Nationalist/Fascist America vs The World

[ggarner57]

Yeah, racist or not, I can't see the entire world being able to unite and defeat the United States. The RN would have to outproduce the USN and constantly fight it, while keeping the rest of the Empire manned and policed, which if the OSS has any teeth at all, it will be encouraging rebellion at every turn to make life that much harder. . Germany would be giddy at the fact that England is having to divert so much to fight the US. The Empire was already in decline by WW2 OTL, so fighting a much bigger nation, with Germany staying around as a viable threat, would just make matters worse.

Cutting ones losses might not be such a bad idea.

 

[GarethC]

What the US does is very important, as is exactly when.

Are we talking about not signing, or repudiating the Washington or London Naval Treaties?

Are we looking at a massive expanse of the Army?

A building programme of capital ships is going to trigger a similar response from Britain and Japan. That in turn will push KMT China, the USSR, France, and the Netherlands to expand their navies.

If there is a real prospect of confrontation with the British Empire, then there's a window in the period for a massive expansion of the USN's airship programme for maritime patrol (with parasite fighters) before Akron crashes.

A nationalist America will still have a China Lobby pushing for exploitation of China and an "open door" policy because the money for a military expansion has to come from somewhere. Increased (and harsher) exploitation of the Philippines is likely on the list as well, which will lead to a persistent guerilla war there.

Re: Canada - War Plan Red at one point called for a poison gas attack on Halifax, which if implemented will damage relations with most non-aligned powers to some extent. Note that Britain owes substantial debts to the US which will be suspended at this time, and then offset against claimed damages for US actions in Canada.

A Mexican intervention, a racial supremacist philosophy, and a naval build programme will push Argentina, Brazil, and Chile to continue their battleship race, probably buying in from Italian yards (since the British and French will likely be filling their own).

 

[ManintheField]

How so? Why is invading and conquering Canada assumed to be the easist thing in the world, while conquering Soviet Russia is deemed to be ASB-level impossible?

Because the overwhelming majority of the overwhelmingly outnumbered Canadian population lives within a hundred miles of the US border.

They're the two largest nations in the world, the terrain and conditions that any invasion force will have to overcome are virtually identical in Canada and Russia- but any invasion of Canada's assumed to be a piece of cake, while an invasion of Russia is deemed to be insurmountable and doomed to failure. Why is that?

Because their demographic and economic geographies are so utterly different that only a fool who glances momentarily at a map would ever think they are comparable situations.

Sure, it's got about a ninth or an eighth of Soviet Russia's population at this stage, but even if the Americans launch their Canadian Barbarossa, and succeed in capturing all of the major population centres close to the border, will the Canadian people just roll over and bow down to their new hardcore fascist overlords, any more than the Soviets would have?

No, of course they wouldn't, but they don't have the strategic depth the Soviets had, nor the manpower and industrial advantage the Soviets could fall back upon.

Once the major population centers close to the border are captured, that is a conquest of Canada. Everything else in Canada is of insignificant strategic importance and can be mopped up with a fraction of the resources necessary to invade and occupy the populated parts of the country.

Of course not. Just like the Soviets would have withdrawn to the Urals and continued to fight a guerilla campaign against the occupying Nazis, so the Canadians would withdraw to the Rockies and continue to fight their guerilla campaign against the 'Americanazis'. Canada's too big for such a regime to occupy fully, too late for the rebel 'Free Canadians' not to be able to operate in the vast wilderness with relative impunity. Saying that the population difference would this decisive is bogus- under that logic, without nuclear weapons, it'd be easy for China to invade and conquer the whole of Russia within a few weeks or less, annexing Russia as part of the Chinese empire permanently. The population difference between the two, and the sizes of the two nations relative to one another, are about the same...

Your position is so utterly detached from reality that I have to question whether you're being fully serious here.

The Canadians do not have the option of 'withdraw to the Rockies' like the Russians did to beyond the Urals for two reasons:

1. All the major population centers beyond the Rockies in Canada are also within a short distance of the US border. There is no Omsk, safely beyond the reach of the Americans for the Canadian industrial complex to pull back to.

2. The Russians had months to transfer equipment to the existing industrial cities in the trans-Ural area. Even then it was nothing short of a miracle that it was done so quickly. American military forces can cut the rail connection between the populated portion of Canada in the East and the western mountainous area on the opening day of the conflict under the right circumstances. Trans-continental transportation links will almost 100% certainly not survive the first week of this hypothetical war. The moment Winnipeg is captured Canada is bisected, and Winnipeg is yet another one of those Canadian cities that lies within 100 miles of the US border.

