Could USA and Canada expand?

[JayhawkCO]

Could USA and Canada take some easternmost lands of Russia? More and more people are moving to European Russia, so this would be a good case. USA would take Chukotka and Canada would take Kamchatka and westernmost Aleutisn Islands from Alaska.

You're getting some non-serious responses because this is pretty much an impossibility. Any attempt to "take" land from Russia would result in a global war, and there's no plausible scenario under the current geopolitical climate by which Russia would voluntarily give up land.

But could Russia cede them peacefully to USA and Canada? I predict that Russia will break up to smaller countries in future.

I think we can all safely say that Russia doesn't do a whole hell of a lot peacefully.

[Rothman]

Could USA and Canada take some easternmost lands of Russia? More and more people are moving to European Russia, so this would be a good case. USA would take Chukotka and Canada would take Kamchatka and westernmost Aleutisn Islands from Alaska.

You're getting some non-serious responses because this is pretty much an impossibility. Any attempt to "take" land from Russia would result in a global war, and there's no plausible scenario under the current geopolitical climate by which Russia would voluntarily give up land.

But could Russia cede them peacefully to USA and Canada? I predict that Russia will break up to smaller countries in future.

I reiterate my sentiment about your imagination from earlier.

[NWI_Irish96]

Could USA and Canada take some easternmost lands of Russia? More and more people are moving to European Russia, so this would be a good case. USA would take Chukotka and Canada would take Kamchatka and westernmost Aleutisn Islands from Alaska.

You're getting some non-serious responses because this is pretty much an impossibility. Any attempt to "take" land from Russia would result in a global war, and there's no plausible scenario under the current geopolitical climate by which Russia would voluntarily give up land.

But could Russia cede them peacefully to USA and Canada? I predict that Russia will break up to smaller countries in future.

I think we can all safely say that Russia doesn't do a whole hell of a lot peacefully.

So at some point Putin dies, and then who knows what happens to Russia at that point. Still, I don't see any parts of Russia wanting to separate, but even if that somehow happened, whoever ends up with control of the easternmost sections of Russia is still going to want it. Chukotka has immense natural resources. Nobody is going to just give all that to the US or Canada. Even if the population of that region wanted to separate, nobody is going to let them.

[CtrlAltDel]

I was always under the impression that a large chunk of the west coast was doomed to slide off into the Pacific.  That would make the U.S. smaller, and arguably slightly more united.

I do not believe that this is what's going on. Rather, Los Angeles and San Francisco are moving closer to one another.

[1995hoo]

^^^^

I'm still waiting to profit on my investment in future oceanfront property in Otisburg.

[JayhawkCO]

Could USA and Canada take some easternmost lands of Russia? More and more people are moving to European Russia, so this would be a good case. USA would take Chukotka and Canada would take Kamchatka and westernmost Aleutisn Islands from Alaska.

You're getting some non-serious responses because this is pretty much an impossibility. Any attempt to "take" land from Russia would result in a global war, and there's no plausible scenario under the current geopolitical climate by which Russia would voluntarily give up land.

But could Russia cede them peacefully to USA and Canada? I predict that Russia will break up to smaller countries in future.

I think we can all safely say that Russia doesn't do a whole hell of a lot peacefully.

So at some point Putin dies, and then who knows what happens to Russia at that point. Still, I don't see any parts of Russia wanting to separate, but even if that somehow happened, whoever ends up with control of the easternmost sections of Russia is still going to want it. Chukotka has immense natural resources. Nobody is going to just give all that to the US or Canada. Even if the population of that region wanted to separate, nobody is going to let them.

The only parts I could see wanting to separate are Chechnya and Dagestan, no where near the East. Maaaaaybe Kaliningrad.

[Max Rockatansky]

I was always under the impression that a large chunk of the west coast was doomed to slide off into the Pacific.  That would make the U.S. smaller, and arguably slightly more united.

I do not believe that this is what's going on. Rather, Los Angeles and San Francisco are moving closer to one another.

This is correct.  You can see evidence in this in the form of Monterey Bay Canyon which is thought to have been the mouth of the Colorado River before the Sierra Nevadas rose to their present height.  From what I recall it is thought that the canyon originates from the vicinity of Santa Barbara.  You can also see similar evidence of the plates sliding past each other at Pinnacles National Park.

