AHC: No Canal across the Americas
- Thread starter naraht
- Start date
Asb, im afraid. Its just WAY too useful to have one. To prevent it youd need global economic collapse on the scale of peshawar lancers, which is astronomically unlikely. Imo.
Sternberg
Banned
I won't call it impossible, but without some sort of apocalyptic event happening, it would be very difficult in my opinion to not have a canal in the Americas that connected the Atlantic with the Pacific with a POD sometime after 1800.
However, maybe if the Americas were heavily Balkanized to the point where most nations would be small city states, as well as made more hostile to the European powers, then maybe it could work. I'm not saying that it would be for certain, since I still have plenty to learn, but I'm just trying to think of ways that this scenario could work.
However, maybe if the Americas were heavily Balkanized to the point where most nations would be small city states, as well as made more hostile to the European powers, then maybe it could work. I'm not saying that it would be for certain, since I still have plenty to learn, but I'm just trying to think of ways that this scenario could work.
Wouldn't that invite the same sort of gunboat diplomacy that was used in securing the zone OTL, though?
I'd think the reverse might be a better option: let's say Nicaragua & Panama (& any other third-choice sites) become and remain heavily contested between the military giants of Mexico and Gran Colombia, and neither wants to shoulder the expense of building a canal when it might readily be lost to the other.
ChineseDrone#48295857
Banned
Mexico has the ability to build its own canal, around Oaxaca, actually, so even this isn't going to prevent a transatlantic canal.
I have an idea, but the PoD is really far back, basically metallurgy and farming appear in America early on, they don't get as far as the Old World but in 1492 all of Central America is under the control of a large isolationist empire. This empire manages to survive the various colonizers and keep its controlling interest on the thin area of Central America that could be used for a canal, it could hold out long enough to assimilate some things like weapons and military tactics, and isolationism remains stopping any projects to build a canal. Perhaps with native religion holding that belief mixed in. Maybe it could be delayed up until the late 20th century even.
EDIT: Didn't see the post-1800 PoD.
EDIT: Didn't see the post-1800 PoD.
But a plague so devastating to as to prevent it for the entire 200+ year period of the POD? Not even the Black Death was that nasty.
Black Death equivalent might well set things back a LOT. There'd be a lot less pressure to settle new lands, for instance, if Europe wasn't over populated, and there'd be less demand for global trade, tea or what have you. And the resources to send machinery all the way to the isthmus, as well as providing and supporting that many labourers would be difficult.
I'll admit a Black Death sized plague would likely result in a postponement of the canal by ... 50 years, say, but 100 should be possible.
Something rather nastier than the Black Death would work better.
I will admit THAT isn't ASB, although rather unlikely. I didn't think of a modern plague, myself.
But as hlovell said, you'd need an apocalyptic event. Something worse than Black Death ought to qualify.
Have Teddy Roosevelt's project to build the canal fail.
Then, WWI comes along. The USA either continues putting off the project after the war, or tries to pick up where it left off in the 1920s. Either way, the Great Depression prevents it from happening in the 1930s. World War II lasts longer and is more devastating than OTL and the post-war period prevent it from being carried out in the 1950s.
The Cold War is even more intense and competitive than it was in OTL, and the world is too busy with that to even bother trying to build a canal. Panama does not have the resources to do it itself. The Soviet Union collapses a bit earlier than it did, and the world is too busy contemplating the aftermath and trying to readjust itself to this new reality that the canal is not a consideration in the first years following the Cold War.
By the mid-90s, there is again talk of building a canal, and a serious effort to begin building the canal. In 2000, Panama is in negotiations with the US and EU over the possibility of revitalizing the project, but construction won't start for a few more years.
Then, WWI comes along. The USA either continues putting off the project after the war, or tries to pick up where it left off in the 1920s. Either way, the Great Depression prevents it from happening in the 1930s. World War II lasts longer and is more devastating than OTL and the post-war period prevent it from being carried out in the 1950s.
The Cold War is even more intense and competitive than it was in OTL, and the world is too busy with that to even bother trying to build a canal. Panama does not have the resources to do it itself. The Soviet Union collapses a bit earlier than it did, and the world is too busy contemplating the aftermath and trying to readjust itself to this new reality that the canal is not a consideration in the first years following the Cold War.
