North Atlantic Union?

Georgius

In a Wikipedia article on Canada's role in the Cold War, one finds this curious sentence:

Canada was, in fact, one of [NATO's] most ardent supporters and pushed (largely unsuccessfully) to have it become an economic and cultural organization in addition to a military alliance.
Click to expand...
What changes to OTL would be necessary to see a North Atlantic Union rather than a European Union? Would the Warsaw Pact have to integrate first?
 

Georgius

After undertaking some very preliminary research on the subject, I've found one significant pro-union period work: Union Now: A Proposal for a Federal Union of the Democracies of the North Atlantic by Clarence K. Streit (available online). It had the misfortunate of being first published in 1939 and was therefore mostly ignored during World War II, but Streit's work gained surprising currency post-war.

Attached is Streit's map of his envisioned world (using ~1939 borders). He also presents a sample constitution for his North Atlantic Union (see Annex 1).

Are there any thoughts on the plausibility of his proposal?

union_now-2.jpg
 

Othniel

It certainly looks intresting...British Commonweath, the US, France, Sweden, and allied controlled Africa Basicly?
 

reformer

I really can't see this as possibly ever happening. Theres in fact only one possibility: Stronger Germany, when Hitler finally looses, the weakened allies after a 20 year or something WWII are forced to form a strong coalition and bassically begin to loose their soverince. Very unlikely.

This guy sounds like a new world order dreamer
 

Othniel

But lets think of ways we could tweak it too make a viable alliance in which everyone in it would benefit from mutaul protection and lack of tariffis?
 

reformer

Again, really harsh world war two, the only way for countries with huge losses (maybe a small nuclear war) is to come toghether in an alliance. This also exspalinses why Italy, Germany, and Spain aren't on the map.
 

DMS

Logically,

no availability of Europe = no EU. So the Nazis hold on to at least France and Denmark, plus Italy and the Low Countries are at best neutral. Or more limited Marshall Plan leads to socialist governments taking over in France and Italy and most of Europe is pink/red. Nordic interest and availability varies. Iceland/Greenland sure, Norway possible, Sweden unlikely, Finland no.

Britain being beleaguered pushes it toward North America and the empire shrinking, especially in Africa, would address US qualms about so many formal overseas possessions. Add a legitimate or exaggerated Nazi or Soviet or pan-communist rivalry and you get a pretty quick push toward British-Canadian-American union.

Australia partly a function of Japan still being a military threat or the advance of Asian communism but, even if it doesn't formally join, Australia is a close ally of the Union. New Zealand follows Aus. lead (but says it's making its own decision). South Africa in, unfortunately. Middle East breaks differently but only a few of the emirates are possibilities to actually join the Union. Indian independence process is not much changed unless there is a very pronounced military threat. It's possible an alliance with the US and Australia encourages Britain to try to hold on to more of Indonesian archipelago.
 
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david3565

More simply, the fall of the British during WWII could do it. Churchill and the Royal family flee to Canada, along with a million or more Britons, and set up a government-in-exile. This almost certainly means a total loss of their colonial holdings to the Nazis and Japaense. It also means a longer war. With the US being the only major power able to help in the European rebuilding and the Red tide now rising, an Anglosphere Union seems a lot more likely.


With US involvement, might you also get participation of some Latin American nations? The signatories of the 1933 Montevideo Convention seem a good place to start. Minus Argentina, you get Honduras, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Venezuela, Uruguay, Paraguay, Mexico, Panama, Guatemala, Brazil, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Colombia, Chile, Peru, and Cuba. You can also throw in the smaller Caribbean nations
 

Othniel

I think he saw it as a way to stop the expanision of the Soviet Union, Japan, Italy, and Germany. Anyway that if they made a sort of confederation of allies (loose, no tariffes and sharing of technology) to enforce treaties made with powers around the world?
 
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