Invasion and Occupation of the United States - Can it be done?

Maybe its better to first summarize what would be needed for a successful invasion.

What you need is at least the following:
1. A bloc that has enough political determination to continue it to the end.
2. That also has enough economic leverage to trash the us economy.
3. A North American staging area, where you can build up forces, and can have logistics & repair facilities, plus enough airbase capacity for air support.
4. Enough logistics to transport the troops there
5. 2 was needed, so there would be us govt/economy that was in such a bad shape so it would let the build up happen, or simply doesn’t have the power/money to act.

So essentially before the war goes hot, you need a devastating trade/economic war. Just to cause the same thing what happened to Russia at the end of the cold war.

The tricky part is the economics, to pull this off the bloc that does this needs to have a certain economic independence, because when this great economic war starts happening global trade will collapse and countries that depend largely on exports are in a lot of trouble. Due to the fact that global trade is so much interconnected causing this amount of mischief has a huge chance of shooting the bloc that does it in the foot. Therefore reducing chances of success.
 
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I was thinking more about a time period, past or future, where there is a sizeable population of Latinos in those areas, although I do not know enough about post 1848 demographics in the US southwest to say exactly when that would be. I agree that Mexico can not afford to annex areas with an anglo-saxon majority.

About the US breaking apart: I do not believe this is possible in the 20th century. The political sysem is just too stable. And even if the public might be divided on some issues, there are no clearly definde lines of secession like in 1860.

Yeah, only recently has Mexican immigration lead to the possibility of significant Hispanic population booms in the SW, every census fellow around here is estimating much larger Hispanic percentages of the population, and so far the growth has actually exceeded expectations...

That said in the long-term you're probably going to have a lot of Mexicans who GO back to Mexico once Mexico as a country stabilizes, most of them are here because of the shitty situation back home. Overall it might be a smaller impact than the Irish diaspora since going back to Mexico from the USA is so much easier than going back to Ireland. Demographics will change and many Mexicans will likely stay in the US though.

Also, I don't think the event of Mexico retaking old possessions in the future would necessarily sit well with a majority of Hispanics, to me such an idea kind of smacks of all the hysteria about Muslims collaborating with terrorists today or the old days of anti-German or anti-Japanese hysteria during the world wars yet it turns out that a huge number of them are willing to stay loyal to the US and work against these external forces.

Basically why would any of them really strive to work against a country that has probably given most of them quite a bit in terms of opportunity to succeed and such.
 
A terrifying, fascistic American government I can imagine (perhaps after a prolonged period of economic instability or something like that) but even after that you're kinda asking to butterfly away the US armed forces. Even if you get Stalinesque army purges and such you still have a huge core of experienced leaders and massive industrial capacity, enough to the point where a huge multi-coalition invasion of the US would at the very least be extremely difficult.

Even a Nazi Germany-style USA that's viewed as a threat to the world would still have some allies, and probably even more states that either decide not to fight the USA either out of fear or out of desire to keep trading.

You make some good points. Another thing I thought of is that since America is more isolated from other powers than the 3rd Reich or USSR were, it would be difficult to form a Eurasian bloc to recognize the threat and get motivated enough to take America down. You could have a Cold war between a loose Eurasian alliance and an authoritarian, inefficient USA, but the result of that would be the US collapsing in the Soviet rather than Nazi fashion.
 
You make some good points. Another thing I thought of is that since America is more isolated from other powers than the 3rd Reich or USSR were, it would be difficult to form a Eurasian bloc to recognize the threat and get motivated enough to take America down. You could have a Cold war between a loose Eurasian alliance and an authoritarian, inefficient USA, but the result of that would be the US collapsing in the Soviet rather than Nazi fashion.

Hmm... violent enforcement of Monroe Doctrine on non-compliant regimes in South America... proxy war over Canada... I'm intrigued...
 
But would it be possible for the US, with their tradition of democracy and constitutionalism, to become authoritarian?

Possible, yes. The risk was there in mc Carthy's era, and there are many possibilities for something going wrong either before and after that.
Interestingly, American science fiction in the Cold War era depicted a whole awful bunch of different ways the US would become authoritarian, either of the Socialist, or Fascist, or, uhm, Corporate kind.
I recall at least five texts of this kind only in the forties and fifties. So, at least there was a part of public opinion convinced that that could happen.
 
But would it be possible for the US, with their tradition of democracy and constitutionalism, to become authoritarian?

Have you ever read/seen Upton Sinclair's It Can't Happen Here? I'm not trying to be condescending I just thought it was an interesting examination of such issues.

It's really intriguing to look at periods that were arguably authoritarian-leaning in American history, there were a lot of people in American history who were playing with forces greater than they probably understood in the name of repressing communism or other perceived threats from abroad. Sure McCarthy and his cronies eventually petered out and the American public came back to their senses, but are such feelings really gone? Have we as a country permanently vanquished everyone who would endanger the freedoms we hold dear?
 
Have you ever read/seen Upton Sinclair's It Can't Happen Here? I'm not trying to be condescending I just thought it was an interesting examination of such issues.

It's really intriguing to look at periods that were arguably authoritarian-leaning in American history, there were a lot of people in American history who were playing with forces greater than they probably understood in the name of repressing communism or other perceived threats from abroad. Sure McCarthy and his cronies eventually petered out and the American public came back to their senses, but are such feelings really gone? Have we as a country permanently vanquished everyone who would endanger the freedoms we hold dear?

Just as a thought would it have been possible for an authoritarian anti-communist regime to spring up from McCarthyism? Say an all out anti-communist regime combining big business and "democracy". Or is that kind of idea ASB?
 
Just as a thought would it have been possible for an authoritarian anti-communist regime to spring up from McCarthyism? Say an all out anti-communist regime combining big business and "democracy". Or is that kind of idea ASB?

Possible in some ways I suppose. I have to balance my arguments that America could be authoritarian with evidence that it's really, really hard to make it that way. I mean I'm not being an American exceptionalist who blindly believes that ideals of freedom and equality can't be subverted or twisted to evil ends by those who would do so but I almost think it would be a very, very slow transition...

I don't think even with a full-blown McCarthyist movement in the US that it would last forever under just McCarthy or the other anti-communist crusaders... but I think a more successful McCarthyism era would set a very dangerous precedent of eroding civil liberties and persecuting perceived threats with near-religious fervor. A fully authoritarian USA from McCarthyism seems a bit alarmist to me.

I think though it would be a slow death of freedom if ever there was one, not a speedy transition like Nazi Germany that built off German traditions of strict central authority and such, America has no such traditions and it would be harder. Slowly, surely, you could destroy the American republic with a series of external crises leading to progressively worse progression at home until it comes to the point where the crisis mode simply never leaves and Americans are repressed permanently.

By the way... bonus points for making me slightly terrify myself :D.
 
It is true that there are many scenarios where the US goes authoritarian, but there are just as many scenarios where Sealion is successful, and this does not mean they are realistic.

The exemple with McCarty in particular is a non-starter i.m.o. as McCarthy by his actions prepared his own downfall. By playing up on popular fears of a totalitarian takeover, he made sure that the public will see him as the next great threat once he was done with the commies, and that he would be eventually ostracized.
 
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