[Cyrien]

Indeed. Funny.

[quote]Originally posted by jimbob:

In the process of becoming a nation it managed to not wage a costly war against the imperial power, not wage a costly civil war against itself and it managed to not perform genocide against it's indigenous tribes (though the nation did institute a number of destructive policies against the indigenous people, it did not have a policy of open warfare against them per se).

10 points and a piece of toast to the person who answers my riddle correctly!

Canada! And you forgot to mention not become a World Super Power... which is probably a mark in their favor. Nobody likes World Super Powers.

Now to some numbers!

While Canada did indeed make large contributions to both WWI and WW2 I don't think you can put it on the same footing as the US at the same time in regards to industrial output and manpower mustered.

A few quick statistics. Sorry no numbers on hand for WW1 and as it is almost midnight here no inclination to go on a web search to find some. But here are some handy dandy ones for WW2.

Top Canadian Contribution to WW2 -
Monetary, Millions of US dollars = 20,104
Max Military Size at Peak = 780,000
Naval Vessels #'s = 32
Total Tonnage = 23,811

Top US Contribution to WW2 -
Monetary, Millions of US dollars = 288,000
Max Military Size at Peak = 12,364,000
Naval Vessels #'s = 19,034
Total Tonnage = 5,457,000

The numbers do not equate. Now look at an alternate history with US as British Colony...

Royal Proclamation of 1763 which restricted colonial expansion beyond the Appalachian Mountains to almost nothing and was a leading cause of the revolution.

Extreme dislike of English and French for each other during Napoleonic times + English with own monetary problems = No Louisiana Purchase = No expansion that way.

No Mexican American War = No Texas / Arizona / California / etc lands.

So at best the US under British control would likely only have had as much production power as Canada all over again. Twice the Canadian contribution to WW2 does not = US contribution to WW2.

In fact my calculator says

Monetary US > 14 x Canada
Military # US > 15 x Canada
Ship # > 594 x Canada
Ship Tonnage > 229 x Canada

So I stand by my statement that without the US in existence save as a colonial holding WW1 maybe and WW2 certainly would have been lost. Save maybe for Soviet intervention, however a strong case can probably be made that without the US threat the Japanese would not have hesitated to support German war efforts against the Soviets, in which case bye bye Soviets, as one of the things that kept them going was unaffected Eastern Soviet production power (No German bombers with great enough range and no war declared against Japan, thus no worries there) and eastern military reserves arriving just in time. Throw Japan in the mix and that goes bye bye.

Oooo... I just realized I need to update my profile. I am no longer a student of history/political science but now a degree holding Bachelor of History/political science...

PS: If you want my sources I can post them. But the numbers are easily verified through any number of sources, even a bunch of Online ones.

[ August 28, 2003, 06:16: Message edited by: Cyrien ]