gain the Nobel Prize for this invention.

The invention of K-1 led to the Kaplinsky Plan (named for Israeli MP Nicholas Kaplinsky), which was was adopted by the Barakan Parliament. It called for the complete irrigation of the Rub-al-Khali, the remainder of the Sahara, the Kalahari, and the deserts of Iran. Along with increasing the agricultural ouput, it's hoped that further immigration from nations such as Indonesia, India, Malaysia, and Pakistan can draw down the targeted pools of potential al Qaida recruits, namely young Muslim men.

2019 saw yet another technological breakthrough from the Israelis. On July 8, 2019, researchers at the University of New Akko announced that they have perfected an Irradiator. This revolutionary device uses isotopes of Iodine 137 and other highly reactive radioactive elements to change the size of radioactive atoms. This process renders reactor-hot nuclear waste harmless in a matter of minutes.

Belarus and the Ukraine asked the FDN to bring equipment to their nations to clean up their nations from the notorious Chernobyl accident. 14 weeks was all the time needed to clean up the mess, and on April 26, 2020, the area would be declared fully habitable again, 34 days to the nuclear disaster. The former Soviet Republics in Central Asia also utilized the device to clear away decades of nuclear debris, and the government of Russia used it to purify their test sites from the early days of the Cold War. The USA also used the device to clean away decades of nuclear waste.

With the FDN at the healm of human progress, the world continued on its march to freedom and prosperity on a truely universal scale.
***
Note: TheMann deserves credit for several ideas in this section of the TL.


"Enough of blood and anguish. Enough."

-Israeli Prime Minister Mordechai bar-Mdisho at the signing of the Barakan Accords, 2025.
2020-2029

The first half of the 2020s were spent "blooming" the remaining deserts of both Africa and the Middle East. The vast agricultural lands of the FDN caused a depression in global agricultural prices, causing friction with the US and EU. This would remain a contentious issue for the rest of the decades. Over ten million people from Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Thailand were granted land in these bountiful new territories.

In 2022, the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) became a reality, as the NAFTA zone and South American Confederation signed the historic trade agreement in Panama City, Panama.

In 2024, the Japanese and American governments announced plans for the Bering Strait Bridge. The 127-mile-long bridge was hoped to boost economic development for the Siberian Trust Territories, and was also expected to link the Americas with the rest of the IRL. The Japanese, by this time, had completely assimilated the Kamchatka Peninsula.

That same year, under a UN observer force, the citizens of Vladivostok and Magadan voted on their futures. The citizens of the American Trust Territories voted overwhelmingly for full American territorial status. The new territories of Yakutia and Beringia soon came into being.

The Chinese, stung by this latest insult, began casting their eyes on the rest of the Union of Siberia, where anarchy reigned. However, to invade the UOS, the Chinese would have to pass through Mongolia, which was an American/Japanese ally.

The die was cast on May 24, 2025. Using trumped up charges that Mongolian troops had violated Chinese territory, the People's Liberation Army launched an invasion of Mongolia. Within twenty-four hours, the entire country had been occupied.

The invasion was roundly condemned in the UN. A resolution drafted by the American, Indian, and Japanese ambassadors called for the complete withdrawl of Chinese troops from Mongolia by June 7, 2025. Otherwise, there would be war.

American troops were quickly deployed to the new Siberian territories. US troops were also deployed to Korea, and Taiwan. The Japanese Defence Forces were mobilized.

China ignored the UN resolution, and began moving troops into the UOS, occupying the city of Chita by June 6. Dogfights between Allied and Chinese planes had already begun.

The Barakan Parliament passed a resolution declaring a state of war between the FDN and PRC on June 8, even as American, Korean, and Chinese troops began clashing along the Yalu and Ussuri Rivers.

Taiwan took the opportunity to delcare full independence from the PRC. Chinese missles promtly began bombarding Taipei, destroying Taipei 101 and killing thousands. American and Chinese naval vessels began dueling in between the Mainland and Taiwan, which resulted largely in the destruction of the People's Liberation Navy.

