Geopolitical Units circa 2040

 

Mankind’s expansion into the world’s oceans has triggered the conformation of regional alliances formed for the common defence of their territories, including their oceanic resources. The following is a brief résumé of the main powers, alliances and confederations:

 

 

 

Antillas / Antilles   Confederación de las Antillas Confederacy of the Antilles

 

 

Formed by Belize, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panamá, Honduras, Cuba, the Bahamas, República Dominicana, Jamaica, the Leeward and Windward islands (excepting Trinidad and Tobago), and Puerto Rico, it splurge the strange distinction that the latter is still a U.S. commonwealth, while many of the Windward Islands are still British possessions. This Confederación still maintains occupation troops in Haïti ten years after the invasion of that nation; and it’s regarded as a mere puppet of the Anglo-U.S. alliance. Diplomatic and military clashes with Brazil and UEO forces in the eastern Caribbean Sea waters are frequent and often bloody.

 

 

 

Azania   Confederated Nations of Azania

 

 

“Izwe Azania Lethu”: the land of Azania is ours. This is the motto of the Confederation of Azania. Born after the dissolution of the Union of South Africa, this was the first modern confederation. Under British auspices, the Black nations of Lesotho, Swaziland, KwaZulu and Kei former the core of Azania: a loose federation of independent nations which adopted a common currency and pooled resources to improve their infrastructure and create investment opportunities for richer countries. Between the years 2002 and 2022 other African nations (Bophuthatswana, Limpopo, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Madagascar and Mozambique) joined Azania. Despite its fame of backwardness, Azania is know for its state-of-the-art Isithwalambiza AI systems, totally designed and fabricated in Azania.

 

The baptism of fire for this confederation was the war against the Boer Republic in 2017: with German support, the Boers attacked and conquered Kei in a blitzkrieg attack: the peace treaty signed under auspices of the League of Nations granted the city of Oost London (East London) to the Boers, while granting Azania internationally recognized borders with their Boers neighbours, because it wasn’t until then that the common border was clearly defined. Even today clashes with the Boers are common, and the federation’s budget suffers under the weight of astronomical defence expenditures.

 

 

 

Brazil   República Federativa do Brasil

 

 

In the last decades Brazil had recovered from centuries of mismanagement and corruption, and had ascended to Great Power status. Even when its per capita income is still low compared with Europeans standards, Brazilian industry is among the most technologically advanced in the world, and its navy in the strongest in America, after the U.S. Navy. Brazil has imposed a benign hegemony over Surinam, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela and several Colombian warlords. Brazilian military advisor are training the Barranquilla warlord’s troops, and a joint Venezuelan-Brazilian force is occupying the former Colombian provinces of Amazonas, Vaupés, Guainía and Arauca. Brazilian naval forces patrol the entire South Atlantic, and clashes with Antillean, Guinean and Cape Republic forces are frequent.

 

 

 

Chaodai   Baowei Chaodai Tongmenghui

 

 

After the collapse of the Republic of China in 2027, the rich provinces of southern China decided to form a loose confederation: Chaodai. The main goals of this confederacy are to maintain its access to the sea lanes of communication (SLOCs) on which depends its export-based economy, and the military deterrence of the petty warlords in the Chinese interior. With its capitol in Guangzhou (Canton), the Chaodai territory includes the former Chinese provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, southern Fujian and Jiangxi, south-western Hunan, and eastern Yunnan.

 

Chaodai today is strategically akin to ancient Carthage: it is an intensely commercial society that allows her military security to be provided at a critical level by another country (Indonesia), and participates, along with Malaya, in an informal alliance under which Chaodai is little more that Indonesia’s more useful tributary. On the other hand, their Indonesian patrons are facing a rising power inherently stronger (Macronesia), which is implacable over matters of economical and political interest and is willing to use force to impose its interests.

 

Chaodai’s future is uncertain, and its leaders, in their typical pragmatic fashion, are looking for more political elbowroom outside its alliance with Indonesia, while at the same time passively follow Jakarta’s lead. The best example of Chaodai’s subordination to Indonesia is the creation of the Kangri Jiuguohui, (Society of Confronting Japan and Saving the Nation), an anti-Japanese political organization which opposes the Japanese occupation of Singapore and its alliance with Taiwan.

