Is there a way to save the Spanish Empire starting in 1700?

ReenX

Banned
Is there any way Spain could have retained it's dominant role and became one of the greatest powers of 19th and 20th century starting with January 1st 1700?
How could it be done? What could potentially be different?
 
Not losing the Armada is a given... And killing Napoleon in it's infancy would help, so probably ASB.
The Armada is long before 1700, and so is way before the desired PoD. Totally irrelevant.

And how is getting rid of Napoleon ASB? The French Revolution was extremely unpredictable and volatile. Napoleon could have easily died at any point, and then there would be no Napoleonic Empire and probably no Napoleonic Wars. No Napoleon is easy. And, it means no Peninsular War, so Spain keeps her colonies longer. While it's unlikely, maybe Spain could do some reforms to placate her American colonies.

While some breaking-off is expected, the core of Mexico-to-Peru is pretty solidly Spanish, as well as the Caribbean and Phillipenes. Spain at this point might grab some more Pacific islands, and definitely would get more of Africa. Not ASB at all to have, by 1900, a Spanish "Commonwealth" in the Americas of independent nations, a Spanish Cuba/Caribbean, and a bunch of Spanish Pacific territories. The Empire could definitely survive, I think, without a Peninsular War to distract her from America.
 
Ugh for some reason I thought the armada was gone on 1758 or so... memory is abandoning me with age.
And you are right killing off Napoleon is not ASB, for some reason I keep thinking that you must know you have to kill him off and so know the future, when a normal pod was more than enough... ASB is changing my view of the world in some sick way, or perhaps is my headache.
 
From 1700 on any nation can get lucky and spark off an agricultural revolution and a small scale industrial revolution.

If France does so there's a good possibility that they can return to being a great power.

However you will note that I said return to being a great power. This is because from the wars of Spanish succession on Spain was in the lower tier of the powers of Europe.
 
I'd say break the power of the Catholic Church and centralize the country, and then seek to deal with Spain's abysmal financial situation.
 
One of the possible things to happen to spain is having the hindus expel the Spanish in Luzon or in the regions 1-3 and the Muslims expel the Spanish in Mindanao but that did not happen in OTL because the hindus got hit by famine, I think the earlier that scenario happens the better..I think that would mean that the Spanish would only rule the areas that are not rebellious there - the two regions perennially rebel and ally with the enemies of the spanish like the Dutch which cost the Spanish much to maintain their colony, they might get a better deal for the Philippines because the Spanish would only rule areas loyal to them since the spanish considered selling/abandoning the philippines many times...the spanish might even get the spice islands and maintain ternate once Portugal splits as well..

For me getting the Spice Trade to the Americas might be better than the chinese goods.
 
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Yes you can, I'm more interested in if it's doable after the War of Austrian Succession (which was a huge waste of money for anyone whose name was not Frederick... yes even the winners didn't get much out of it)
 
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