The absolute maximum amount of territory that the USA could realistically have?

Saphroneth

Banned
The entire British Empire.

Here's how.

Late in the evening on the 4 of July, during the days of the Articles of Confederation, the Province of Upper Canada (i.e. Ontario) declares independence and war on the British.
The British ambassador, acting according to well-laid plans, surrenders and allows the entire British Empire to be formally incorporated into Upper Canada.
Thirty minutes after that, the entire British-Empire-Forming province of "Upper Canada" applies for membership in the US.

Under the Articles of Confederation, for this province, it is automatic.

The US wakes up on 5 July to discover that - if it wouldn't go back in the British Empire, the British Empire came to it.



...:p
 
Integrating all of the islands in the Caribbean is a simple matter of purchasing or liberating them from the various European Powers that owned them. The U.S. could at some point take the Guianas off of European hands

I don't think this assertion is realistic.

There were four principal Colonial powers in the Caribbean. Spain, Britain, France and the Netherlands.

With Spain, the US had designs on Cuba for a very long time, dating back to the 1830's. Acquiring between 1830 and 1898 is a real possibility. It eventually took it in the Spanish American War. It's a matter of internal American politics that it didn't keep it. It could well have kept it, that's a very realistic possibility.

With the Netherlands, although this was a colonial power, it was relatively small. The United States could have hypothetically kicked it around or blackmailed it into selling off. The Netherlands was not desperate for cash, so it wasn't going to sell voluntarily. However, the Netherlands had Britain and to a lesser extent France as allies. So you can't take the little dog without risking the big dogs.

France up until 1939 was a world power. The United States had zero chance of taking or forcing the sale of its Caribbean or Guiana possessions. And France likely was not going to be in the mood to sell.

Britain was the Caribbean big dog, holding Jamaica, Guyana, Belize and the major part of the Lesser Antilles. They're not going to sell, they can't be forced or coerced.

Sorry, but no bribing or kicking around the European powers. The US with the Spanish American war went after the weakest and easiest of them. Everything else was out of America's desired weight class.

The United States might acquire the Dominican Republic and the Yucatan, there were annexationist sentiments there. Nicaragua, from William Walker's filibuster. Panama, if Teddy was a little more brutal.

Haiti, despite a long occupation, pretty unrealistic.

That's it for the region.
 

Lateknight

Banned
The world of coarse a America that does go one to liberate the world isn't going to look at all like our America.
 
I don't think this assertion is realistic.

There were four principal Colonial powers in the Caribbean. Spain, Britain, France and the Netherlands.

With Spain, the US had designs on Cuba for a very long time, dating back to the 1830's. Acquiring between 1830 and 1898 is a real possibility. It eventually took it in the Spanish American War. It's a matter of internal American politics that it didn't keep it. It could well have kept it, that's a very realistic possibility.

With the Netherlands, although this was a colonial power, it was relatively small. The United States could have hypothetically kicked it around or blackmailed it into selling off. The Netherlands was not desperate for cash, so it wasn't going to sell voluntarily. However, the Netherlands had Britain and to a lesser extent France as allies. So you can't take the little dog without risking the big dogs.

France up until 1939 was a world power. The United States had zero chance of taking or forcing the sale of its Caribbean or Guiana possessions. And France likely was not going to be in the mood to sell.

Britain was the Caribbean big dog, holding Jamaica, Guyana, Belize and the major part of the Lesser Antilles. They're not going to sell, they can't be forced or coerced.

Sorry, but no bribing or kicking around the European powers. The US with the Spanish American war went after the weakest and easiest of them. Everything else was out of America's desired weight class.

The United States might acquire the Dominican Republic and the Yucatan, there were annexationist sentiments there. Nicaragua, from William Walker's filibuster. Panama, if Teddy was a little more brutal.

Haiti, despite a long occupation, pretty unrealistic.

That's it for the region.

Well if the US grabs Canada when Britain eventually gives up their Caribbean bits they might try to join the US like they tried to join Canada OTL.
 
So I made this a while ago for a 75 state USA... and I believe that this is essentially the maximum extant possible sans union with Australia-New Zealand and/or South Africa... And of course this also assumes that Canada is lost. which at this point, likely wouldn't be.

