Recent content by Mikey

I'm not sure what the appeal would be? The collapse of Austria-Hungary isn't the kind of event that would promote a lot of affection for a Catholic German nationalist enterprise, with a successful German nationalist empire right there. Why bother with an Archduke when you have an Emperor? The...

Vichy also didn't last particularly long, which I hadn't quite realized - about two years, before whatever jurisdiction it had came under German military authority in November 1942.

I think this is ultimately one of the reasons why the USA would want to *avoid* annexing Canada. You either have to make it very clear this is a permanent annexation by right of conquest (which would blow a lot of the PR opportunities) or else you'd have to set up some kind of system for...

There's also just not a lot of precedent for how the United States acts as a large-scale occupying power, whether or not it has the intention to integrate the new territory as states or not. Prior expansions were of territory that was either sparsely populated, and/or populated by Native...

I think it's really hard to separate this out from the actual nature of the warfighting itself, which would have a much bigger impact than anything in the background. We're not talking generically here about the ability of Canadians to assimilate into American culture, but of their eagerness to...

Yeah - India will have enough internal troubles, plus being fairly short on any real possibilities for expansion - especially depending on the circumstances of independence, which would probably make it either friendly to Britain (ruling out some nearby options) or hostile enough to Britain that...

The argument Zelikow goes for, which I think is at least fairly plausible, is that since all of the belligerents painted themselves as holding off the aggression of their adversaries, a white peace is a victory: you held off the ravaging enemy horde and sent them home empty handed. It might be...

Yeah - I think France is not going to be in a position to demand it, but there might be some kind of negotiated settlement, with some Francophone territories going back to France.

I don't think you can assume that: the flu likely started in Kansas, and was probably circulating quite a bit before it before it became a global pandemic. It might be somewhat milder if the world isn't in as rough a position, but you never really know. Yeah, I think this likely avoids a...

I was pretty impressed with the case Zelikow made, honestly. I think the big outcomes here are going to be that the war is bloody enough to deliver the message of "we must avoid this at all costs" without the parallel of "we must get revenge for what happened," and within that, the possibility...

On a different take, I wonder if it's possible that there's some kind of secret conversion to a (likely highly specialized) version of Islam that happens, and that Napoleon comes back to France setting up a secret society of French Muslims, in a sort of spin on what Guenon would do a century later.

Yeah, and I'm not sure that his plan was ever sincerely to march to India, but a kind of pipe dream that he floated as inspirational (to some), and disinformation (to others).

One thing at a time! I think we need to get some kind of a career trajectory in the Empire first; he'll have to have his glorious victories sometime. It's hard to figure out what the Ottomans' big engagements will be if we pull the later Wars of the French Revolution from the table.

Yeah - I don't think there's a remotely plausible scenario where Napoleon converts, returns to France as a Muslim, and takes over the government as emperor. He might be able to fast-talk various degrees of pseudo-conversion, or do something weirder and come up with some kind of syncretic...

--Napoleon Bonaparte, Proclamation to the Egyptians, July 1798. Napoleon was an excellent propagandist, so while the above quote is authentic, there is absolutely no reason to believe that he was sincere. Napoleon was a Catholic by baptism, a deist privately, and despite a few speculative...