Interesting AH ideas that aren't commonly used

[oberdada]

Al Gore Wins in 2000 TLs ignore Nader and the Green Party when it comes to 2004.

Without all those spoiler, spoiler talk the 5% might be within reach.

 

[xsampa]

A dystopian scenario set in the 30s and 40s where Germany and Italy do not turn fascist and the US turns fascist instead due to alternate turns in the Great Depression. There is a Pacific War due to conflict of interest with Japan, and the result is the annexation of large numbers of Indonesians (geopolitical reasons and access to oil), Indochinese (why not, close to PH) and other Asian peoples as the price for American victory. What @Shevek23 said about American racism would carry over into this scenario, but with the added belief that as victors in wartime, Americans have the right to do as they please; the Europeans' requests for their colonies to be returned would be ignored as per right of the victor.

 

[Shevek23]

OK, I leave to someone else the plausible route to US acquisition of any of the Portuguese territory, though I do also suggest that Goa would almost have to be a package deal for the trifecta of all three Asian colonies--Macao, Timor and Goa.

I want to focus on the post-WWII situation, in which both Macao and Timor would have been of course conquered by Japan, but liberated and restored to US territorial status during the war. Goa of course would be quite safe in retrospect, though of course during the scary time of Japanese ascendency, around the Axis riding high in 1942, there would be some fear the Japanese might get that far. Presumably Goa plays a role of some distinction during the war, assisting the general usage of British India to supply and forward supplies to the southeast Asian fronts, serving as a rear repair facility for USN and Commonwealth (and other allied, DEI for instance) shipping. Goa would be eclipsed by the major British facilities in Ceylon as it was called, but might serve a valuable role as a backup overflow site for the combined allied navies.

What interests me is the question of US territories as a whole. I've allowed what I think of as a rather splendid vision for sweeping electoral reform in a proportional representation direction, for House, Senate and even the US Presidency, to get entangled with the notion of complete representation of all peoples subject to US rule in Congress, House and Senate both (and a role in electing the President).

Let me disentangle them for the moment, though another TL on another site did in fact propose the introduction of PR at a Federal level in the immediate post-WWII era too. Setting aside proportional representation, let's consider how perhaps the expanded US territories, in India, Indonesia and China, might conceivably leverage a post WWII reform introducing Congressional and Presidential electoral representation for all territorial citizens as well.

I've mentioned Truman's advocacy of a better autonomy and relationship with Puerto Rico already. Were there a resolution to keep the Philippines under the US flag as well, the problem would grow larger. But Philippine independence was a done deal before WWII broke on the USA. However, supposing the three Portuguese colonies were all firmly in US hands, independence for them is much more problematic. Puerto Rico as a sovereign nation actually makes some sense but how can Goa, Macao or Timor hope to fare?

I assume then whatever treaty there was, does indeed mandate the USA not alienate the former Portuguese colonies to any third power. Nothing would stop the USA from breaking that obligation if we really wanted to of course, but it serves to help explain how the status of all three remain firmly US.

The time window is before Mao takes complete control of China and thus the matters at hand might be settled before the PLA comes knocking on the gates of Macao. This would obligate the President, surely Harry Truman unless one wants to throw curve balls, to defend Macao, and since at this point the British would hardly want to or need to surrender Hong Kong, economics and logistics of defending Macao in a hostile relationship with the mainland are probably workable. Indeed in the face of this obligation the USA might well be forced to lend Chiang Kai Shek considerably more aid, and an enclave surrounding both colonies and indeed including Canton might be maintained--technically three governments then, a rump RoC under Nationalist rule holding Canton and a cordon shielding both HK and Macao from direct contact with the PRC. I know there are people who are sanguine about the USA being able to defeat Mao handily across the board, but I am hardly one of those people; I assume despite much increased US aid Chiang collapses and is only able to hold around Canton thanks to massive US assistance including threats of A bomb attacks. The status quo that develops then is a massive influx of anti-Maoist Chinese and exodus from the RoC zone of pro-Maoists, and the enclave more or less stabilizes as a deeply resented thorn in the side of US-PRC relations--but that is much as OTL anyway. So Macao can survive long term on its limited territory under cover of a US propped up RoC enclave in addition to Taiwan. This obviously has major geopolitical knock ons down the road and I would not rule out the eventual surrender of Macao to the PRC many generations hence, but for now let's roll with it.

Timor is of course quite secure from anything the Indonesians might do for the same reasons I argue Goa is. OTL eventually Indonesia came in as a US client under a US backed coup, and a decade after that when Portugal abandoned Timor Gerald Ford, at Henry Kissinger's advice I don't doubt, signed off on the Indonesians taking Timor by force--something Ford contritely apologized for later in his life, too bad he didn't have that moral clarity at the time. Suffice it to say the Timorese did not much appreciate the new regime and fought it bitterly for decades, and eventually won their recognized independence again. I am also of the opinion Saddam Hussein might have had this precedent in mind and believed the USA would back or anyway accept his seizure of Kuwait, so it was a real case of sowing dragon's teeth. A USA owns Timor TL at least spares us all this horrible mess and might have had important consequences in 1990, perhaps preventing even worse that we are still reeling from today. Thank you ever so much, George Herbert Walker Bush.

So anyway--back to 1945 or so. Truman, amid a lot of other pressing concerns, has in the back of his mind the notion that the Puerto Ricans have had a raw deal. The Philippines are being let go, with our blessing, well and good, but the USA has just acquired a whole boatload of formerly Japanese ruled territory in the Pacific atop our regained former possessions such as American Samoa. It is conceivable that eventual statehood for Hawaii might possibly scoop them all up in one gigantic American state of Pacifica, but many of the new islands are UN Trust Territories, we can't legally just do as we please with them. In addition in this ATL, we have three former Portuguese territories. Let's vaguely stipulate we got ahold of them in the 1880s, before the Spanish American war (but greed for the superior potentials of Manila as a base, plus the value of the Philippine hinterland, still motivated the seizure of the Philippines anyway, despite our already having a decent base site at Timor and direct access to China itself in Macao). For over sixty years then, barring Japanese occupation, these small territories with their distinct populations have been under the US flag, their sons joining the Navy and Army and Marines probably, their entrepreneurs dealing in their shadowy insular status as semi-citizens. The Timorese and Macauvians have suffered much loss at Japanese hands but also provided some wartime heroes of resistance. They have among them radical revolutionaries but only the ones in Macao have a strong case and that only for being absorbed into a larger whole where their distinct Portuguese and Yankee influenced identities would be swallowed up. Only radical minorities are really interested in that. Wartime expedients have largely won over the Goan former radicals, also a minority even before, and political restiveness in all three is thrown behind achieving better status as US citizens.

