SkunkyArt | RvBOMally — War Has Changed

East/West relations are pretty chill by 2015. The US and USSR have their own moonbases plus some European/UN run ones to boot. An international Mars mission is in the works.

Romania remains under their communist government and is the European North Korea. Nicu Ceaușescu runs the country after his father died in the late 90's.

Former South Africa is a poor shithole full of breakaway ethnostates. Think OTL Yugoslavia on 'roids. Pretoria, Jo'burg and Durban were nuked during the civil war as a last resort on the behalf of the Apartheid government. There's a moderate Cape Republic, a radical Afrikaner Volkstaat, a Zulu Kingdom and a neo-Communist Azania in the Transvaal/Orange Republic area. The Afrikaner Volkstaat engages in the occasional border war with their Communist Azanian neighbors to the north while SADF-backed mercenaries operate all over the former South African Republic to restore their country.

China falls to a Second Civil War after an alternate version of the Tiananmen Protests takes place. Meanwhile, Taiwan remains an autocratic dictatorship, ran by the by the grandson of Chiang Kai-Shek. Taipei intervenes in the Civil War and manages to snag the southern portion of the former PRC, while a moderate reformist faction on the mainland takes the rest of the state. The current situation is sorta like a reverse Korean Conflict, albeit it’s moderate liberalism vs autocratic conservatism.

Japan re-militarises during a Korean War II in the 1990’s and is now the proud owner of a nuclear weapons deterrent and a couple of aircraft carriers to boot.

Afghanistan remains a Communist state but is in a similar camp to Romania, refusing to turn to a market economy and has strained relations with the USSR. It is, funnily enough, an Islamo-Communist nation, with Pashtun tribes running kibbutz-style farms/villages that are under the oversight of the Party.

The US has gradually withdrawn from global military conflicts and is starting to hand over occupation duties to either their allies or the United Nations. One may only see American troops as apart of a UN taskforce as opposed to an independent military these days. However, it does retain alliances with some states, particularly in Latin America and Europe. To replace direct intervention, the Americans prefer to use mercenaries.

Rhodesia stands triumphant over the ZANU guerillas and continues to fight against international pressure over their white-minority government. South Africa and Portugal given them token support while Ian Smith’s son rules the roost.

An East African economic union exists, but is starting to become dominated by Kenyan political and economic interests. Think a fun-sized EU, but in Africa.

Nigeria is rising to the forefront of African politics and is apart of a ‘Third World Bloc’ of nations that seeks to keep the Yanks (First World) and Soviets (Second World) off their back. The alliance consists of Nigeria, Brazil, Ethiopia (the monarchy stuck around), India, Libya (Gaddafi still runs the show), Turkey (nasty military dictatorship that’s dedicated to stomping out Islamism and making Ataturk proud) and Algeria.

Australia became a republic after the 1999 referendum and now takes the place of the US in guarding the Pacific alongside Japan and a revitalises Philippines, which is now a borderline first-world state.