Challenge: Mexico evolves into the main power of the Americas and then the world

What events would have to happen to lead to a "Pax Mexicana" instead of a "Pax Americana" in the 20th and 21st centuries?
 
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What events would have to happen to lead to a "Pax Mexicum" instead of a "Pax Americana" in the 20th and 20st centuries?

Intead of ''Pax Mexicum'', you just call it as ''Pax Mexicana''.

To achieve the ''Pax Mexicana'', prevent the US-Mexican war of 1846-48 and Mexico had encourages immigration from Ireland, Spain and Italy to Northern Mexico (California, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, and some parts of Wyoming in OTL) in order to legitimize the Mexican claim in those area that I've mentioned and to prevent also from American raid. Mexico must industrialize in order to counteract the United States.
 
One wonders at what the effect of a surviving Spanish threat in S America would have been ? Mexico would have retained Guatemala most probably, as the central American provinces become a battleground. It would probably have given impetus to Mexico remaining an imperial monarchy and thus avoided the difficult factional civil wars of the 1820s-1840s

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
One wonders at what the effect of a surviving Spanish threat in S America would have been ? Mexico would have retained Guatemala most probably, as the central American provinces become a battleground. It would probably have given impetus to Mexico remaining an imperial monarchy and thus avoided the difficult factional civil wars of the 1820s-1840s

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
To do that I think Mexico would need a more capable series of leaders in the first place. it also wouldn't hurt to have America fracture, and have Napoleon win (thereby removing any other powers to oppose Mexico).
 
France doesn't bully out of Louisiana in 1803, so no sell to the US.
No sell to the US , so no Lewis & Clark.
No Lewis & Clark, so No US claim to the NW.
No US claim to the NW, so following the 1820 following the US/Spanish War over Florida, Spain doesn't include the territory north of California, in the treaty cession.
No Pacific Coast Claim, and Manifest destiny is never born.

Mexico retains Tejas, & the Mexican Cession, as well as CAmerica, and the Pacific NW as Britain extents the US border East of the Divide to cover Mexico west of the Divide

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mojojojo

Gone Fishin'
France doesn't bully out of Louisiana in 1803, so no sell to the US.
No sell to the US , so no Lewis & Clark.
No Lewis & Clark, so No US claim to the NW.
No US claim to the NW, so following the 1820 following the US/Spanish War over Florida, Spain doesn't include the territory north of California, in the treaty cession.
No Pacific Coast Claim, and Manifest destiny is never born.

Mexico retains Tejas, & the Mexican Cession, as well as CAmerica, and the Pacific NW as Britain extents the US border East of the Divide to cover Mexico west of the Divide
So what would the world of 2008 look like in this TL?
 
Well the best effort for the region is stability. Stability can come from actual democracy. At the same time perhaps Mexico seeks French, or better yet British help in creating a strong, and well trained military force to counter the US. While the US has that uncanny ability to raise a lot of volunteers and take down a foe if Mexico has a military of skill it can maintain its powerful stance in America. Heck maybe all you really need is one good leader in the Mexican-American war.

If the Mexican's can hold onto their northern lands tey will have a lot of resources, land, and all the things one needs to limit stagnation, which leads to civil war, or political instability. Farmers want more land? Send them north! Over time Mexico can be seen as a very useful tool in anti-slavery, Mormon, and almost anything against a regions status quo. Mexico may well turn into a melting pot by accident as escaped slaves, poor American farmers, ex- Confederate soldiers (assuming the civil war continues as OTL), and many others. Yet in such matters it still boils down to democracy. Unless Mexico can effectivly give a voice to all, and have a chance to answer issues from Northern California to the Gulf it may face the civil wars, and such it seems to be famous for.
 

ninebucks

Banned
Instead of setting sail from Andalusia, Columbus, or someone else, sets sail from a port in Galica. As the voyage is several longitudes north, the ships instead land in Florida, rather than the Caribbean. As a result, inland explorations begin much sooner, particularly around the southern Appalachian mountains and the Mississippi delta. Early contacts with Native Americans are brutal.

A couple of decades later, contact is made with the Mexica and they are promptly conquered. Meanwhile, British, Dutch and French settlement begins along the eastern seaboard.