In Siberia and Korea, the Americans and Japanese were overwhelmed by sheer numbers. However, Allied control of the air ensured that the Chinese attempts to drive on Vladivostok and Magadan would be ground to a bloody halt.

The Grand Army found itself deployed to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Mossad agents began gunrunning operations to prospective rebel groups in both Tibet and Xinjiang. The new jet fighters from West Africa, Israel, and South Africa began their baptism of fire against the People's Liberation Air Foce.

It was largely one-sided. The pilots of the FDN had reputations as being among the best in the world.

The European Union also declared war on China. Russian troops began moving into the UOS, destroying the remaining warlords and reclaiming most of their long divided country. Eurofigher IIIs (modeled after the Israeli Eleazars), were soon engaging the PLAF over Chita.

In July, 2025, a joint FDN/EU task force launched a ground invasion of China from Khazakstan. The Ughirs eagerly greeted them as liberators, while the Chinese residents were far more subdued.

India was dragged into the war when PLAF fighter-bombers violated Indian airspace. In conjunction with the Allied operations to the north, Indian forces began attacks into Tibet.

By July, the Allies had managed to drive the Chinese out of Siberia. Manchuria was soon under a continuous Allied bombardment.

Seeking to bring an end to the war, the Mossad began a mass hacking attack against the Chinese government's Internet censors. Images of the horrific fighting in Manchuria, Xinjiang, and Tibet was soon being filtered into millions of Chinese PCs.

This led to mass student protests against the government of the PRC. The students were outraged by the extent of the carnage that had engulfed their country. Clashes between the police and students were common in the big cities, with the largest being in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing itself.

Meanwhile, the Maccabees and Commandos began a campaign against China's nuclear arsenal. Unfortunately, at one base in Inner Mongolia, the PLA commander, in panic, launched seven missles from the base.

Four were shot down by the Allies. Unfortunately, three managed to find their targets-the Japanese Kamchatkan city of New Kyoto, the Korean city of Inchon, and the other, with its guided systems shot, ended up landing among Allied troop formations outside of Urumqi.

Over three million people died in from the missle strikes, including over 70,000 Israeli and South African troops.

August 4, the day of the nuclear strikes, would become a day of mourning across the FDN.

The Allied responce was swift and deadly. Harbin was destroyed by the Americans. The remaining Chinese missle bases were destroyed by South African and Israeli bombs.

The nuclear devastation sent an electric current through the student protesters. Fearing their demise at the hands of Allied bombs and missles, the protests grew far more violent. Beijing decended into chaos. Mossad agents took the opportunity to disable the entire city's power grid.

With Beijing cut off from the rest of the country, things rapidly began to fall apart for the Chinese. The Uighirs declared independence. Indian forces, having secured Lhasa, declared an independent Tibet. Another FDN/EU army entered Mongolia.

In Beijing, the students were slowly gaining the upper hand over the police and PLA units. Mossad agents, masquerading government pronouncements, caused great confusion among government forces. Finally, the students managed to overpower the last police units, and stormed the Politburo, which remained holled up with the loss of the power. Finally, one reform member of the Politburo, Zhang Enlai, declared himself premier. When this happened, the Mossad restored enough electricity for Enlai to get a message out to the Allied High Command, asking to discuss an end to hostillities.

The short Chinese War had claimed over twelve million lives, mostly civilians. Now, however, peace would be at hand.

The Barakan Accords, signed in late August of 2025, forced the new Chinese government to recognize the independence of Tibet and Xinjiang. The Communist Party was to be dismantled, and China would pay reparations to the nations of Mongolia, Japan, and Korea. China's nuclear arsenal would be permanently dismantled. Free elections were schedualed for 2027.

The issue of Taiwan remained controversial. In the end, Taiwan's representative agreed that a referendum on the future relationship between the two Chinas would be held in 2035. Until then, the Republic of China (ROC), would be recognized by the government in Beijing in Taipei.

