AHC: "North America Best America!"

SinghKing

Banned
IOTL, there's not much doubt that it is. But your challenge in this AHC, should you choose to accept it, is to propose an ATL in which the economy of 'Latin America' (potentially including Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America, as well as South America) exceeds that of 'North America' (excl. Mexico), both by nominal GDP and purchasing power parity, by the present day. The POD can be no earlier than 1900, and you get extra bonus points for meeting each of the following extra criteria (though you don't have to meet any of them):

A) The USA still exists
B) The USA remains intact
C) The USA still keeps the same borders as those which it possesses IOTL
D) Both World Wars still happen
E) Both World Wars have to result in the same outcome (Entente/Allied victory, CP/Axis defeat)
F) No WW3 allowed
G) OTL's Latin American nations all still exist
H) OTL's Latin American nations all remain independent of one another
I) Latin America is also acknowledged by ROTW to be more powerful militarily than North America
J) Latin America is also acknowledged by ROTW to be more 'free' and democratic than North America


Are you up for the challenge?
 

SinghKing

Banned
Anyone? Remember, you just get extra bonus points for meeting each of these criteria, or as many of them as possible- you don't actually have to meet any of them.
 

SinghKing

Banned
ThePest179 said:
No. Can't do it.
Click to expand...

Not even if you did have a near-total breakup of the USA- eg, in 'The Falcon Cannot Hear' TL? In that TL, after its Second American Civil War, would it be completely impossible for Latin America's economy (incl. Mexico & the Caribbean) to exceed that of North America (USA & Canada) by the present day?
 

Superman

Avoiding the Depression would be a good way to get Latin America's economy up. IIRC, Argentina's economy was one of the world's largest, on par with Australia. Still not sure how to weaken North America without screwing over South America, too, though.
 

M79

A) South America embraces Bolivar's dream

B) Argentina stays more unified though not necessarily as centralized

C) Chile loses the ABC wars

D) Gran Colombia decide on an economic bloc with Greater Argentina that grows to include most or all of Latin America
 

ThePest179

Banned
SinghKing said:
Not even if you did have a near-total breakup of the USA- eg, in 'The Falcon Cannot Hear' TL? In that TL, after its Second American Civil War, would it be completely impossible for Latin America's economy (incl. Mexico & the Caribbean) to exceed that of North America (USA & Canada) by the present day?
Click to expand...

Word of God states that Latin America is doing far worse due to the more damaging Great Depression and collapse of America. So no.
 

riggerrob

Less corruption in Latin America - and more pay-offs, bribery, etc. in North America - would allow the Latino economy to soar by re-investing mining profits in schools, clinics, roads, etc. to improve the quality of life of latino laborers.
 

SinghKing

Banned
ThePest179 said:
Word of God states that Latin America is doing far worse due to the more damaging Great Depression and collapse of America. So no.
Click to expand...

Word of God? :confused: And would it seriously have done far worse than North America (which actually did collapse, and has just emerged from a 7yr civil war), Europe (where the Nazis have effectively won, and everyone is financially crippled) or Asia (where the Japanese have been forced to withdraw from the mainland, with the Soviets mired in the impossible task of attempting to seize China and Korea for themselves, claiming even more lives and destroying even more wealth in the process than the Japanese did on their own IOTL)? Africa's still colonial- same goes for the Middle East and much of Oceania.

Latin America is the only free region of the world which didn't get war-torn in that TL- they just had to get over the initial fallout from the Great Depression, which happened all that time ago. Their regional economy is the most intact and the 'healthiest' of any region in the world. The collapse of America would have made them the go-to region for war loans in that TL- war loans which the Allies (and the US factions) will have to pay for through the nose. And similarly, without the USA, where else are all of those new war refugees going to emigrate to? Oceania, sure. But why travel to the other side of the world when there are even safer havens (especially in the context of Imperial Japanese expansionism) far closer to home (for both the European and North American emigrants)?

EDIT: Added a useful attachment to illustrate the point. (Which wasn't supposed to be anywhere near that large...)

Historical GDP comparison.png
 
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Alstein

Would a competent Argentina that gets governed well help out here, or is that ASB?

I always thought Argentina had potential to be a Power.
 

asnys

The PoD: Howard Scott doesn't flub his big New York speech, and Technocracy, Inc. picks up a few wealthy sponsors. Butterflies lead to the successful assassination of FDR, and the continued stagnation of the American economy. Left- and right-wing unrest spreads, and elements of the American military and upper classes begin to believe that a revolution is inevitable, and that Technocracy offers them a revolution they can control. In 1937, the existing government is overthrown in a bloodless coup, and the US becomes a Technate.

WW2 starts on schedule, and goes roughly as IOTL until the invasion of Russia. That's when two things happen: first, Russia does rather better handling the invasion then IOTL, and is able to push the Germans back well before they get close to Moscow. Second, the US takes the opportunity to declare war on Canada and Mexico and annex them. The Allies can't really do much about it, but it does lead to South America, with the exception of Argentina, joining the Allies as serious co-belligerents, as they feel threatened by the aggressive Technate regime. Japan does not attack Pearl Harbor, since the US is still perfectly willing to provide them with oil, though they do seize Allied possessions throughout the Pacific.

Eventually, the Russians push into Europe and take Berlin, and Europe east of Spain goes red. An armistice is eventually reached with the Technate, because the logistics involved mean neither side can really do much against the other. The post-war world shapes up into: the North American Technate, a paranoid totalitarian police state; Great Britain, allied with the South American states, still mostly capitalist and mostly democratic; Russia + Europe, Communists; and Japan, still ulcerating blood and treasure with its never-ending war in China. The first nuclear weapon is developed by Britain, but not until the early '50s, and is tested in South Africa. The other powers follow suit in developing nukes.

Over the rest of the century, the Technate settles into a mostly stagnant, sometimes genocidal dictatorship that looks a lot like Stalinist Russia without Stalin's charisma. South America and India, meanwhile, boom, with the technical and financial assistance of Great Britain, who need them as allies against the many, many threats they face. By 1996, bread riots are exploding in the major cities of the Technate, and military units are mutinying when ordered to put down the unrest. Brazil and India, meanwhile, are the two industrial power-houses of the world, with Argentina, South Africa, and Nigeria not far behind.

How's that?
 
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