Later on, as the Spanish Empire faces economic crisis and military overstretching (as it rolls through South America), the North American territories declare their independence, shortly thereafter, the political centre of gravity of Spanish North America shifts away from the old colonial areas in the east (around OTL north Florida and Alabama), to the more densely populated, and more native/mestizo Valley of Mexico. The new United States of Mexico abolishes the Spanish caste system and introduces a bunch of economic reforms that encourage European investment. The northern, non-Spanish territories are not the lands of oppurtunity they were in OTL, as they were denied the potential to expand westward due to Spanish control of the Appalachians, (the exception being New England, which was free to expand northward). Europeans seeking to escape poverty and persecution begin to settle around the Gulf of Mexico, for the first few generations, there are many divisions in the USM, natives in the west, and Europeans in the west, patriots in the centre and Spanish loyalists in the Appalachians, unassimilated foreigners in the east, and under-Hispanicised natives in the south - to help integrate their society, the Mexicans begin a campaign of north-western expansion, communities from all of Mexico's cultures are granted titles to the unclaimed land in the Wild West.

Around this time, the a new generation of politicians takes charge, those who modelled themselves on the revolutionary founding fathers were replaced by an elite of assimilated immigrants, (Spanish, by the way, remains the lingua franca, while German and Nahuatl are distant seconds and thirds). The new generation are secular, liberal and idealistic, drawing from many philosophical ideas from Europe.

But this generation of politicians were occassionally too radical for their people, (too secular for traditional capitalists, too modernist for the paganistic southerners, too abolitionist for the slave-owners in the north-east, and too intefering for the libertarians in the Wild West), and so, the USM descends into a chaotic civil war in the early 1800s.

After nine years, Mexico City has been taken and retaken several times, and eventually abandoned as a centre of power, the victorious faction, (uber-capitalist, pro-European Westerners), have moved the capital to a port-city overlooking the Gulf of California. The major casualty of this war was the permenant loss of the slave-holding north-east, (which managed to secure its independence due to French assistance - the French are major utilisers of slave labour in their North American territory), however, the rest of the huge country is soon united under a common leadership, (with the exception of the far south, which is divided into ethnic homesteads, and given limited self determination as subject territories). As the 19th century ends, the USM reaches its territorial zenith as a treaty is signed dividing the far north between the USM, British North America and the Russo-Japanese North American Company.

TTL's 20th century is as chaotic as OTL's, there are three major global wars, that Mexico manages to remain neutral in, untill the very end, when they quickly pounce in on the winning side. The three world wars amount to economic suicide on behalf of the Old World powers as their financial and imperial clout collapses. By TTL's 1970s, the USM is the world's sole hyperpower, later in that decade it begins testing nuclear weapons, and uses the implicit threat of ever using them to secure the obedience of the international community. Spanish is the world's lingua franca and the USM leads the world in almost all aspects.

Map key:
Green: United States of Mexico, and subject states
Gold: Republic of Appalachia
Blue: Republic of New France
Red: Commonwealth of New England
Orange: Republic of New Netherlands
Purple: State of Alaska
Teal: United States of New Austria

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I think no Texas revolt and a victory in the Mexican-American War might have helped, along with an earlier civil war dividing and distracting the United States while Mexico consolidates its hold on the West.

But I agree, Mexico would have needed a better caliber of leaders and avoid a number of revolutions to be a stable and serious player in the New World.
 
Ninebucks, I fear there are some problems with your scenario. First, Spain was very unenthusiastic about setting up the kind of colonies that survived in places not connected with already-dug-up big gold or silver. Elsewhere, they sent strictly religious missions that both failed and gave local tribes horses, eventually ending European man-for-man military superiority on the plains.

The other is that, well, the relationship between English settlers and Spain and then Mexico wasn't promising for you. Once the UK got naval superiority over Spain, it was easy for them to outsettle the hapless Spanish wherever they wanted - especially in the spots like Texas, where Spain only sent self-destructive missions. Oh, yeah, and a capital - one San Antonio today, though it didn't get above the low hundreds until Texas left.

Texas' story of substantial settlement started with Anglo settlers settling East Texas under agreements with the Spanish, later inherited by the Mexican government. The Texas Revolution happened when the Mexican gummint realized they'd been outsettled and that there were rebellious pro-US filibusters settling in addition to the legit colonists. Mexico first froze settlements and then Santa Ana cracked down when he came to power, precipitating rebellion.

The "better leaders" point has also a telling answer: Santa Ana, whom the Texans rebelled against successfully, and whom the US beat easily, really was one of Mexico's best caudillos. That's why Mexico'd need a more democratic culture to win.

It might be easier to get the US to have an autocratic culture, and then be unable to outcompete a Mexico that wouldn't get outsettled in its Northern bits because nobody'd care about immigrating here. How you do that is beyond me, though. It'd have to be a truly autocratic culture on the ground, and not just autocratic rules at the top, or you'd get the OTL revolt and lose it. Maybe if the English Kings had only granted a few colonization licenses, under very strict rules of religion and conscience (e.g., ALL like Boston) AND had been willing to spend $$ on enforcing the monopoly against those who went to the native tribes for authority?
 
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