DB challenge: Give away the canals

[Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy]

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to have the Suez and Panama Canals under Egyptian and Panamanian control, respectively, by the present day with a POD no earlier than 1926. Bonus points if at least one of these takeovers is peaceful.

 

[Rekjavik]

That is going to be tough. Britain, France and America benefited greatly from controlling the canals, making them give them away is unlikely at best.

 

[Dr. No]

Panama is rather easy. Have a list of Democrat presidents in the US and you should get them to be serious about the 99 year lease.

Suez had a 99 year lease agreement as well, so here again, political stability in Egypt and the metropoles of the British and French empires effectively fed up with colonial adventures.

 

[NHBL]

Panama is easy...

A series of war games by the USN hilight the vulnerability of the Panama locks to bombs, shells, or sabotage in 1926-1927. Add on to that, the possibility of wanting to build battleships wider than 108 feet, and the amazing cost of building wider locks, and Panama is seen as vulnerable.

So, the USA invokes its right to build a sea level canal through Nicaragua, and work starts in 1929. Work slows in the depression, but still progresses. The canal is finished in 1940, just in time for the war.

After the war, the Panama Canal is redundant compared to the wider, and more easily widened even further, Nicaragua Canal, so it might be let go.

 

[karl2025]

Panama is rather easy. Have a list of Democrat presidents in the US and you should get them to be serious about the 99 year lease.

Suez had a 99 year lease agreement as well, so here again, political stability in Egypt and the metropoles of the British and French empires effectively fed up with colonial adventures.

This is completely unrelated, but why do they always use a 99 year lease? Why not 100 years or whatever?

 

[atreides]

...Just to remind you, in OTL the Panama Canal has been under Panamanian control since 2000. And it was so because the Panama Canal treaty was renegotiated in 1977 (if I remember well) by Carter.

So the POD is actual reality, in Panama's case. And it was peaceful. Bonus point to reality!

 

[Tom Veil]

out-of-character help...

...Just to remind you, in OTL the Panama Canal has been under Panamanian control since 2000. And it was so because the Panama Canal treaty was renegotiated in 1977 (if I remember well) by Carter.

So the POD is actual reality, in Panama's case. And it was peaceful. Bonus point to reality!

First off, welcome to AH.com! I hope you enjoy it here and stay. One of the big hurdles to AH.com is that, like so many other internet forums, we've developed our own jargon and acronyms. One of those is "DB", which stands for "double-blind", and means that everyone who posts should pretend that they are writing from a timeline that is not OTL. Sometimes the thread creator will help you along by suggesting that everyone play from the same ATL, but Pervez didn't do that, which will make this thread a little bit freewheeling (but hopefully also more interesting!)

 

[Tom Veil]

back in character...

This is a toughie! The best way that I can think of to get the Panama Canal in Panama's hands is to have the USA enter WWII and lose, forcing them to part with all of their colonies, as happened to every WWII participant except Britain.

The only problem is, if the USA intervenes, they would almost certainly intervene on the British-Soviet side. Since the British didn't part with Egypt in 1947, why on Earth would they part with it now that they're going to win the war so much more easily?

 

[Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy]

...Just to remind you, in OTL the Panama Canal has been under Panamanian control since 2000. And it was so because the Panama Canal treaty was renegotiated in 1977 (if I remember well) by Carter.

So the POD is actual reality, in Panama's case. And it was peaceful. Bonus point to reality!

Good Athe, not another! It's a double-blind!

 

[atreides]

Ooopss! Ok, go ahead...!