Statehood is out. I have not yet surveyed either the modern or then-contemporary populations of any of them, but am guessing Goa and Macao are quite tiny to be states. Maybe they exceed Wyoming's population? I should do the research. Let's stipulate they don't. Timor I think is just on the cusp of being state-sized maybe. It might make sense to make Timor a US state, but then Puerto Rico certainly should too.

Let's say then that with the additional three territories thrown in to the mix, Truman resolves to make a clean sweep of all the odd corners of US subjects deprived of the full powers of citizenship. The additional numbers, the diversity, and the recent wartime role of the three south Asian holdings help his political case. He needs an Amendment to the Constitution, but these were coming pretty fast in the mid 20th century.

Rather than being restricted strictly to statehood, then, the Amendment would allow for the possibility of kicking the can of statehood down the road while granting the various disfranchised groups comparable enfranchisement. It would specify conditions and terms under which territories can be granted representation in Congress, House and Senate, and voting for the President, without being actual states and while in some respects remaining under the control of Congress as a whole.

1) Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico are to be included in the general apportionment of all House seats. As a political expedient, the current apportionment of 435 House seats is raised so as to guarantee the standing 1940 census apportionment of the 48 continental states remain the same, so no redistricting is required immediately there. The former two remain territories in the usual sense, the Commonwealth status of PR is Constitutionally specified in the same amendment, with PR having a right to either petition for normal statehood, retain a special Commonwealth status, or seek full independence at a later date. In either of the former two cases, PR is counted in the Census (as indeed the Territories are anyway) and under the new expanded House size would (in modern times, don't know yet about late 1940s) would receive House seats in number between Oklahoma and Connecticut, that being the population now in the 2010s. Have to research which states it was comparable to then. Alaska and Hawaii at this early date would be of a size to get a single House seat anyway.

Depending on what their populations were in the late 1940s, Timor, Macao and Goa might also be state sized. If so, they too would be granted quasi-state status for purposes of House representation and Commonwealth status with option for statehood--independence might be ruled out by the treaty by which they were acquired as stipulated however. But all are pretty small and badly situated for independence anyway!

Puerto Rico is immediately granted two Senators, of the same status as any other US Senator despite the not quite state status of their constituency. Since Alaska and Hawaii are clearly headed for statehood too, they too can also have two Senators; in this way the three Senate classes which each had 32 members OTL until the admission of these two states can remain balanced with 34 members each for a total of 102 Senators, a number divisible by three.

It is interesting that there are also three Portuguese territories--if all three are state level of population, they can also be granted two each for another 6 Senators evenly spread around the classes, each of which is now 36 for a Senate of 108 members.

Under the Constitution, of course, each state has Presidential electors in the number of their Representatives plus Senators. So this process would add say 7 EV for PR, and 15 for Alaska, Hawaii, and perhaps up to three former Portuguese territories around the south of Asia. Note we are expanding the House size to avoid redistributing the established 435 for the lower 48 states.

However, there is a monkey wrench in the works!

The idea of the Amendment is guaranteeing everyone who is subject to US power on a permanent basis must have representation in House, Senate and electing the President. We still have the District of Columbia and the smaller territories in their diversity to consider.

DC of course has been kludged in to the Presidential race alone via a special Amendment OTL, so I think there should be little Constitutional doubt these maneuvers are possible, if politically desired. Here it is specified to have a permanent non-state status, not a Commonwealth but subordinate to Congress formally, but granted rights of autonomy similar to OTL and guaranteed proportional House seats and two Senators. There goes the lovely threefold symmetry! We will then have one class of 36 and two of 37 for 110 Senators. DC has always been a medium small state in size, never (well, not since the 1930s anyway) smaller than the smallest state but never I think big enough for two Representatives, but we can leave that open for future population shifts--it hardly seems likely it can grow that big without tremendous densification to be sure. Realistically it will have one Representative and two Senators and thus three EV for the foreseeable future. This Representative like the estimated 10 for the above mentioned future states and Commonwealths is extra, so say we are at 11 so far.

Finally...there are the smaller territories, each so distinct that merging them is not reasonable and each so small they should not be considered states. Collectively the four inhabited remaining territories as of the 2010s--in population order Guam, North Marshallese Federation, US Virgin Islands and American Samoa--are considerably smaller than Wyoming. They cannot then be a state even collectively, and it makes little sense to lasso these three disparate sets of Pacific Islands and one in the Caribbean into one state. As mentioned, someone might consider lumping the three island groups in with Hawaii, but culturally and logistically that makes very little sense. Samoa, the smallest, has some cultural historic connect to Hawaii being also Polynesian, but the connections lie a thousand years and more in the past, and the distance from Pago Pago to Honolulu is I would guess greater than that from Bangor Maine to San Diego California. Guam and the North Marshallese might conceivably be federated into one sprawling west Pacific set, and with some historic cultural connection between them, but again that is centuries out of date and broken up by shifting political possession. The US Virgin Islands are of course in quite another hemisphere--it might be argued they should be merged with Puerto Rico but I think both Puerto Ricans and Virgin Islanders would protest that pretty strongly!

Territories remain territories then. They are too small to be states by far, though it is possible and reasonable for them to have autonomous local self government as indeed these four groups of islands do today.

The Amendment then would do a very small violence to the proportional representation (in the sense of states having Representatives proportionally to their population) by granting the entire set of all remaining miscellaneous territories that have no path to either statehood or state sized Commonwealths one collective Representative they all get to vote on. This overrepresents them but does no harm really, and guarantees everyone who lives under the US flag has a Representative.

Now one concession to the small population of this miscellaneous grab bag is that instead of the proportionality principle being applied to the House representation, they have a presence in the Senate...but only one Senator.

This is rather unfortunate--I had as I said a yet more grandiose plan to integrate all this total inclusion with proportional and quasi proportional schemes for House, Senate and Presidential election I have left out here; in that system a more balanced way of giving the people of the Territories a fair shot at voting for representation with some frequency comparable to people in normal states emerged. But not here. They have only one Senator.

But consider this. I set up an increment in bodies each having two Senators, numbering six, adding twelve Senators to 96 and thus remaining divisible by three and giving rise to three classes of 36 each, but then threw in the monkey wrench of DC creating imbalance of classes. But putting a single Senator for the Territories in the third class raises all three to 37 and makes the Senate number 111, a number divisible by three.

Suppose my count was off, and we had only 5 two-Senator sized bodies being admitted to Congress, so we had 106. Then we would have one class of 37 members, and two of 36. Adding one would leave it lopsided with two of 37 and one of 36. What to do?

Well, suppose the Territorial Senator suffers another indignity. Their term depends on how imbalanced the classes are without them! Suppose we have one class larger than others. The Senator from the Territories can instead of serving one six year term, be subject to election for a two year term and then for a four year term, skipping the largest class, thus restoring the balance in terms of how many Senate elections occur each cycle. If balance would have been fine without them, they can serve two year terms, having short terms like a Representative, but sitting on the Senate.

