The Empire (nowadays thoroughly constitutional) of Russia and the Russian Federation of which it forms the core is still the greatest power on earth, forming a unified economic zone and political alliance of over a billion people. Meanwhile, the Damocles Sword of Nuclear Fear continues to dangle above everyones head, and the older powers try to adjust to changes in their relative positions. Although the Indo-Pacific Alliance is too decentralized to count as a fourth superpower in itself, it has emerged as a great new zone of high-energy business, challenging the more statist economies of the older powers. The 21st century has seen the start of a shift away from the long "Three Superpowers" era as the world shifts to a more multi-polar situation with South China steadily moving towards superpower status, with Bharat trailing some ways behind. (OTOH, Germany and Russia have both had a better time.) The situation is one in which the US breaks up not as a result of a victorious confederacy in the 1860s, but as a result of the disgruntlement of New England in the war of 1812 - leaving a shrunken US where the slave states have a numberical advantage.and things go downhill from there. He has only taken it out to the 1930s, so this is a speculative look at what his world might look like by 2011 - this is _not_ official, and should not be considered as canon. Ok - this one is from "Decades of Darkness", an AH TL by Jared on (see here ).