US foreign policy with larger America.

[Krases]

So recently I have been playing with some world building ideas and one of them includes a large, geographically diverse continent dominated by a single massive country. This brought me to thinking about how US foreign relations would work if the country dominated everything north of the Darien Gap.

Through various means the US has managed to attain Canada and has managed to take over the entirety of central America and the Caribbean. Perhaps some islands could still remain in European hands or as separate entities (like Haiti). Assume these borders are established before 1900. How do US relations work with the rest of the world? With no Mexico, there would be no Zimmerman Telegram. With no Canada, US-British relations might have not been very strong. With illegal immigration from south america having to move through a very narrow and treacherous land route that could be much easier blocked and sea immigration being the only real option, there would be little flexibility for those seeking a new life from the south. The US is also just bigger in every way.

Would the US become more insular and neutral?

 

[TheMann]

I'm not sure how you'd get all of North America ruled from Washington, but I don't think it would remain insular. The main differences right off the bat will be cultural - Mexico and most of the Caribbean are Spanish-speaking nations and had been very firmly established by any time this would be possible (1880s at the earliest), so the conflict between Spanish-speaking and English-speaking Americans would be obvious. The potential of French-speakers in Quebec (and possibly Louisiana) would also exist. Mixing and matching the different cultures would be a massive challenge and would dominate the politics of this America. You'd have a considerably-bigger African American population out of this in addition to the Spanish speakers. Insular, maybe. That would be a result of the need to sort out political differences taking up the majority of the nation's attention. You will most definitely have a different America out of it, one which by its very nature will have to have much greater ideological debates about the world, simply because it will now be a nation without the assimilation of OTL (it would be impossible to assimilate Mexico or the Spanish-speaking areas of the Caribbean) and likely with multiculturalism early on (probably sometime early in the 20th Century) which would then probably result in a much bigger civil rights movement earlier on.

Assuming OTL's economics (which if anything that would be kicked into overdrive here - lots of resources in Canada and Mexico and some in the Caribbean and a lot more people who will be voting here), America will inevitably get involved in world affairs. Assuming the takeover of Canada is peaceful (quite likely), then Anglo-American relations are still going to be good, and if anything here America will need a much bigger navy earlier on and have much more resources doing it. America may stay out of WWI (or maybe not - the attack on the Lusitania might still happen), but its most definitely staying out of WWII. If anything, after the war, America's political differences will likely see it take a more cosmopolitan path, because unless there is a massive Spanish-speaking middle class in America by that point, which I think is possible but unlikely, there will be massive wishes in the post-war era to build a new country with prosperity for all, including the sizable populations of people of color in America, which would likely result in massive programs to advance the interests of the lower classes of American society, particularly as many of these people will have sacrificed as much as many and more than most during WWII.

End result - a likely country being more like OTL Canada than OTL America. This America will have the same two dominant cultures (OTL Canada has English and French speakers, TTL America will have English and Spanish speakers) and the development of a stronger society in the post-war era would probably see advancement of social systems not dissimilar from OTL Canada. I doubt that racial harmony will be all that common by this point, but having the collection of cultures and interests in this America will surely change the way they look at issues and look at the world.

 

[Evil Opus]

I think Spanish eventually gets pushed out by English. There's no way 19th century America accepts being bilingual, and the sheer amount of English-speaking American settlers in former Mexico would make English the dominant language of the area.

Even without the Zimmerman Telegram, U.S. intervention in World War I still happens. It was only a matter of time, and I think a case could be made that it happens even earlier than in OTL. This more imperial America might be more inclined to be involved in European affairs having successfully pushed all European powers off of the North American continent.

The United States would have an even larger economic advantage over the rest of the world than it does today, and perhaps even some African colonies. I also believe that dominating the continent would make the United States more likely to adopt an "imperial presidency" a la Nixon or Bush 43.

 

[Alamo]

I think Spanish eventually gets pushed out by English. There's no way 19th century America accepts being bilingual, and the sheer amount of English-speaking American settlers in former Mexico would make English the dominant language of the area.

I would say it largely depends on when the US gains control of Mexico and Central America. Historically, the bulk of the population there consisted of indios, who spoke a wide variety of native languages. A small creole elite, and a modestly sized mestizo populace spoke Spanish, but it didn't become dominant among the greater population until the late 1800s. So, if the US gains Mexico early on, you would likely see indios being taught English in schools instead of Spanish.

The pressures for monolingualism would be great, especially considering the highly fragmented nature of native langues being spoken. Remember, in the late 1700s, something like 40% of Pennsylvanians spoke German as a primary language. But even with an influx of German migrants in the 19th century, those numbers declined steadily over the next century among ethnic Germans.