 

 

 

China   Chung Hua Min Guo

 

 

In 2028, Hebei, Shandong, Shanxi, Henan and Jiangsu decided to join forces and formed a weak confederation: Hua Pei Kuo (North China Land), rapidly absorbed by the larger and stronger Manzhouguo. Adding its own industrial and commercial power to those of the conquered provinces, including the huge cities of Beijing, Tianjin, Qingdao, Nanjing, and Shanghai, the new Republic of China has become the stronger of the Chinese states. Thus is not SURPRISING that is in Beijing where the Unionist Movement has found more support for its cause: the reconstitution of the 1911 Chinese Republic. This nation maintains tense relations with Korea, Mongolia and Siberia: the territorial disputes over the Korea Bay / Po Hai Sea, Inner Mongolia and the Ussuri river serves China to justify its large military forces. Its influence its felt in the fiefdom of central China and Central Asia.

 

 

 

Germany   Bundesrepublik Deutchland

 

 

Germany has maintained its position as the strongest among the European powers since 1943, but at the price of international isolation, paranoia, a heavy military budget and finally a civil war. The vaguely socialist German government has tried to forge closer ties with other European nations, and while diplomatic probes failed in the Balkans and Britain, the UEO and the Scandinavian have been far more receptive.

 

However, Germany still stands lonely in the middle of Europe: while other nations had invested large quantities of money and prestige in the conquest of the oceans, the largely continental Germany has dedicated all its efforts in the conquest of the space. Its presence is felt through its numerous and advanced orbital, Lunar and Martian manned and robotic facilities, and is the only power that continues with Martian missions, although apparently with scientific, not colonial, goals.

 

Germany has sought to gain some “breathing space” with extra-regional alliances: the Afrikaaner Republiek, the Río de La Plata confederation and –oddly, the New Russian Unity- maintains very close political and military ties with Berlin. On the other hand, German economic power is felt around the world, especially in Eastern Europe, the People’s Arab Republic, southern Africa, South America and Macronesia.

 

 

 

Guinea   République Pan-Africaine Pan-African Republic

 

 

The African nations in the Gulf of Guinea has formed one of the most powerfully armed and integrated confederations. Composed by the former nations of Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroun, Guinea Ecuatorial and Gabon; this confederation has eliminated completely the international borders among its member nations, blending the former republics into a single bloc, thus resembling more a federal republic than a confederation. Its only legal political party, the African People’s Unity Party, has imposed the nation the goal of serve as the tool for the unification of the entire African continent into a single federal nation. This goal is reflected in the official name of the republic and in its constitution, which states in its opening article:

 

“After centuries of national oppression and struggle, we did as people, attain political freedom in 2018. For the first time we are able to organize a government representative of the entire African nation… We hold the view that progress and good social order cannot be maintained in a situation where the continent is divided in multiple frail units… We believe that Africa is a unitary state. Hence, we reject the balkanisation of Africa into separate autonomous units. The Pan-African government will seek to abolish the autonomous governments as presently constituted and consolidate the continent into provinces with administrative functions of government carrying out central government policies and directives.”

 

Of course, such statements, the Guinean military –armed mainly with U.S. war materiel- and the support given to destabilizing groups operating in the rest of Africa, had made Abidjan very unpopular at continental level, and the recent cannibalization of Congolese and Senegalese territory has just confirmed the fears of Guinea’s neighbours, which had declared a complete embargo on Guinea.

 

 

 

Indian Ocean Coalition

 

 

This disparate coalition, formed by Eritrea, Mogadishu, Zanzibar, the Seychelles, the Comoros, Mauritius, Maldives, Mumbai, Madras, Sri Lanka, Yangon, Oman and Djibouti, was created under the auspices of Japan, the UEO, Iran and Azania, to serve as a buffer against Macronesian, Thai, Indonesian, Sikh and Arabian ambitions in the Indian Ocean. Although the Coalition members are small and relatively poor, and the multitude of religions, languages and cultures has hindered its political integration, its role as the “middleman” of the maritime commerce in the Indian Ocean has boosted its economic importance and elevated its living standards.