The geography of the US-Canada border is utterly different from the 1941 geography of the Nazi-Soviet border, and the geographical relations between the German army and its strategic objectives and the US army and its hypothetical strategic objectives are about as similar as a pancake and a blue whale. In 1941 the USSR had a larger economy than Nazi Germany and more than twice the population. In this scenario both the US economy and population dwarf those of Canada by an order of magnitude. There is simply no comparison between the Nazi-Soviet war and this hypothetical US-Canada war. To pretend otherwise is completely daft.

 

[Alternate History Geek]

Actually, it wouldn't suffer as much as other nations would have.

It would after Boston, Providence, NYC, Newark, Philadelphia, Dover, Baltimore, Annapolis, Washington, Charleston, Savannah, Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Miami, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Mobile, Biloxi, New Orléans, Houston, Galveston, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Tacoma, and every other American city close to the sea has been shelled into rubble and the ones within 500 miles or so bombed into rubble. Heck the RN and Co. would likely be able to force the St. Lawrence and take control of the Great Lakes. Good-bye Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, Duluth...

And that's before the Brits and their allies get the Bomb. Which they'll definitely get before the Yanks due to the aforementioned blockade and bombardment of cities anywhere near the ocean.

 

[ManintheField]

It would after Boston, Providence, NYC, Newark, Philadelphia, Dover, Baltimore, Annapolis, Washington, Charleston, Savannah, Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Miami, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Mobile, Biloxi, New Orléans, Houston, Galveston, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Tacoma, and every other American city close to the sea has been shelled into rubble and the ones within 500 miles or so bombed into rubble. Heck the RN and Co. would likely be able to force the St. Lawrence and take control of the Great Lakes. Good-bye Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, Duluth...

And that's before the Brits and their allies get the Bomb. Which they'll definitely get before the Yanks due to the aforementioned blockade and bombardment of cities anywhere near the ocean.

And the USN has just been sitting around masturbating in port, waiting for the RN to come sink it, then?

 

[Alternate History Geek]

And the USN has just been sitting around masturbating in port, waiting for the RN to come sink it, then?

No, the RN would have come in like a juggernaut and ripped the USN to shreds the moment any United States declared an intention to invade Canada and go all nutso on the New World. They wouldn't have dared do anything other than immediately go for the throat.

 

[Tripledot]

No, the RN would have come in like a juggernaut and ripped the USN to shreds the moment any United States declared an intention to invade Canada and go all nutso on the New World. They wouldn't have dared do anything other than immediately go for the throat.

But doesn't America's industrial capacity mean that they could always just replace a lost fleet? It's not like the Royal Navy can just blockade all of America's coastline.

 

[Alternate History Geek]

But doesn't America's industrial capacity mean that they could always just replace a lost fleet? It's not like the Royal Navy can just blockade all of America's coastline.

Not once much of said capacity and much of the workforce for making use of said capacity lies in ruins.

Also remember that ships cannot be built instantly, and any ships the USA tried to build would be destroyed by RN bombardment a few days at most into construction.

 

[CthulhuFhtagn]

Not once much of said capacity and much of the workforce for making use of said capacity lies in ruins.

Also remember that ships cannot be built instantly, and any ships the USA tried to build would be destroyed by RN bombardment a few days at most into construction.

In fairness to him, a fascist USA probably would have spent some time building up its army and navy before trying to conquer America. If it did, I think it's safe to assume that this "Evil USA" could defeat Britain in a 1 v. 1 naval matchup.

 

[ManintheField]

No, the RN would have come in like a juggernaut and ripped the USN to shreds the moment any United States declared an intention to invade Canada and go all nutso on the New World. They wouldn't have dared do anything other than immediately go for the throat.

And I suppose this opinion is backed up with a thorough familiarity with the comparative naval strength and capability of the respective nations, an intuitive grasp of the implications of relative ship-building capacities, and a clear understanding of how their naval organizations mesh on the open ocean?

Because, as far as I understand, it took the US less than five years to go from just about equal to the RN in size to being larger than all other navies on the planet combined.

People in this topic seem to be drastically under-estimating what the US was in the early 20th century. The American military industrial complex was able to supply the war effort of the entire UN during WWII and still build up a military force of its own equal to or greater than that of any of its allies (excepting the Red Army itself), and this was with a US that never militarized to the degree the Germans or the Soviets did, not even to the degree the French or the British did.

A US that goes full bore military conquest mode like OTL Germany (or worse, considering even the Nazis didn't begin fully militarizing their economy until late in the war) would be a beast of a war machine the likes of which the world has never seen. An army larger than the Red Army at the height of its Bagration formidability, a navy larger than that of the rest of the planet, an air force able to establish and maintain total air dominance over the entire North American continent against all possible comers, and the logistic and industrial means to keep all this well supplied and growing.