So, you might wind up with English still being the primary national language, but with large numbers of regional native tongues, with Spanish simply being one of many, like French in Louisiana or Navajo in Arizona, rather than something standing alongside English as a major language.

 

[MattII]

I'm not sure how you'd get all of North America ruled from Washington...

Neither am I, America at the time was no warmonger, so unless the British (through the Canadians) and Mexicans do something catastrophically stupid, this isn't going to happen.

 

[Shogo]

I suppose as your first POD, you could have the future Americans successfully convince the future Canadians to join them in the Revolutionary War.

Though this would assume they still have an Articles of Confederation, said Articles work out terribly, and they respond by adopting something similar to OTL's Constitution.

As a later one, if you were to assume a Mexican-American War still happens . . . There were those in Congress pushing for the total annexation of Mexico OTL. Making more assumptions, namely that there might be a stronger sense of Manifest Destiny, you might see that outcome come to pass.

From there, by purchase or by conquest, it isn't exactly unthinkable that this Alt-USA grabs the rest of North America.

-------------

That said . . . The above does require a fair amount of assumptions that would likely be affected by butterflies.

 

[phx1138]

I don't think it would remain insular.

I'm less sure. With more internal conflict between regions, including Latino, indio, black, & Native, plus more internal resources (hydro, oil, & fresh water), I'd see this *U.S. being more self-sufficient longer.

I imagine things like BC diversion, James Bay diversion, & James Bay hydro happening sooner. If there's more or earlier industrialization, that's a certainty.

The biggie is the number of states. You're looking at upwards of 100.

One thing: this *U.S. is going to pioneer long-range air travel & bush airplanes on a scale hard to imagine. (Canada was a world leader in bushplanes, with a vastly smaller pop & GDP base.) Maybe high-speed rail happens sooner, too (building on the model of the OTL Denver Zephyr).

The main differences right off the bat will be cultural - Mexico and most of the Caribbean are Spanish-speaking nations and had been very firmly established by any time this would be possible (1880s at the earliest)

Earliest? Why? You count this inconceivable soon after the ARW ends? As, frex, Mexico breaks away from Spain? There were movements to join the U.S. OTL, mostly rejected by Congress; TTL, that could flip.

The potential of French-speakers in Quebec (and possibly Louisiana) would also exist.

Not possible: likely, IMO. Whether they'd keep a different legal system in *Quebec is another question.

Mixing and matching the different cultures would be a massive challenge and would dominate the politics of this America. You'd have a considerably-bigger African American population out of this in addition to the Spanish speakers. Insular, maybe. That would be a result of the need to sort out political differences taking up the majority of the nation's attention. You will most definitely have a different America out of it, one which by its very nature will have to have much greater ideological debates about the world, simply because it will now be a nation without the assimilation of OTL (it would be impossible to assimilate Mexico or the Spanish-speaking areas of the Caribbean) and likely with multiculturalism early on (probably sometime early in the 20th Century) which would then probably result in a much bigger civil rights movement earlier on.

I agree with a lot of this, but the discrimination against blacks (as opposed to Latins) could still be justified, couldn't it? (Wouldn't it?) I'm presuming a *Jim Crow starting point, here; that does depend on when the "takeover" happens.

It seems to me you could still see blacks being put at the bottom of the economic/social ladder, as they were for Irish immigrants OTL, only (TTL) below "Mexicans".

There's another side to it. Prohibition may end up looking more like the OTL drug war... What this means for *U.S. foreign policy is an open question, especially in relation to South America.

On the cultural side, what does this do to the development of jazz, blues, & R&R? I'm seeing a much stronger influence toward OTL tejano or mariachi, & much sooner. I'm also seeing a greater mixing of German/Polish, Scots/Irish, & Latin much sooner, so IMO R&R as we know it never happens. Indeed, we might have Country (OTL C/W, with a stronger Western influence) & Western (OTL tejano/hillbilly/rocakbilly/Western Swing). Does this butterfly the development of rag, jazz, & blues entirely?

Anglo-American relations are still going to be good

Maybe less so, as the *U.S. becomes a major power sooner, & seems to threaten RN dominance...

the attack on the Lusitania might still happen

That alone isn't going to provoke a *U.S. with internal cultural conflicts & a strong wish to stay out of European messes. Plus, TTL, with a much larger proportion of non-Brits in the public, & gov't, support for war to aid Britain &/or France is much lower. Even if the *U.S. is providing much of the money they're using to fight it (as OTL).

unless there is a massive Spanish-speaking middle class in America by that point, which I think is possible but unlikely

Why unlikely?