[wanderer2575]

^^^^
I'm still waiting to profit on my investment in future oceanfront property in Otisburg.

Idiot.  You should have gone with Teschmacher Peaks or Marina del Lex.

[Bruce]

I was always under the impression that a large chunk of the west coast was doomed to slide off into the Pacific.  That would make the U.S. smaller, and arguably slightly more united.

Sure, and getting rid of Arkansas would make us smarter and healthier. /s

[skluth]

Could USA and Canada take some easternmost lands of Russia? More and more people are moving to European Russia, so this would be a good case. USA would take Chukotka and Canada would take Kamchatka and westernmost Aleutisn Islands from Alaska.

You're getting some non-serious responses because this is pretty much an impossibility. Any attempt to "take" land from Russia would result in a global war, and there's no plausible scenario under the current geopolitical climate by which Russia would voluntarily give up land.

But could Russia cede them peacefully to USA and Canada? I predict that Russia will break up to smaller countries in future.

I think we can all safely say that Russia doesn't do a whole hell of a lot peacefully.

So at some point Putin dies, and then who knows what happens to Russia at that point. Still, I don't see any parts of Russia wanting to separate, but even if that somehow happened, whoever ends up with control of the easternmost sections of Russia is still going to want it. Chukotka has immense natural resources. Nobody is going to just give all that to the US or Canada. Even if the population of that region wanted to separate, nobody is going to let them.

The only parts I could see wanting to separate are Chechnya and Dagestan, no where near the East. Maaaaaybe Kaliningrad.

Chechnya and Dagestan are majority Muslim, have tiny Russian populations, and have had ongoing separatist movements since the Soviet breakup, so it would be no surprise if either left Russia. The Kaliningrad Oblast exclave has a large majority of Russians, having exported almost all the Germans and Poles from the former Königsberg after WWII; I'd be very surprised if they left Russia but it's not out of the question. The Japanese can forget about Sakhalin Island too as that's one of the few places in Russia that is growing in population.

There are probably unknown massive (and lucrative) mineral deposits in Eastern Russia. It also contains Pleistocene Park where Russians plan to reintroduce the wooly mammoth and recreate the Ice Age Mammoth Steppe. There is no way Russia would sell much less freely give up land in Siberia.

[triplemultiplex]

The future stability of the Russian Federation is very much in question, in my opinion, as negative repercussions from Putin's disastrous invasion reverberate.  But I don't see any scenario where any part of the current Russia is interested in joining the US or Canada.  And I don't see there being any big desire for interests in either of those countries to pursue territorial expansion that direction in any of our lifetimes.

I do however find it plausible that a future country made out of most of eastern Russia pivots into becoming a strong Western ally because we helped them fight off a Chinese invasion.  A collapse of Russia will create several weaker states, some of which could prove a tempting target to China as they face down their own resource limitations and troublesome demographic changes this century.

What's missing here is that the United States doesn't do that kind of empire; ones where you forcibly take the land you want for yourself.  The US relies mostly on soft power, using it's economic might with a little nudge and a wink at their big-ass military to gain and maintain friends and allies.

The actual wars fought by Americans post WWII are the exceptions, not the rule.  It's far less messy to foment a coup than send in the Marines to get what you want.  Or in other cases, slap down a nice juicy weapons deal on the table.  That's what I mean by "soft power."

[jp the roadgeek]

If we take Russia, does that mean we can expand the Interstate system, a la Alanland?

Which even is Alanland? And Chukotka, such sparsely populated area would have just some state highways. But takings form other continents and man-made islands should have extensions of east-west highways and new north-south highways.

One does not simply know what Alanland is. But also knowing what Alanland is, is a law in Alanland.

For the benefit of Poiponen13, whose profile shows 43 posts: You have inadvertently stumbled into a long-running inside joke, as it were. Read the original 82-page thread. Or don't.

I don't understand anything related to "Alanland".

As I said, "You have inadvertently stumbled into a long-running inside joke ...." Don't bother trying to understand it. Just accept it.

May Goat Jesus enlighten you as to what Alanland is and isn't.