Either way, the citizens resident in the small territories lumped together in this way would thus receive 2 EV, one less than any resident of any other polity...but considering their small population, they would actually be again a bit overrepresented in voting for the President.

The territorial situation in the Pacific would be somewhat more expansive in 1945 to be sure. Several former US Territories there have since been spun off as independent nations in more or less association with the USA; in the late '40s these would be recent acquisitions under USN effective control. This of course is where we did US atomic and hydrogen bomb testing, in addition to the deserts of the southwest.

A complicating factor is that some of these territories I believe were under some sort of UN mandate. However under the rather sparse degree of influence my proposal gives the territorial subjects as provisional US citizens, it seems to do little harm and some political good to allow people who might later achieve independence to vote for US Congress and President as part of the widespread net of generic small territories alongside others for a grand total of one Representative, one Senator and two Presidential EV. And including them in this way might turn their inclination toward remaining US citizens indefinitely.

As a footnote, the status of the people of American Samoa is in a weird twilight zone currently. This Amendment would guarantee that all subjects of US power in the long term who are not required by treaty to be treated as noncitizens will be given full citizen status, retroactive to their birth assuming they were born in the territory and subject to normal US requirements for naturalization to subsequent immigrants or persons claiming extraterritorial status at the time the Amendment passes. This should settle the status of the Samoans!
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This then is the scheme I think we could think about Harry Truman proposing for approval as an Amendment sometime between 1946 and the Fall of China to Mao in 1949. 1947-48 seems like a good time for it. Post-war idealism mixing with emerging Cold War polarization both put a burden of magnimanity on the USA, to clean up our act in terms of granting those subject to our power on a permanent basis full citizenship and a fair share in the government that administers them, per our high flown principles. Truman seems like the man who could advocate for it and sell it to the state governments.

Now Truman had his own problems to be sure, and if the process is not complete before KMT China collapses, given Macao's situation it might backfire.

However observe that he did manage to get Puerto Rico's status...if not clarified really, then apparently so to the apparent near satisfaction of many Puerto Ricans at the time. DC was granted special rights in electing the President though little to Congress and none to Senate in the 1960s.

If the proposal falls through in the 1940s, I suspect that the 1960s would be an opportune time for it to be revived and put through in lieu of the more limited DC Electoral Vote and autonomy package of OTL. By the mid-60s liberal ascendency, US Cold War obligations would be all the stronger and the issues of racial civil rights would put all these diverse overseas peoples on the agenda.

With Macao, Timor and Goa established as Commonwealths with state-equivalent Congressional representation and Presidential voting rights, I daresay the question of their being alienated from the USA would be answered with a resounding "no." The USA would thus have permanent Sun Never Sets global presence to this day, and I doubt any of these entities would ever seek to secede and US power would have to plummet to a very low level indeed for any foreign power, however strong regionally or even globally, to seize them.

 

[Deleted member 109224]

Johnson is so out of the GOP mainstream by the 21st century that there is a reason why he chose to run third party.

I meant as a third party candidate. I thought it was implied, given how I was clumping him with Bloomberg 2008 and 2012.

 

[Deleted member 109224]

France dominating in the 20th Century isn't done much. There's TLs on Britain or Germany doing very well, but not France.

 

[Deleted member 109224]

Come to think of it, despite it being a subject of many threads a US that's neutral in WW1 hasn't been done in a timeline afaik.

 

[Shevek23]

Come to think of it, despite it being a subject of many threads a US that's neutral in WW1 hasn't been done in a timeline afaik.

Malê Rising did it sort of, in an ATL Great War in the 1890s. This also related to the USA going over to a multi-party system, without it should be noted any electoral reforms to lock that in. I wanted Jonathan Edelstein to lock it in but I think that never happened--it drifted back to essentially a two party system for a while but the third and fourth parties came back again.

But yeah, USA sits out the Great War. It was different circumstances than a bog standard CP/Entente 1910s war of course. Submarines were more marginal and mainly a French thing used close to the shoreline. And the alliance system was all scrambled--Britain, Ottomans (much more viable Ottoman state thanks to Islamic liberalization on Islamic/radical terms) Germany being one side and France, Austria, Russia on the other side--BOG versus FAR! I don't know how much Jonathan was influenced by my own suggestion the USA would be more ambivalent with Britain and France on opposite sides, after all any cultural sentiment for France (one should not underestimate French prestige in American eyes in the 19th and early 20th centuries--not overestimate it either but France and USA have some resonances) would be offset by heavy German presence in American populations...but "Germany" is Prussian dominated north Germany, more heavily Protestant, while the belt of south German Catholic kingdoms was not integrated into the not-quite-empire the Prussian kings were bent on forming, with Austria on the other side. I don't think we even considered the factor of Russia--Americans had a weird affinity for Russia too in the 19th century, and the resonances cross or parallel class lines as it were--Russian radicals and American ones had a lot of parallel notions and cross talk, while in high society the Tsars were often diplomatically aligned with the USA though at a distance.

Note that the Malê'Verse religious allegiances tended to play a stronger role, with Catholics and Orthodox lining up against Protestant/Muslim complexes a bit. Plenty of fans, during the years leading up to and during Jonathan's publication of Great War events, urged the USA should come in on one side or the other or just behave like a generic scavenger, but part of Jonathan's ATL, that I called the "cup half full world," leans on moral agency more than is fashionable in some circles and moral agents in the USA--a crazy quilt alliance of larger than life figures on several sides OTL--Sam Clemens aka Mark Twain (pretty much as OTL, he was born early enough) with Gay Teddy Roosevelt (not a political but literary-cultural powerhouse, still quite the Bull Moose); Harriet Tubman working with a Georgia lady who was in both TLs a major segregationist but also southern Progressive, forming a small but influential Peace Party against war and imperialism. I think some serious conflicts of interest that were less tangled OTL were also crucial--say, Spain wanted to side with France but scarcely dared to given Anglo-German sea power; the Americans would mainly want to cherry pick, say sweeping up the Spanish ruled islands in the Caribbean and Philippines but that was hardly in British interest since keeping Spain out of the war completely was more in their interest, nor would the BOGs find much use in an "ally" that mainly plunders peripheral territories and has no commitment to a hard fight where it counts. One theatre of the war was the Amazon, the most likely place for Yankee intervention, and I'd have to go back to the relevant posts to reconstruct why exactly this would be opening a hell of a can of worms neither side would want. Sam Clemens goes down to not-Brazil (a couple breakaway states tore north Brazil loose generations before, POD is in the 1820s or '30s) to expose the brutal exploitation of rubber workers.

Come to think of it:

France dominating in the 20th Century isn't done much. There's TLs on Britain or Germany doing very well, but not France.

