How much less powerful is a USA without the southwest?

TFSmith121

Banned
Oddly enough, by the time it actually came

How much weaker is the United States if it's southwest border remains as it was defined in the Adams-Onis treaty (http:// http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adams-Onis_Treaty)?

Oddly enough, by the time it actually came into force, Mexico was well on its way to independence, so it's sort of moot.

Which basically makes it clear why odds were against Spain or Mexico hanging on to far northwestern New Spain.

Best,
 
I think it'd need to be quite a bit earlier than that. OTL Mexico had trouble maintaining control over a lot of regions in the 1820s/30s, not just the far northern ones.

There are a handful of PoD's during the 1820's that can turn things around for Mexico, though I do agree an earlier PoD would be better...though it doesn't have to be quite so early. 1810-1815 is actually pretty easy, all you have to do is make the independence war shorter and not have the vast majority of the Mexican leadership meet grisly ends. The key is to prevent the cycle of coups and general instability from setting in. Setting up a stable government early on helps a great deal. Don't get me wrong, there will be instability, but as long as Mexico can get a couple of years of general quiet, get the economy to recover from the war (this is why a shorter war is important), then the problems that come about later (Conservatives vs. Liberals, Comanche raids, Americans) won't be so insurmountable.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Sure, but you're also asking the Spanish to be rational

There are a handful of PoD's during the 1820's that can turn things around for Mexico, though I do agree an earlier PoD would be better...though it doesn't have to be quite so early. 1810-1815 is actually pretty easy, all you have to do is make the independence war shorter and not have the vast majority of the Mexican leadership meet grisly ends. The key is to prevent the cycle of coups and general instability from setting in. Setting up a stable government early on helps a great deal. Don't get me wrong, there will be instability, but as long as Mexico can get a couple of years of general quiet, get the economy to recover from the war (this is why a shorter war is important), then the problems that come about later (Conservatives vs. Liberals, Comanche raids, Americans) won't be so insurmountable.

Sure, but you're also asking the Spanish to be rational ... Spain was invading Mexico as late as 1829 (1861 if you count the three powers intervention that brought the French in....)

Best,
 

Lateknight

Banned
Is this just talking about the southwest border and nothing else else? Because if not mexico it probably be somewhere else I think, mabye if America had liberated/conquered Canada it wouldn't bother with the southwest.
 
I don't think American expansionism is this high-pressure gas which automatically will go in another direction if baffled on one front. :)

There were good reasons we went after Mexico rather than Canada, one being that up until maybe the 1850s [1] an undistracted UK would kick our ass hard if we tried to take Canada again. And the Southern States would be no more enthusiastic about the North gaining more free states than the North was about the notion of the South gaining new slave states in Central America.



[1] And even in the 1850s it would have taken far more blood and treasure to take than most people would be comfortable with for those "acres of snow" :) .
 
Top