DBWI: Interventionist US

JoeMulk

Banned
Your challenge is to come up with a POD where the United States is more hawkish and interventionist on foreign policy. Perhaps if the 1914 war had lasted longer and the US had intervened on one side or another or is that ASB?
 
I think you need to stick the POD way back in the 1700s. Even as far back as George Washington, Americans were strictly isolationist. No way are they changing their minds in 1914 over some dumb European war that has nothing to do with them.
 
Have one where the US is closer to the UK for starters. We've been shouting at each other for years. I get mocked simply for liking Doctor Who.

The BSC Incident would have to be butterflied away as well. We nearly went to war after Dahl was caught red-handed trying to take a speech from Secretary Wallace.
 
I think you need to stick the POD way back in the 1700s. Even as far back as George Washington, Americans were strictly isolationist. No way are they changing their minds in 1914 over some dumb European war that has nothing to do with them.
I don't know, Wilson was a bit of a nut at times, and if Theodore Roosevelt had been in power, a longer European war could drag the United States in.
 
I think you need to stick the POD way back in the 1700s. Even as far back as George Washington, Americans were strictly isolationist. No way are they changing their minds in 1914 over some dumb European war that has nothing to do with them.

Have to agree there, but I don't think you would necessarily have to go all the way back to Washington to make the US a bit less isolationist. Considering how often the US and UK bumped heads, it wouldn't be that hard to make things between them a bit worse than they were OTL. A hostile Britain might be enough to at least make the US consider cultivating better relations with other European powers.

Don't think anything other than a hostile Britain could really manage it though, unless you massively mess around with the timeline. After all, even after the setback of the 1914 war, Britain was the only nation really capable of projecting power into the US's backyard.
 
The US is interventionist. It just disguises it under the guise of police actions or peace keeping operations. Its what keeps Dole pineapples on the table, Coca Cola supplied with sugar, and the Philippines as a commonwealth.
 
The US is interventionist. It just disguises it under the guise of police actions or peace keeping operations. Its what keeps Dole pineapples on the table, Coca Cola supplied with sugar, and the Philippines as a commonwealth.

I understand what you're saying, but I think you're overstating your case a little.

Yes, we did have that experiment with inteventionism in 1898. And yes, we do mess around in Latin America a lot. But the latter is a case of protecting our own backyard from European influences, so that really doesn't count. And the former at least started out that way (over Cuba if you rememeber) even if it did end with us seizing the Philippines. But still, that was an isolated incident. Interventionism is the exception rather than the rule.
 
It would be a economic disaster, look at how much money the brits, french, and the rest of the lot are losing in africa and their other non functioning colonies, and don't even get me started about the treaty ports in china. I don't think a week goes past where you don't hear about yet another terrorist attack. Frankly we should be glad we washed our hands of all that nonsense.
 
if our POD is in 1914, i dont think it would be enough for the US to just be allied to a given european power; there'd need to be something else to drive them to it. maybe some european power tries to get mexico to invade on their behalf?

yeah, i know its ASB, but its just a thought

maybe submarine attacks on american ships?
 
Well one result may well be that Ireland would be independent. I know this is old rope at this point but the USA was, and to an extent still is, pro-Irish independence. At the very least they could have influenced Britain to grant them home rule.

-MRegent
 
Well and interventionist U.S may have helped the French and Russians in The European War and given us and the Germans a tougher ride but other then that I can't see many changes.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
An interventionist US could probably have changed the outcome of the Great War, whichever side they'd had joined would have won the war, instead of the stalemate of OTL, that only lead to GW2.
 
tbh, I don't think The First Great war would've gone on for as long. I mean, i know the US leant Britain money, but a tonne of americans turning up in Northern france might've ended the war. Possibly even decisively, which would've been nice!

As for a PoD? No idea. The Germans blow up Wilsons dog? With a U-Boat? It'd take something quite high up to really tip the balance over. For all the anti-german sentiment in America it was never enough to change such a cornerstone of American Foreign policy.
 
For all the anti-german sentiment in America it was never enough to change such a cornerstone of American Foreign policy.


The relatively high number of German immigrants by that time in the US decries that. Even so, why would the Germans torpedo an American ship? They would have been too batshit insane to do that.
 
Guys

I think a much longer, costlier 1914 conflict might have worked. If the two sides had gotten more bitter and outrageous in their actions and the entente powers [it would really have to be them given geographical constraints] had got so deeply in debt to the US. That might have drawn the US into the conflict then it's tied up in the peace talks and things go on from there.

Say if the Galipoli campaign had been a total fiasco? Then everything might have got bogged down into the frontal assualts both sides were performing in east and west. If it had failed and the Turks hadn't had their pro-entente coup then the latter would have been waging war in the ME for the duration. Also it might have affected neutral feeling with Italy, Bulgaria, Greece and Romania not joining the entente. The war could have gone on at least a year or so after the OTL end of 1916, possibly 2-3 years or longer.

If the US had been drawn into wider world affairs more and Europe destabilised in such a way then more entanglement would have followed.

Steve
 
The US is massively interventionist on the American continents. The Mexican - American War, the Spanish - American War, the Fruit and Oil proxy wars, the Guyana 'Pliebescites'...

From that business with wrenching Canada out of the Commonwealth in 1936 (although the Brits REALLY didn't help their case there) and then 'buying' Newfoundland / Labrador in the Land Swap. To the current funny business with the Chavistas down in Venezuela. The only big difference between the US and Europe is that while European interventionism is global the US is 'local' with the two exceptions of the Philippines and Greenland.

No, the thing is getting the US to give a care about anything other than its own two continents... An all out war with Britain over something could do it, we've never been bestest buddies after all but even then I can't think of a provocation strong enough to override all sense as the continual hate between France and Germany has accomplished several times. We were interested in China for awhile also but the grand and glorious disaster the Euros, Japan, Chiang and the Yun family have made of the place I'm glad we cut out of there when we could...

I dunno, maybe something wrt middle east oil in more modern times? If coal gasification and natural gas fracking never take off to supplement Nixon's nuclear 'push' or the massive oil discoveries in Canada, Alaska and offshore I could see issues arising similar to whats happening to the Eurasian oil market atm with the massive unrest and the Pan Arab Spring.
 
The relatively high number of German immigrants by that time in the US decries that. Even so, why would the Germans torpedo an American ship? They would have been too batshit insane to do that.

Yeah, I think it'd take a colossal cockup to do it and even then would the American govt. write that off as the cock-up it would've been.
 
People do underestimate the German-American contingent. Sure, today, German is widely spoken or understood across much of the Rust belt and Upper Plains states, but this trend was more far-reaching at the time and has only been diminished recently by greater Slavic immigration to the United States, making Polish a major language in Cleveland and, to a lesser extent, Chicago.
 
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