AHC Avert the Paraguayan War

So right in the aftermath of the Uruguayan War of 1864-65 the powers of Brazil, Argentina, and somewhat Uruguay marched off to challenge the aggressive actions of the Paraguayan dictator Francisco Solano Lopez. The war lasted from 1864-1870 and was incredibly brutal in terms of lives lost and money spent, and arguably drained all the powers of South America.

Your challenge is to avert this war and speculate on the most likely outcomes of a South America absent such a war.

However, you cannot do this by preemptively killing Lopez ;)
 
Lopez grows a brain?
The Brazilian attack on the Uruguayan faction supported by Paraguay is hard to change - economic and power dynamics in Argentina meant both Argentina and Brazil would support the same people in Uruguay once Argentina unifies under military and economic pressure from Buenos Aires, which means Brazil will have a freer hand to impose their allies in Uruguay.
So, seriously, Lopez has to sit that one out. Maybe he receives unambiguous word from Urquiza stating he would fight him along the rest of the country if he attacks Argentina and, realizing he'd be facing Argentina and Brazil together instead of playing out each against the other he backs down.

Paraguay will be a far more prosperous place, but it's hard to quantify how much because first we'd need to know how much of Paraguay's prosperity before the war is myth and how much is reality.
 
Lopez grows a brain?
The Brazilian attack on the Uruguayan faction supported by Paraguay is hard to change - economic and power dynamics in Argentina meant both Argentina and Brazil would support the same people in Uruguay once Argentina unifies under military and economic pressure from Buenos Aires, which means Brazil will have a freer hand to impose their allies in Uruguay.
So, seriously, Lopez has to sit that one out. Maybe he receives unambiguous word from Urquiza stating he would fight him along the rest of the country if he attacks Argentina and, realizing he'd be facing Argentina and Brazil together instead of playing out each against the other he backs down.

Paraguay will be a far more prosperous place, but it's hard to quantify how much because first we'd need to know how much of Paraguay's prosperity before the war is myth and how much is reality.

The López were enlightened despots. Asunción was a town by the time, other Paraguayan cities were mere villages. Most of people had humble houses with thatched roofs. There was an important and constantly rising bourgeoisie in Asunción, who were slowly moving from folklore to refined European culture. The rule of law didn't exist in the interior (outside Asunción), were landowners ruled as feudal lords, but there were important state inversions in trains, ports and merchant navy (the biggest of all Platine nations, by the way).

I think that in an Averted-Paraguayan-War Timeline, we will see a Paraguay really similar to Argentina in some ways: around the begin of 20th century, we will inevitably see the rise of communism, anarchism and universal suffrage: when some liberal or socialist party take power (through coup d'etat only), overthrowing the López party (which would be founded following the example of the Partido Autonomista Nacional, the Julio Argentino Roca party) will try reform the country politically, economically and socially: for example, the López would be remembered for the minoritarian socialdemocrat Paraguayans as 19th-centurites: heartless, racists, classists and delusional believers of unlimited progress. This will be see for the ring-wing as an attempt of the anarchists and atheists of dismantle the core of Paraguayan society and will be remembered as a ridiculus attempt of social engineering.

The left-wing will fail because of Paraguayans being as conservatives as American Southeners and distrustful of populism as Singapureans or Japaneses: Horacio Cartes won because of being a rich businessman and promised a technocrat cabinet.

Women will get right to vote around the same time as OTL: 1960's, because the traditional respect to womenhood came from the time after Triple Alliance war.

Our second half of 20th century will be really similar, bordering the interchangeable, to Argentina: right-wing or military dictatorship, with lots of leftist guerrillas (which will only led to public opinion to distrust much more of the left-wing)

In short: Paraguayan history will be nearly interchangeable since the López onwards ref Argentinian history, but with much less left-wing governments.
 
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