Despite being on the losing side of the Great War France does quite well in the Malê Rising TL 20th century. It relates to the Bonaparte Dynasty (from the Second Empire) persisting, but also to a leftward turn to get out of the war via Premier Jules Verne (quite a lot of cultural figures play political roles come to think of it...Tolstoy winds up a loose Vozd of a Narodnik like Russia for instance) while keeping the Imperial house. Mainly it comes down to West Africans and other Muslims being better integrated into the looser non-Westphalian governmental systems emerging, which turns into a big asset for France, notably in retaining holdings in North Africa--Algeria really does become integral to France, albeit on terms that mix Euro-French and Frenchified progressive Afro-Muslims in both France and in Africa. Senegal is even more integral! Versus some other strong African systems and alliances, and stuff. France I believe is relieved of Indochina and I forget if it becomes the problem of Germans or Britons. Britain implodes and hits bottom in ways that probably also relate to French relative success. Americans think of lots of inventions as French, automobiles are known as fiacres for instance. On the whole the Germans come of it really well, but relative to OTL France is riding pretty high, especially from an American point of view despite Germany also having high prestige.

I can't honestly sell Malê Rising as a French wank, but I can tout it as a TL where France comes out pretty well despite some egregious blunders.

Among other things, they launch the first crewed spacecraft into orbit, from French Guiana. Considering German technological prowess, that was quite a coup for them.

But it is a highly decentralized world.

"Each shall sit under their own vine and fig tree, and none shall make them afraid!" Not an entirely achieved goal by any means even there, but much more so than OTL. I imagine in Jonathan's mind the high level of religious spirituality is casually linked to the superior outcomes, and I have to admit it hangs together pretty well, I always thought so anyway. It helps that the POD is deeply linked to highly progressive approach to religion!

Go figure if it makes sense to you that such an alternative world would be more hospitable to France and things French or not.

 

[McPherson]

Thinking about it some more, I think if Americans could buy just one territory from Portugal, they'd be torn rather between Macao and Timor. The latter is more apt to the Mahan doctrines of control of straits, and indeed the waters near Indonesia are today the most strategic in the world; obviously Manila served the purpose pretty well, but arguably Timor might have advantages. Best is to control both of course!

Incorrect. The points of strategic interest are the Bismarck Archipelagos and surrounding land masses and of course Chu'uk and vicinity.

a..

Any attempt to gain Timor or Macao runs afoul of the British, who then are far too strong to challenge. Better to go after those chunks of the former Spanish empire that conform to the "reise zu den Küsten Chinas" which is American Pacific policy.

But aside from generic Mahan theories, the particular prize Yankees whose imperialism was most aimed at wealth to be had rather than abstract global gaming was China. The Spanish conquered the Philippines with the same goal in mind, get as close to the source of the China trade as the Papal mediated Treaty of Tordesillas allowed. When American imperialists resolved that our intervention in the Philippines would be more than just kicking sand in Spain's face and we would in fact seize the archipelago as a colonial territory, it was proximity to China that was most central in their thoughts...exploiting the Philippines themselves was largely an afterthought and largely left to native patronized cronies. The main thing was to get close to China. What could be closer than Macao?

China yes, but the understanding of Mahan cited here is uncertain to me. Mahan is not this off objective: I.E. HE CAN READ A MAP.

I could see Goa perhaps falling into Yankee hands via a grandiose package deal in which Portugal cuts its far eastern ties for a lot of money and concentrates on holding the nearer African territories...but I do wonder about the economics of the far east trade for Portugal, conceivably it could outweigh the African profits despite the much vaster territorial extent of Mozambique and Angola. There is also cultural attachment to consider; no European colonies are older than Portugal's after all, and the people of Macao, Goa and Timor all reached some kind of cultural equilibrium of a sort with the Portuguese and the Catholic Church centuries ago. These little outposts were quite distinct from their hinterlands after all those generations. American possession could be a strong guarantee of the line being maintained between them and the larger polities threatening to swallow them up, but it also would tend to subordinate Portuguese expatriates settled there and people with more ancient roots in each alike to arrogant and (until the middle of the 20th century) overwhelmingly Protestant (with a strong disrespect for even Anglo-American Yankee Catholics, let alone swarthy foreign ones) American military, diplomatic and corporate elites. By the 1930s at the latest I'd say US Anglo Catholics had come close to winning cultural parity and of course this happened via dominating large and important territories--rather, mostly urban centers, but powerfully there.

US Catholic cultural parity is a regional exercise and does not become a national event until the late 1950s, but let us put that aside. Based on WHAT I KNOW of Philippine Islands history, the Spanish were corrupt and inept administrators, the Americans were heavy handed and somewhat efficient administrators, It would not matter either way as the Filipinos created their own internal self governing politics by the mid 19th century. A smart colonial administration would let facts on the ground determine the Filipino political evolution. The Americans did a lot wrong, but they were smart enough to encourage Filipino self rule a la the American territorial model. The Americans have a LONG history of very successful "colonial administration" a la the territorial model (Kansas aside.). Too bad it is not taught well.

But then there is the racist dimension to consider. This would be bad enough under British rule but the British at least would tend to create and maintain relations with subordinated but respected in their spheres "native" authorities...American style racism would just run roughshod over the whole lot, lumping Portuguese in with the Asians like as not. Or seeing two strata, on lines as invidious as the old Spanish Empire of the Indies privileging of Castilian Peninsulares over anyone born in the overseas provinces and in turn holding such "criolos" of "pure blood" above anyone with any taint of native mixture. I imagine American "one drop rule" racism as normalized for Africans in America (with exceptions some acerbic commentators have noted on other threads, pace) would just be carried over to Asians. I may find the example of the Philippines might somewhat restrict this, perhaps; I gather Douglas MacArthur for instance was very close socially to lots of well off Filipinos before WWII (which was embarrassing after the war as these classes, having much to lose, tended to collaborate with the Japanese occupation).

What about the "Mexican Territories"? Once again, American history is not taught too well. There was some racism present, but as the Philippine Islands later attests and as the Southwest Territories that became Texas--> California show, there was a lot of cultural cross fertilization and intermix among the immigrant Americans and the local inhabitants. The alleged caste system speculated did not happen. WHY should it happen with Indian enclaves if the history shows otherwise where Americans administered colonies?

The exact form of Yankee racism in South Central and East Asia might be quite different than I imagine perhaps, with exceptions and loopholes. God knows intermarriage between Americans (male ones anyway) and East Asians was less of a racist battle cry than with African Americans--when I say less I hardly mean it was not problematic of course; all children would be regarded as Asian first, I think the "one drop rule" did in fact carry over OTL. All three of the Portuguese holdings discussed, Goa, Timor and Macao would be quite small demographically in the US sea. What contact there would be would tend to be via limited diplomatic/administrative, corporate, and military personnel of all ranks; none of these outposts would appear to be appealing places for Anglo colonization!

