AH Challenge: Third World USA

Instead of being the richest, most powerful nation on earth and the leader of the free world make the United States of America one of the poorest with a military that can barely project it's power within the country's own borders and an international standing somewhere below Albania's.
 
US doesn't industrialize during industrial revolution, preferring to remain agrarian and resource oriented.
 
US does not get the territory west of Appalachia during the ARW. US settlers cross over the border into Ohio and Kentucky causing a war with Great Britain in 1810. New England, followed by New York, leave for the same reason they threatened to in 1814. The US ends the war by ceding Georgia to Britain (which also kept Florida.) The US, now consisting of Pennsylvania to South Carolina, doesn’t industrialize until the late 1830s (because of a lacking in iron and coal, and ready cash.) Expansionist New England declares war on the USA in the 1840s. The war ends in 1842 with New Jersey and Pennsylvania joining New England.

The US economy collapses in the 1850 after staggering along after the loss of most of its industry. Because of the largely agriculture nation of the country tariffs are never placed and the nation continues to be manly farming by choice until the early 1900s. By that time the US’s want to start a serious industry and tries to setup tariffs. New England and Great Britain, using both the tariffs and the continued practice of slavery in the US declares war on the US. Within days a fleets parks itself in Washington and dictates peace in the White House.

The US continues on; defeated, angry, and unindustrialized for over 30 years. A great depression rocks the world after the crash of the New York Stock Exchange in 1940. The US hits it hardest of all European nations. Since it was no safeties or a national bank to back up its printed notes the US’s currency falls drastically. Farmers burn their food rather then sale it for worthless notes. The USA’s entire economy, based on food exportation, collapses.

Most of the other nations of the world slowly move on and are largely free of the depression within 10 years, but the USA cannot recovery. Its currency remains valueless forcing all payments to be made in gold. Finally in 1955 the army steps in and overthrows the elected government. The army institutes drastic economic restricting including some industrialization with New English support. Before to long though, the economy stagnates under a command economy. So the US remains, between Maryland and South Carolina, under a dictatorship. An uprising by black socialists in South Carolina created a Peoples’ Republic in the uplands of the Carolinas. The US army was tried hard but cannot suppress it. There is fear that the nation could collapse and send refugees flooding into New England and the Indian Provinces of Canada.
 
From "Causes of the American Wasteland" by Richard Boone, L.L. Williams and Sons, London, 1990

The complete failure of the former United States of America to develop a stable democracy and sustain a viable economy would have been completely unexpected to an independent observer able to witness its founding less than 250 years ago. The heir to British democracy, and created in an heroic revolution by some of the world's most brilliant political thinkers, the United States was, at its founding, given uncontested title to virtually the entire eastern half of the North American continent, a virtual eden brimming with untapped natural resources. Its population was still small, but already growing rapidly, fed by significant immigration from the hard working and frugal peoples of Europe. No one could have predicted that, by 1880, this grand experiment would have broken into such a state of internecine warfare, ethnic strife, poverty, and genocide that the very term "americanization" would become synonymous with the inability of a region to maintain unity, stability, and peace.

Glendale (1976:100-214) argues that the seeds of this failure were sown, not in the slave rebellions of the early 1840's and Spanish invasions of 1850-55 (see Beauvais 1924: 5-15; Franks 1960; and Israel 1974:300-341 for good discussions of this theory) but instead in the early unwillingness of the original 13 republics to cede their pre-indepencence western land claims to to central government.

This, coupled with the early demise of democratic institutions in several of the larger states, led to the collapse of the Articles of Confederation and a series of unsuccessful attempts to develop a federal republic (the abortive constitutional conventions of 1788-92), an even looser "commonwealth of independent states" as proposed by the Burrians in 1802, and even an 1810 offer by several of the larger southern states to reenter the British Empire as a locally governed "royal dominion of north america". Eventually, the so-called United States of America survived in name only as a hopelessly fragmented assortment of republics, frequently waging unofficial border wars against each other, and creating an increasingly tight array of tarriffs which led eventually to the collapse of the US monetary union and economic chaos(Glendale 1976: 170). Nonetheless, the USA survived on paper largely because of the former colonists' combined fears of the growing power European-supported Indian nations within the ceded territories and, after 1800, Bonapartist and Spanish intrigue. By 1825 the failing United States was hemmed in by the Bonapartist Duchy of Louisiana across the Mississippi River, a series of increasinly powerful British-allied Indian nations to the northwest, and British North America to the North. In addition the newly resurgent Spanish Empire was aggressively expanding its presence in Florida and casting longing glances on the Gulf Coast, nominally a western extension of Georgia..

