What if Russia Kept Alaska?

[Music] [Applause] [Music] this video was sponsored by nordvpn alaska the great white north home to bears the second half of the simpsons movie francis's indentured servitude arc alaska's standing among its continental comrades is a giant vast with most of its land sparsely populated and even in our modern 21st century world with electricity eating everything else the entire state has a smaller population than indianapolis today we just accept alaska as american but 150 years ago this was a different story during the american civil war it was russian territory and its purchase into the united states wasn't seen as this impressive sale like the louisiana purchase it was just seen as buying a frozen land thousands of miles away from the heart of the u.s so what if in an alternate timeline russia didn't sell alaska to the united states what if instead they kept the land and sent colonists over the bering strait just like they did in east asia you know the drill first context russia sold alaska to the u.s because after the crimean war the russians wanted to focus on their holdings in the west instead of the east alaska wasn't really profitable because all the otters were killed and it was more of a small collection of forts than an actual colony especially considering the distance from the russian heartland to north america it wasn't really seen as worth the effort by the tsar since the british fought russia during the war what better way to annoy them than to sell a piece of land right next to canada to the americans the russians suspected there was gold on alaska but never really mined and after the purchase in 30 years gold was found and a rush began up north that's really it context over so in this alternate scenario there really doesn't need to be a dramatic effect for russia to not sell alaska it was at the whim of a czar to sell the place so in this timeline he simply doesn't sell it groundbreaking i know like a lot of russian land it really remains unused and on the back burner but it still is officially russian throughout the 19th century what's officially called russian america just continues to be used for wailing on the coast and to make that vast empire look even bigger on a map the whim of whether they give up the territory up to whichever autocrat is in charge but the longer the russians are there and cement themselves on the coastline the harder it would be for them to just give it up gold rushes are always interesting because they aren't just a bunch of sweaty dirty miners going out and trying to get rich it's a bunch of sweaty dirty miners going out and creating a bedrock for a city or two colorado saw it california saw it and alaska did as well it fundamentally alters the culture of a landscape as the natives are often just kicked out this time it's a mix of russians canadians americans siberians all coming to the alaskan coast to get rich and much like what happened in mexico when dealing with americans coming into their land the local government isn't too king on this new population influx let's be honest if the russians did keep alaska it's most likely if gold was ever found they'd be out populated by a wave of incoming americans and those miners would wish for their new home to become a part of their old home russia needs to balance having less americans in alaska but also they don't want to occur the wrath of britain and the us who they rely on for supplies in the region if russia did send troops across the bering strait to enforce their borders they'd risk starvation just to keep the miners out alaska was never the best venture for russia and they didn't have the naval capability to make sure it remained a part of the empire if they didn't sell to the us eventually it would be lost but that's boring let's make this a bit more interesting [Music] the region somehow remains in their control at the turn of the century and even if it might not be the most successful area it simply continues on as a foothold in north america a small amount of colonists and forts have grown into decently sized cities in their own right perhaps the gold rush did see a few americans come up but all this mostly did was create a mix of american inuit and russian cultures and then world war one happens as russia becomes an ally with britain during the great war the previous competition and spat over crimea is a thing of the past alaska isn't really involved in the conflict but it would remain well resourced through shipping now controlled by the canadians and neutral americans until the russian revolution hits so that said this russian america finds itself in a collapsing empire consumed by civil war so let's split the scenario into two sections [Music] this in my opinion is the more realistic situation i don't believe the alaskan population would have its own bolshevik revolution and if it did it'd probably just be put down by alaska's neighbors and if they didn't the red army wouldn't be able to cross the bering strait to attempt to take alaska american and british ships would cut off access to the strait and so alaska basically becomes split off from the rest of russia in our timeline the white army was absolutely routed and destroyed whatever fragments of the old regime and army remain reorganized in russian america claiming themselves the last fragment of the russian empire or republic or whatever they deem the white army really didn't have a sack core of beliefs either way alaska becomes the anti-communist shelter the last bastion of a pre-soviet russia would it be the establishment of a new zardom some romanovs did escape the soviet purges or perhaps a republic due to its north american influence to the capitalist nations of europe the alaskan government would be the true state of russia as the soviet government was not recognized until the 1930s to the soviets russian america would be a rogue state one meant to be destroyed the last bastion of the old zardom yet it wouldn't have the resources to simply eliminate it the situation in the arctic over the course of the 20th century may become very much like a china taiwan situation just with taiwan being the size of most the continental united states during the eventual cold war the bering strait becomes one of the most contentious regions in the world with the eventual discovery of oil in the mid 20th century this state would find itself in an economic boom as the world increasingly industrializes to north america russian america is kind of like the qatar of the arctic it may or may not be a monarchy but it has a small population where its oil profits improve the living standards of all of its people the old cities that dot the coast transformed through this oil revenue as in a way