Ah, a glimmer of hope? Might try looking at the Filipino ruling elites down to the present, Hawaii, South Korea, and before the Maoists reformed China how the ruling elites in Nationalist China intermixed? American history in East Asia is simply not taught well. For example, does one know who MacArthur's mistress in the Philippine Islands was?

So there is a question of how the Portuguese in Lisbon would regard how Americans are likely to handle the peoples of the colonies if they take possession--even if we assume no one in the capital making decisions cares about the Asian majority population one way or the other (which is not going to be entirely true; I imagine the Portuguese Catholic Church hierarchy will have some concern at least, and it might be a lot more widespread than that among Portuguese bureaucratic and military ranks as well) they will care about what happens to Portuguese born people who are settled there.

Zero concern. Portugal in 1919 is an atheist state. The Portuguese Catholic Church is fighting for its life.

Certainly if the deal waits until after the Spanish American war and the Portuguese have the example of how the peoples of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines are treated, they will either have bad consciences and feel they have done a deal with the devil (and therefore drive a hard bargain) or else will insist upon, and perhaps get, very explicit and elaborated assurances; a hell of a lot more than "no worries, we Yankees don't discriminate by religion!" would be needed. In fact of course one of our Presidents was elected under the banner of an anti-Catholic bigoted party, so such assurances would ring hollow even before the "Splendid Little War." Ask the Francophones of Louisiana, the long established Spanish-speaking population of New Mexico, the fates of the Tejanos and Californios what US takeover meant to them!

If these territories pass into American hands they will get a better deal than under the then current corrupt Portuguese colonial administration. That is an RTL fact.

"In fact of course one of our Presidents was elected under the banner of an anti-Catholic bigoted party, so such assurances would ring hollow even before the "Splendid Little War." Ask the Francophones of Louisiana, the long established Spanish-speaking population of New Mexico, the fates of the Tejanos and Californios what US takeover meant to them!"

They would say they were better off than under Napoleon, Santa Anna and other tin-pot dictators, despite the racism. They could vote, hold office, sit on juries and participate in their local politics.

If we just stipulate that somehow or other the USA acquires Goa sometime between the mid-19th century and say the Great War, it is entirely unclear to me a war in the 1960s is at all likely. I daresay the USA would be under some moral pressure to let Goa join India in 1947--we were in fact selectively strongarming the European colonial powers to decolonize (or not, at our discretion--if we seriously wanted to systematically undermine colonialism at every possible turn we'd hardly have facilitated the return of French power to Indochina immediately after the war, even as we backed the Indonesian nationalists despite their being compromised with Japanese collaboration during the war--we really fell between stools in our inconsistent policy in that part of the world, backing the collaborationists in one colony and the colonialists cracking down on the pro-Allied native resistances in others!) It would have looked very very strange for Britain to be under pressure to back out of India while we hung on to Goa allowing no questions.

Vietnam was a case of China policy and should not be so misunderstood. Don't they teach American history anywhere with any kind of understanding anymore? Indonesia DITTO. As for hanging on to Goa, see below.

OTOH a free and fair plebiscite of the Goan population might well have voted strongly for continued status as a US territory; with that in hand I think the USA would simply stare down the Indian republic and the latter would restrict itself to verbal and diplomatic denunciations.

RTL.

I suppose the point of Americans purchasing Goa would be as a naval base, as mentioned. In the run up to the Cold War, with India taking a strongly non-aligned position while the USA at some point (I am not sure just when) courted Pakistan as a Cold War anti-Soviet and anti-Chinese ally, the diplomatic dance would get complicated to be sure. India and Pakistan have been at war quite a few times, and if Pakistan is a US ally, Goa being a US base could get very very ugly indeed.

Pakistan from the beginning was an opportunistic nation state playing various powers off against each other with only one consistent aim, its Kashmir policy. As such it was an unreliable ally at the best of times and an American enemy most of the time. I see South Asian history is not taught well either. Goa in American hands means India has no western naval base and neither does Britain where she needs one.. Just thought I would point THAT out. Anyway, Goa serves America ATL the same way Shanghai did, as an American treaty port of entry to short circuit the British Imperial Trade System. Such a COMMERCIAL KNIFE into the heart of India would be a sore point with London. It would get UGLY long before India gains her freedom.

Nevertheless, though I suppose the Indian military, if push came to shove, could indeed liberate Goa by force even from the maximum levels of fortification the US military even of the Cold War era with nigh unlimited budgets and the highest technology could muster, I don't believe India would ever go so far as to act in overt war directly against the USA. They might double down on giving Pakistan, and later Bangladesh, military hell, and perhaps the confrontation would drive India into a strong alliance with the Soviet Union, to the point of Soviet supplied shipyards and other munitions works in India effectively making Indian ports ports of the Soviet Navy and Soviet merchant shipping as well. FWIW, I do not believe this would lead to Kremlin-aligned Communist takeover of India. I gather the stronger Communist movements of India have tended to be more Maoist despite the geopolitical animosity between India and the PRC--this factor is why I am pretty sure the Indians would align specifically Soviet-allied. But not Communist! Perhaps a Moscow-oriented Party would as part of the general diplomacy be given a special junior partner status in India's governments, given considerable concessions--but also tightly restricted to just those concessions and no more, in a manner humorously mirroring how East European Warsaw Pact "fraternal socialist nations" would have puppet parties with reserved junior roles as window dressing to belie the fact of Communist unilateral rule in these republics. Unlike the puppet parties of Eastern Europe a Soviet aligned Indian Party would be autonomous with respect to the Indian government--whether it is at all autonomous versus Moscow and the KBG is another story of course, it might start out as a reliable puppet party of the Kremlin but turn independent at some point, which might or might not lose it its protected status in the Indian system.

This is pure speculation with no understanding at all of the source origins of Indian and Russian cooperation which started as an Anti-British thing and then evolved over time to an Anti-Pakistani/Anti-Chinese thing. The Indian non-aligned policy was solidly grounded in a Realpolitik that a Bismarck or a Metternich would understand. Too bad this FACT was not taught well in American schools either. Washington might have made a lot fewer mistakes in the 1960s and 1970s when India was ready to ally for the asking. They were not too happy with their Bear Dance even back then, but if it is the only game option left, well...

By the way the Комитет по государственной is the KGB.