The last residue of American unity was destroyed in the Cherokee War, when Virginia, the largest and most powerful of the American states, sided with the fairly advanced and europeanized Cherokee Indians in their attempt to resist being forced into Bonapartist Louisiana by the Free State of North Carolina. Only after the war was over and Virginia occupied the Cherokee lands, did it become apparent to both Cherokees and Carolinians that Virginia's actual aim had been to secure suspected gold fields in the southern Appalachians, not protection of the Cherokees. Virginia herself commenced the Cherokee removal from its new "West Carolina Military District" and, for good measure, placed the rest of North Carolina under the jurisdiction of Virgina civil courts, essentially making it an extension of Virginia. In response, other deep southern states severed ties with Virginia and began to support anti-Virginian partisan groups in both west carolina and North Carolina. Virginia reacted by undertaking punitive military strikes against coastal cities in Georgia and South Carolina. Soon, armed partisan and anti partisan groups were active throughout most of the western territories claimed by all the southern states, leading to a general collapse of civil order outside of the few major towns. In this chaotic environment, the first of the many slave rebellions broke out in 1838, fostered by Bonapartist intrigue and creating panic and horribly repressive reactions by the outnumbered white gentry and irregular forces.

The northern and middle states became drawn into the developing conflict when, in an attempt to restore order to its western claims, the State of Georgia signed a 1840 treaty with the Spanish Crown, ceding all possible Georgian claims to the gulf coast to Spain in return for Spanish military assistance in putting down the combined threat of slave rebellion and Chickasaw and Muscogee/Creek attacks (Littledeer 1890). Several of the strongly Puritan and anti-Catholic New England States protested the spread of Papist Spain in the western parts of the increasingly dis-united states of America and issued letters of marque to privateers willing to attack Spanish and Georgian shipping in the Gulf of Mexico. In 1849, this led to open war between the New England Confederation and Spain, leading to Spanish landings in Boston, New Haven, and Portsmouth and the seccession of trans-montaine Massachusetts and Connecticut to form the Ohio River Republic.

Fearing complete chaos on its eastern border, French Louisiana entered the War of American Disintegration in 1859, carving out several nominally independent Indian regimes under French protectorate along the eastern bank of the Mississippi. In an unexpected move debated to this day, the Radical Bonapartist governor in Louisiana, Paul Toussaint, issued a proclamation offering freedom and French citizenship to all african slaves still in Georgian, Virginian and Carolinian bondage. In respose to the French declaration, and presumably as a preventive measure to forestall a new round of slave revolts, the southern state governments declared martial law and authorized paramilitary security units to confiscate all private chattel slaves from their owners and resettle them in heavily guarded "concentration camps". Although has been claimed (Lee and Clinton 1929) that these acts were intended merely to forestall rebellion, poor planning and a general breakdown of military law led to mass starvations and numerous random massacres of the unfortunate slaves. In his critical study of the period, Weiberg (1988) argues that over 2 million blacks were deliberately killed by white irregulars alone. In addition, deprived of its workforce, the agricultural heatland of the south was unable to either feed itself or provide export commodities for export. It is estimated that the subsequent Great Famine of 1860-80 lead to the direct or indirect deaths of over 15 million people in Georgia and Carolina alone (Royal Commission on American Relief 1920:35).

It was during the famine also, that centralized authority completely broke down in parts of Virginia, Carolina, and Georgia not under French or Spanish authority, as rival white partisan bands, black rebel groups, and irregular forces supprted by the European powers took turns terrorizing each other and Royal aid groups being sent to America to organize relief programs. Although the situation in the New England Confederation and New York/Pennsylnania was somewhat better, these regions too were suffering from the absence of southern agricultural production and political instability. Lacking a large black population, and unable to take action against the increasingly powerful Indian federations in their western lands, northern hostility was vented against recent Irish and German immigrants, culminating in the New York Harbor Riots on 1880.

