DBWI: Is American History a Wank?

Suppose you are in an ATL where the US either does not exist (British don't colonize America, failed Revolution etc.) or is much weaker (Articles of Confederation, Balkanization, Native American uber-state contains US growth west of the Appalachians etc.). At some point today, ATL you logs on to ATL AH.com and comes across a curious timeline. Not being actual history, it inevitably lacks some of the finer points which would explain a number of "fortunate coincidences," but it is nonetheless a rather detailed summary of the OTL history of the United States of America. Reading diligently through this interesting timeline you find that an unstable colonial rebellion becomes the greatest power in the world in a bit over 200 years. The country has its set backs, but on the whole manages a brisk pace of improvement, in the process winning a number of wars against a rather impressive collection of world powers. Finally you reach the end of the unfinished timeline, which inevitably includes yet another unlikely event: this time the election of a minority President, and though suffering economically, the US again looks as though it is in a favorable position.
How do you interpret this timeline, is it a believably scenario, or a ridiculous wank of a country which everyone can clearly see would never have managed to get past its inter-regional/racial/religious tensions?


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This is not intended to turn into an America-bash-fest or for that matter an American-awesomeness-fest, please try not to include your political/national/ethical opinions about America. However feel free to include your ATL political/national/ethical view on American History. This is intended to be fun so let's try to avoid any crazy arguments. Finally if you reference information from OTL US history, please include only appropriate information i.e. Truman's Vice President Alben Barkley would not be included in the TL since his largest achievement seems to be nicknaming himself "the Veep", however Eisenhower's VP Richard Nixon would be in the TL since he ran against JFK and then became President himself in 1969.
 
OOC: There's a reason for Bismarck's quote.

*ahem*

God has a special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States of America.

Even ITTL American history is a wank :D
 
Would the powers the US would have beaten in this timeline be the same as the ones in our history? (ie germany USSR, or some butterfly powers created by such an early point of difference)
 
OOC: dcver, since he specified this 'ATL' US had the same history as OTL US, I assume the rest of the world's history must be the same as well (at least in the broad outline) EDIT: I mean in this 'ATL'. In the 'OTL' all bets are off, more or less.

IC: I don't know, seems not just an Ameri-wank but also a German-wank and Russia-wank as well.

I mean, OTL it took Germany decades to rebuild from the Great War, and that was with all of Europe subdued. ITTL, how do they reach their previous performance so quickly?

And Russia really shattered after Brest-Litvosk; it seems unrealistic to have them reassembled so quickly, and really improbable for them to industrialize so rapidly.

Further, it seems the author keeps trying to build space-filling empires; first you have the European colonial empires (yes, I know OTL they did nearly as bad), then you have these 'unions' keep popping up around the end of the timeline--the EU, the AU, UNSAN--to unite these huge, wildly diverse areas. What's the likelihood of France ever uniting with Germany of all people?
 
And how could the US possible beat the Spanish? I mean they declined but they where still a powerful empire in the late 1800's. This guy just wants America to become more then some 2nd rate country.....
 
It was laughable how the Americans forced Japan to open up. Even in his timeline its ridiculous, the 'Americans' barely had anything that could qualify as a city on the Pacific, much less a fleet. Why would they want to stick their noses into Asia?
 
A lot of the stuff in Europe and Asia seemed like it was designed to give the US an advantage. The defeat of France by Germany in the 1880s or whatever just seemed like an excuse to keep France weak so it would stay away from the Americas, and I seriously doubt a Bonaparte could ever lose to Germans. Teddy Roosevelt's mediation in the Russo-Japanese war seemed like an excuse both to keep the Japanese from annexing Siberia and also to "force" them to attack the US years later. Japan's weakness to the US is unbelievable. A lot of the timeline's "Overseas" sections seemed tacked on to justify the lack of foreign intervention against the US.

OOC: Yes, to dcver's question the world in the timeline is the OTL world, just like the timeline US is OTL US.
 
The idea of a civil war over slavery ending with the country more or less united after 600,000 dead seems to me to be positively ASB.
 
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