By the mid-90s, there is again talk of building a canal, and a serious effort to begin building the canal. In 2000, Panama is in negotiations with the US and EU over the possibility of revitalizing the project, but construction won't start for a few more years.
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A Black Death sized plague reduces Europe's population by a third. For comparison, Britain's growth between 1800 and 1900 OTL is from 16 million to 41.1 million.
And it's not even the fastest growing country in Europe. Russia has grown from 37 million to 135.6 million in the course of the century.
Point being, European growth rates are huge. European populations are large enough to still have enormous demand. You might be able to have - if you have this BP equivalent in the 1890s - the canal put off for a generation, but not fifty or a hundred years.
Something worse than the Black Death is pushing things pretty goddamn far. Not absolutely impossible, but outside diseases in virgin fields, good luck finding anything like it in OTL. And "But what if something even worse than anything that happened OTL happened?"
That runs into the limits of lethality any given plague is going to be capable of reaching - if it kills its hosts quickly, it's going to have trouble spreading fast enough to kill many hosts, for instance.
PhilippeO
Banned
I thought armored diplomacy scenario could work.
why everybody think its ASB without massive disaster ? Panama Canal is very costly, both in money and human cost, and it always threatened by landslide after rain. small scale disaster (malaria/yellow fever outbreak; massive landslide that buries large part of canal, political instability in Panama) will be enough to stop US building Panama Canal. The French already failed before. Re-working Panama Canal after it failed, or relocate it to Nicaragua or Mexico will have same problem; that area is very prone to political problem, malaria and landslide. After two or three project ended in failure, support will evaporate, no investor will put money in project with several proven failure, and voters would think it waste of money.
why everybody think its ASB without massive disaster ? Panama Canal is very costly, both in money and human cost, and it always threatened by landslide after rain. small scale disaster (malaria/yellow fever outbreak; massive landslide that buries large part of canal, political instability in Panama) will be enough to stop US building Panama Canal. The French already failed before. Re-working Panama Canal after it failed, or relocate it to Nicaragua or Mexico will have same problem; that area is very prone to political problem, malaria and landslide. After two or three project ended in failure, support will evaporate, no investor will put money in project with several proven failure, and voters would think it waste of money.
Except that it is immensely useful. This isn't something that there's no obvious reason to build that would have to work to be seen as worthwhile.
Have the Indusrial Revolution start a century early...and put it into hyper-super-overdrive! Then the CO2 levels would skyrocket enough to melt the Arctic icecaps as they are present-day. With the Northwest (and Northeast) Passage safe for passage at least during the summer, that would greatly mitigate, if not eliminate the need for a canal connecting the Atlantic to Asia.
The big challenge would be to delay the development of the North American Pacific coast compared to the Atlantic coast, so there's no urgent need to build a canal. I guess this can be a second alternate POD, where the US does not stretch from sea to sea.
The big challenge would be to delay the development of the North American Pacific coast compared to the Atlantic coast, so there's no urgent need to build a canal. I guess this can be a second alternate POD, where the US does not stretch from sea to sea.
I can't see this happening. A USA that had taken far more casualties and been more generally devastated by the war would most likely be one that's far less casualty-averse and far more willing to act in its own interests: in short, one willing to tell Edward Teller "here's your 300 bombs and the route we want, go nuts."
I do like PoorBoy's POD though
Didn't that involve the annexation of the empires most valuable lands in Poland, Caucasia, the Baltic, and the Black Sea?
BlondieBC
Banned
Ok, lets take what I think you are asking for. Lets say we have a 8.0 earth quake about two years before it is finished and the main dam is lost. Water washes out to sea, destroying much of the equipment and killing 10K mostly black laborers. So what happens. We lack the money to finished. We have congressional hearings. Maybe it gets new funding immediately, or maybe we wait until mid-1917 until it is funded in the war budget. It is finished by 1925 or so. Now it makes an interesting TL, if one thinks it has major butterflies in WW1. But it would take an earthquake every 5-10 years for the entire 20th century to prevent any canal. Now maybe in 1917 the USA uses another route.
If the USA did not have this canal, it needs a navy at least 50% bigger. It will get funded.