There was never a point at which the US could have conquered the whole world all on its lonesome. No nation has ever been at that point. However, there was also never a point at which any theoretical combination of powers could have defeated the US in the Western Hemisphere after WWI.

EDIT: Also, there was no point in the post-WWI era where the Royal Navy had any significant size advantage over the US Navy. Especially in the latter part of this era, the USN was actually larger. The way naval warfare operates, the Royal Navy, even with the assistance of the French and the Italians, is not going to be able to realistically attain naval superiority in US coastal waters. Between the huge distance involved in operating across the Atlantic (and, once the US takes Halifax, there are no western hemisphere ports capable of sustaining a major Eurasian naval force that aren't American), the infrastructural benefits of operating in home waters, and the presence of land-based fighters and guns, any RN admiral that proposed a plan to try would be cashiered and forced into retirement in an instant, as it would be obvious he has begun to go senile and can no longer rationally execute his duties to the Crown.

 

[ggarner57]

snip

my thoughts exactly. You can't really say "No because the RN" when it comes to the world of 1940. The USN, combined with land based air would be a very different creature in the Western hemisphere, though, yes, the RN could make a definite stand. Also, yes, the U.S. can replace an entire fleet if it has to, look at production statistics to prove it.

Now, holding mexico and Latin America through military occupation is impossible. But pride in the RN doesn't make it possible for it to blockade the entire american coastline and reduce several huge cities to rubble.

 

[ManintheField]

my thoughts exactly. You can't really say "No because the RN" when it comes to the world of 1940. The USN, combined with land based air would be a very different creature in the Western hemisphere, though, yes, the RN could make a definite stand. Also, yes, the U.S. can replace an entire fleet if it has to, look at production statistics to prove it.

It's pretty absurd when you start paying attention to the US naval buildup before and during the war. Shipyards started kicking Essex class ships in under a year and a half from laying down to commissioning and producing a dozen at a time. For such large ships (at the time), this is incredible.

Now, holding mexico and Latin America through military occupation is impossible. But pride in the RN doesn't make it possible for it to blockade the entire american coastline and reduce several huge cities to rubble.

All of South America is a challenge, no doubt, but this has more to do with the huge distances involved and the relative lack of infrastructural development in large parts of the continent. Mexico and Central America are more than possible and definitively desirable. Mexico had a much smaller population in the early 20th century than it does today (it went through a massive demographic boom in the middle of the century) and was comparatively much poorer.

However, Mexico and Central America will share some of the problems of the rest of Latin America, namely large distances and under-development. It will be expensive in blood and treasure to take and hold the two areas, although, strategically, would be very desirable. Taking and holding the rest of Latin America and Brazil would take extraordinary dedication on the part of the American people, getting into ASB levels of devotion to this hypothetical totalitarian government. Subjecting as much as possible of South America to pro-American dictatorships is much more realistic.

 

[Legofan4]

Also all powers before WWII drastically underestimated the capability of aircraft against ships. And any fight in the western hemisphere against the US is going to come under air attack from ground based fighters and bombers. The RN doesnt have the carrier capability or the actual aircraft to stop a determined USAAF from sinking their ships unless they stay close to Canada and even then they couldnt replace them as fast as the US even if they traded aircraft 1:1. As has been said before where are they going to base themselves from except for Halifax unless all of a sudden the entire RN got upgraded to nuclear eactors that dont really require fuel.

In addition I would assume that an America that is going to go full on Nazi would build itself up before declaring war or attacking anyone. This would play even more into their favor because at the time the US made up almost half if not more of the world's total industrial capacity. Also unlike Germany or Japan most of the industry in America could be relocated away from the coasts to make it harder to destroy which any self respecting attempt at conquering your neighbors would be done before you would declare war in the first place.

They could ally with Germany as an ally of covenience like the soviets and Nazis before the otl WWII. Because presumably their interests would align in the fight against the British Empire. Or they could just be cobelligerants with Germany taking advantage of the British focus on America.

 

[wcv215]

It would after Boston, Providence, NYC, Newark, Philadelphia, Dover, Baltimore, Annapolis, Washington, Charleston, Savannah, Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Miami, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Mobile, Biloxi, New Orléans, Houston, Galveston, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Tacoma, and every other American city close to the sea has been shelled into rubble and the ones within 500 miles or so bombed into rubble. Heck the RN and Co. would likely be able to force the St. Lawrence and take control of the Great Lakes. Good-bye Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, Duluth...