Eventually, in 1889, the Queen determined it advisable to call a meeting of the major powers to resolve the American crisis, which had the potential to result in a world war. This was only the first of several subsequent international conferences to restore a modicum of peace and stability to eastern North America, none of which, unfortunately, has had the desired effect. For an excellent discussion of 20th century developments in America, see (Lichtenstein and Willhelms 1980)
 
Are we saying the US has it's OTL borders? If not, then you could make the US into a 3rd world nation pretty easily, as it'd be smaller. If it does, then it's hard to see how the US wouldn't be at least prosperous, as there are simply too many resources inside these borders. You could postulate a US that is hostile to immigration and technological advancement, so it would have a low people per sq. mile ratio and be rather backwards in industry. Combine this with severe isolationism, and you'd have a US that wouldn't be exactly poor, but would matter little outside it's borders....
 
David Howery said:
Are we saying the US has it's OTL borders? If not, then you could make the US into a 3rd world nation pretty easily, as it'd be smaller. If it does, then it's hard to see how the US wouldn't be at least prosperous, as there are simply too many resources inside these borders. You could postulate a US that is hostile to immigration and technological advancement, so it would have a low people per sq. mile ratio and be rather backwards in industry. Combine this with severe isolationism, and you'd have a US that wouldn't be exactly poor, but would matter little outside it's borders....

I was thinking of a US that's pretty much the same size it is now, (though maybe without Alaska and Hawaii), and I did wonder wheather a really poor USA would be possible considering the country's size and resources. However consider that countries like China, Russia, India and many of the African South American and Middle Eastern nations are large, have vast natural resources and are the majority of their populations live in abject poverty. A third world US would be more like Albania or Rumania than Bangladesh.

Without an ACW would the coutry stay more focused on agriculture than industry and would such a US be hit harder by the dustbowl of the 30's? A more isolationist attitde is also needed. If the Europeans were stronger militarily or managed to avoid the world wars by diplomatic means then would the US army and navy ever develop?

Speaking of the US Army I remember it was always quite small, about 5000 men in 1812, 15,000 to 25,000 in 1860 and 85,000 in 1914, though I'm not entirely sure of those numbers but keeping the US out of wars would seem to be vital if it's power was to be reduced.

A weaker Federal Government would also seem a good idea.
 
The US at its current borders has to many natural resources to become a third world country. Even with a weak central government corporations would still be extremely succesful from all the raw materials. Added on to that some of the best farm land in the world (Medwest) and it seems unlikely for the US as a whole to become a 3rd world nation. You would need certain key areas to seccede from the union. Places such as the Medwest, California, Indiana, Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania all used to have vast natural resources such as coal, gas, gold, oil. It is just to unlikely that the US could become a 3rd world country with such places breaking free.
 
Have a caldera erupt in Greenland which melts the glaciers, in 1776.

Aside from the tons of ash thrown into the atmosphere, resulting in decreased temperatures, the influx of fresh water from the glaciers into the North Atlantic, disrupting the salt pumps that power the Gulf Stream.

This results in a mini ice age in the North Atlantic that lasts 2000 years--that's how long the salt pumps take to renew (the salt from the North Atlantic takes 2000 years to go to the Arabian Sea or Marnara trench and back to Greenland.)

England would slowly become nearly uninhabitable, as will Canada and New England. Northern Europeans (including the French) would move into Southern Europe; the Southern Euros would be pushed to Africa and the Levant. Most New England and NY colonists would would be forced to move South or starve. The rural people would go native and ally with the Indians against the British--who might not care much about thier American colonies after the eruption: British troops would be needed in London to preventing the starving people from eating the rich.

The Indians from Canada would begin migrating south, causing a chain-reaction among the other tribes.


By 1900, the US consists of what is now Virginia (West Virginia belongs to the Shawnee), Delaware, Pennsylvania (without the postcolonial westward extension--that belongs to the Huron League), North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama. In 1904 the slaves revolt.