75_state_usa_by_09camaro-d5ftmrk.jpg
 
Why Kamchatka?

For shit & giggles?

To make sure no one gets those 7 units a turn from Asia and protect Alaska so the US can secure it's 5 units a turn from North America.

Interestingly enough, during the discussion for the purchase of Alaska, the Russian Far East was also put on the table.

Why we rejected it, I will never no.

Oh, and I forgot Yucatan. If not for the lies of a SINGLE PERSON, we would have annexed it.
 
Interestingly enough, during the discussion for the purchase of Alaska, the Russian Far East was also put on the table.

Why we rejected it, I will never no.

Oh, and I forgot Yucatan. If not for the lies of a SINGLE PERSON, we would have annexed it.

Do you have the links for that? I'd love to read that; sounds like an interesting story. I know that there was an English-speaking population in Chukotka simply due to trade with the US/British.

And looking at the border for Mexico, I don't think it'd go that far south. (Or, perhaps, in different places. Zacatecas had some separatist notions, but southern Sinaloa and Durango might be pushing it too far. The US would probably draw a straight line, too, for ease of decisions) And, for that, you may have to have the help of the Rio Grande Republic in some form or another. Perhaps in a timeline where Quebec joins the US as well, and the Constitution becomes a little bit looser. That way the US will have a major non-English Catholic population to (perhaps) moderate its feelings towards New Spain.
 
Pretty much the entire Caribbean is in the US' grasp. You could also add Yucatan.

Personally I think it's pretty alien space bats for the US to keep Liberia or the Philippines long term.

Hmmmm, once given that the USA has become an Empire why would it NOT join the scramble for colonies in Asia and Africa?
 
Certainly the Dominican Republic. Nicaragua and Panama probably, too.

Likely so for the Dominican Republic and Panama, but Nicaragua holds no attraction for plantation agriculture or much of a strategic location. Guatemala/ Brit Honduras would be a more likely acquisition perhaps after 1900 for plantation agriculture.
 
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Especially with contiguous territories, like Mexico/Central America would be, you'd have the eventual issue of statehood with large enough populations and meeting other criteria. ..........................


only if one assumes that something like the current 'progressive' evolution in the USA is unavoidable...................otherwise a two-tier system of States for Anglo-Saxons and permanent territory or commonwealth status (aka Puerto Rico) status for acquistions with large native populations and no 14th amendment as we currently interperate in play.
 
Alaska bonus.

You can throw Wrangel Island and environs for a change, I believe, US for some time had designs for it, but Soviets eventually disagreed.

As for Far East of Siberia, while not very likely, there are few possibilities.
Kamchatka may be taken by British in Crimean War and then occupied by Japan in WWII which would lead to US occupation later.

Far East Republic never joined Soviet Russia, got gobbled by Japan and freed by US in WWII.

Chukotka as already mentioned had a presence of US traders and may apply for US protection during the Russian Civil War.
 

jahenders

Banned
Add:
Northern Mexico
PI
Several additional Pacific islands
Cuba, plus several other in Caribbean
Part of Panama
Western Canada and possibly some Atlantic areas
Greenland

N. Mexico might be 4-8 states, Cuba 1-2, Canada 4-6, Panama 1, 2-3 other states, several remain territories

So, you wind up with 60-70 states, control of the Panama Canal, a string of bases across the Pacific and the Carribean
 
As to the French islands in the Caribbean (Guadeloupe, Martinique, St. Martin, and St. Barts), have the 1939 Airplanes for Colonies deal with France go through. It also would have included French territories in the South Pacific, namely French Polynesia, Wallis & Futuna, and New Caledonia.
 
When it comes to the US annexing Canada "realistically" how would that have come about?

Would the British at some point have just ceded the land to the US or would the US have defeated Britain in a war?

IOTL I believe there were a number of American politicians who advocated annexing Canada but confronting the British was seen as too much.

While it may seem the opposite (due to how culturally similar the two nations are) I think the US annexing most of Mexico was probably much more feasible.
 
When it comes to the US annexing Canada "realistically" how would that have come about?

Would the British at some point have just ceded the land to the US or would the US have defeated Britain in a war?

