AHC: BIGGER Isolationist USA

The POD is the day the USA declared Independence. From there, is it possible to make the USA as isolationist as Japan was up to the year... let's say 1950? What will happen to the world and the USA in general, if possible?
 
In a word no and a very short explanation is that Japan was a top down society, the States bottom up. They fought the British because of it.

Now it might be more insular but with trade and a merchant marine, there would be global concerns ie. Barbary pirates ect.

A best hope would be a truely neutral US from the start of WW1 but it is still possible for them to be dragged into it even in a limited way.
 
Canada in it, Sonora, Chihuahua and Rio Grande from Mexico, Cuba from Spain. Haiti and Louisiana from France. With that you could have splendid isolation but not Japanese isolation.
 
A best hope would be a truely neutral US from the start of WW1 but it is still possible for them to be dragged into it even in a limited way.

Well didn't the Americans not go to war during WWI and refused to, but only did because of Lusitania?

I have another question: would the Isolationist America have less power in world politics, and be less powerful in general?
 
Well didn't the Americans not go to war during WWI and refused to, but only did because of Lusitania?

There were a range of factors prompting US intervention. Other sinkings of civilian ships and US deaths, the Zimmerman telegraph, general militaristic behaviour of imperial Germany, allied debts to the US.

I have another question: would the Isolationist America have less power in world politics, and be less powerful in general?

Especially if anything like Japanese isolation it would have a lot less power and be a lot smaller. For one thing it would reject further annexations or other territorial gains, since that would mean interacting with other nations and taking on new people. For another it would not welcome immigrants so a lot less people and knowledge. Ditto for greatly reduced foreign trade.

If a deeper and longer lasting American isolationism then probably no war with Spain and annexation of the Philippines. Less contact with the outside world and hence less influence. Smaller forces, especially naval until the policy changes. America, presuming still successful economically would continue to be a sleeping giant, largely overlooked by the rest of the world because it doesn't interact with them much.

Steve
 
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