Uh huh. You do realize that in OTL the United States built a Navy far larger than the RN in just under six years, while also supplying the armies of multiple countries, and projecting power across two oceans to fight wars far away from itself right AND funding the largest research project in history. To imagine that somehow a fascist United States would enter the war with just the forces it had OTL is absurd, but even these would be enough to match the RN. Instead what we would see is some kind of naval arms race, a race Britain loses against a country with, and follow me on this FOUR TIMES the industrial capacity of the United Kingdom, and enough to outweigh the next five countries combined.

In OTL the fact is that in 1945 as the British were broke and the Soviets were starting to suffer manpower issues the United States was barely warming up. Oh, and also, the industrial heartland of North America is not within naval bombardment range. The only thing attacking these cities would do is cause thousands of deaths, and ensure every single American wanted to see Britain absolutely destroyed.

This isn't even getting I to the fact that Japan and Germany are still there each ready to take what they want by force, and Japan will be swooping in on British possessions in Asia as soon as it becomes clear that the Royal Navy has finally been outmatched by its opponents across the sea. At that point Britain gets to decide whether holding Canada is worth losing he Pacific.

And in Europe the British get to watch Germany take down the other nations of Europe one by one, and this time they get to do so with the United States hostile. There is just so much one country can do, and given how much OTL drained Britain it is silly to think they will somehow do amazing with the most powerful country in the world opposing them.

And that's before the Brits and their allies get the Bomb. Which they'll definitely get before the Yanks due to the aforementioned blockade and bombardment of cities anywhere near the ocean.

And the cities near the ocean had what to do with the atomic bomb project exactly? As usual I would also point out that the OTL atomic bomb project cost 2 billion dollars, and ten percent of the electrical power of the United States to finish. In six months the United States made as much progress as Britain made in two years, all while funding and supplying the war effort of multiple countries. To imagine that the British have the resources to fight the United States and research the atomic bomb is nonsense.

 

[Alstein]

Realistically, I think the US could hold Canada and most of Mexico, but Mexico and Canada would have significant partisan activity.

The Western allies would have to decide which devil to live with, the US, the USSR,or the Nazis. They'd probably pick the Nazis.

 

[GarethC]

my thoughts exactly. You can't really say "No because the RN" when it comes to the world of 1940. The USN, combined with land based air would be a very different creature in the Western hemisphere, though, yes, the RN could make a definite stand. Also, yes, the U.S. can replace an entire fleet if it has to, look at production statistics to prove it.

Now, holding mexico and Latin America through military occupation is impossible. But pride in the RN doesn't make it possible for it to blockade the entire american coastline and reduce several huge cities to rubble.

OP specified the 20s & 30s, not 1940.

As it happens, there are specific shipbuilding facilities which are very difficult to shell without sailing through mine belts and coastal artillery ranges, IIRC - like the Philadelphia Navy Yards - that would make it very expensive to interdict construction.

 

[Undeadmuffin]

Action-Reaction

One of the most over-looked factor here is the reaction of the Canadian-Latin american-European-British. The majority of the poster seem to assume they would watch idle a USA transforming into a war-hungry juggernaut.

I think that if the US begin such military build-up, other nations would do the same. The British would be the first one, possibly (no matter the Washington treaty) asking each dominion to boost/build a consequent fleet, build incredible amount of fort on the Canadian border/leave great forces there and, one of the most overlook point, prepare the Indian Raj army to be up to part with the British standard.

I don't know if its true, but i read some where that they could field more than 100 Indian divisions. Of course it would mean severe industrial boost and lots of surplus build up before the war but if the British (and I think its one of the most important point) are willing to go to war against USA they could achieve these conditions and force the US to fight a war they weren't prepared to fight.

 

[British Republic]

Just for the record, considering that it is likely that Canada would face the same Social-Economic issues as the US, it is likely a similar governments (to Washington) enters power in Ottawa...

 

[British Republic]

The main thing is, thanks in part to aggressive adherence to the Monroe doctrine, Britain, France and the Netherlands are the only world powers that have a reason to fight the US over the America's, and none of them could even defend Canada and the Caribbean. Nor are they likely too, British thinking at the time (mental exercise by members of the officer corps) was that in the event of war with the USA Canada was indefensible. Instead the Anglo-French allies would attempt a blockade and containment coupled with seizing the Philippines, Hawaii and our other Pacific territories.

