AH Challenge: Smallest practical USA Great Power

We see many USA-Wanks and USA-screws on here--I'm looking for something slightly different.

With a POD of January 1, 1790 or later (8 months after Rhode Island ratified the Constitution) make the United States, in the early to mid 20th century, a true superpower--ideally the only superpower, at worst, the greater of two. The challenge: How small, geographicly, can this USA be? It must be a republic under the same constitution, though amendments are allowed. It must be at least as democratic and free as OTL's 1950's or more.
 
We see many USA-Wanks and USA-screws on here--I'm looking for something slightly different.

With a POD of January 1, 1790 or later (8 months after Rhode Island ratified the Constitution) make the United States, in the early to mid 20th century, a true superpower--ideally the only superpower, at worst, the greater of two. The challenge: How small, geographicly, can this USA be? It must be a republic under the same constitution, though amendments are allowed. It must be at least as democratic and free as OTL's 1950's or more.

Its OTL 1830 extent, plus the Oregon Country south of the 48th parallel-Columbia River line. Possibly minus New England.
 
Treaty of Paris should be fine, that's the combined size of the great powers of western Europe anyway. Also, it's important to recognize how despite the rhetoric and ideological importance of western expansion most of the population was east of the Mississippi when the United States was emerging as a world power at the start of the twentieth century. (I just checked: the geographic center of the U.S. population in 1880 was near Cincinnati.)

Moreover, with the great engine of population growth being immigration from Europe, the Russians, Germans, Poles, Italians, Irish and others are not going to stop coming because there's no Montana. So functionally you could have a situation where the United States is in the Treaty of Paris borders more or less but not be that much less populous than it is now. Moreover, if other institutional factors remain the same GDP per person might remain what it is now. Population density would just be a bit more...European.
 
It needs to have Texas for oil and the Oregon territory for Pacific access. Mexico can probably keep New Mexico.
 
Isn't California pretty important to the US?
Treaty of Paris border allow for an important power anyway, but a world-spanning superpower? I'm quite skeptical.
Dominating the landmass they are on and having no serious land threat after about 1870 has been historically significant for the ability of the US to project power overseas on systematic global scale. This is much more difficult to happen with a Mississippi or Rockies border.
 
treaty of paris boaders will not work. at the VERY LEAST in addition to treaty boaders the city of new orleans hwould be needed, altough I tend to agree that a outlet on the pacific is needed.
 
What about agriculture? Can the lands of the US east of the Mississippi support 200 million plus at the same time as urbanization and urban sprawl take place? There's a reason so much of US agriculture moved to the west and California; the climate is often temperamental, and New England is a downright crappy place to farm under the best of conditions.

And are there any strategic minerals that are important to US industrialization before, say, WWII, not present east of the Mississippi? (Most US rare earths are in the west, but I'm not sure that is going to be too important before the era of globalization).

As for oil, that is part of the neighbor problem: oil use isn't very important before 1900, but skyrockets around WWI. If *Texas is under a friendly government, and *Louisiana has no problem with oil pipeline transit, then the US can get its oil fairly cheap: if not, then it is something of an issue - US oil consumption by the 40s was already formidable, and the Muslim oil bonanza didn't really start to boom until after WWII. It will have to get it somewhere.

The neighborhood problem: if the neighbors aren't a military threat and can be profitably traded with, it's not really going to impede US options (OK, "port on the Pacific". Does the US annex Panama in this TL? ): did the presence of Canada impede US development OTL? What do we have west of the Mississipi? A French Louisiana? A Spanish Louisiana? A French or Spanish Louisiana in the south, English-speaking "trekker" states in the north? Some surviving Indian states/British protectorates?

Bruce
 
I'd say that with Treaty of Paris borders (and Florida, which I imagined the US would get from Spain at some point). The US would become a power of the same magnitude as Brazil. In fact, it would be VERY similar to an Anglophone, North Atlantic version of Brazil: high rates of immigration, ethnic diversity, strong civic nationalism, big power but not GREAT power, and come the 21st Century, they'd have a significant amount of soft power.
 
I'd say that with Treaty of Paris borders (and Florida, which I imagined the US would get from Spain at some point). The US would become a power of the same magnitude as Brazil. .

What, they'd have less than 1/4 OTL's GDP/Capita? [1] why would we be so much poorer than the rest of the Anglosphere?

Bruce


[1] More like 1/10 if you want to go by GNP/cap rather than PPP...
 
South?

If the USA bought New Orleans and vicinity, instead of all of Louisiana, that might help. Texas gets settled by Americans, and later joins the USA.

Nothing here would prevent an explosion over slavery--and this time, the South sort-of wins. Status quo at war's end leaves the South independant, but Louisianna, Texas, West Virginia, and a few ports are kept by the USA. Texas might not have joined the rebels if things had gone different.

Now we have the industrial heart of the USA intact, oil in the future, and an economic stranglehold on the south. How much westward expansion is necessary to keep a good, strong United States--one that can become a true great power?
 
What, they'd have less than 1/4 OTL's GDP/Capita? [1] why would we be so much poorer than the rest of the Anglosphere?

Bruce


[1] More like 1/10 if you want to go by GNP/cap rather than PPP...

I meant in terms of overall economic power, not necessarily measurable just in wealth. And remember that because of butterflies arising from a less-powerful US, the Anglosphere as a whole would likely have started to decline a lot earlier than OTL.
 
Treaty of Paris should be fine, that's the combined size of the great powers of western Europe anyway. Also, it's important to recognize how despite the rhetoric and ideological importance of western expansion most of the population was east of the Mississippi when the United States was emerging as a world power at the start of the twentieth century. (I just checked: the geographic center of the U.S. population in 1880 was near Cincinnati.)

Moreover, with the great engine of population growth being immigration from Europe, the Russians, Germans, Poles, Italians, Irish and others are not going to stop coming because there's no Montana. So functionally you could have a situation where the United States is in the Treaty of Paris borders more or less but not be that much less populous than it is now. Moreover, if other institutional factors remain the same GDP per person might remain what it is now. Population density would just be a bit more...European.

I agree, but population isn't everything. Consider this:

A USA with its western border at the Mississippi River not only loses Montana (big deal) and its eventual Pacific coast states (a big loss, but not critical), but its eventual agricultural heartland in the Great Plains as well as the oil and gas fields of Texas and Oklahoma. Getting and keeping sole use of New Orleans and the mouh of the Mississippi is a biggie if the USA hopes to develop its western states. These are big hits if one wishes to become a major continental superpower along the lines of Russia.

A significant variable involves what happens in Spanish America/Mexico and British North America. One factor that allowed the USA to grow economically so fast in the 19th century was that it did not face powerful potential enemies in North America, eliminating the need for large standing armies and costly armaments. This might not happen with the entire western half of the continent under the rule of other powerful states.

You are correct that this USA would be more European - or at least see itself as only an Atlantic power as it develops. This may not be a good thing. The US might become more embroiled in European power politics earlier than OTL.

Also, unless you butterflied away slavery in the southern states, this smaller USA would have a much harder time weathering the inevitable divisions and conflict between the two very distinct regions. Also, in this situation, the South would be proportionately larger and more likely to sucessfully split off if it so desired. In this event, neither of the sucessor nations would have a chance to become a superpower - OTL, the a USA with 11 Southen States gone could still evolve into a major power.

My gut feeling is that a USA that did not expand to the Pacific could become a major power along the lines of the most powerful western European nations, but not a superpower along the lines of the USSR/USA in the mid-late 1900's.
 
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