The Republic of Russia restablished jurisdiction over the former Union of Siberia. In a seperate treaty, signed in Vladivostok, the Russians agreed to recognize American jurisdiction over the two territories.

FDN teams arrived in devastated China with their irradiators for assesments. It became clear that it would take at least two years to fully purify the devastated lands.

Tibet signed a treaty of alliance with New Dehli. The Dalai Lama would return to Lhasa in 2028, as Buddhist monestaries were reopened.

As the world began to recover from the Chinese War, a second disaster struck.

In July 2027, the Cascadia faultline erupted in the Pacific Northwest, causing a massive tsunami similar to the one which had devasted the Indian Ocean in 2004 (which had killed hundreds of Israelis). Although the big cities were protected from the wave, Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver were still heavily damaged. Around 2,568 people were killed in 8.2 quake.

The FDN pledged over $40 billion in aid to the beleagured citizens of the Pacific Northwest. With the generous FDN aid, the people of the Northwest were soon able to rebuild properly. One of the new buildings reconstructed in Seattle was named "Federation Tower" in honor of the generocity of the FDN. Port Shalom, which had been hard hit by the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, became Seattle's newest Sister City.

As a result of Cascadia, the most vulnerable cities to earthquakes across the globe began refitting themselves for the next big one. San Francisco and Los Angeles in particular put heavy emphasis on earthquake protection messures, which, as it turned out, would be life-savers later on.

2027 also saw decades of tyranny end in China as the new National Assembly met in Beijing.

To ease relations, the Japanese government set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commitee in 2028 to bring the full details of Japan's brutal war in China to light. The Chinese, in turn, sent reparations to the Japanese to assist in the rebuilding of New Kyoto. Zhang Enlai began calling for a new Asian-Pacific organization to facilitate the spread of human rights and democracy.....as well as to compete with Europe, the FDN, and the Americas.

Due to the twin economic shocks of the Chinese War and Cascadia Earthquake, the international mission to Mars was postponed until 2035. Construction on the Bering Strait Bridge was also delayed for the time being. Plans, however, were drafted to extend the IRL through Siberia to Vladivostok, and eventually over the Bering Strait Bridge to the Americas. Another line would extend through China, India, and South East Asia.

The 2020s had been a true "time of troubles." The 2030s would be a time for healing.

***
"Is it possible that we could see and end to armed conflicts by 2050? I certainly think so."

-UN Secretary General Constantine Van Fontenburg of South Africa, in remarks made to the Associated Press, September 4, 2038.

2030-2039

The 2030s would later be viewed as time period of healing and consolidation. In the Aftermath of the Chinese War, the dream of beating swords into plowshares became more and more pronounced.

From 2030 to 2035, the IRL was extended from New Dehli to Beijing, and from Beijing to Pyongyang and Soeul. From Beijing through to Shanghai, Hong Kong, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Kuala Lumpor, and Singapore.

By 2031, the world economy began to recover from the twin shocks of the Chinese War and the Cascadia Earthquake.

In 2031, the Federation of Democratic Nations went through its last major round of expansion. Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgestan, the Maldives, and the new Republic of Xinjiang became members of the FDN.

As the K-1 Formula was applied to the deserts of the FDN, the waves of immigration from India and southeast Asia continued unabated. As a result, South Africa and Israel's already substantial Indian, Malay, and Indonesian minorities became more and more pronounced. However, it was nothing that the "African melting pots" couldn't handle.

In Asia, Zhang Enlai's dream of new Pan-Asian/Pacific Union began to get off the ground with the signing of a massive free trade agreement between India, China, Taiwan, Singapore, Korea, and Japan. In 2033, the Hong Kong Accords established a timetable for establishment of the APTO (Asian-Pacific Treaty Organization). The new APTO was headquartered in Singapore, solidifying that nation's status as an International Hub. Malaysia, Bangladesh, Australia, Indonesia, New Zealand, and East Timor would join soon afterwards. APTO was the new 800-lb gorilla in the room, as it's prospective unified economy had the possibility to bury every other power bloc in the world, even the NAFTA and FDN zones.

