On Monday, April 17, 2023 at 9:10:40 AM UTC-5, James Nicoll wrote:
> Five SF Works That Predicted a Very Different End to the Cold War
>
> "United forever in friendship and labour,
> Our mighty republics will ever endure.
> The Great Soviet Union will live through the ages.
> The dream of a people their fortress secure."
>
> https://www.tor.com/2023/04/17/five-sf-works-that-predicted-a-very-different-end-to-the-cold-war/
> --
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E.E. Smith posited a scenario in his _Subspace Explorer_ space opera that was out of step with most SF at the time and (in some ways) slightly prescient. He posited that the Cold War would continue, with neither side daring to escalate all the way because of MAD. In this time, apparently Nixon never went to China. Instead, most of the Western alliance states eventually federated into a more-or-less American-centered, and more-or-less (mostly more) corrupt superstate, called Westhem (though it apparently includes most of the non-enemy-dominated states of the eastern hemisphere as well). It's never made clear just exactly how centralized WestHem was, but it was made quite clear that it was extremely corrupt, though nothing like as oppressive as the other side.

They referred to the other side as Easthem, though it mainly consisted of the USSR, China, and their subject states, we never find out what they called themselves.

Interestingly, as time passed, the Chinese element of the Easthem state became predominant, because of their larger population and other reasons, and the center of power for Easthem was Chinese.