Realistic Consequences of Russia keeping Alaska

Speaking of navies, does Alaska have any all winter ice free ports? The panhandle maybe?

It might be kept as a place to keep the Russian Pacific fleet, and if they have good ports this Pacific fleet might actually be worth something.
 
Speaking of navies, does Alaska have any all winter ice free ports? The panhandle maybe?

It might be kept as a place to keep the Russian Pacific fleet, and if they have good ports this Pacific fleet might actually be worth something.

The Panhandle is ice-free and have lots of good harbours. But a Russian fleet based here would be disconnected from the rest of the motherland since the rest of the Russian coast is either ice-bound at times of the year, or blocked by the Ottomans/Baltic Countries from open sea.

Perhaps not as extreme, but it would be like Austria trying to support a colony in...let's say...the Philippines: Not impossible, but extremely difficult due to a vulnerable supply line.

But if the Tsar/Soviets do something crazy such as build a bridge across the Bering Strait (hey, they managed to drain the Aral Sea), they the transport supply problems to and from Alaska would be alleviated somewhat.
 

HeWhoIsMe

Banned
Or the cliche route of Alaska become a refugee for the Romanovs and the fleeing Whites.

I like this.
The Romanovs and the remainder of the loyal servants of the former imperial apparatus find refuge in Alaska.
The Reds finally establish unopposed control on the Eurasian part of Russian but can't possibly mount an assault across the Bering Straits to dislodge the loyalists. At least not the first few years.
The Romanovs take advantage of the the lull in the fighting to establish a White Russia on Alaska.
So, we get to the point where the Reds are de facto rulers of everything west of the Strait and the Whites of the east with none of them being able to eradicate the other.
The Reds are internationally recognised as the legitimate regime west of the Strait.
It stands to reason that most of the Western nations would readily acknowledge Romanov sovereignity over Alaska. I'm not sure the new state emerging out of this situation would be an Empire of Russia anymore but it would definitely be a successor state. Plus everybody in the West would be more than willing to defend the Romanov presence in Alaska against the Reds, to prevent a spillover of the Revolution into the Americas. Nobody would like that.
I don't know whether people knew that Alaska was floating on oil back then in the early 20th century, but it would definitely help finance and stabilise the new Imperial Government.
I expect that after a decade or so maybe when relations between the new Empire of Russia and the nascent USSR would have normalised, the Alaskan Romanov state might even receive a significant population boost from monarchist refugees escaping the Communist regime in the mainland!
Today this Alaska might have been a fully functioning constitutional monarchy or even a republic that everybody would want to live in. If we disregard the hideous weather conditions...
 

Perkeo

Banned
What if the Whites hold Alaska and declare independence? They'd need foreign help for that, but since neither the US nor Britain will want Sowjets on North American soil, they could well get it.
 
It's more likely that Alaska falls to Japan/Britain/America than becomes a successful independent "White Russian" state really. It's going to require the navies of those powers to keep the Reds (or whoever takes over Russia in an ATL revolution) at bay, it will need their financial support to stay afloat/import commodities, and its population will mostly be composed of "illegal" settlers from North America.

I don't really think anyone would care about the Romanovs. The dynasty might be useful to prop up in Russia proper, but in Alaska, they are just a name, and largely powerless.
 

HeWhoIsMe

Banned
It's more likely that Alaska falls to Japan/Britain/America than becomes a successful independent "White Russian" state really. It's going to require the navies of those powers to keep the Reds (or whoever takes over Russia in an ATL revolution) at bay, it will need their financial support to stay afloat/import commodities, and its population will mostly be composed of "illegal" settlers from North America.

Oh,yes...it is more than likely that the fledgling Romanov regime in Alaska would need all the foreign help it can get during it's infancy. But from a point on, it should be able to stand on it's own feet. A limited but prolonged financial dependency on it's wealthy North American neighbours would be highly likely though.