The new Federal Republic of China began to confront decades of Communist neglect. Rural poverty and extreme industrial pollution remained the biggest issues.

The Barakan Parliament voted in 2034 to accept over 500,000 Chinese refugees. Many of the refugees were settled in the vast agricultural colonies in Baraka, the Union of Arabia, and Iran, joining the decendents of the waves of southeast Asian and Indian immigrants, who had formed many new cities and towns in thier own right; the biggest being New Hyderbad, Arabia, Port Ghandi, Oman, and New Jakarta, Iran.

2035 was dominated by the the International Mission to Mars. Astronauts from Europe, America, Brazil, the FDN, Australia, Japan, India, and China planted the flag of the UN on the surface of the Red Planet. "Yet another stop on humanity's march to the stars," said Israeli astronaut Joseph MacGregor bin-Hayem. More remembered is the sardonic reply from West Africa's Orin Sebastian Moreye: "Joe, stop copying my speeches."

July 2035 saw the completion of US-Japanese Bering Strait Bridge. The International Railroad Line soon dusted off the plans to extend the IRL across the bridge to Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Bogota, Santiago, and looping all the way back through Brasillia and Reclife through Caracas all the way to the US East Coast to Quebec City, Toronto, and then back to the Bering Streight Bridge. It was estimated that it would take another seven or so years to complete the newest addition to the line.

On November 5, 2035, the citizens of Taiwan narrowly voted in favor of reunifying with the Mainland. With the end of Communism, there was little hurdle to left to reintegrating. The prospect of wealthy (though war-devastated) Taiwan reuinting with the Mainland did much to boost investment in China by itself.

In 2037, the United States formally set the border with the State of Japan at the Kamchatka Peninsula. The territories of Beringia and Yakutia soon entered the Union as the 52nd and 53rd states, respectivally.

That same year saw yet another major disaster strike the United States. The great Los Angeles quake, an 8.0 monstrocity, killed over 1,000 people and devastated whole portions of the metropolis. However, the extensive quake-proofing measures installed in the 2020s after the Cascadia Earthquake saved many lives and prevented even worse devastation. Once again, donations from the FDN allowed for the a quick reconstruction.

A UN survey conducted in 2039 found a total population of some 71 million Jews, 85% of which lived in the State of Israel. The remainder were scattered in South Africa, the United States, West Africa (where the Tasiru Sect had cought on strong), and Australia. However, many Orthodox Jews publically disputed those figures, claiming that the Tasiru Sect wasn't even part of the Jewish religion (if taken away by itself, the Tasiru Sect numbered some 14 million, mostly centered in Israel, the Congo, South Africa, and West Africa).

By the time of the 100th anniversary of the start of World War II and the beginnings of Hitler's Halocaust, it seemed that the world would finally put its differences behind it for a new tommorow.
***

"Ahh, the Americans. They always have so much fun at their NAFTA meetings......because they don't go anywhere afterwards...."

-From the diary of South African MP Edward van Schreckenling, 2/16/2049

2040-2049:

The first half of the 2040s saw the International Railroad Line complete construction of its new route through the Western Hemisphere; with the completion of the Toronto-Anchorage line in 2044, it was now possible to take the train from Glasgow to Buenos Aires if your heart so desired. Some dared to speak that a new "World Government" was forming out of the free trade agreements and the construction of the IRL.

In 2045, the United States, after decades of delay, joined the International Criminal Court, which was based in Lagos, West Africa.