End result - a likely country being more like OTL Canada than OTL America.

Superpower Canada... I do think multiculturalism is going to be less popular than in Canada, but learning an additional language in school will be virtually mandatory (& may be required), possibly two.

One thing, tho. If this starts with BNA (or part of it) being one of the rebel colonies in 1776, & I see no reason it couldn't, what happens to the Loyalists?

having the collection of cultures and interests in this America will surely change the way they look at issues and look at the world.

I entirely agree with that. That, in turn, seems to reduce the tendency of "America the bully", with more cultural sensitivity in foreign affairs.

It also gives the *U.S. an enormous economic advantage, with greater grasp of culture & language of foreign markets...

if you were to assume a Mexican-American War still happens . . . There were those in Congress pushing for the total annexation of Mexico OTL. Making more assumptions, namely that there might be a stronger sense of Manifest Destiny, you might see that outcome come to pass.

This makes a lot of sense to me. Add the OTL inclination of Caribbean & Central American nations to want to join the U.S....

 

[MerryPrankster]

Given 19th Century attitudes about the U.S. being a white man's country, ruling over huge Indian/mestizo populations could be rather difficult. If anything, keeping Mexico (or at least the really populated areas) from turning into the West Bank to the US proper's Israel might require lots of bones being thrown to the Mexicans.

The U.S. might find it politically necessary to be hostile toward Britain longer--not only do you have the Irish controlling New York's votes, but you'd have Mexicans sympathetic to oppressed Catholics elsewhere. Plus, depending on what happens in Spain, there might be political pressure for the U.S. to get involved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_involvement_in_the_Spanish_Civil_War#Mexico

 

[Athelstane]

I do think that a larger United States is possible, quite possible given early enough points of departure.

I think a larger United States that includes Quebec, the Mexican Core, Central America or all of the Caribbean is quite unlikely.

More likely would be a successful American invasion of 1776, that would net the U.S. Upper Canada, with Lower Canada spun off as an independent Quebec - the Quebecois would not have been happy about being part of Anglophone America. That could possibly net the U.S. all of Central and Western Canada. Likewise, modest gains in (sparsely populated) Northern Mexico are possible (say, Baja California), and one could conceive of a Cuba acquisition in the 1850's. But there's not going to be support for assimilating the rest of Mexico and Central America. And much of the Caribbean remained under European control - by countries the U.S. would not be keen to go to war with.

Such a larger America would be different in some ways, but it would have many of the same geopolitical imperatives.

 

[Krases]

Some things to note: I find it really hard to see Quebec remaining independent from the US without the rest of Canada. And thats assuming the new border isn't along the St. Lawrence.

Another interesting thing is how the US population moves from the the midwest to the Southwest OTL (cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix appeared). TTL would likely see a good five to ten million people moving into Mexico instead of the desert southwest. Thats going to make the already strong cultural and economic push for English become even stronger.

 

[Alamo]

Given 19th Century attitudes about the U.S. being a white man's country, ruling over huge Indian/mestizo populations could be rather difficult. If anything, keeping Mexico (or at least the really populated areas) from turning into the West Bank to the US proper's Israel might require lots of bones being thrown to the Mexicans.

Depends a lot on when the POD is. You could have a US with a more successful assimilationist school of thought than OTL, so the race issues are reduced. And perhaps Mexico is gained after a war with Spain, rather than due to annexing an already independent Mexico. That alone would have major changes in how any US administration of that region would play out.

 

[TheMann]

Some things to note: I find it really hard to see Quebec remaining independent from the US without the rest of Canada. And thats assuming the new border isn't along the St. Lawrence.

I don't think Quebec is ever going to be a viable nation, as it was too small to be one in 1867 and the politics and economics of it haven't gotten any better since. Here, the US would quite likely treat Quebec separatists like they treated southern successionists - ignorance at worst and small negotiations at best during peacetime, and utterly crushing them if said conflict turns violent. That said, being as America's constitution happens to be fairly loose in terms of state's rights, I do think that many of Quebec's legal eccentricities would survive inside the United States.

Another interesting thing is how the US population moves from the the midwest to the Southwest OTL (cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix appeared). TTL would likely see a good five to ten million people moving into Mexico instead of the desert southwest. Thats going to make the already strong cultural and economic push for English become even stronger.

