Successful British America: what happens in Latin America?

I have never heard of a British invasion of Peru OTL...

Their invasions of the River Plate during the Napoleonic War were planned as a grabbing a base from which to invade Peru, I believe.

There seems to be an assumption that the UK can just walk into Argentina, but as OTL showed it would face strong local opposition.

This is a good challenge, and one I'd like to explore more. I guess the arguments for why it would be more likely to be successful in this timeline would be (a) greater focus on the Americas from the British, and thus more resources committed to it (b) more manpower from America, (c) less of a national awakening in the Americas due to no influence from the American Revolution, and, possibly (d) an earlier attack due to no ARW setting the UK back.

And it's not like British North America needs more farmland. So why bother taking it?

For me, this is much clearer. It's a base from which to penetrate trade in South America, in the manner that Hong Kong was for China. In addition, the Cape is one of the choke points of world trade that makes a strategic control point for the British.

If Portugal doesn't move its capital to Rio de Janeiro, then Brazil will fragment on independence, no matter when it is.

Along what lines do you think Brazil would fragment? When would independence occur? Would the successor states likely be British aligned or not?
 
Their invasions of the River Plate during the Napoleonic War were planned as a grabbing a base from which to invade Peru, I believe.

IIRC there was talk of invading Peru with Indian sepoys (who mutined in the early 19th century because they didn't want to go overseas). But they also planned to invade mexico as well. I don't see why these will be more successful than OTL's invasion of Argentina.

(a) greater focus on the Americas from the British, and thus more resources committed to it

Why is there a greater focus on South America though? Why would Americans want to go die in Argentina?

Incidentally, LTTW had some American invasion of Argentina, but I forget why/how.

(d) an earlier attack due to no ARW setting the UK back.

This is true for America too, actually; there's some evidence that the US lost a decade+ of economic growth in the era.
 
So I think we can assume that the UK will want economic informal empire over the whole continent. But let's get specific: are there any precise points that the UK will want to, and realistically can, pick off?

Its not just what the UK wants. Its what the locals want. In this case, the British-Americans. Colonial settlers were pretty good at embroiling the mother country in wars that the colonial settlers wanted to fight. Most of what was on the American wishlist OTL is a likely expansion target, especially Florida and New Orleans and the Louisiana territory. Except ATL its probably going to be a serious fight, since I can't see either Spain or France handing over such a massive chunk of territory to perfidious Albion.
 
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