Greenland for sale?

Michael Everett wrote:Just as a historical note which the Americans amongst us should know (but which the 'murikuns will probably be totally ignorant of), the USA purchased Alaska from Russia, a move which was roundly mocked in the press at the time and yet which both provided a large amount of resources and removed the potential for Russia to use it as a covert bridgehead for an invasion.

Had Russia thought ahead, they would have kept Alaska and developed it, America would probably have become far more militaristic as it fended off the repeated invasion attempts...

...Er, Alaska as a bridgehead for invasion? Seriously?

Dilandu wrote:...Er, Alaska as a bridgehead for invasion? Seriously?

More of an outpost. Given the relatively small water gap between Alaska and Russia, a simple ferry service would have allowed Alaska to be slowly turned into an outpost for the Russian Army. The sheer amount of land and resources would have let Russia establish manufacturing facilities and entire cities to help raise the population available for military conscription while having an actual land border with America (and Canada) would have simplified the logistics of assault to an incredible degree (for comparison, check the logistics that went into D-Day where there was no land-border to direct the attack through).

It was only the fact that Russia at the time had no real way to transfer enough starting materials and manpower from their centers of population to Alaska (the road net was not worthy of the name and railways were not in place) that made Alaska effectively valueless to Russia at the time.
In a very real sense, Russian internal Geography protected America from attack.

Dilandu wrote:

Michael Everett wrote:Just as a historical note which the Americans amongst us should know (but which the 'murikuns will probably be totally ignorant of), the USA purchased Alaska from Russia, a move which was roundly mocked in the press at the time and yet which both provided a large amount of resources and removed the potential for Russia to use it as a covert bridgehead for an invasion.

Had Russia thought ahead, they would have kept Alaska and developed it, America would probably have become far more militaristic as it fended off the repeated invasion attempts...

...Er, Alaska as a bridgehead for invasion? Seriously?

It is certainly more plausible that America would use Alaska as a base to invade Russia.

Us "Murikuns" are well aware of "Seawards folly" because we actually revere American history. Russia had no plausible prospect of developing Alaska because Siberia was undeveloped and a barrier to transportation. In the wake of loosing the Crimean War, Russia has little prospect of preventing Alaska from being seized by a European rival.

Murikuns are also well aware that the US had good relations with Russia prior to the communist take over.