But there would already be millions of people there, very few of which are gonna have any interest in being told what to do by the white Yankees. Hence my point about the conflicts. If anything, that conflict may end up expanding the Spanish language, as the people there are more likely to work with the people who have lived among them for two centuries (the Spanish) over the equally-bigoted people who have just arrived (the white Americans). You might get English being the dominant language in all of North America if you started earlier, but America didn't become a nation until 1776 and they didn't control the whole continent in any real way until the 1870s, and the American Civil War and the settlement of the West after that war and the building of the transcontinental railroads will slow things down that much further.

 

[thekingsguard]

I think if the US managed to get all of this, English would come to be the main language across the country, albeit with a heavy salting of Spanish/Latin loan words.

As far as assimilation goes, one thing that hasn't been brought up is attracting additional outside immigration to Mexico and the Spanish speaking areas. Seeing as the region is majority Catholic, I could easily see it being a major destination for Italian, Irish, Fillipino and Polish immigrants, a side effect being that while helping assimilate the local language to English, they also help solidify the Catholic majority.

So we end up with a USA that is majority English speaking and majority Catholic in the long term.

Also, given we now share a direct border with them, what are the odds we try to encourage stabilization, development and unification in South America? With the US state of Panama just across the border, I could easily see Columbia encouraged to reunite Gran Columbia, to give us a more powerful, unified and developed neighbor, one that would be friendly to the US and US interests.

Or maybe we try and support Brazil or Argentina to do to South America what we did with North America.

Given time there may only be four or five nations in the Americas - maybe even just two!

 

[TheMann]

Given 19th Century attitudes about the U.S. being a white man's country, ruling over huge Indian/mestizo populations could be rather difficult. If anything, keeping Mexico (or at least the really populated areas) from turning into the West Bank to the US proper's Israel might require lots of bones being thrown to the Mexicans.

That's my point, and it causes all sorts of other issues. America of the late 19th Century and into the early 20th still hadn't really gotten the assimilation of peoples particularly down pat, if they throw a bunch of bones to Mexico and Central America, that's gonna raise problems with African Americans, who IOTL by the end of the 19th Century were a majority in many portions of the South and will be here in several of the new states - Cuba, Jamaica, the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic and many of the Windward Islands would have black majorities by 1900, which kinda led to my point about the civil rights movement kicking off earlier and being bigger, just because of the differences between the Mexicans and the white Americans. A late-1800s takeover of the continent I can see causing many of the minority communities - African Americans, French Quebecers, Native Americans (a lot more of them in this America) and other minority populations such as those from Eastern Europe - following the Mexicans' example and demanding rights of their own.

The U.S. might find it politically necessary to be hostile toward Britain longer--not only do you have the Irish controlling New York's votes, but you'd have Mexicans sympathetic to oppressed Catholics elsewhere. Plus, depending on what happens in Spain, there might be political pressure for the U.S. to get involved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_involvement_in_the_Spanish_Civil_War#Mexico

I agree on this front, but I think in this world it might also see the US paying more attention and potentially getting both more involved in the problems in Continental Europe for the same reasons.

 

[MattII]

Depends a lot on when the POD is. You could have a US with a more successful assimilationist school of thought than OTL, so the race issues are reduced. And perhaps Mexico is gained after a war with Spain, rather than due to annexing an already independent Mexico. That alone would have major changes in how any US administration of that region would play out.

This would however stick if well into the Pre-1900 forum.

 

[Tallest Skil]

Would the US become more insular and neutral?

In this scenario, yes.

But going by the title of the thread, it would depend on WHERE the US has been made larger. That could be more interesting.

The biggie is the number of states. You're looking at upwards of 100.

I'd think no more than 80 for the entire continent.

 

[Luciano]

The USNA looks good, but what would America want to do with all those lands? There were proposals for annexing Mexico, but they were discredited because people thought it'd bring too many mexicans into the Union.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_of_Mexico_Movement#All_Mexico

>Conversely, proponents of annexation of "All Mexico" regarded it as an anti-slavery measure.
Hmm. Perhaps we could have more territories becoming slave states before the war?

 

[Alamo]

This would however stick if well into the Pre-1900 forum.

The OP already says that US in their scenario would have expanded before 1900.

 

[Tallest Skil]

The USNA looks good, but what would America want to do with all those lands? There were proposals for annexing Mexico, but they were discredited because people thought it'd bring too many mexicans into the Union.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_of_Mexico_Movement#All_Mexico

Just not a good source, and it's not as relevant given the POD here.

 

[Luciano]

Just not a good source, and it's not as relevant given the POD here.

USNA still seems a bit implausible. But what the heck, OTL is ASB.