[quote=@The Nexerus] Avoiding war is an incredibly simple endeavour: have a powerful military, and don't declare war. If two people are wailing on each other with sticks and there's a third guy with an even bigger stick watching them, the third fellow isn't going to be attacked, assuming that either of the first two have an IQ above 70. It would be suicide for either of the warring parties to decide, for no reason other than 'The British Isles are nice this time of year!', to waste their resources on assaulting a non-party to the conflict. This is an incredibly basic idea that should not be difficult for you to understand. As for a nuclear strike: if you had read the OP, you'd know that there weren't any. 1. The pound sterling is already an international reserve currency. It's the third most traded financial denomination after the Euro and the U.S. dollar. 2. Europe was ravaged by war and the United States was ravaged by war so badly that it divided into thirds (or is it fourths?). When countries (or evil empires, in the EU's case) are under extreme duress like that, no one wants to touch their currency with a ten foot pole. That would leave the pound sterling the most likely new international reserve purely by consequence. Factor in that when money leaves one place it has to go somewhere else, and that Britain was a most excellent place for this freed up capital to go, and it seems like it would be a fantastical oddity for the pound sterling to [i]not[/i] become the post-war world's reserve. [/quote]The problem with this idea is that you still magically aren't interested in one of the greatest wars of all time. Also you are already part of the NATO and involved with EU. While mending the latter is hardly difficult the former would be a far different case. Really, the point of this setting is to have all nations start from relative ruins (even if they are pretty well-off nowadays). Saying that you were the laughing third while the entire world was slugging it out is rather unfair.