Chapter 436: The Weight of the World
Across the Atlantic, a storm was brewing near the Rio Grande—a river that served as a natural barrier between the United States and the Latin world beyond it. Border skirmishes had been flaring up for the past few years, the most infamous of which came when Pancho Villa dared to lead incursions into U.S. territory.
But in this timeline, the United States was not the burgeoning global military-industrial titan it had begun to resemble in the latter half of the 19th century. Teddy Roosevelt’s ambitions of forging a world-striding American Empire had been stillborn, smothered by his more isolationist successors.
Once again, the electorate had chosen withdrawal over expansion. While American markets cautiously reopened to the world, its overseas colonies were increasingly seen as burdensome relics—especially with domestic concerns mounting along the Mexican border.
Ironically, it was after the Berlin Olympics, and the resolution of the Hungarian-Romanian conflict, that even the most isolationist corners of the U.S. administration began to feel the sting of irrelevance. The world was moving forward—and it was doing so without them.
This was the core of American hubris: the illusion that it had ever been equal to the European empires. It wasn’t—not until 1945, when a different postwar world let America rise from the ashes mostly untouched.
But here? In 1918?
The United States was more of a backwater than even Russia. Full of potential, yes. But it remained a vast, lumbering adolescent—strong in body, untested in soul.
That potential, however, was nearing ignition.
The American-controlled Philippines faced two looming threats. First, the Empire of Japan, which had seized much of Southeast Asia during the Great War, and now stared hungrily at the islands. Second, the rising tide of revolutionary sentiment within.
The Philippine Insurrection had ended less than twenty-five years ago—but its embers still smoldered. With British and French colonies around the world erupting in flames, talk of renewed revolution in Manila was no longer theoretical.