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Originally Posted by Mynydd
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This sounds odd if you consider how anti-Communist was Franco's regime. But it doesn't mean that Spain would have joined the Socialist bloc. Only that it would have retained a self-styled neutrality and indepence in the western capitalist vs eastern socialist scene of the time. We would not have joined NATO (incidentally, or not so, the early campaigners against joining NATO, the Spanish Socialists, were the staunch campaigner in favour of NATO when they came into office and organized the referendum) or the EEC (and later EU). And this way Spain would have been kept outside the sphere of influence of the U.S. Not something small in the still going Cold War.
My believe is that the best candidate in the Eastern bloc would have been Yugoslavia.
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This matches with what can be seen of the current US policy toward Serbia, Russia, Venezuela and Iran; no "rogue states" allowed. The Americans seem to have a mania for dividing the world into spheres of influence and power blocs. This possible non-aligned policy for Spain would have been an unacceptable deviation for US strategists, especially coming after De Gaulle's decision to remove France from the military command of Nato.