 

With its capitol in the Sri Lankan port of Trincomalee, the Coalition is in several aspects very similar to the XIV century Hanseatic League: a permanent Council manages the policies of the Coalition while all the members contribute with the common defence with men and money. Most of the Coalition’s military budget is financed by Japan and Iran, powers with a strong interest in keeping the Indian Ocean open to navigation. The Coalition recently increased its territory with the admission -with probationary status- of Karachi-Sindh and Chittagong, and the purchase from Japan of the Andaman and Nicobar islands.

 

 

 

Indonesia   (Republik Indonesia)

 

Indonesia has followed Brazil’s path to Great Power status. But unlike Brazil, Indonesia is a highly militaristic state, where most of the industrial development responds to one way or another to the augmentation of its already impressive military machine: its submarine force is second only to Macronesia’s, and its army is large and modern. Indonesia exerts an overwhelming influence over Chaodai and Malaya, and enjoys a close relation with the standoffish Thais. Relations with Macronesia are frosty, due to the border dispute in New Guinea, while the Philippines are under constant thread, too, due to the destabilizing influence of Yakarta over the Muslim peoples of Mindanao. Japan and Indonesia broke diplomatic relations with Indonesia in 2023, when in a surprising attack, Indonesian marines were close to occupy Singapore, a Japanese possession. Since the Indonesian “betrayal”, Singapore lives under the constant menace of Indonesia, who claims the city-state as its own.

 

 

 

Japan   Dai Nippon Teikoku

 

 

Japan count itself among the remaining traditional Great Powers: its geographic localization, territorial extension, and its economic and military power make it able to exert a considerable influence in regional and extra-regional affairs. Its influence is particularly strong in Siberia, Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Fujian, Singapore, the Indian Ocean Coalition and Perú; but after the “betrayal” of Indonesia and the instable situation in China, Japan has renounced to support tight multilateral security organizations, and maintain mere bilateral mutual defence treaties with Siberia and Taiwan, a “friendship and security” treaty with the Philippines, a non-aggression treaty with Macronesia, and maintain powerful naval forces in Singapore and Cam Ranh Bay, the latter leased from Vietnam.

 

In recent years the Japanese electorate has supported political parties with isolationist initiatives in their platforms: fear of troubles aboard and the near energetic and alimentary autosuficiency of the Empire are making increasingly popular the idea of withdraw from the outer world and its problems. A sample of this is the perfunctory Japanese participation in the “second space race”, limiting itself to organize with France a joint expedition to Mars. Nonetheless, the Empire maintains the most technologically advanced navy in the world, and has showed its will to honour its present compromises with its allies and friends: the recent showdown with the Indonesian Navy off the coast of Mindanao is a good example.

 

 

 

Macronesian Alliance   United Island Confederation of Macronesia

 

 

The meteoric ascent of the Macronesian Alliance to Greatest Power status was temporally halted by the Second Pacific War: even when Auckland forced Washington to recognise the Chilean entry into the Alliance, the war effort depleted the Macronesian military and castigated severely its economy. The bloody victory has sobered the Alliance government and forced it to look after foreign support: until now, only Japan has offered -cautiously- some support to this beleaguered power, which shares borders with hostile nations and confederations in the Pacific, Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean and South America. However, it is just a matter of time until Macronesia muster enough strength to defy again the status quo in detriment of more traditional powers.

 

 

 

Río de la Plata Alliance   Alianza del Río de La Plata

 

 

The South American nations of Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay and Paraguay unified efforts after lengthy negotiations in the early 2020s. In 2023 Montevideo, La Paz and Asunción forced Buenos Aires to guarantee their political independence in exchange of diplomatic, political, military and economical support: as a gesture of good faith the confederation’s provisional capitol was translated from Buenos Aires to Asunción, in an effort from the smaller partners to avoid subjugation by Argentina. Generally regarded as a regional power, this alliance limits itself to defend -fierily- its territories, menaced by Brazil in the north, the Macronesian Alliance in the West, and the South African nations in the East. This Alianza actively participates in South American politics: has brokered a peace accord between Ecuador and Perú, and openly support the Cundinamarca warlord, who had unified the central region of the former Colombia with Argentinean gifts of weapons and advisors.

