PC/WI: European US Containment Policy?

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The mid to late 19th Century might have offered the last best chance for Europe as a whole to put forth a combined effort to contain the growing economic superiority of the US.

So, as it says, what if there indeed was a combined effort to do so immediately after the Civil War?
What could Europe economically, possibly militarily, do to blunt the growing supremacy of US production capacity?
 
Why do they bother?

The US is far away, has little interest in European affairs, and has no real quarrels with the major European powers.

What's more, Britain isn't going to put up with it. A LOT of British money was being invested in the US, which offered more growth opportunities and profit than investing back home often did. So if France or a united Germany decided to try Britain would basically tell them to piss off, and go back to making lots of money. Eventually whatever government tried would get bored and realized their efforts are better spent on...well anything else.
 
4732406.jpg


The mid to late 19th Century might have offered the last best chance for Europe as a whole to put forth a combined effort to contain the growing economic superiority of the US.

So, as it says, what if there indeed was a combined effort to do so immediately after the Civil War?
What could Europe economically, possibly militarily, do to blunt the growing supremacy of US production capacity?

Anglo-French-German alliance and trading block? Incredibly unlikely of course, but if these three rich and powerful European nations had banded together rather than become rivals, they conceivably could have been pissed off about the US's continued protectionism and enacted lasting anti-US trade policies as a result, thus slowing US manufacturing and economic growth while expanding their own.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
You do realize the 1860s and 1870s were the bloodiest

The mid to late 19th Century might have offered the last best chance for Europe as a whole to put forth a combined effort to contain the growing economic superiority of the US. So, as it says, what if there indeed was a combined effort to do so immediately after the Civil War? What could Europe economically, possibly militarily, do to blunt the growing supremacy of US production capacity?

You do realize the 1860s and 1870s were the bloodiest period in Europe's history between 1815 and 1914, right?

All the European powers have much more threatening strategic issues, much closer to home, and the Alliance system is decades away.

Best,
 
4732406.jpg


The mid to late 19th Century might have offered the last best chance for Europe as a whole to put forth a combined effort to contain the growing economic superiority of the US.

So, as it says, what if there indeed was a combined effort to do so immediately after the Civil War?
What could Europe economically, possibly militarily, do to blunt the growing supremacy of US production capacity?

that kind of combined effort would require foresight to the degree that might as well be ASB. And then of course if one had that foresight and were Western European, the last thing you would want to do is prevent the United States from contributing to the defeat of Imperial Germany, the Third Reich and the Soviet Empire.

Otherwise, as said before, why would they even conceive of such a thing?
 
This seems kind of an odd thing for Europe to be doing; from what I've read, Europe generally considered the US to be a wealthy but internationally unimportant place 'way over there'. They were much more concerned over what their European neighbors were up to. But assuming they do set out on this policy... the US is likely to respond rather badly. When you read about the US during this period, it's painfully obvious that the US was rather arrogant, proud of it's industry, and overestimated it's military ability. If Europe deliberately sets out to smack down the US, it's going to be a heated war of words... and probably more eventually...
 
Even beyond having better things to worry about than a nation, across the ocean, that isn't a threat to anybody even over the intermediate term - there's Russia to consider. They were a Great Power, strongly backed the Union diplomatically during the American Civil War, and are not about to participate in any efforts to isolate the Union.

A long-term alliance of Russia and the United States would be terrifying to anyone with the foresight to see how dominant the US could potentially be.
 
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