America Neutral in WWI, what is their new foreign policy?

It's the right of the borrower to sell any property he has besides collateralized properties. The basic idea therefore is to sell colonies to the US and take the money earned to repay the lenders, which just happen to live in the US. These trades are interconnected as any banker which holds loans to France knows quite well that a sale of French colonies to the US would provide his debitor with funds required to repay. As banks typically prefer money to collateral, we can take as granted that many bankers holding French debt will promote a French proposal to sell their colonies to the US - they'd also promote a French proposal to sell their colonies to Ethiopia if they were solvent just to get their money back.


Fair enough, but even if the US is interested in buying (doubtful) the amounts involved are massive. Iirc the existing (secured) loans totalled about $2.2 billion, and the subsequent borrwing (ie after the US entered the war) brought it up to nine or ten billion. Ok we know from the DWI case that Congeress was willing to cough up $25 million for a Caribbean colony, but this is orders of magnitude greater. Is any conceivable Congress going to vote such expenditures in peacetime, even if colonies to that sort of value are on offer?
 
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To wander back to the original WI (which in the way of these things we seem to have drifted off) the main effect is that by the thirties US foreign policy gets more interventionist.

Basically, OTL all the miseries of the world were blamed by isolationists on America having gone into the World War. On this TL, they will be blamed by interventionists on America not having gone into the World War. Beyond that I'm not sure how much one can say with certainty. It all depends on what there is to intervene in.
 
If the U.S. stays neutral in WWI, there won't be any backlash of foreign affairs which lead to isolationism in OTL.

How will America act in a world where it was left completely unaffected by the war?

Good point from the previous poster, to return to the original question :)

If we assume that the Central Powers grind out a win with no US involvement in the war, things are going to be rough in Europe for some time - not that they weren't in OTL, of course.

US foreign policy is going to be at one level affected, and another diverted, by what's going on elsewhere.

I am sure that CHINA will play a major role in US thinking, and that the triangle of US-Japanese-Chinese relations is going to be even more important than in OTL. Japan will no doubt have done some kind of deal with Germany to end the war, and while we can speculate on the details, I think it likely that Germany will resurrect its position in China, even if it fails to get Tsingtao back. Japan may actually be in a position to demand something from China in compensation for handing it back, so I'm sure something can be worked out.

In addition, there is a surviving Ottoman Empire whose oil wealth is just coming on line. US companies, and government finance, is going to be very keen to get into this area, not least because if they don't the Germans will monopolise it if they can.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Basically, OTL all the miseries of the world were blamed by isolationists on America having gone into the World War. On this TL, they will be blamed by interventionists on America not having gone into the World War. Beyond that I'm not sure how much one can say with certainty. It all depends on what there is to intervene in.

Very reasonable.

I'd assume that no matter if Germany wins or not, it cannot expand into Asia, I even doubt if they could get their colonies back, as they have no means to threaten either China or Japan. At the same time, Britain, Russia and France are weakened, which might lead to tensions between Japan and the US over influence in East Asia.

IF Britain and France loose the war, I'd also see a much earlier move to decolonialization in Asia, and I would assume that the US support that.
 
Very reasonable.

I'd assume that no matter if Germany wins or not, it cannot expand into Asia, I even doubt if they could get their colonies back, as they have no means to threaten either China or Japan. At the same time, Britain, Russia and France are weakened, which might lead to tensions between Japan and the US over influence in East Asia.

IF Britain and France loose the war, I'd also see a much earlier move to decolonialization in Asia, and I would assume that the US support that.


The Germans may expand to some degree into the Mideast, if only because Persians, Afghans and the like will hurry to worship the rising sun (and I don't mean Japan). They may also establish a sphere of influence in what was formerly Russian Central Asia.

They will certainly get their African colonies back, and probably lots more besides, as a Britain which has lost the continental war (a crushing blow to morale, with three years of slaughter in the trenches all for nought) and is suffering heavy losses to u-boats and maybe (if Germany has the use of French bases) surface ships as well, is unlikely to fight on long for the sake of this or that bit of Africa. The government might want to, but couldn't without popular support. If, say, the merchant seamen go on strike (or even threaten to) then it's all over.

You could well be right about the Far East, as any action against Japan would have the Germans fighting at or beyond the limit of their reach. In the end they will probably (and very grudgingly) have to write off Tsingtao and their North Pacific islands. Perhaps not such a bad thing for them long term, as these Japanese gains will annoy the US.

One interesting question is whether China still declares war on Germany in August 1917. While a bit vague about the details, I had the impression that US influence was a factor in their doing so. If she stays neutral could we see a German-Chinese rapprochement against the Japs, which would probaly help German-US relations as well?

Agreed about decolonisation as far as India is concerned. Nationalist feeling was coming on fast, and the blow to Imperial prestige will likely accelarate it. Probably too soon for Africa, esp if a victorious Germany is now the main colonial power there.
 
Wild thought. Is it possible that Australia becomes part of the United States, as Istr it did in Heinlein's Future History?

If Germany dominates the European continent, British naval forces have to stay concentrated in home waters, so Australia is pretty much left alone with the Japanese. She won't like that; and there isn't the "history" between America and Australia that there is between US and Canada. More likely, just an alliance, but you never know.
 
They may also establish a sphere of influence in what was formerly Russian Central Asia.

And what is it now? No-one has established quite when and how the Germans win, which has ginormous butterflies (not least on Russia), and if we don't know that we can't really comment on American foreign policy.
 
And what is it now? No-one has established quite when and how the Germans win, which has ginormous butterflies (not least on Russia), and if we don't know that we can't really comment on American foreign policy.


I'm sketchy about the details but str there was an attempt to revive the old state of Bukhara. Iirc the former Turkish leader, Enver Pasha, came to a sticky end there.

I was vaguely imagining the erection of "Turkic" states, some of which might align with Germany, some (if she retains India) with Britain.
 
Well, if we eliminate Wilson from the picture, we might get a non-interventionist president who just happens to be willing to get new territory.
Further, while the US was pursuing a policy of hemispheric domination, it still was far closer to the Washington/Jefferson non-interventionism than the Wilsonian-Rooseveltian-Trumanian-andeveryonesinceian global interventionism.
 
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