The first half of the 2040s also saw multiple observances of the 100th anniversaries of the great battles and campaigns of World War II. Chancellor Eisenbach of Germany paid the traditional trip of sorrow to the infamous death camps of Eastern Europe, where so many Slavs and other dissidents had met their deaths at the hands of Hitler's henchmen. Among those who attended the 100th anniversary of the liberation of Auchwitz-Burkinau by the Soviets was the FDN's Prime Minister, Israel's Niklaus Eindoski, a decendent of one of the 100,000 Polish DPs that the Israelis had accepted after the war. His remarks at the former death camp said it all: "If our new global community can accomplish anything, it can make sure that events such as these never occur among the human race again." Of course, his usage of the words "global community" was seized upon by the hyper-nationalists across the world (and the remaining Nativists in the United States) as "proof" that a tyrannical one-world government was forming before their eyes.

In the United States and Western Europe, the Tasiru Sect began to attract its first great wave of converts. In the USA in particular, this proved to be popular among the African-American community. The Orthodox continued to stew over this newest development, but that was all they could really do.

The Nativists in the United States began to take out their angst over "foreign subversion" on the growing numbers of converts to Judaism's Tasiru Sect. A series of firebombings of Tasiru Synagogues in late 2045 in Atlanta, New York, Jackson, Miami, and Los Angeles brought a harsh diplomatic condemnation from the Israelis, until the FBI rolled up the militias which had carried out the attacks.

2045 also saw the NAFTA zone began negotiations on a possible constitution and governing body, mirroring the assemblies that the FDN, EU, SAC, and APTO had long possesed. Unfortunately, this led to a backlash in the 2046 midterm elections. President Rodriguez suffered a defeat in the elections of 2048 from a "Live American," candidate, Senator Paul Trambach of Michigan. This immediently halted the proposed 2050 Constitutional Convention in Kansas City on a governing body for the NAFTA zone. The other leaders from the NAFTA nations tried to trend a fine line, in the hopes that President-elect Trambach wouldn't undo all of the progress that had been made in the last sixty years. One of Trambach's first acts would be to withdraw the USA from the International Criminal Court, oblivious to international condemnation.

The FDN remained sedate as usual. The unoficial motto of the organization was the "union of subdued excitement." Other than the completing of reconstruction of Xiajiang, there wasn't much left do. Most of the immigrants flowing into Israel and South Africa were now from China, twenty years after the end of the Chinese War. The Federal Republic of China had an unoficial policy of eroding the high levels of urban and rural poverty by "encouraging" immigration. The FDN was more than happy to take them. The towns of New Beijing, Arabia, Zhang-He, Yeman, New Guangzhou, Israel [OTL's Karin, Somalia], and New Shanghai, Madagascar were the largest concentration of these new Chinese immigrants, who would do much to encourage the continual technological development of the FDN.

The 2040s saw the continued development of space travel. The South African-made Kadu-class spaceplane and the Israeli-made Kanye-class probe became the newest tools in humanity's scientific arsenals. The first permanent settlement on Mars, Port Democracy, was established in 2049. The Israelis launched the first interstellar probe to the Alpha Centauri system that same year. The UN ambassadors of both Israel and South Africa continued to push for the foundation of an International Space Agency (ISA), which would consolidate the efforts of the various blocs into one agency. This met with considerable resistance from the USA's new nativist-oriented government in the latter part of the decade, to international furor.

The 2050s, it seemed, would see only continuous progress......despite, as it turned out, the efforts of certain individuals and even Mother Nature to slow things down.
__________________
So long and thanks for all the fish.

#20 Report Post
September 10th, 2006, 10:26 PM
David bar Elias
David bar Elias

Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 1000 or more
"It'll be pleasant to return to normality."

Moshe Tasiru ben-Talal, Israel's ambassador to the USA, after the electoral defeat of President Trambach, 2052, in his diary.

2050-2059

President Trambach remained somewhat popular with the American electorate, although the Republicans lost seats in Congress during the midterms.

That same year, the leaders of the USA, South Africa, Israel, China, and Korea gathered in Soeul to mark the 100th anniversary of the Korean War. It was at this gathering that Paul Trambach displayed his lack of empathy and diplomatic fortitude. As Israeli Prime Minister Golda Tasiru Ring remarked to an aid: "This is what 'Living America' means?" Trambach, in his hasty remarks, misplaced the names of several key battles, and smugly claimed that General MacArthur alone was responsible for the eventual victory (he refused to acknowledge the UN). This caused an ugly diplomatic incident. In the USA itself, the backlash from the previous administration's policies began to wear off, as many questioned Trambach's ability to govern.