In 2000, the US is two different cultures: the light-skinned serfs (there really are no Whites any more; status is determined by skin shade--darker, the better) and thier dark-skinned overlords. Those overlords pay tribute to thier Huron governors. But it's still getting colder.
 
1798- Adams elected President, Burr becomes VP
1800- Alien & Sedition act passed
1801- Adams is killed by a out of control carriage while crossing the street, Burr becomes President. Pushes the A&S act arresting most of his opponents.
1802- Burr starts his 1st elected term
1826- President for Life Burr dies in office, VP Clay Assumes Presidentcy
1828- Slavery expands into Kansas & Nebrasska
1836- US "volunters" help in Texas
1845- New President Tyler & Mexican war, Us gets NM & North and central California, Mexico Keeps San Diego & south California. [In OTL they wanted to keep SD.]
1846- French Fleet enters Tokoyo Harbor, opening of Japan
1847- US-Canada Border set at 47th
1852- no Gadsen Purchase
1857- President Brekinridge legalizes slavery in California, Oregon.
1858- Jaruaz elected President of Mexico.
1859- Crimian war ends, GB gets Alaska
1864- GB declares a protective over Hawaii, signs 99 year lease for Pearl Harbor.
1865- Anti-Slave Riots in North east cities, President Breckinridge Declares Martial law and sends in the Troops.
1866- Anti Immigration Bill passed severly limiting future Immigaration.
1866-1940 The large waves of south & central europeans go to Canada, Argentine, Chile, & South Africa.
1869- British anti-slavery patrol captures a US ship off Senagal loaded with African bound for Savannah.
1870- GB passes a embargo on US imports.
1871- Repulic of Mexico Anexxs El Salvodor, Gualtamala, & Hondoras. [willing on both sides]
1872- President Grant proposes transcontintal Railroad, John Sinclair arrested under A & S Act, after he tries to write a article exposing Teapot Dome.
1875- Mexican- Nicariguan war, Mexico anexxs Nicarigua, north Costa Rica.
1876- South American War, Brazil, Argentine, & Peru, vs Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia & Equador. at the end Brazil has a Pacific Coast, and there are four less nations in South America.
1878- Mexico Leases land to French Canal Company.
1879- Mexico completes Trans Mexico Railroad from Vera Cruz south.
1885- President Grant sends in Federal Troops to break up Pittsburg steel strike. Labor Unions Outlawed. Industrial output drops.
1891- Graduated emanicpation bill passed- all children of slaved born after 01.01.01 will be free, all others will be slowly freed,. British & French slowly start investing in US.
1892- Trans Nicarigia Canal opens, [Mexican]
1894- Japan anexxs Korea, & Formosa
1895- Mexico completes Coastal RR from San Deigo , California to San Jose, Costa Rica.
1896- Mexican & Argentine Naval Fleets Exchange Port Visits, Both fleets are larger than the US's.
1897- Senor Phillipe of Argentine become first Man to fly HTA on the Beach of Rio de Janerio.
1898- President Cleveland, assisanated, in his third Year in Office, VP Hanse becomes President
1899- Argentinia's Great White Fleet departs on a World tour.
1901- Japanese Consul Killed by Rebels in Manilla {Accident, but} Spain ends up saleing Phillipines to Japan for $25, Millions.
1905- Henery Ford establishes Auto Factory in Monterrey, Mexico, By 1920 Monterrey would be the Auto Capital of the World.
1910- Argentine completes Bueno Aires- Santago RR.
1911- Bandits raid Nogoles, Mexico, Killing several Federales. Mexico send a army under General Villa to track them down, the Mexicans would spend the next three years running around NM. & Ariz.
1912- Austro-Hungary vs Serbia in the Balkans, Escalates GW1 begins.
1914- Lusitinia leaves Bueno Aires, headed for London, Sunk By U-Boat off Wales, Argentine enters GW 1. Due to the U-Boat Blackade US exports of Food to GB & Europe stop, US goes into Depression.
1918- President Hanse Assisanated, Commumist Revolution, ACW, General Mac Authur [ Doug's Father]. seizes controll of Goverment.
1921- ACW ends, Mac Authur declares Self as President. communist party outlawed.
1922- Spain grants Cuban Independece.
1923- Mexico & Argentine call for creation of OAS
1924- La Duce in Italy
1928- Stock Market crash, The Mexican exchange loses 25% in one day, The great depression begins, except in US which hadn't recovered from 1914.
1931- Furher in Germany
1932-Spainish Civil War, Washington's Legion sent to help Franco. La Duce visits US, meeting with Mac Authur.
1935- merger with Austria.
1935- Inflation in US. US issuses new Money
1936- US issues new Money
1937- Sutenland Crisis, Germany anexxs the Chech Republic, Hungary anexxs Solvocia.
may 1939 Germany invades Poland, GW2 begins.
nov 1939 germany conquers France.
feb 1940 Spain invades Portugal, Brazil declares on Spain, Germany declarles on Brazil, Mexico & Argentine declare on Germany.
1944 GW2 ends.
1945- GB, France, Japan, Russia, Mexico,Argentine, Form UN Security Council.
1953- Major Richard Nixon, stages a military coup, Mc Carthy installed as President.
1962- World Bank recommends austerity program for US Ecomony,
1968- US Breaks Austerity program, Brazilian Bank refuse to extent Loans.
1970- Mexico recommends a 10,Billions peso Bailout program for the US Dollar.
1972- US Nationilizes the Oil Industry, Mexico & Argentinia begin to pull their investments out of US.
1981- President Carter sends troops to Seize the Bahamas, US-GB Bahamas war, The poorly trained and underfunded US Military gets it A** whipped
1982- Thousand of Observers from the EU, Mexico, Brazil & Argentinia, flood the US for the Elections, President Dukasis, is the first non Federlist elected since 1802.
1986- Dukasis reelected
1992- Dole elected
1993- Dole assisanated, Elisabeth Dole Seizes Power
1996- Martial Law declared due to Food riots. elections cancelled
1997- US accused of using WMDs to put down the 96 riots [gas]
2003- the Shah of Iran and the King of Greater Iraq [Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait, Iraq] ar invited to join in the Coalition to liberate the US and restore Democacy.:D :D :D
 
