"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 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 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 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, 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. 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.
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.
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, both Russia and Khazakstan were officially candidate countries for EU membership, while the rest of the former Central Asian SSRs began to looke towards FDN membership.
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, 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 never a member) of the FDN.
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 remains 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, gleam 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 exist, however. Pakistan and India continue to glare at each other with nuclear weapons. The feifdoms in the Union of Siberia remain frozen hellholes. And international observers speak of a possible showdown between the People's Republic of China on one side, and of the USA, Japan, and Korea on the other.
But the world is largely stable, largely prosperous, and largely free. The 21st Century would arguably eventually lead humanity to an age of peace.......
To be continued.....
-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 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 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 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, 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. 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.
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.
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, both Russia and Khazakstan were officially candidate countries for EU membership, while the rest of the former Central Asian SSRs began to looke towards FDN membership.
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, 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 never a member) of the FDN.
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 remains 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, gleam 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 exist, however. Pakistan and India continue to glare at each other with nuclear weapons. The feifdoms in the Union of Siberia remain frozen hellholes. And international observers speak of a possible showdown between the People's Republic of China on one side, and of the USA, Japan, and Korea on the other.
But the world is largely stable, largely prosperous, and largely free. The 21st Century would arguably eventually lead humanity to an age of peace.......
To be continued.....
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