IOTL I believe there were a number of American politicians who advocated annexing Canada but confronting the British was seen as too much.

While it may seem the opposite (due to how culturally similar the two nations are) I think the US annexing most of Mexico was probably much more feasible.

The only possible way would be for the Canadians themselves to support American annexation, preferably before or during the revolution since afterwards they built part of their identity on being non-American and were filled with many loyalist immigrants from down south. Otherwise America will never have the military might to defeat Britain for it, and when it does eventually have the military capacity it won't have the political will to annex such a close ally and alienate itself to the whole world.
 
It's been done before. In Post-1900 sub-forum too. I think.

It was done magnificently in Calbear's Anglo/American - Nazi War TL: the Nazis defeat the Soviet Union, which nominally sticks on in Siberia but effectively falls apart. The United States lands at Vladivostok to keep the peace and protect supply lines... and by the time the war's over, they end up annexing all the Pacific coast of Russia as a territory. Eventually, it gains statehood as "Western Alaska."

So for the maximum expansion of territory, start with that TL. A decade or so after the war ends, the "Atomic Four" divide up Antarctica (never mentioned in the TL), giving the United States a quarter of it. We diverge in the 1980's, as America is planning the space program: instead of a joint American-British landing in 1987, it's solely an American landing. Twenty years or so later, once some random PoD causes relations with Britain to sour, America annexes the Moon.

Boom - the entire OTL US, plus a quarter of Siberia, plus a quarter of Antarctica, plus the entire Moon.
 
The only possible way would be for the Canadians themselves to support American annexation, preferably before or during the revolution since afterwards they built part of their identity on being non-American and were filled with many loyalist immigrants from down south. Otherwise America will never have the military might to defeat Britain for it, and when it does eventually have the military capacity it won't have the political will to annex such a close ally and alienate itself to the whole world.

First, the Canadian national identity did not exist until WWI. Before WWI Canada was a box containing the lost pieces of other jigsaw puzzles; plenty of people living in Canada were just as likely to consider themselves Irish, English, Scottish, Welsh, French, or something else before they would even conceive the idea of calling themselves themselves Canadian. And a lot of the people who would consider themselves Canadian weren't entirely keen on the idea of answering to the British Crown.

Second, any timeline where rapprochement between the U.S. and the UK never happens alters the global political climate enough for a complete annexation to occur after a war between the U.S. and UK. If there was no rapprochement America's most likely friends would have been Russia and Germany, who would both be perfectly fine with America annexing Canada, and would probably find it weird if America didn't annex Canada after a successful war with the UK. And please remember, it wasn't until after WWII that it became an international faux pas to annex the territory of a defeated nation. Without decolonization (which was after WWII) the only nations that mattered that would have disapproved of an annexation would be the British and possibly the French, and they would have already been on America's blacklist before the war that ended in Canada's annexation.

As for Mitchell Hundred's original question, there were a lot of different points of departure before the Great Rapprochement that could have resulted in the annexation of part or all of Canada. Most of those are the end result of a war. Part of the reason the British Empire attempted rapprochement with the U.S. was because the Empire's military leaders began to realize after the American Civil War that their would be no way to keep America from taking Canada in a war. This is also part of the reason the Empire created the Canadian government after the ACW; the politicians in London were concerned that if they didn't do something to craft a national identity for the provinces in British North America then the people would become Americans do to simple proximity and cultural inertia.

If you have a point of departure where there is no Great Rapprochement between the U.S.A. and the British Empire, then the odds of a war starting that ends with Canada's annexation steadily increases as America's growth causes it to clash with British interests world wide.
 
British establishment manage to join acw on the wrong side.

They lose, mainly because of divisions at home

US picks up Canada and some Carribean islands
 
See, this is why I hate the policy on not being allowed to post in threads older than 6 months. We have plenty of threads that ask this exact question and get great answers, but they’re “forbidden” from posting.

OTL without any changes to the way events transpired: Canada, Mexico to the Tropic of Cancer, Cuba, Hispaniola, Panama, Liberia, Kamchatka, and North Borneo

ATLs with slight changes: more of southern North America than above, Namaqualand

Post links to them. That works.

Speaking of which

Decades of Darkness (Multi-page thread 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ... Last Page)
Jared
 
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