Tactless, President Trambach, in a desperate bid to fully secure his base, withdrew from several popular international accords, including the 2003 Accord with banned land mines, and the Rio Accords of 1997, which had ensured that the industrialized nations would reduce carbon emissions.

Instead, this caused the pendulum to swing the other way. President Trambach, in yet another desperate bid to secure reelection through his nativist base, expressed his full support for an amendment that would have made English the official language of the USA. The effects were ugly. The Latin American members of NAFTA threatened to withdraw, and the Hispanic base in the USA itself swung sharply to the Democrats.

In the end, President Trambach not only lost to 2052 elections (to New Mexico's Governor Samuel Martinez), but the Democrats managed to retake Congress. President-elect Martinez promised to reauthorize the International Accords that Trambach had withdrawn from. The world breathed a sigh of relief.

In the USA, this pounded the last nail into the coffin of America's Nativist Wing. As Barakan Prime Minister Ishmael Mahmoud Tafa remarked in his diary in 2052: "God bless the Americans. In the end, they always do what's right."

In 2054, representatives from NAFTA, SAC, APTO, EU and the FDN met in Baraka to hammer out the International Space Accord. The new document called for the formation of the Earth Space Agency, which would pool the planet's resources into scientific development and space exploration. The key points of the accord occured as followed:
The Central Command of the ESA shall be in New York City, under the control of a Space Habitation Council, to be governed under the guidence of rotating (every two years) representatives from the different trade zones and power blocs. A President shall command the ESA for a single six year term.
Rocketry development shall take place in Woomera, Australia, Karoo, South Africa, and Huntsville, USA.
Launch sites of the ESA shall be based in the Soloman Islands, Khazakstan, Xinjiang, Israel, Baraka, Florida, and French Guinea. Tracking centers shall be established in Houston, Reclife, Honolulu, Baikonur, Port Shalom, and Singapore.
Research into robotics shall be based in Los Angeles, Tokyo, Mumbai, Hong Kong, and Lagos.
Terrestrial vehicle testing shall take place in Arabia, Australia, Brazil, and the Congo.

This marked a totally new begining for mankind as a whole. For the first time united in a common goal, the sky itself would cease to be a limit.

The second decade of the twenty-first century saw technology continue its march forwards. Seperate research teams in the United States, West Africa, Korea, and Japan began working on increasing artificial intelligence.

Israel and the Congo, by contrast, remained centers of biological research. 2055 would finally see a cure for the dreaded Akko and Ebola White Nile diseases come from the premier universities of those two African nations.

Immigration from China continued, although at a slightly smaller pace than in the previous decades. The Chinese population of West Africa, Baraka, Libya, South Africa, and Israel increased immensley.

By 2055, the Brooking Institution's Freedom Index showed that, for the first time in the history of civilization, human rights and democracy was enjoyed across the world stage.

In the USA, President Martinez, fresh from reelection in 2056, would call forr a Constitutional Convention for the NAFTA zone in St. Louis in 2059. That same year, the Japanese began construction on the world's first mile-high building in Tokyo. The mammouth project would become the newest symbol of Japanese pride, over 110 years after their loss in World War II.

In 2057, engineers from all over the world met in Gibralter, in the shaddow of the Gibralter Suspension Bridge, to begin discussions on how to build a floating tunnel from New York to London, thereby increasing the IRL's so-called "Link of Civilization."

In the end, delegates from the APTO called for the design to be tested by builing such a project from Darwin to Papua New Guinea, and from Papua New Guinea to the various Indonesian islands until the mainland was reached, thereby linking Australia with the main IRL line.

However, even as the world was finally settling down to savor this new calm in geopolitics, yet another major disaster struck.