But even if quite militantly aligned with the Soviet Union, I don't see either Stalin or Khrushchev or any Soviet successor cabal in the Kremlin urging the Indians to take Goa by force, not while the nuclear balance of terror held. To be sure, I don't think Stalin was as scared of the Bomb as many of us in the West assume he must have been, perhaps less than he should have been. It wasn't the Bomb so much as the entire package of Western liberal alliance logistic and strategic capability he feared and moved cautiously in the face of. I think he felt secure as long as the diplomatic game was played normally, and felt honestly that if the imperialists moved unilaterally the proletarians of the West would undermine them with various levels of class resistance. But if he were the one perceived as overly and crazily aggressive, as a worthy successor to Hitler in the geopolitical role, then western proletarians would be more easily bamboozled into warring on the Socialist Motherland and the Soviet bloc would be in for another battering worse than Barbarossa. He may have believed that the Russian people would endure and triumph in the end, but no one wanted a round two of WWII, let alone with nuclear bombs spicing it up. In Stalin's day, he may have been right to think the Bomb was a risk he could face, because it would have to be delivered by aircraft Soviet airpower might hope to interdict, so that damage would be peripheral and not in the heartland of his power--heavy, but not unbearable. The gradual introduction of ICBMs on a scale sufficient to wreck both sides' heartlands marks the move into balance of terror proper and that was not really underway until after Khrushchev had been ousted from power.

I see the Missiles of October is not taught well either? Khrushchev was in his peculiar way as insane as Stalin and that was why he was removed.

Still I think even if India were to align with the Soviets strongly, with or without coming under Communist rule, the Soviet bloc would avoid such a causus belli as invading Goa would be. Given the track record, one might lay the blame for an impetuous move not on Moscow but on the "client" power. Soviet client states had a tendency to jump the gun and be loose cannon. It is not entirely clear to me whether it was north or south Korean regimes that started the Korean War for instance--what is clear to me is that neither Stalin nor Truman wanted it. Perhaps Mao did, but the North Koreans answered more to Moscow than Beijing. Certainly Khrushchev and his successors wanted to be freed of the various Indochinese crises; these were the doing of Ho Chi Minh and other Vietnamese Communists. The story of Fidel Castro's reactions and statements during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when revealed in full at a post-Soviet conference of former US and Soviet officials, were quite hair raising and alarming to both American and Russian "hegemons" there! Again and again, the Third World client tails wagged the Soviet dog, and the Kremlin had little recourse but to race to the head of the parade to continue to appear to be leading it. Surely without Soviet resources these small powers would have been in much more dire straits but the point was, the Soviet leadership had little choice but to supply them and diplomatic cover as well. The reality of the Soviet bloc (outside of the continental reach of the Red Army--Eastern Europe was quite a different story of course) was far less of the top-down neo-Hitlerian masterminding from the Kremlin Western anti-Communists liked to assume it all was. Everyone fights the last war, and it fit American and other anti-Communist ideologies better to view them as a sinister monolith ruled by the immortal ghost of Stalin than to face the nationalist realities on the ground.

Stalin greenlighted Kim Il Sung. He goofed. Mao had to save the Kremlin madman's geopolitical error. I see that the Korean War is not taught well, either. As for impetuous clients? What was Fidel Castro again? Another reason for the Khrushchev exuent. In case one needs clarification, the CCCP was unhappy that it had to pay and pay and pay to prop up that Havana madman. So goodbye Nikita. At least he was not poisoned like the previous loser. In sum total, using the Chess metaphor, great powers move pawns as best they can. Venezuela from 1988 on is another Russian example of goofery Kremlin style, an albatross around Russia's neck for a generation that eventually is about to blow up in their face like Cuba did. I see here that geopolitics is not well taught or understood.

So as far as that goes, Red India might appear to have the potential to start a hot war with Uncle Sam no matter how little Stalin or Khrushchev wanted one.

Logistics in the 1950s for India? Might need a course at the Naval War College here.

But first of all, I would think India would not be Red as such, just kind of pink. It would remain a democracy, a ramshackle and often authoritarian one to be sure, but fundamentally a multi-party republic, albeit one channeled to one set of policy choices. That could make its adventurism even worse I suppose but I think on the whole the Indian ruling elites would be pretty sober about going straight to war with the USA in the Cold War era.

India in her way is as complex as China or the United States. Her politics is no more authoritarian than the UKs and for much the same reason, a rather pernicious civil service bureaucracy and a tradition of English style Brahmanism that is inherently inefficient and at time perplexing in its ability to grind the gears of political action if the bureaucracy deems it unwise. This is something that has to be personally experienced either in London or New Delhi to be believed, but the similarities are startling!

Indeed Soviet alignment is hardly inevitable either. From 1947 until I'd say sometime in the 1990s, India was definitely regarded as so backward per capita it was a lot weaker than its population would warrant...but it always had tremendous population. There was no question India was a major regional power from the moment of its formal inception as an independent republic, and perception of Indian strength has only grown over time, as general levels of industrial development have slowly risen to multiply her population's effective military and thus diplomatic and economic weight. Already by the later '40s, I think the USA too would be quite reluctant to fight in India if it could possibly be avoided.

Nope. Definitely need that Naval War College training.

The fight over Goa would then be diplomatic, and conducted probably directly between New Delhi and Washington, not via Moscow or in a weirder realignment, Beijing.

London.

I think a plebiscite would have the Goan majority, not just the more elite ones but the base of the population too, preferring to stay a US territory under US protection in 1947. At that time the Indian republican experiment was brand new and Goans could well be glum about its prospects for themselves as semi-Westernized Catholics who might well suffer gross discrimination. However, to win the plebiscite handily and avoid controversy, the US administration would probably have to agree to a whole boatload of deep reforms. One can hope that most of these were pioneered during the WWII years as wartime expedients anyway, and that Harry Truman in particular would see the justice of them and aggressively back comprehensive autonomy and a truly democratic and fair system there. Truman also favored great liberalization and rectification of the status of Puerto Rico, despite some PR nationalists trying to assassinate him. I think he'd be quite a positive force for a much better system of American possession of Goa (and any other former Portuguese territories we hold in the ATL) going forward. He'd also be somewhat conciliatory, up to a point, with India, and offer quid pro quos to compensate somewhat for the irritation of continued American holding of Goa.

Truman had some decidedly mixed feelings about Puerto Rico after the assassination attempt and the attack on Congress. His own cabinet had to talk him down and convince him about the plebiscite for associated status. Let's not claim what is not historically in the record. Remember the October 1950 Nationalist Party uprising and how it was put down? Brutally. That was Truman. It was what prompted the assassination attempt in the first place.

At this point options open up, depending on diplomacy. Probably Americans could finesse the relationship with India, balancing American Cold War concerns and resentment of Indian "nonaligned" stances as well as the kind of bureaucratic protectionism managing Indian economic policy so easily castigated as the kind of dysfunctional notion of socialism common in the anti-Communist ruling circles of the West, notably in the USA, against the desire to keep the situation in Goa from spinning out of control.

I detect a note of Marxist revisionist history. I see no functional difference between Indian Fabianism and the one as practiced by London.

Depending on how that goes, probably if OTL is any guide, at least substantial minorities if not outright majorities in Goa might start thinking they might do better to make a secured, guaranteed place for themselves in the Indian system than continue their status as a largely forgotten stepchild of the USA. A plebiscite held in the mid-60s might deliver far less of a mandate for continued US rule.

