Maximum Plausible US Annexation from Mexico?

Taking half of it makes sense, taking it all does'nt, considering that the Northern hald was sparsely populated while it was the Southern half where everyone lived, though IOTL we DID take more than half technically.

Sure, but the question was on the MAXIMUM part of Mexico. And the USA annexing the parts of Mexico it did IOTL had enough desert and a much longer Pacific Coast, so it needs a damn good reason to want even more desert than it had IOTL in a way that won't by itself make the Civil War happen by the mid-1850s at the latest.
 
The problem is that almost no-one uses the phrase "Second World".

Mexico is not Third World, unless Serbia, Saudi Arabia, Russia, etc. are.

This is why the terms First and Third World are rapidly falling out of favor as relics of the 20th century.

Mexico, Suadi Arabia, Russia, etc. Are all developing nations or emerging markets. (As capitalism centric as the word market is, it means the country has an affluent middle class or in the case of these countries an emerging one).

So Mexico is not a third world country in the sense that it is an underdeveloped nation. But it is in the sense that it was neither a first world western power or a communist nation (that is what second world means).

Look at our two countries today. The US is first world, Mexico remains third world. Look at quality of life. Look at lifespans. Look at INCOME.

Mexico is certainly not enpar with the US. But I would be careful when I use these statistics. Income inequality is just as bad in the US as it is in Mexico and currently the united States has a higher unemployment rate.

Mexico ended up in the bad side of history. Yes, it never achieved the potential that it could have. And currently the country - my country - is in a shithole we're doing better economically than in many decades but quality of life (especially due to safety) is paradoxically plummeting.

But Mexico at its worst has never been as bad as the Ameri-wankers usually pictured it. If anything we have always been the worst of the best or the best of the worst depending if you want to see the glass half empty or half full.

But we are getting off topic...

I would say that the US annexed almost as much Mexican territory as it could have swallowed in OTL. At most, the US could have taken more or less what encompasses Chihuahua, Sonora, and Baja. All where sparsely populated and remote-ish enough (yet even in OTL Wiliam Walker faced enough resistance when he landed in Sonora that he opted to leave and Mexico made sure it kept Baja no matter what in the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo).

When Guadalupe-Hidalgo was signed Mexico was in no condition to negotiate, the capital was under US occupation and it remained so for 11 months afterwards. Despite the fact that the treaty was signed by a rouge diplomat acting out of orders. Polk and the higher officials accepted it because what they gained was sufficient. There was no use in asking for more and facing greater resistance.

Had the US gotten more you get a few problems. Mexico's northeast (Nuevo Leon, Coahuila and Tamaulipas) was filled with Mexicans. Mexicans who suffered the worst of the war, placed the greatest resistance (Monterrey did not fall till late in the war, and Victoria and Tampico were equally hard to put down). These are not the people who will gladly welcome foreign occupation of their lands. The US would have faced constant resistance and revolt.

Ultimately due to population differences and general demographics the US settlers might have overwhelmed the local population. MIGHT HAVE. But you run into a second problem, you just expanded southern territory quite a bit and Southerners will be expecting expansion of slavery. Try enforcing that on a territory that is Catholic and traditionally anti-slavery. More problems.

The Civil War, while not on the same circumstances as in OTL, would have appeared sooner of later. The North and South were angry enough at each other by the start of the Mex-American war it was only a matter of time. And then you have a larger south but one were the west (including northern mexico) and the east have nothing in common and probably hate each other more than the Union. You likely also have a more vengeful Mexico south of the border who wouldn't think twice of helping their brothers in the "occupied territory". Maybe the Union still wins cause it has bigger guns and all but the outcome wont be pretty.

There is such as thing as over extending oneself.
 
OTL Northern Mexico is not just "more desert." Coahuila has coal, for example, although it's rather far from the US's industrial centers at the time (and they were smaller anyway).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coahuila#Economy

Nuevo Leon also had some agricultural territory, the "orange belt."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuevo_León#Economy

And there are valuable minerals in northern Mexico, although this applies mostly to the western part of the country, not the Republic of the Rio Grande.

http://www.mexivada.com/s/Mexico.asp
 
Exactly. The Republic of the Rio Grande and the Republic of the Yucatan are prime candidates for US annexation, as Tex highlights in Ameriwank:

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I THINK Chiapas may have tried to rebel at that time as well, but I can't remember.
 
Everyone seems so focused on the "holding" part, which isn't something I want to work out. I want things to turn into chaos that breaks the US's back so to speak.
 
Everyone seems so focused on the "holding" part, which isn't something I want to work out. I want things to turn into chaos that breaks the US's back so to speak.

If you want Mexico to be the "poisoned gift," then go with "ALL MEXICO!"

The Republic of the Rio Grande and relatively underpopulated northern Mexico can be assimilated, but trying to hold the really populous parts of Mexico?

Not going to be easy, especially if you get a bunch of Southern chauvinists trying to bring in slavery and ESPECIALLY if they try to enslave the locals.
 
If you want Mexico to be the "poisoned gift," then go with "ALL MEXICO!"

The Republic of the Rio Grande and relatively underpopulated northern Mexico can be assimilated, but trying to hold the really populous parts of Mexico?

Not going to be easy, especially if you get a bunch of Southern chauvinists trying to bring in slavery and ESPECIALLY if they try to enslave the locals.

Alright, I wasn't sure if All Mexico was too implausible to have happen or not.
 
Alright, I wasn't sure if All Mexico was too implausible to have happen or not.

The guy who signed the treaty signed it when he did because Polk was falling under the influence of more greedy annexationists and he was already ashamed the U.S. was grabbing so many of Mexico already.