The last time the New Madrid faultline had ruptured, it had been when the 19th century was young. On July 2, 2058, New Madrid ruptured with an 8.3 quake, which killed over 60,000 Americans making it the deadliest earthquake in American history. The fact that this quake erupted as the 4th of July weekend was approaching only made things worse. Whole sections of Kansas City, St. Louis, Memphis, and Des Moines were reduced to rubble.

This newest disaster sapped the now highly integrated world economy, causing a two year recession (and the delay of the implementation of the Australasian Bridge Project). Foreign aid from the Federation of Democratic Nations and the other members of the NAFTA zone was heavy, once again smoothing reconstruction, although it would be almost five years before the affected regions was restored.

As a long term result, the world began examining other possible zones where such disasters could strike. The 2060s would see these projects come into full effect, among other things. In addition to that, humanity would begin to take its biggest steps to date into the Solar System.
__________________

"We've truely reached the end of history."

University of Salisbury Professor Michael Tasiru Stanwood in a guest lecture to students at the University of Tel Aviv, June 2069.

2060-2069:

The first half of the 2060s involved the reconstrion and earthquake proofing of the American midwest. Heavy aid from around the globe, but especially from the FDN allowed for the reconstruction to move very smoothly.

The massive waves of immigration from China finally began to drop as China itself rebuilt itself into one of the central states of the APTO. Plans were unveiled in Beijing for a floating tunnel system which would link Korea with Honshu. Similar designs to connect India and Sri Lanka, Singapore and Indonesia, and mainland China with Taiwan were also unvelied. Thus, the plans for the Trans-Atlantic Tunnel were postponed until the world economy could be more focused. Free trade agreements between the major power blocs became a major focus of international diplomacy in the 2060s, with free trade accords between the FDN and APTO, APTO and the EU, APTO and the FTAA zone, and the FTAA zone and the FDN, creating a world economy that lacked any real trade barriers.

South African scientists managed to come out with the first practical hovercraft, which would make transportation across the length and breadth of the planet's megalopoli and verdant countrysides much more cost efficient, to say the least.

he blueprints for the Einstein class space shuttle, which represented a major upgrade in the development of pulse-driven rockets, was unveiled in both Karoo and Huntsville. Plans for several new major bases on Mars were unveiled in New York for Space Habitation Council. Expeditions into the Asteroid Belt and to the Jovian Moons were also planned for the 2070s.

One scientist, Brazil's Armando de Malvo, proposed a massive Space Elevator. Construction on that mega-project has yet to get off the ground, unfortunately.

By 2064, construction finally got underway on the Australasian Bridge Project. The experimental design will take over eight years to implement between Darwin and Port Moresby.

2067 saw the NAFTA zone's oft-delayed Constitutional Convention get underway in Chicago. Based on the freedoms presented in the US Constitution (and borrowed slightly from the old African Federation Constitution), the Convention was a success. The nations of the NAFTA zone agreed to create the North American Senate, which would be based in Denver, where matters considering the internal economy and foreign policy of North America would be debated and discusssed.

In 2068, the expedition of the ESS Unity, the first of the South African-U.S.-designed pulse-driven ships made headlines around the world, as it traversed the moons of Jupiter, and surveyed the wealthy mineral deposits in the Asteroid Belt. As of this writing, the Unity is on its way back to the new International Space Station (colliquially known today as the "Mk. 2").

2069 saw the first synagogue dedicated on the Moon by Rabbi Baruch Eshkol Rubenstein. This Reform temple, Beth-Shalom, changed its first prayer service to begin with the prayer for peace; however, the history behind that first prayer service on another body in space recognizes the fact that we in Israel will always be the first ones to fight for the rights of others to live in harmony and justice among our human civilzation. I would like to think that we've done a pretty good job of accomplishing that goal so far in the long journey of our People Israel.

-----------------

Professor Yakov Liebowitz
University of New Jerusalem
December 31, 2069.