 

 

 

Scandinavian Commonwealth   Riksfælleskap Skandinavien

 

 

The political integration of the Nordic nations began in 1953 when Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Latvia and Estonia formed the Nordic Council to study diverse ways of regional cooperation. After the dissolution of the USSR Finland and Norway occupied Karelia and the Kola Peninsula as a sort of buffer between them and the chaos in the dying Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. These territories coalesced into the Northern Russian Republics, which gained admission in the Nordic Council in 2014.

 

After the North Sea war in 2023, the Scandinavian nations sought for a total integration of their defence forces, and the success of the Scandinavian Defence Forces popularized the idea of total political integration. After heated debates and plebiscites among the Nordic Council member nations, the Commonwealth of Scandinavia was formed: each nation maintains complete internal autonomy, while the central government, located in the Swedish city of Kalmar, manages foreign policy, diplomatic and defence issues. The Scandinavian Commonwealth maintain an “armed neutrality” policy: it strictly refrains from intervening in other powers’ affairs, but it’s not shy in using armed force when other powers menace to infringe its territorial integrity.

 

 

 

People’s Arab Republic   Al-Jumhuriya al-Arabiya ash-Sha’abiya

 

 

The People’s Arab Republic is a secular republic which plays a major role in the Middle East. Formed nominally in 1999, the PAR became a reality in 2019 after the collapse of Saudi Arabia when oil was displaced as the world’s main source of energy. The largest and more powerful of the Arab countries, this republic was formed from the former nations of Egypt, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, decomposed into 54 muhafazat (governorates).

 

The Cairo is besieged by its rapidly growing population (the largest in the Islamic world), the growing military budget, the general backwardness of its agriculture and industry, the illegal Muslim Brotherhood’s agitation activities among the peasantry, border disputes with the Indian Ocean Coalition, Turkey and Iran, growing political unrest in the outer regions due to the seemingly unfair domination of the stronger Egyptian region, and separatists movements in the Syrian region stress the society and overtax resources as the country seems in the brink of civil disorders and war.

 

 

 

UEO   Union Européenne Occidentale Unión Europea Occidental União Européia Ocidental Unione Europea Occidentale

 

 

France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Belgium and Luxembourg have formed one of the more active and stronger confederations, the West European Union (UEO). The dispersion of the confederation’s extended territory -it has holdings in Africa, the North Atlantic, South America, the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean- plus its European continental territory has forced the UEO to maintain a large military force, which is supported by one of the more dynamic economies in the world.

 

The main goal of the UEO is precisely the defence of its territories, and maintains a position similar to the Scandinavian Commonwealth’s. However, it it’s far more active in the global scene, supporting the Indian Ocean Coalition, tightening bonds with Brazil, helping Germany to recover its balance, and openly opposing the Anglo-U.S. alliance in Europe, the Caribbean, Africa and the north Atlantic.

 

 

 

United States

 

 

Defeated in the west Pacific by Japan in 2005, and expulsed from the central Pacific in 2035 by the combined strength of Japan and Macronesia; and its influence in the Indian Ocean hindered by the multinational-backed Indian Ocean Coalition, the United States sought to recover its wounded pride intervening openly everywhere else: in the Caribbean forced the creation of the Confederation of the Antilles; in South America formed an alliance with Ecuador; in Africa it has found a reliable ally in Guinea; and in Europe the docile Britain had become their more useful tributary, ceding numerous military bases for the U.S. Navy and following its diplomatic lead, at the price of souring its relations with the rest of Europe and gaining the hostility of the UEO and the Scandinavians.

 

This Great Power’s goals are not clear: it seems to want to be a peaceful commercial power, just looking for opportunities of expansion in foreign markets beside its enormous domestic one, and at the same time its seems apprensive and insecure, even paranoiac, about other powers’ intentions -real or imagined- even when no Great Power nor Confederation (excepting maybe the Macronesian Alliance) can represent a serious menace for the U.S. Therefore, the U.S. claims other powers denied it commercial opportunities and demands more aperture, while at the same time don’t hesitates to intervene in those same powers’ affairs, enajenating them, justifying their hostility, and thus increasing its sensations of isolation and fear. Therefore, most of the people of the world consider the U.S. the greatest menace for world peace, and they are rearming accordingly.