How exactly would you realistically make this map of a Romanov Cold War happen?
Any ideas? Having Russia win World War I would be a good way to start, with the US Senate ratifying the Security Treaty with Britain and France and thus creating a peacetime defensive alliance of the three powers. If Italy stays democratic, then perhaps it can also eventually join this alliance, as could the Benelux countries. Maybe also have Britain and Japan eventually pursue a rapprochement while Russia eventually decides to act aggressively in Europe and/or the Far East? For instance, having Russia impose a puppet regime in China in a Russo-Japanese War 2.0 which Russia wins? And having Russia occupy eastern Germany after Germany attempts to remilitarize the Rhineland?
Anyway, what do you think about this?
Well it wouldn't need a rapprochement between Britain and Japan if Japan doesn't go off the railways but one between the US and Japan. Plus looking at a close up it shows Japan under US occupation. Since their also lost S Sakhalin and Korea to Russia Japan has presumably been defeated by them at one point. If you want an independent Japan possibly some butterflies mean they lost the 1904-5 conflict with Russia fairly badly. Which might however change the pre-1914 situation significantly. If you have a US occupied Japan then some clash between the two which could be any time between say 1920 and OTL.
I'm assuming the stripped areas are under Russian control but not formally annexed. That could be difficult to achieve as taking all of China is not only a huge task itself but would be opposed by just about everybody else in Europe and quite possibly the US as well. Also to hold over time as the Chinese are likely to be a continued source of unrest. Ditto since they seem to have all of Germany apart from Bavaria and presumably Wurtemburg/Baden in the south. This would need not only a decisive Russian victory over Germany but also no one else being involved on either side. May be that France has a Rhineland protectorate but can't tell from the map but if you have something like the WWI EPs then they and Britain wouldn't be happy with Russia getting such an huge share of the spoils.
It might be that for whatever reason France and Russia fall out and a WWI conflict starts with the German attack through Belgium, with Britain coming in to oppose German domination of the continent. Both sides bleed each other out and Russia enters 2-3 years in the war and overwhelms an exhausted Germany? At the same time taking a larger Armenia from the Turks and the Ottoman dynasty being overthrown as a result. Then the western powers might be too exhausted to take more than limited gains from Germany and possibly secure the neutrality of the southern German states. Not Austria however which means that Italy is definitely going to be in any anti-Russian alliance. Not sure why they would annex Austria in such a case however or Serbia.
Of course it would require some developments to overcome the restrictions autocracy placed on the state. That's going to restrict its potential in some ways more than communism is while it stays in its pre-WWI format. I'm thinking things like lack of social mobility and the greater power of the existing elites crippling a lot of economic activity. The latter developed in the USSR as communism fossilized as well of course but there was an initial period when this wasn't the case and for all its other problems the Soviets in WWII doesn't seem to have been as hampered by massive corruption as the Czars were in WWI.