I don't really think anyone would care about the Romanovs. The dynasty might be useful to prop up in Russia proper, but in Alaska, they are just a name, and largely powerless.

On, the contrary I think. The assumption of the throne by the surviving Romanov Czar or any of his direct descendants would give legitimacy to any hopeful successor state to the Empire of Russia. Whether it may be in Alaska or anywhere else within former Imperial territory. Alaska just has the bonus of being isolated from the mainland, thus more easily defendable...sort of like a Taiwan...
 
The Romanovs would not flee to to far-off Russian Alaska, they would head for Denmark or Great Britain.

Well, if it's the only White Russia left, they'd be rather shirking any claim to the throne if they didn't go there and try to rule it, wouldn't they? Staying in a foreign location close to the homeland might make sense during the war, but once the Reds have definitively won (and I assume here that they will win), it doesn't any longer.
 
I'd figure things would progress much the same from the missed purchase to after WWII, unless the Russians managed to sell Alaska to someone else, like the Japanese or Canadians.

WW2 is where it gets interesting.

I could see a majority of Lend/Lease equipment going by rail to Novy Archanelsk in Alaska instead of by sea, increasing Russian presence in Russian America.

After 1947, with nuclear-armed Soviet bombers stationed right up on the edge of the western United States, most of the Cold War confrontation might not have happened due to the overwhelming advantage the Soviets would have. Berlin, Eastern Europe, Greece, Soviet intervention in Africa and other places would have been much more likely to have come out best for the Soviets.

Meanwhile in the USA, HUAC, McCarthyism, blacklists, and loyalty oaths, Civil Defense, bomb shelter salesmen, nuclear war drills in schools, all were a fact in OTL. With a real Soviet menace on the border... all of the most-probable paths I can come up with are very ugly.

To me, the Alaska Purchase timelines are fascinating because nothing much might change for 80 years, then the divergence would be abrupt.
 
Probably they'll fine gold in Alaska, then Russia will become filthy stinkin' rich!

On discovery of gold there would have a been a Klondike type gold rush. Access would have been easier for people from the US and Canada than from Russia so would have ended up with a Yankee/Canadian/Pommie population.
If Russia had then tried to exert control and had conflict with the miners (over taxes or mineral rights) then likely that US or UK would have intervened and Alaska would have been taken over by US or UK.
More likely by US.
 
Well, if it's the only White Russia left, they'd be rather shirking any claim to the throne if they didn't go there and try to rule it, wouldn't they? Staying in a foreign location close to the homeland might make sense during the war, but once the Reds have definitively won (and I assume here that they will win), it doesn't any longer.

If TTL's Reds have definitvely won, then I imagine that the Whites in Alaska, like those who participated in the OTL Yakut revolt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakut_Revolt), would have been similarly defeated. None the less, unless TTL's Whites were able to establish a functioning government in Alaska, one that officially claimed to represent all imperial Russia, it seems unimaginable that the Tsar and his family exchange a regal lifestyle in an (albeit foreign) european capital (think social, political & econonomic connections) for spartan (and more isolated) one in Alaska.
 
If TTL's Reds have definitvely won, then I imagine that the Whites in Alaska, like those who participated in the OTL Yakut revolt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakut_Revolt), would have been similarly defeated.

As I said before, Alaska has the distinct advantage over Siberia (so far as functioning as a White redoubt is concerned) that is not only borders Canada and the United States (well, doesn't exactly border the US, but is certainly close enough that the US would be very interested in making sure Communists couldn't gain a foothold), but is also separated by a rather considerable amount of sea from the nearest possible Soviet bases (on Kamchatka or in the Sea of Okhotsk). Given that the countries with the three most powerful navies in the world (Japan, Britain, and the United States) are all interested in ensuring that Alaska does not fall to the Communists, it seems distinctly unlikely that the Communists would be able to provide any effective support to their comrades in Alaska, while Alaska would most probably have US and British troops protecting strategic locations and reinforcing White contingents, as both countries did historically during the Civil War. Together, the likelihood of a Soviet victory in Alaska seems very low; the Americans, British, and Japanese simply wouldn't permit it.