[Rothman]

^^^^

I'm still waiting to profit on my investment in future oceanfront property in Otisburg.

OTISBURG?!

[Max Rockatansky]

^^^^

I'm still waiting to profit on my investment in future oceanfront property in Otisburg.

OTISBURG?!

As an aside I would be curious to find out what a 500 Megaton Nuclear explosion would do.  That's about ten times the power put out by Tsar Bomba.

Sadly Nukemap only goes up to 100 Megatons:

https://nukemap.org/nukemap/

Suffice to say 500 Megatons would put out enough radiation to render Casa de Lex and Otisburg uninhabitable anyways from massive amounts of fallout.   

[kphoger]

For the benefit of Poiponen13, whose profile shows 43 posts: You have inadvertently stumbled into a long-running inside joke, as it were. Read the original 82-page thread. Or don't.

I don't understand anything related to "Alanland".

In the 15 minutes between those two posts, I doubt you had time to read very much of the thread, so I'm not surprised you don't understand.

Carve out an hour or so, sit down, and read through the first 20 pages.  It gets pretty tedious after that, and most things that there are to understand can be gleaned from the first 20 pages.

[kkt]

Could USA and Canada take some easternmost lands of Russia? More and more people are moving to European Russia, so this would be a good case. USA would take Chukotka and Canada would take Kamchatka and westernmost Aleutian Islands from Alaska.

"Take" ? Not likely.

And man-made islands could be built west of Pacific Coast.

I was always under the impression that a large chunk of the west coast was doomed to slide off into the Pacific.  That would make the U.S. smaller, and arguably slightly more united.

You were under the wrong impression.  Continental plate does meet oceanic plate along the San Andreas Fault. But oceanic plate is LIGHTER than continental plate.  Neither plate is going to sink into the ocean.  The Oceanic plate is moving north along the continental plate with earthquakes every few years, so neither plate is sinking.  But if one of them had to, it would be the REST of North America, not the extreme west coast.  Sorry if that disappoints anyone.

[US 89]

Could USA and Canada take some easternmost lands of Russia? More and more people are moving to European Russia, so this would be a good case. USA would take Chukotka and Canada would take Kamchatka and westernmost Aleutian Islands from Alaska.

“Take”? Not likely.

And man-made islands could be built west of Pacific Coast.

I was always under the impression that a large chunk of the west coast was doomed to slide off into the Pacific.  That would make the U.S. smaller, and arguably slightly more united.

You were under the wrong impression.  Continental plate does meet oceanic plate along the San Andreas Fault. But oceanic plate is LIGHTER than continental plate.  Neither plate is going to sink into the ocean.  The Oceanic plate is moving north along the continental plate with earthquakes every few years, so neither plate is sinking.  But if one of them had to, it would be the REST of North America, not the extreme west coast.  Sorry if that disappoints anyone.

Oceanic crust is denser than continental crust. That is why convergent plate boundaries between the two are usually subduction zones where the oceanic plate slides beneath the continental one, often creating mountains and a volcanic arc on the continental plate. Prime example: the Cascadia subduction zone off the Pacific Northwest where the Juan de Fuca plate slides beneath the North American Plate - which is why the Cascades are full of large volcanoes.

This doesn't apply to the San Andreas for a couple reasons. One is that it's what is called a transform boundary or strike-slip fault, where the two plates simply grind past each other, instead of a convergent boundary where they move towards each other. Secondly, even though most of the Pacific Plate is ocean, pretty much any land in California is continental crust.

(I had to take 2-3 geology classes in college in order to get my meteorology degree. The stuff was interesting but I certainly wouldn't have wanted to make a career out of it.)

[oscar]

I was always under the impression that a large chunk of the west coast was doomed to slide off into the Pacific.  That would make the U.S. smaller, and arguably slightly more united.

You were under the wrong impression.  Continental plate does meet oceanic plate along the San Andreas Fault.

Yeah, lots of jokes, a few songs like "Day After Day (It's Slipping Away)", and bad movies about that possibility. I've contributed to the jokes, such as by noting on this forum that the California town of San Andreas is not only nowhere near that fault, but also is in the part of California that will not fall into the ocean. 