Pure speculation with no historical evidence or example to support it. Puerto Rico (see above) had a huge reason to plebiscite itself away, but it stayed put. Why? Maybe the Americans are not so bad after all?

Meanwhile, whatever sanguine Mahanist strategists might have thought in the later 19th century, I think on the whole Goa will seem more of a liability than asset militarily. Ships and planes based there are kind of in the middle of nowhere in terms of preoccupying American strategic concerns between WWII and the collapse of the Soviet Union. True, they are kind of proximate to the middle of Soviet Central Asia--but such allies as Iran and Turkey are more proximate, not to mention Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Eventually we'd lose Iran of course but that would hardly be foreseen until late in the 1970s. Goa is not very handy to such hot spots as Southeast Asia--we again would do better to work with such client-allies as Thailand, the Philippines, or Indonesia, not to mention Airstrip Taiwan, Japan, Australia and Singapore. Goa is a white elephant militarily.

Might suggest a look at Indian Ocean GEOGRAPHY. And a Naval War College course on airpower.

b.

This is called the B-52 problem in Moscow and Beijing. It is currently based out of Diego Garcia, but Goa will do just as nicely. And Mahan WOULD APPROVE.

In terms of US domestic politics, a TL by Yes on a George McGovern victory in 1972 strongly suggests that John Kenneth Galbraith in particular was something of a bug for better relations with India, and Galbraith had major roles in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations OTL. I think if the TL does not butterfly away JFK, or some Democrat anyway, taking power in 1960, that the question of Goa would receive very careful and solicitous attention then if not settled back in the Eisenhower years.

I have NO RESPECT for Mr. Galbraith. It was incompetence like his that soured the Indians on the US.

There are several options. Simply handing Goa over to India, with various degrees of protective provisions perhaps, is in the cards for sure. I can't think the USA general public would have so much invested in it it would seem outrageous. It all hinges on what the people of Goa support really. If they very strongly want to remain under US protection then the Americans need only shrug and point out taking Goa against Goan will would be a poison pill for India, and Americans would then offer to sweeten the deal some other ways.

There are strong strategic reasons (^^^) why that notion dies as an idea.

I've mentioned massive fortification of Goa but really that is hardly necessary! The trouble for India in taking Goa by force lies not in the task of doing that directly, but in the consequences that follow after. Even if one assumes no US President would nuke New Delhi or Mumbai in retaliation, and even if one assumes that after a fait accompli the Americans would agree to a truce, the consequences are more along the lines of more aggressive support for Pakistan and Bangladesh pursuing claims against India, and American maneuvering to hurt India economically on global markets. In reality Goa is safe, and mere tripwire defense is all it needs.

Not enough imagination. Political pressure in the UN, economic maneuvering, international coalition building, all the things Argentina should have done in the Falklands/Malvinas issue and what she was doing before Galtieri and crew had their collective brain farts, almost worked in London. It still might work as the Foreign Office and the Exchequer look at their latest red lines? Never punch your enemy in the face when he ties his own shoe laces together wrong and is certain to pratfall just the way you want. After he gets up and unties his shoe strings he will pound you into paste because you humiliated him with a "lucky punch". That would be Sun Tzu.

Instead I think if Goans want to remain under US protection, the general American reaction would be to conciliate the Indians other ways, to offer better trade terms, to mediate to damp down conflicts between Pakistan and India, to court India as an ally, especially in the Democratic administrations that must someday follow Eisenhower's ascendency. Indeed Ike himself is probably inclined to be very reasonable and generous, to win over the Indians or at least keep them truly neutral as opposed to veering into the Soviet camp.

Might be a Singapore solution? Again... NOT ENOUGH IMAGINATION.

The better American relations are with India, the more Goans are likely to think maybe they might as well go over to India instead of remaining under Yankee rule.

American colonies that remain in the American orbit for long enough generally prefer independence and self-rule or associated status with self-rule. THIS is the RTL result and I see no reason it would not ATL hold. Even among the First Nations that was and is the pattern.

Thus even if I grant the notion that in some bizarre twist of fate American Goa becomes a thing, I don't think it would lead to actual war with India ever, and is most likely to end with the USA having better relations with India than OTL and Goa at some point being ceded, with popular approval in both the USA and in Goa, to India.

What about Indian history? The only nation as "British" as the British, is India; though they will never admit it. If India sees an affront, they will fight. Just not the way one (^^^) thinks.

It occurs to me that the Portuguese might have included an absolute prohibition of any American option to alienate Goa as a condition of taking possession, precisely to protect the people of Goa from being absorbed into a presumptively hostile larger India, either one under some other colonial power's rule or a native one hostile to European and Catholic influence. A hard treaty obligation might prolong the alternative wooing of India indefinitely, or might be deemed offset by a suitably large supermajority in favor of union with India.

That is wishful thinking. Example: Internal treaties among the First Nations and the US government. RTL, how does that turn out? American history should be taught well. Some Marxist principles (^^^) simply do not apply to it at all.

McP.

P.S. I took the time because I wanted to present an alternative view. YMMV. My view, (read opinion) while grounded in RTL Realpolitik and military realities, is not by any means the only or even the correct view. I urge readers to do their own research and come to their own conclusions.

 

[darklordoftech]

Skip Humphrey having more success.

 

[merlin]

We've had TLs on the FAA, we've had them on the RAF. It would be interesting to have one on the French Air Force - so fighters for example were Arsenal VG-35 & VG--36, no Bloch MB-151/152, but MB-155, the Dewotine D.520 was well represented with the new D.551 coming into service to replace it.

 

[Bougnas]

Hell, you could probably go for a French Air Force wank with earlier aircraft from the 1934 programs by making better choices. The Nieuport 161 and Loire 250 were very close to Dewoitine 520 and Bloch 152 equivalents, but earlier. For bombers the Amiot 340 (instead of the 350 which wasted 2 years) and the Potez 540 would be nice as well.
Add in technical choices like keeping the Darne 1933 aircraft MG instead of the MAC 1934 (the former was as reliable, yet cheaper and already belt fed instead of mag fed ), standardising on octane 100° fuel (standard in Air France at that point and which provides better engine performance) and the Hispano-quizz 12Y-29 instead of 31 (former was better but could only use 100° octane fuel) and you can get better systemic performance from the Axa.

And besides going for such earlier PODs gives you more freedom to butterfly the Battle of France.

 

[McPherson]

Hell, you could probably go for a French Air Force wank with earlier aircraft from the 1934 programs by making better choices. The Nieuport 161 and Loire 250 were very close to Dewoitine 520 and Bloch 152 equivalents, but earlier. For bombers the Amiot 340 (instead of the 350 which wasted 2 years) and the Potez 540 would be nice as well.

