CH: Reverse the Fates of Russia and the US

Basically, have the US end up with similar situation GDP and stability wise to modern Russia, while Russia has the US's strength things like military.

Now, GO! Earliest POD has to be after the US is founded, although not necessarily to the Constitution.
 
Tough. Probably impossible without some extreme outliers of events and/or meteor strikes.

The Anglo-Saxon cultural and jurisprudential and political inheritance is an enormous asset, as is the economic and financial ties with England, as is the exploitable interior that is emptier and climatically more favorable than Russia's, as is the oceans that separate the US from rival powers and European land warfare.
 
Tough. Probably impossible without some extreme outliers of events and/or meteor strikes.

The Anglo-Saxon cultural and jurisprudential and political inheritance is an enormous asset, as is the economic and financial ties with England, as is the exploitable interior that is emptier and climatically more favorable than Russia's, as is the oceans that separate the US from rival powers and European land warfare.

Additionally, there is the massive serf class in Russia (up to 80% of the population) that never really existed in the United States, even when slavery was at its height. That huge base of people kept permanently poor is a massive drawback once industrialization and associated problems hit.

EDIT: How far outside of OTL Russia are we allowed to go, territory-wise? Would Poland and the Baltics be okay, especially if they were russified?
 
*A* possibility is to have the CSA "win" the Civil War by exhausting the North, limiting overall US growth by comparison to OTL and putting it in a more difficult overall position for expansion, while having Russia "win" an equivalent to the Russo-Japanese War (obviously the butterflies of the first will have an impact on something like the second) that leaves it looking just intimidating enough to forestall a WWI equivalent. Thus by the 20th Century the USA winds up re-absorbing a basketcase CSA that collapses and is plunged into an economic downward spiral and having to stamp out violence that is a CS legacy from both ex-CS whites and blacks, where Russia collapses into a Kerenskyite regime that by the late 20th Century is a liberal-democratic military juggernaut on Europe's periphery and the strongest single state in Europe.

How probable this set of possibilities would be is a different question, and a weaker USA is not a precise guarantee of a Russia that is a Bizarro-USA.
 
*A* possibility is to have the CSA "win" the Civil War by exhausting the North, limiting overall US growth by comparison to OTL and putting it in a more difficult overall position for expansion, while having Russia "win" an equivalent to the Russo-Japanese War (obviously the butterflies of the first will have an impact on something like the second) that leaves it looking just intimidating enough to forestall a WWI equivalent. Thus by the 20th Century the USA winds up re-absorbing a basketcase CSA that collapses and is plunged into an economic downward spiral and having to stamp out violence that is a CS legacy from both ex-CS whites and blacks, where Russia collapses into a Kerenskyite regime that by the late 20th Century is a liberal-democratic military juggernaut on Europe's periphery and the strongest single state in Europe.

How probable this set of possibilities would be is a different question, and a weaker USA is not a precise guarantee of a Russia that is a Bizarro-USA.

Couldn't Russia somehow reform itself earlier to a more liberal democratic with a POD starting in the 1700s? Or is this just not possible?
 
Couldn't Russia somehow reform itself earlier to a more liberal democratic with a POD starting in the 1700s? Or is this just not possible?

Not if we're including a USA in the picture, by the time the USA's there the Pugachev Rebellion's put a damper on even considering reform. If we want the USA to be screwed in a fashion akin to OTL Russia then either the Mexican War or the Civil War are the simplest PODs, chiefly because Mexico offers a potential Imperial Overstretch and the US Civil War a triple-screw, though getting this to affect Russia positively is rather hard to do.
 
*A* possibility is to have the CSA "win" the Civil War by exhausting the North, limiting overall US growth by comparison to OTL and putting it in a more difficult overall position for expansion, while having Russia "win" an equivalent to the Russo-Japanese War (obviously the butterflies of the first will have an impact on something like the second) that leaves it looking just intimidating enough to forestall a WWI equivalent. Thus by the 20th Century the USA winds up re-absorbing a basketcase CSA that collapses and is plunged into an economic downward spiral and having to stamp out violence that is a CS legacy from both ex-CS whites and blacks, where Russia collapses into a Kerenskyite regime that by the late 20th Century is a liberal-democratic military juggernaut on Europe's periphery and the strongest single state in Europe.

How probable this set of possibilities would be is a different question, and a weaker USA is not a precise guarantee of a Russia that is a Bizarro-USA.

That scenario makes a lot of sense, actually.
 
Couldn't Russia somehow reform itself earlier to a more liberal democratic with a POD starting in the 1700s? Or is this just not possible?

I'm thinking that Peter the Great lives long enough to declare a successor by not having to get sick from swimming in a stormy sea.
 
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