Skallagrim
Banned
@Skallagrim I get your point about apartheid South Africa not being invaded and functioning as an isolated state for a long time however I don't think it's a good analogy. For the South African afrikaaners they viewed that state as literally the only place they could exist as a people with nowhere to move to and surrounded by chaotic black states that expelled whites en mass such as Angola and Zimbabwe. White southerners however would be living in an economic backwater and would easily be able to move north and find better standards of living.
They would also have a good example of a multi racial economic and democratic system that is not threatening to most white people on their border in the way South Africa didn't.
Perhaps the analogy of South Africa is inadequate, to an extent. My main point in any case was to argue against the impossibly optimistic projections of some persons. I don't claim that this alt-CSA would last forever; merely that it may well last longer than some believe. One might well think of other examples. Why does Cuba not collapse? Despite the biased claims of some, it is not a paradise with state-of-the-art healthcare available to all, and many people live in terrible conditions. Same goes for Venezuela, where food shortages are a serious problem at this very moment. North Korea? One would think that kind of regime could not possibly sustain itself. And why did the USSR last so long, while so many people there lived in abject poverty? These nations were/are, by and large, not surrounded by post-colonial chaos and turmoil. And on the flipside... most neighbours were and/or are not eager to accept refugees from such countries at all.
So what would that spell for this alt-CSA? How free would its citizens plausibly be to leave? How educated would they be about the outside world? How repressive would the government be(come)?
Those in power tend to cling to it, with all their might. And the USA may well choose to facilitate the CSA's continued existence. The alternative would be a failed state to the direct south; collapsing, uncontrolled, with hordes of refugees spilling into the USA... Or perhaps a mass slave uprising and something like Zimbabwe coming to be in America? I suspect that most people in the USA would prefer the CSA to continue existing, rather than deal with the fallout of its demise.
Perhaps I am too cynical. The outcome might well be somewhere between my grim view and a more optimistic take. But even that picture is far from a pretty one...