The Best Possible World

More than two years ago, I've made an attempt to challenge this board to come up with the idea about how to create a much better world, here. It has bothered me ever since.

Now, I come up with some suggestions for an ATL, possibly the best possible world. The idea is to zoom in to 1848 and give a serious boost to the chances of liberalism and a better future in that most meaningful period.

a) In North America, liberal uprisings occur in the Canadian colonies in the mid-1840s (the OTL 1837 revolts are butterflied away), and they get a pro-US character. The USA intervenes to support the rebels and by an astonishing streak of military skill and luck the US forces inflict a decisive defeat to the British Empire. Canadian colonies willingly join the USA that annexes Rupert's Land, the North-West Territory, and Oregon-Columbia. The Mexican-American War takes place much like OTL but it leads to the US annexation of whole Mexico. US displays of military prowess and events in Europe drive Spain to sell Cuba and Puerto Rico to the USA. US filibustering activities lead to the creation of a pro-US union of Central America.

Some antagonism does build up between the free and slaveholding sections of the USA, but a sizable Dixie abolitionist movement also develops in parallel that condemns slavery as economically backward and immoral. The controversial Secession attempt meets strong resistance by Dixie Unionists and fizzles out after a few military clashes won by Union forces. Its defeat largely discredits racism and boosts US national consciousness. A peace compromise provides for compensated emancipation of slaves, economic relief for the freedmen, and subsidies for the Blacks that are willing to resettle in the West, Liberia, and Haiti, lessening the socio-economic shock of emancipation on Dixie society. The emancipation process leads to the abolition of the peonage system in the Mexican section and the USA develops a multicultural attitude and assimilationism toward non-Whites. The US Constitution is amended to include an equivalent of the Reconstruction Amendments that also bans voting restrictions based on poll taxes and ethnic-linguistic discrimination. The Dominican Republic and Central America opt to join the USA.

b) Liberal-national near-simultaneous late-1840s revolutions triumph in Western-Central Europe and the power of the reactionary elites in Germany, Italy, and the Habsburg empire is broken. Grossdeutchsland, Italy, and the Danube Confederation (Greater Hungary, Croatia-Slavonia-Dalmatia, and Moldavia-Wallachia-Bukovina) unify in liberal-democratic federal states. Posen, Krakow, and Galicia form an independent Polish state. The Habsburg empire is divided between Germany (Austria proper, Bohemia-Moravia, South Tyrol, and Slovenia), Italy (Lombardy, Veneto, Trentino, the Austrian Littoral, and Fiume), Poland (Galicia), and the DC. France remains a liberal republic and the Bonapartist takeover is averted. The Low Countries experience a liberal revolution of their own (the OTL 1830 Belgian Revolution is butterflied away) and get more or less peacefully divided between Wallonia that joins France, a Dutch-Flemish state, and Luxemburg that joins Germany. After the victory of liberals in the Swiss civil war, the various linguistic areas of Switzerland split and are united with Germany, Italy, and France (Grisons joins Italy). A brief conflict between Germany, Denmark, and Sweden about Schleswig-Holstein ends in a compromise peace that gives Schleswig to Denmark and Holstein to Germany, and causes the formation of Scandinavia. France and Italy peacefully exchange Savoy and Corsica (Italy keeps Nice). German-speaking areas of Alsace-Lorraine join Germany after a successful nationalist uprising.

After the successful 1848 revolutions in France, Germany, Italy, and the Habsburg empire, a war occurs in the early-mid 1850s between a Franco-German-Italian-Danubian liberal-democratic alliance and reactionary Russia (quite possibly backed by an alliance of convenience with Britain, Spain, and Portugal). Scandinavia joins the liberal continental alliance in the last phase of the war to liberate Finland. The continental alliance triumphs, leading to the liberation of Russian Poland that joins independent Posen-Galicia Poland, Finland that joins Scandinavia, and Bessarabia that joins the Danubian Confederation. Spain and Portugal experience a liberal revolution, form Iberia, and join the liberal bloc. Wartime solidarity prods the latter to form a military alliance, a customs and currency union, and a political forum that cast the groundwork for European integration.

c) The influence of the 1848 events sweeps the Russian Empire, where a partially-successful liberal revolution takes place. Russia becomes a hybrid liberal-authoritarian constitutional monarchy similar to OTL Kaiserreich, serfs are emancipated, and the power of former reactionary elites is broken.

d) The Japanese modernization is anticipated by a generation, Japan conquers and assimilates Taiwan and Korea much like OTL, China undergoes its own Meiji-like modernization more or less on OTL Japan's schedule, the Russification of Outer Manchuria is butterflied away. Japan absorbs Korea and Taiwan and build itself up enough to be some counterweight to a modernized China (and vice versa, of course).

e) In South America, the breakup of Gran Colombia and Peru-Bolivia is butterflied away. A series of wars and revolutions in the Rio de La Plata region occurs that drive Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay to unite in a liberal federal republic, while Brazil experiences a liberal revolution that leads to the abolition of slavery. The liberal revolutionary wave sweeps Gran Colombia and Peru-Bolivia as well, turning them in liberal federal republics.

f) In Middle East, examples of liberal revolutions throughout the world resulted into successful modernization of the Ottoman Empire with federal autonomy for the Balkan nationalities. This, of course, butterflied away Islamist Radicalism and Terrorism.

g) The world's major powers, now dominated by liberal and federal political entities, didn't engage in direct imperialism in Africa and the rest of OTL Third World. "Informal empire" is a much preferred (and better) choice. Various native African and Asian states that have been annihilated during OTL Age of Colonialism survive and keep their independence.

h) And finally, no World Wars, ever.

