WI the WRE holds on to Italy and survives

As the questions says with a POD after the Roman Empire is divided make the WRE survive with their Italian and Dalmatian holdings.:D
 
Italy and Dalmatia alone aren't going to have enough resources to live on their own : eventually you'd have a puppetised WRE by its eastern counterpart, if not gradually swallowed up.

Keeping Africa as part of the WRE is really the vital minimum for his survival, in order to have a rich province untouched by most troubles and able to supply with grain and fiscal income (a bit like Syria and Egypt did for ERE).

A still existing WRE doesn't mean it wouldn't harbor Barbarians, especially military speaking, so you'd certainly have to look something close to Orestus, Odoacer or even Theodoric's Italy to have an idea on what it would look like.
Basically a greater actor in most of its former provinces, especially Gaul and Spain, with certainly an interventionist mood (more true for the former).

As such, we could see the Gothic hegemony in Gaul and Spain being butterflied away and Romans keeping Narbonensis, Tarraconensis, Provence and Auvergne (while possibly giving up the latter as they did historically, for a more convenient stuff).
It's possible that more isolated Roman holdings (Northern Gaul, part of Spain) would, without being conquered by Barbarians (at least in a first time) would be more treated as part of a sphere of influence rather than part of the WRE.

That's said, I could still see it being politically troubled by political interventionism of his stronger counterpart, trying to "benevolently advise" it.

For long term consequences, it's really hard to say. I would see Romano-Barbarian kingdoms being still considered part of Romania, but living on their own sometimes allies, opponent or indifferent about Ravenna.
Sort of sub-kingdoms not unlike they existed within Romano-Barbarian kingdoms themselves IOTL : large autonomy if not independence de facto, tendency to have their own policies and expansions.
 
Italy and Dalmatia alone aren't going to have enough resources to live on their own : eventually you'd have a puppetised WRE by its eastern counterpart, if not gradually swallowed up.

Keeping Africa as part of the WRE is really the vital minimum for his survival, in order to have a rich province untouched by most troubles and able to supply with grain and fiscal income (a bit like Syria and Egypt did for ERE).

I don't see why; Italy and Dalmatia are perfectly capable of supporting a viable state, and the Ostrogothic Kingdom did fine with those territories. Sure they ended up being conquered by the Byzantines, but that took a good twenty years to complete, and had the Goths played their cards better there's no reason they couldn't have won. As long as the Western Emperors show a modicum of sense, their realm should be perfectly viable as an independent state.
 
I don't see why; Italy and Dalmatia are perfectly capable of supporting a viable state, and the Ostrogothic Kingdom did fine with those territories.
Ostrogothic Kingdom beneficied from a regional stabilisation context and was able to project its power in Spain with benefits.
Gothic Wars still show they were vulnerable to foreign pressure : would have they more ressources, they could have pushed back Byzantines more definitively rather than a twenty-years wars with waves and counter-waves (on this regard, I think Byzantines are more to blame than Goths for bad strategical distribution and conceptions)

Furthermore, and why may be more important, we're talking of a Roman imperial state and not a post-imperial state. Meaning that a surviving WRE would still have conception of sovereignty over places in Romano-Barbarian kingdoms and in order to survive institutionally, would have to intervene as much as realistically possible (and overall act as an imperial power) in order to keep living to the imperial model.

I think that should an emperor turn full "isolationist", it would backfire among senatorial elite that would label him and provoke a claimant more disposed to intervene outside Italy to be favoured.
I would point Julius Nepos short reign to point that lack of ressources and income made him extremely dependent from Eastern Roman support, and at least in a first time (before the aformentioned stabilisation really produce its effects), it would be an important matter for the WRE to be as independent economically as it could be done.
 
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