to drastically shift themselves from their soviet counterparts there may be a new revitalization of pre-soviet architecture and aesthetic by the time the soviets eventually collapsed there'd be a debate whether russian america should rejoin with the rest of the old country but 70 years of separation would be hard to overcome the economic collapse of the soviet states in the 90s would only make this prospect less attractive russian america really remains the bane of mainland russia and we all know how putin views regions that were once a part of russia this one is less realistic i don't really know how the soviets if at all could take alaska but it's more wacky so why not let's imagine the soviet army somehow is able to cross into alaska and seize the territory or there is even a bolshevik revolution within alaska that naturally aligns itself to the red army by some fluke alaska's just held by the soviets don't think about it perhaps those built up ports allow the soviets to have more of a naval presence in the region to beat back the americans and british and to the rest of north america just like in a game of risk the enemy has a foothold in alaska and they can't get that continent bonus i'd imagine stalin would know the geopolitical importance that alaska might have the soviets were no strangers to deporting and repopulating areas of strategic interest and russian alaska is no different the soviets build entirely new cities from the ground up just to assert their influence it'd be quite interesting to imagine the pristine beauty of alaska though contrasted with the industrial cities of the stalin era i feel like to the american public this really would make the paranoia of the 1920s red scare even more extreme alaska would be a looming shadow over their heads considering the post-war exhaustion and the inevitable financial collapse not much is done about soviet alaska for the next few decades i think you can see where i'm going with this the cold war this would become one of the most contentious areas on the planet in this alternate scenario the soviets would have territory reaching down that might be able to strike the west coast of the united states with its newly created nuclear arsenal even before the creation of icbms the idea would be that the russians could simply fly over the united states keep in mind the cuban missile crisis was just over the soviets evening the score with the united states who had missiles in turkey the us wouldn't even tolerate missiles from a soviet ally now imagine if the soviets had their own military equipment aircraft and missiles stationed alongside the alaskan coast this brief situation that almost ended in the destruction of mankind would be extended throughout the duration of the cold war the northern pacific ocean becomes a hot ground as american naval fleets in hawaii and soviet fleets in alaska constantly patrol their respective waters the u.s and canada would be jointly united patrolling one of the longest land borders in the world there'd be paranoia about soviet infiltrators or any incursion into the sparsely populated canadian north a much more conservative american normality might set hold as the country goes into a bunker mode mentality any leftist movements that arise particularly in say the pacific northwest immediately are deemed as communist infiltration by alaskan russians alaska's small sliver of land going south seen as a tentacle that might just reach down and get them a country so used to being unaffected by even the largest global affairs now is face to face with its greatest geopolitical rival for over four decades as oil is eventually discovered this resource is brought into the soviet system with offshore drilling and when the soviets do eventually collapse if we don't all die this transforms into a russian hold in the modern day the alaskan oil system is controlled by oligarchs and alaska is seen as putin's eye down on america the main change from both of these paths is that north america isn't the isolated fortress that it is in our timeline but one single change of the map entirely alters how the anglo-american states view themselves it leads to fear and not knowing what may come next leads to a lot of crazy things now the exact specifics of this scenario aren't the most important as you can tell this was just wacky but here's my point all of this could have been possible if the russians simply thought that keeping alaska was worth it what we think of as the 49th state today would have been the bane to 20th century america the area would be home to a slavic eastern orthodox people who basically extended their homeland into north america geopolitics is determined by lines on a map many of the problems that we see today were simply based off of the whim of 19th century empires that no longer exist lines become reinforced by a growing population alaska if the russians had put a little bit more manpower and not gone overboard on the hunting was in a prime opportunity to potentially shape the future of north america in the 20th century world even if nobody at the time knew it and they sold it to their future rival just despite a temporary rival over an 1860s war hindsight certainly is something while you might never have to worry about losing alaska you could lose your security online guess who it is it's nordvpn this video sponsor a virtual private network that allows you to remain safe sneaky and spiffy while browsing that abomination that is the world wide web nordvpn has thousands of servers and 60 plus countries and it's as easy as finding a server online and bam you now have a safe ip address and can also bypass any of those cheeky censoring firewalls not today china no don't sound interesting we'll click on the link in the description nordvpn.com allhist and use the code altist to get 68 off a two-year plan plus viewers that use the code get one extra month of nordvpn for free 30-day money-back guarantee no longer are you tied to your own local region you now have access to the internet of the world even the solar system the galaxy the cosmic alternate multiverse [Music] vpn.com [Music]

Channel: AlternateHistoryHub

Views: 970,780

Keywords: What if Russia Kept Alaska, Russian Alaska, Russian America, Russia colonization, Russian Empire, Crimea, AlternateHistoryHub, alternate history, Russia alternate history, what if russia didnt sell alaska, what if the russian empire never fell, russian history, north american history, alaska history, alaska, alaska and the us, alaska joins the us, alaska state, alaska alternate history, us alternate history, cold war alternate history, what if scenario

Id: pK2SbuBb4RE

Length: 13min 38sec (818 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 08 2020