Granted, it borders ASB territory, but like someone said, if the chain of events could have happened, it's possible. Things should only be labeled ASB if there are aliens or magic or time travel.

So, thoughts? Opinions?
 
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Now, I come up with some suggestions for an ATL, possibly the best possible world. The idea is to zoom in to 1848 and give a serious boost to the chances of liberalism and a better future in that most meaningful period.

a) In North America, liberal uprisings occur in the Canadian colonies in the mid-1840s (the OTL 1837 revolts are butterflied away), and they get a pro-US character. The USA intervenes to support the rebels and by an astonishing streak of military skill and luck the US forces inflict a decisive defeat to the British Empire. Canadian colonies willingly join the USA that annexes Rupert's Land, the North-West Territory, and Oregon-Columbia. The Mexican-American War takes place much like OTL but it leads to the US annexation of whole Mexico. US displays of military prowess and events in Europe drive Spain to sell Cuba and Puerto Rico to the USA. US filibustering activities lead to the creation of a pro-US union of Central America.
And the Native Americans are still screwed...
 
And the Native Americans are still screwed...
The only way for Native Americans to not be screwed is if the ASB build impenetrable and indestructible giant walls surrounding the entire New World before any contact is made with the Old World.

That, or if the ASB gives all Native Americans immunity of Old World's diseases.

However, if you have another suggestion, I'd like to know.
 
The Earth collides with an Alien Space Bat, knocking it juuuuust far enough from the sun to doom agriculture. Settlements never develop, humans remain hunter-gatherers.
 
a) In North America, liberal uprisings occur in the Canadian colonies in the mid-1840s (the OTL 1837 revolts are butterflied away), and they get a pro-US character. The USA intervenes to support the rebels and by an astonishing streak of military skill and luck the US forces inflict a decisive defeat to the British Empire. Canadian colonies willingly join the USA that annexes Rupert's Land, the North-West Territory, and Oregon-Columbia.

This displays a fundamental lack of understanding of Canadian history. And it also apparently makes the assumption that Canada is a worse place than the US, or that being a part of it would make it better, both of which are wrong.
 
Borderline ASB? That's being a tad (read: ridiculously) kind.

No offense, but it literally hurts my eyes to read this.
 
More than two years ago, I've made an attempt to challenge this board to come up with the idea about how to create a much better world, here. It has bothered me ever since.

The problem with this premise as a whole is that adjacent countries within a region often had conflicting interests for centuries, if not millennia, and it will be essentially impossible to resolve them by claiming that several main butterflies will benefit them, and eventually the world, as a whole. In general, a minority of countries will gain at the cost of the majority, which doesn't exactly help to create a better picture in the long run. Most of the issues presented concern deeply ingrained ones which took centuries to accumulate, so they will essentially require a major PoD centuries earlier to even consider untangling them, or somehow preventing them in the first place. For example:

d) The Japanese modernization is anticipated by a generation, Japan conquers and assimilates Taiwan and Korea much like OTL, China undergoes its own Meiji-like modernization more or less on OTL Japan's schedule, the Russification of Outer Manchuria is butterflied away. Japan absorbs Korea and Taiwan and build itself up enough to be some counterweight to a modernized China (and vice versa, of course).

Taiwan benefited significantly due to Japan's industrialization policies, as it originally lacked a consolidated government due to numerous autonomous local entities, but the same logic does not apply to Korea. Korea had retained a homogenous culture for more than 3000 years, which was why the Japanese initially faced widespread resistance, and the colonizers were forced to brutally suppress uprisings by implementing torture without any restrictions. From 1925-1937, well before the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese also systematically rewrote Korean history, in which numerous records were destroyed, altered, and/or reanalyzed in order to dehumanize Koreans. The rise of the military faction by the 1930s did accelerate the colonization process already in place, but the fact that laws implemented since 1910 mainly targeted the suppression of culture and education, along with redistribution of land and exploitation of resources, suggests that Japanese colonization in any situation would severely limit Korea's capabilities in the long run. Infrastructure built from 1910-45 did bring some improvements, but they were mostly nullified due to the widespread destruction during the Korean War.
 
Your problem is that you have all these revolutions going on that perfectly end in stable, liberal states, something that very rarely happened. I also find it strange why you don't use Britain, the most powerful country in the world during the 19th Century in this.

I'd recommend more liberal reform in Britain during the 18th Century, and then France managing to stay a constitutional monarchy during the 1790s. The two of them could then intervene in 1848 Germany to protect the emerging liberal order. You'd probably need enlightened rulers to do the job in Austria and Russia, but with that you have all the major powers there.
 
Apart from losing Canada, the UK and the British Empire apparently do nothing to oppose the USA's rise to continental hegemon.

The USA controlling Mexico and Central America would not be a pretty sight

"Liberal" nations still went to war in WW1 - why wouldn't they be afflicted by the curse of nationalism in this time line.

Why is a "liberal" nation not a coloniser - particulalry since they have the "informal empire" of USA to learn from (and France was a "liberal democracy" after Napoleon III)
 
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