Have him taken out of the picture somehow and Polk sends someone who demands even more territory, albeit probably not "ALL MEXICO." This provokes the Mexican nationalists and the war resumes.

By the time it ends, the U.S. occupies all or most of Mexico and "ALL MEXICO" becomes much easier to justify.

Of course, then you get into the free state/slave state thing that when combined with resentful conquered Mexicans could turn into Bleeding Kansas times twenty with some salsa on the side.
 

scholar

Banned
The annexation of the entirety of Mexico is plausible, but the consequences of doing so could quite possibly cause nothing but extreme hardship for the US, to the point where its not worth it or the US becomes the weaker for it. However, it is wrong to say that its complete annexation would doom the US to ruin. That relies on too many assumptions without proper evidence, apart from circumstantial evidence and romantic ideas.
 
The annexation of the entirety of Mexico is plausible, but the consequences of doing so could quite possibly cause nothing but extreme hardship for the US, to the point where its not worth it or the US becomes the weaker for it. However, it is wrong to say that its complete annexation would doom the US to ruin. That relies on too many assumptions without proper evidence, apart from circumstantial evidence and romantic ideas.

Trying to impose slavery on even part of Mexico proper could provoke violent strife against the occupation, with non-co-opted Mexicans playing both Anglo factions against each other.

If we get Popular Sovereignty in Mexico in TTL, it's going to be a bloodbath.
 
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The annexation of the entirety of Mexico is plausible, but the consequences of doing so could quite possibly cause nothing but extreme hardship for the US, to the point where its not worth it or the US becomes the weaker for it. However, it is wrong to say that its complete annexation would doom the US to ruin. That relies on too many assumptions without proper evidence, apart from circumstantial evidence and romantic ideas.

Actually the opposite concept relies far more on them. We should not mistake the 1840s US for the USA as either a Great Power or a superpower.
 

scholar

Banned
Trying to impose slavery on even part of Mexico proper could provoke violent strife against the whites, with non-co-opted Mexicans playing both Anglo factions against each other.

If we get Popular Sovereignty in Mexico in TTL, it's going to be a bloodbath.
You're forgetting that the South Tried to impose slavery on other Mexican lands, even those lightly populated by Mexicans, and they did not become slave states. The South can cry "Missouri Compromise!" all they want, but the the people inside the states make it clear the answer is "no." then there's nothing they can do about it. California had gold which allowed for enough people not from the traditional south to make this a certainty, but in Mexico there won't be a need for northerners to come in and say no, the Mexicans are already there and they'll say no. And unless the Americans overwhelm them (unlikely in the center of populations) the South will grumble, but the states and territories will become Free States.

Popular sovereignty would lead to the opposite of a bloodbath. If we lose popular sovereignty that's certainly a possibility. However this assumes there will be no significant faction of collaborators, or that a nation that has been consumed by civil wars and massive conflicts since its birth would have a desire for continued resistance after the stability being conquered might just give them.

Not saying that Mexico would be an easy thing to take, just that there's far more ways than one for this to go. Especially with the correct POD, one starting in Mexico rather than the US before the Mexican American war.
 
Popular sovereignty would lead to the opposite of a bloodbath. If we lose popular sovereignty that's certainly a possibility. However this assumes there will be no significant faction of collaborators, or that a nation that has been consumed by civil wars and massive conflicts since its birth would have a desire for continued resistance after the stability being conquered might just give them.

Popular sovereignty provoked Bleeding Kansas, although to be fair, the two sides were more evenly matched. An alliance between the Mexicans and the free soilers might checkmate the slavers.
 

scholar

Banned
Actually the opposite concept relies far more on them. We should not mistake the 1840s US for the USA as either a Great Power or a superpower.
Not quite, while the United States was not a Great Power or a Super Power, on a localized comparison between the United States of America and the United States of Mexico one would find a side by side comparison to show a greater disparity of both population and economic power than between the North and the South, and this is both of those combined against Mexico. Further, the Mexican government is plagued with corruption and civil strife, further giving it a handicap. Not to mention collaborators, would be or otherwise.
 
Not quite, while the United States was not a Great Power or a Super Power, on a localized comparison between the United States of America and the United States of Mexico one would find a side by side comparison to show a greater disparity of both population and economic power than between the North and the South, and this is both of those combined against Mexico. Further, the Mexican government is plagued with corruption and civil strife, further giving it a handicap. Not to mention collaborators, would be or otherwise.

I think he was referring to the attitude of the public, which would have been far more racially arrogant and overbearing than the U.S. of later generations.

The modern U.S. annexing 1840s Mexico might be one thing; the U.S. of that era annexing Mexico is something else.

EDIT: And referring to other issues as well, based on the post below mine.
 
Not quite, while the United States was not a Great Power or a Super Power, on a localized comparison between the United States of America and the United States of Mexico one would find a side by side comparison to show a greater disparity of both population and economic power than between the North and the South, and this is both of those combined against Mexico. Further, the Mexican government is plagued with corruption and civil strife, further giving it a handicap. Not to mention collaborators, would be or otherwise.

Except that 1840s America had to move heaven and earth and rely even moreso on Santa Anna to do what it did IOTL. A protracted occupation of all of Mexico relying on the cumbersome US military and cultural structures of that time will produce the disintegration of the USA merely from having to pony up the ability to hold all of Mexico for the short term, let alone the long term.

It's worth noting that IOTL merely annexing half of Mexico touched off the Civil War. ITTL the USA would start disintegrating from the expense and culture-crisis caused by raising an army large enough to sit on Mexico forever.
 
Baja, perhaps.

That seems the most probable answer. Maybe the Colorado river delta too (they use to have one back then). Even then it might end up still being a united California. Any more land than that would give more power to the slavocracy than northern States are willing to cede.
 
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