Nieuport 161... tail control issues; never satisfactorily solved.
Loire 250 … promising; but for some reason the AdA preferred the competiitors.
Amiot 340 ===> 351 we have combat data … it was a pilot killer, not an easy plane to fly. Tended to nose over and smash into the ground.
Potez 540 … Luftwafffe target drones. Plane is unfit for anything but scrapping in 1940.

Add in technical choices like keeping the Darne 1933 aircraft MG instead of the MAC 1934 (the former was as reliable, yet cheaper and already belt fed instead of mag fed ), standardising on octane 100° fuel (standard in Air France at that point and which provides better engine performance) and the Hispano-quizz 12Y-29 instead of 31 (former was better but could only use 100° octane fuel) and you can get better systemic performance from the Axa.

Darne 1933 aircraft MG … likes to stovepipe especially double feed under high gee loading.
Octane 100° fuel ... nice to have if you have it. But see US problems in the Southwest Pacific in 1942. You cannot count on it.
Hispano Suiza aircraft engines were somewhat under wattaged compared with their British and American contemporaries. The real problem is the single stage supercharger that the AdA insisted be used. (Same mistake as the USAAF.). The French had excellent two stage super chargers (which the Americans did not) so what the hey?

And besides going for such earlier PODs gives you more freedom to butterfly the Battle of France.

Consolidate aircraft factories.
Shoot the communist agitators who impede production runs in the factories.
Take the simple things that can be quickly fixed (superchargers and wind tunnel testing to fix aircraft design faults.) and listen to the pilots, engineers, and other end-users and NOT the politicians (military and civilian) who caused so many problems with industrial design and production.

 

[Bougnas]

The Aéronavale never complained about her Darnes tho.

 

[McPherson]

The Aéronavale never complained about her Darnes tho.

(Shrug) The USAAF never complained about their Brownings either (much) but those MGs jammed and or misfed because of headspace issues, irregular ammunition and were PITA to clear when jammed in the air. Just because it is there, and it sort of works, does not mean it is what the popular histories claim it is. If I had my druthers in that era, I would have preferred RUSSIAN aircraft armament for American aircraft, even if it had to be stolen and reverse engineered. The USN was desperate to find decent alternatives and tried Madsens and some cockamamie Colt designs before they settled on the Hispano Suiza HS404. And then Colt/General Motors screwed THAT up with ... one guesses correctly … headspace issues, sloppy tolerances in the firing chamber and irregular ammunition.

 

[Draconis]

(Shrug) The USAAF never complained about their Brownings either (much) but those MGs jammed and or misfed because of headspace issues, irregular ammunition and were PITA to clear when jammed in the air. Just because it is there, and it sort of works, does not mean it is what the popular histories claim it is. If I had my druthers in that era, I would have preferred RUSSIAN aircraft armament for American aircraft, even if it had to be stolen and reverse engineered. The USN was desperate to find decent alternatives and tried Madsens and some cockamamie Colt designs before they settled on the Hispano Suiza HS404. And then Colt/General Motors screwed THAT up with ... one guesses correctly … headspace issues, sloppy tolerances in the firing chamber and irregular ammunition.

Hi McPherson. Here's post I made in @EverKing's P-38 thread that you might find interesting. If you haven't already read it. My post and the following comments touches on your subject.

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/wi-naca-modified-p-38.419398/page-89#post-17383500

 

[McPherson]

http://www.airpages.ru/eng/ru/shvak20.shtml

Hi McPherson. Here's post I made in @EverKing's P-38 thread that you might find interesting. If you haven't already read it. My post and the following comments touches on your subject.

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/wi-naca-modified-p-38.419398/page-89#post-17383500

(^^^) Exactly. Also might have tried this:

Aimo Lahti


This genius is a Finnish gun designer and maker, whose Lahti 20 mm semi-auto cannon was the direct inspiration of the Russian Berezin UB series of machine guns and auto cannons. In 1932 Colt made him an offer to come to the US and work for them.

Just imagine what PoDs he makes for Uncle if he had taken the deal?

a. Suomi KP/-31 armed paratroopers; a plus.
b. Lahti-Saloranta M/26 auto-rifles instead of the BAR, a minus. (It has its problems, being called "Lahti's collection of mistakes".)
c. and of course what inspired the Berezin UBs

==================================================

While a revolver cannon is nice, the weapon in the field is better than the stolen two Russian guns blueprints being reverse engineered on the Colt design boards. ShVAK in 12.7 and 20 mm. (1935) Ready to go. Just steal them off a Spanish Civil War Polikarpov measure the parts for 2-d and 3-d plans, have Chicago Machine Tool design the milling machines, make sure FORD and not General Motors manufactures the American copies and away you go. P-38 with a quad-pack of 20 mm cannons.

Yes, a quad pack, with a ShVAK, there is just enough room using a tray arrangement as seen in the Me262.

 

[The Militant Doberman]

There are plenty of stories & scenarios dealing with the aftermath of a US vs USSR/Russia nuclear exchange... but very few that feature a Pakistan vs India nuclear war in the 1990s.

In fact, does anyone know of any good AH works that utilize this POD?

 

[McPherson]

In fact, does anyone know of any good AH works that utilize this POD?

Plenty of fake news articles coming from the region, written by irresponsible journalists from both sides supply the bare bones of ATL scenarios. The frightening thing is that real, as in positions of power, irresponsible military and political leaders in region are behaving exactly like the lunatics of Russia and my own country behaved in the 1950s and for about the same reasons. It behooves all sane and rational human beings to make sure that whether the irresponsible head of state person is elected, or a dictator for life, a supposed divinely appointed religious leader, or another kind of ideological fanatic, that the trigger authority to use nuclear weapons remains in the hands of sane people who know EXACTLY what it means if that threshold line is criminally crossed.

 

[Draconis]

http://www.airpages.ru/eng/ru/shvak20.shtml


This genius is a Finnish gun designer and maker, whose Lahti 20 mm semi-auto cannon was the direct inspiration of the Russian Berezin UB series of machine guns and auto cannons. In 1932 Colt made him an offer to come to the US and work for them.

==================================================

While a revolver cannon is nice, the weapon in the field is better than the stolen two Russian guns blueprints being reverse engineered on the Colt design boards. ShVAK in 12.7 and 20 mm. (1935) Ready to go. Just steal them off a Spanish Civil War Polikarpov measure the parts for 2-d and 3-d plans, have Chicago Machine Tool design the milling machines, make sure FORD and not General Motors manufactures the American copies and away you go. P-38 with a quad-pack of 20 mm cannons.
Yes, a quad pack, with a ShVAK, there is just enough room using a tray arrangement as seen in the Me262.

That would have given the Lightning a hell of a punch. With that quad-pack how much ammunition do you think could have been carried?

 

[Duke Andrew of Dank]

I have a few...

• Most ideas related to Trains and railroads. Especially American ones.
• A more prosperous Mexico: This was posted once and @TheMann had an idea. But that thread is pretty much dead.
• WI: Don Bluth is stil at Disney