Ehm, IL Duce, NOT La Duce.
"La" is a feminine artcle, "Il" is the correct male article fror this word.
He was a SOB and the ruin of the Fatherland, but at least don't make him a drag queen...
 
"Ehm, IL Duce, NOT La Duce.
"La" is a feminine artcle, "Il" is the correct male article fror this word.
He was a SOB and the ruin of the Fatherland, but at least don't make him a drag queen..."

Well, Basileus, it IS an Alternative time line. Maybe in Duquesne's world it's Benita Mussolini, the wildly popular former nun and silent film actress who leads the Italian Fascist Mother's March on Rome and is named La Duce by Queen Nicola. ;)
 
zoomar said:
"Ehm, IL Duce, NOT La Duce.
"La" is a feminine artcle, "Il" is the correct male article fror this word.
He was a SOB and the ruin of the Fatherland, but at least don't make him a drag queen..."

Well, Basileus, it IS an Alternative time line. Maybe in Duquesne's world it's Benita Mussolini, the wildly popular former nun and silent film actress who leads the Italian Fascist Mother's March on Rome and is named La Duce by Queen Nicola. ;)

Damn! I was just going to do the female Mussolini joke!
 
DuQuense: Nice one, I'm interested in what Burr got upto between 1802 and 1826 and how he managed to get the presidency turned into a lifetime office. Also wasn't the Teapot Dome scandal in the twenties or was there another one earlier on. Any plans on how the governments of Russia, Japan and the South American countries would look in the 20th century, and why Brazil didn't become part of the Security Council?
 
Russia is Nabor Rodina With China. Germany is MittleEuropa, Japan is Imperial Empire {Korea, Formosa, Sahlikin Island, & Phillipines, Plus what islands it picked up from Germany in GW1} Bazirl is on Council, my mis steak. ;) Burr used the A&S Act to keep getting reelected with no compertition :eek:
 
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tie in

?Any one notice how i Tied this together with the ALT Military thread?
?How many other threads can we tie together? :confused:
 

Straha

Banned
in my north and south: the split TL I tied together: weimar germany survives,the CSA winning,the USA and canada merging,WWII against trotskyist russia with a cold war with japan as the ones I remember now....
 
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