AHC/WI: Russia enters the ARW

Fair point WRT the Brits and the Ottomans, I agree - though there's still that strategic concern over routes to India. I simply find myself unable to see the strategic concern uniting the US and Russia.

As for the mutual emancipation, I don't really think that works - the two did so around the same time, but well after they'd become "fast friends" in the diplomatic sense.
The obvious strategic concern is Britain/France; the Crimean War (and the Great Game more generally) illustrates why Russia is concerned in that direction, while Canada, flirting with the Confederacy, and Napoleon III's Mexican adventures all illustrate why the US would be concerned.

Both nations also have extensive commercial interests in Asia (there's a reason it was an American fleet that opened Japan, and the Russians were not far behind), so cooperation in that sphere also makes sense.

Ideologically they may not have been especially similar, but geopolitically they are both in very similar situations. Add in that they have no obvious conflicts (remember that even cheaply purchasing Alaska was seen as folly in the US), and they make sense as natural allies.
 
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