This is all aside from the possibility mentioned before of the country becoming quite Anglicized or Americanized due to gold rush fever over the half-century or so before the Civil War, in which case I find it doubtful that the Soviets would ever have that much support in Alaska in the first place. Some, certainly, but nowhere near enough to wrest control of the province away from White forces given the above factors.

None the less, unless TTL's Whites were able to establish a functioning government in Alaska, one that officially claimed to represent all imperial Russia, it seems unimaginable that the Tsar and his family exchange a regal lifestyle in an (albeit foreign) european capital (think social, political & econonomic connections) for spartan (and more isolated) one in Alaska.

Well, supposing that a victory is won, which as I outlined above is quite probable, then indeed there would be a functioning White government in Alaska. Given that the rest of the country is likely to fall to the Communists, this would de facto be representing all the non-Communists. One wrinkle would be whether or not Britain or the US decided to annex the place; but I doubt they would, especially given that they probably couldn't agree on who should annex it. The more serious (in my view) wrinkle would be the presence or absence of anti-monarchical White forces in Alaska. If they dominate, then of course the Romanovs won't be welcome at all. If they do not, then if the surviving Romanovs want their claims to be taken seriously at all in Russia, they will need to go rule the country, not just party in Paris or whatever.
 

Flubber

Banned
This is all aside from the possibility mentioned before of the country becoming quite Anglicized or Americanized due to gold rush fever over the half-century or so before the Civil War...


I don't think the various "rushes" will have that great an effect on the local population.

First, most of Alaska's gold is actually in Canada. Second, despite two gold rushes, a fur rush, and a defense rush, Alaska's population barely doubled to about 130K between 1900 and 1950.
 
You are all forgetting the most important part. If Alaska remains Russian, what would be the consequences for Scrooge McDuck?
 

Infinity

Banned
Alaska would serve as an excellent place for the surplus Russian population. Russia would have a larger Pacific fleet with the addition of Alaska. They would be able to exert more control over China in this timeline. More importantly, this would give them a strategic advantage over Japan. Russia would never be defeated by Japan with the Pacific balance of power shifted. Without Japan shattering Russia's national pride, there would be no Russian revolution, and no USSR. This would lead to a less aggressive imperial Japan, if not outright being colonized by Russia. Possibly splitting up Japan between other powers, just like what happened to China.
 
Alaska would serve as an excellent place for the surplus Russian population. Russia would have a larger Pacific fleet with the addition of Alaska. They would be able to exert more control over China in this timeline. More importantly, this would give them a strategic advantage over Japan. Russia would never be defeated by Japan with the Pacific balance of power shifted. Without Japan shattering Russia's national pride, there would be no Russian revolution, and no USSR. This would lead to a less aggressive imperial Japan, if not outright being colonized by Russia. Possibly splitting up Japan between other powers, just like what happened to China.

Actually, it would make the revolution worse. Russia has no surplus population. Even before the recent population growth decrease, HUGE areas of Siberia were uninhabited, in fact, even European Russia was relatively sparsely inhabited. Having Alaska doesn't give Russia more naval manufacturing capacity, it just gives them more ports. The lack of population would mean that despite favourable defensive conditions, the Russians simply can't defeat the Japanese if they invade Alaska. Even IF Russia even gets Alaska back, the humiliation is going to be worse since more territory had been occupied.
 
But if the Tsar/Soviets do something crazy such as build a bridge across the Bering Strait (hey, they managed to drain the Aral Sea), they the transport supply problems to and from Alaska would be alleviated somewhat.
Umm... That was by accident, an UNWANTED consequence. The equivalent here would be ... toxic mine tailings blocking the Bering Strait?
 
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