Wider implications: Japan does not declare war on the USA, the reason we were a priority target for them was our economic and political sanctions, and Japan's belief that we would not tolerate an invasion of Australia. If USA and the allies are still at war in '39 or if the war was particularly bloody, Poland might just be SoL and get the Czech treatment. (Alternately, if the war is over by the late 30s the Allies might draw the line at the Sudetenland, or even the Rheinland, seeing the beginnings of "A European USA" in Nazi Germany, and hoping to head it off at the pass) Depending on how isolationist the US is versus how anti-commie they are, the US might enter WWII (which I believe will happen ITTL though not as we know it obviously) on the side of whoever is fighting the Reds. Lastly, if Germany is allowed to take Poland without interference then the invasion of France begins in 1945 as planned, assuming Stalin does not attempt his global conquest earlier, which, given his excessive caution, is unlikely I think unless Hitler suffers an unfortunate accident and the Nazi party is unable to rally quickly enough to maintain their power.

EDIT: It should also be noted that anti-semitism is likely to be a thing in this USA, IIRC we only really got buddy-buddy with the Jews after WWII so a racist (fun fact, if you misspell racist it auto corrects to fascist) quasi-Nazi USA is likely to be anti-Jew as well, possibly anti-Catholic.

This nationalist America would almost certainly enforce the Monroe Doctrine to the strongest possible means, would France and the Netherlands be willing to take on the United States considering the limited value of their domains in the America's?

Also since America does not have much in terms of interests outside the America's, it is likely that they would let the Philippines become independent altogether (maybe they would retain military bases), so any blockade of the Philippines would be pointless.

Thus only Britain would object to any invasion of Canada and Mexico (which would phase one of the process of the dominance of the Americas), the armed forces of Canada would object, so would the British Army (Newfoundland would also be invaded, which was a British Colony at the time), however neither could defeat the armed forces of America (which would roughly be the size it was at the height of WW2).

I doubt if the armed forces of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa would be willing to back any invasion of the Commonwealth, especially if America offers to leave them alone if they do nothing and economic sanctions if they do.

India might get involved, but it would be very difficult to many of its armed forces to defend Canada, remember that Anti-British feeling was rising and India itself is not under threat (unlike in WW2), the other colonies are not significant enough to make much of a difference.

Also such a government would not consider the Canadians the enemy (since they mostly of European origin and are culturally close to Americans, at least the English-Speaking ones are), rather as “Americans living under British tyranny”, so the Americans can make clear that if they take control of Canada, they will treat the Canadians as as if where Americans (or European origin), so they will become US States as well as they take control, while it would be more authoritarian, I doubt if many would be willing to go against the United States.

The French Canadians might object to this, but since they would become a US State, they would be no worse than OTL in the 1930s, unless they where left-wing...

As for Hawaii, I doubt if the British could take control of Hawaii for various reasons, considering not even the Japanese where successful...

As for the issue of Anti-Catholic/Anti-Semitism, well this is not a “Nazi” America we are talking about (Nazism could only really emerge from Germany really...), this is more of a Italian style Nationalist-Fascist movement, considering the large Irish and Italian origin communities would be Anti-Catholic (in fact the latter at least would leading such a movement).

Also how Anti-Semitic where the Democratic and Republican Parties at the time?

As for wider implications, well “Phase One” (the invasion of Canada and Mexico) would start in the late 30s (around about the time Hitler annexed Austria and the German parts of Czechoslovakia), by the invasion of Poland, Britain is going to be a difficult place military wise...

Also America's involvement in the war depends on if Japan still does Pearl Harbour (The Philippines is no longer under American control in this situation...

 

[British Republic]

I think people really overestimate the capabilities of the USA in such scenario's. How the hell would they even control such a huge area? Nazi Germany couldn't even control a nation half that size with it breaking donw within the next 10 years, so why oh why should the USa be able to?

Defeating an expansionist USA like that would be very easy to beat as they would have the entire world against them including their occupied territories. Their armed forces will be stretched beyond belief and at more risk with every square miles taken. Communication and logistics would be a nightmare and their treasure chest would be as empty as FDR's marathon trophy room.

The United States has twice the industry of the UK, France and Japan combined, remember the military would roughly its peak size in WW2.

Also such a government would not consider the Canadians the enemy (since they mostly of European origin and are culturally close to Americans, at least the English-Speaking ones are), rather as “Americans living under British tyranny”, so the Americans can make clear that if they take control of Canada, they will treat the Canadians as as if where Americans (or European origin), so they will become US States as well as they take control, while it would be more authoritarian, I doubt if many would be willing to go against the United States.

The French Canadians might object to this, but since they would become a US State, they would be no worse than OTL in the 1930s, unless they where left-wing...

Also apart from the UK, who would be willing to take on the United States, especially since there is a war in the Pacific and Europe?