Ties in with the books I was asking about earlier. The divergence point is the American purchase of Alaska; supposedly, the Russians also half-seriously offered parts of Kamchatka, since the USA was buying useless frozen wildernesses anyway. As the map below suggests, the prospect of having an actual land border with the Bolsheviks did wonders for the USA’s willingness to set up a White Russian client state in the region*…
Don’t get too excited, though: I have at least three books in the way before I can get to this one. Possibly four.
*I’m also taking the liberty of swapping out Woodrow Wilson’s Vice President for someone with a spine.
Someone with a spine willingly serving in the Wilson abomination*, makes them an actively awful person.
*Otto Korrect preferred that word to “administration”. I considered his point, and ceded the argument.
Fair, but they almost had a hardcore anti-Klan, anti-Prohibitionist Senator from Alabama as Wilson’s VP, instead of the amiable dishrag who ended up letting Edith Wilson stage a coup for a couple of years.
I would wonder how well the Russian Imperial Republic would function. That’s a lot of inhospitable land, so it’s not going to support a lot of population. I’d expect the population to be concentrated south, with most of that territory under nominal control. (going from memory while stiff getting caffeine levels up to nominal – maybe there’s something to make it a viable independent entity)
Indeed, along the much-reduced Amur River frontage there is the only hospitable land in that swath, and still includes the modern city of Khabarovsk.
There isn’t a lot of population, particularly in the north. What is there are metric sh*t-tons of precious metals, which Japanese and American industries are increasingly exploiting. The Soviets would have only gotten around to exploiting the area in the 1930s; but then, Commies are useless and stupid. Business is booming, so it’s in the long-term interests of the USA to keep the RIR as a buffer state against the Bolsheviks: the Japanese agreed, but also decided that the Protectorate would be an additional security guarantee.
The RIR isn’t thrilled by this, and they really don’t like having Japanese and American military bases (to protect the mines and increasing number of factory complexes against ‘bandits’); but they need guns and food, and they can play the two larger nations against each other. It helps that the Soviets are an ongoing source of unrest and trouble.
With this context, it makes sense. I didn’t fully register the client state aspect of the original post. I blame the incomplete coffee dosing.
To quote Wikipedia: gold, silver, tin, tungsten, mercury, copper, antimony, coal, oil, and peat. And a clear sea route to Japan, whose industries rather badly want all these things.
The alure was there even in OTL, where the IJ Army faction wanted to invade Siberia and not provoke the US directly. Then they got stuffed by Zukhov in a border skirmish, signed that embarasing non-agression treaty, and the Navy faction plan won out with historic consequences.
Seing the Northern Stategy win out would also make a good Alt history.