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Alternative History: Constantinople
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ClairtonPanther Offline
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Alternative History: Constantinople
Where would the world be today if the Muslims Turks didn't sack Constantinople and take away the land trade routes with China & India? Would Middle Eastern relations be stronger today if that didn't happen?
07-29-2014 12:17 PM
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bitcruncher Offline
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RE: Alternative History: Constantinople
(07-29-2014 12:17 PM)ClairtonPanther Wrote:  Where would the world be today if the Muslims Turks didn't sack Constantinople and take away the land trade routes with China & India? Would Middle Eastern relations be stronger today if that didn't happen?
No. At the time the city was conquered, it was the only bastion of Christianity in a realm surrounded by Muslims. Muslims have never had any reason to live in harmony with Christians, primarily due to the ruthlessness of Christians early in the history of the church. I doubt it would have changed anything significant, except for Turkish history. Faith Sultan Mehmet would have been just another tribal leader, and some other sultan would have grabbed all the glory later on.
07-29-2014 04:06 PM
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Owl 69/70/75 Offline
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RE: Alternative History: Constantinople
(07-29-2014 12:17 PM)ClairtonPanther Wrote:  Where would the world be today if the Muslims Turks didn't sack Constantinople and take away the land trade routes with China & India? Would Middle Eastern relations be stronger today if that didn't happen?

Most likely would be. What happened is that the Middle East was almost totally ignored from around 1500, when the Portuguese identified a sea route around Africa to Asia, until after WWI.

Then it was like, "Oh wow, you have oil, we better pay attention." When I first got out there in 1970, we had a situation where the US government primarily backed Israel in the area, so the duty of conducting diplomatic relations with the Arabs pretty much fell to the US oil companies. It actually worked quite well.

Then came the 1973 Yom Kippur war and two big revelations for the Arabs. First, "Oh crap, the Israelis really do have nukes, we'd better quit picking on them directly and start letting our surrogates (like Hamas today) do it for us." And, "Oh wow, that oil we have is really worth something. We have a lot of power over the west through OPEC that we didn't know we had."
07-29-2014 04:06 PM
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Kittonhead Offline
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Post: #4
RE: Alternative History: Constantinople
(07-29-2014 12:17 PM)ClairtonPanther Wrote:  Where would the world be today if the Muslims Turks didn't sack Constantinople and take away the land trade routes with China & India? Would Middle Eastern relations be stronger today if that didn't happen?

I don't see it impacting the underlying dynamics in the Middle East.

What you are seeing now with groups like Hamas, Hezbollah ect. is a mobilization across tribal lines in a way you didn't see 100 years ago. There were Middle East intellectuals that wanted mass movements back then but its the population explosion in those countries plus modernization that is fueling mass protest.

With the US pulling out of Iraq and regardless of who wins the White House would feel obligated not to go back in it puts the future of that country up in the air. The future of all the governments in the middle east are up in the air if they don't have backing from the West. That includes Israel.
07-29-2014 10:42 PM
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