[J N Winkler]

The Russian idea of national security (as one wag puts it) is Russians in charge in all of the countries that border Russia.  So I think further sacrifices of territory will not be on the table even when Putin goes.

Another aspect is that, these days, First World countries usually try to integrate territory they take over into their respective polities--naked resource grabs tend to be considered too great a threat to the international order.  From this point of view, Russian Siberia is more trouble than it is worth because it has far too much population on permafrost (the three other Arctic powers--Canada, the US, and Norway--are better off in this regard).  Even in the west, Finnish irredentism (Greater Karelia) never gains traction simply because it would be a headache to assimilate a largely elderly Russian-speaking population.

[Scott5114]

I don't think Canadian or American expansion into eastern Russia is very plausible. Any conflict between the United States and Russia would be such an earth-shaking geopolitical event that anything going on in Siberia and other eastern territories would be small potatoes. Nobody much cares about Kamchatka when the US would probably just go straight into trying to take Moscow. (Who knows whether this is accurate or just dick measuring, but a US general has been quoted as saying that if Russia tried to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, the entire Russian army, and not just the part in Ukraine, would be wiped from the globe in 72 hours.)

About the only way the US would get involved in Kamchatka and eastern Siberia is if Russia used it as a launching point to invade Alaska. Some members of the State Duma (the Russian legislature) have called for such an invasion, though it's generally assumed that it's posturing to score political points and to try to impress Putin. The general American response is to laugh it off.

If the Russian Federation breaks up, it's probably more likely that eastern Siberia is annexed by China than anyone else. Those lands were historically claimed by the Chinese, and would be much easier to administer from Beijing than Ottawa or Washington. As J.N. Winkler notes, even the concept of Karelia rejoining OP's country of Finland isn't really seriously considered to be a desirable thing by Finland; the territory was mostly  repopulated with ethnic Russians from other parts of the Soviet Union after being annexed, making integration difficult, and quite a lot of money would have to be spent bringing infrastructure up to Finnish standards after nearly a century of Soviet and Russian rule.

[Rothman]

The idea that the Russian Army could be wiped out in 72 hours without a cost to the U.S. as well brings to mind Gen. Buck Turgidson claiming millions of lives lost as acceptable.

Our handling of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't exactly confidence-inspiring.

[brad2971]

We took the Philippines for almost five decades. It's not impossible. That said, we didn't treat them well, so it might not be worth it.

Also, if Russia loses, why would countries uninvolved in the war take their land?

As far as whether or not we treated the Philippines poorly: On the one hand, we didn't cede control of the Philippines' military until Nixon's term in office, and didn't leave Clark AB and Subic Bay until 1992. On the other hand, we helped educate the Philippines enough to have large numbers of their citizens perform call center duties for US companies. So, YMMV.

[kkt]

The idea that the Russian Army could be wiped out in 72 hours without a cost to the U.S. as well brings to mind Gen. Buck Turgidson claiming millions of lives lost as acceptable.

Our handling of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't exactly confidence-inspiring.

Russia still has a lot of nuclear weapons.  Even if half of them didn't work, the remaining half would be plenty to give the rest of the world a very bad day.

[brad2971]

As far as this silly notion that the Russian Federation is going to break up in response to their military disaster in Ukraine: We would do well to remember that this Russo-Ukraine War is the first near-peer war in human history in which BOTH near-peers each had a Total Fertility Rate below 2.0 (Russia-around 1.5. Ukraine-around 1.3). Russia, very likely, isn't going to be giving up any more land beyond what they took from Ukraine over the last eight years, mainly because no one around them has the extra male surplus to hold and sustain pieces of Russian land. Even China, with the same TFR as the US, doesn't have this capability.

If "demography is destiny," the land threats both Ukraine and Russia face are going to be more likely from Turkey and most Near and Middle Eastern nations. Iran, despite various economic sanctions over the decades, still has a TFR around 2.15, and has developed a robust defense industry. Same with Turkey, with a TFR of 2.06.

[kkt]

Russia isn't going to break up as a result of their Ukraine invasion.  They are still a great power.  A great power means that they can do stupid stuff make mistakes from time to time and still recover from it.