Latin America in a war between Great Britain and the US

Every now and then we get therads about how we can get Latin American nations more involved in one of both world wars. IOTL, as we know, there wasn't much fighting here in any of both wars, so it's natural for those interested in aH to ask how we can change this.

The problem is that Latin America was under either the American or the British sphere of influence till 1930 (depending on the country), and entirely under the American sphere of influence after 1945, and both countries happen to be in the same side of both world wars. Being a region strongly dependent on foreign trade to sell waw materiald and get industrialized goods, no Latin American government, no matter its ideology, would have sided with a country who was an enemy of its main trading partner and/or and enemy of the country that could cut its links with its main markets.

That's way, even if the government who came to power in June 1943 by a coup in Argentina had fascist sympathies, they would never dare to declare war on the allies: it was not only because by then it was clear that the Axis was losing, but mainly because any war with Great Britain would disrup foreing trade, as britain was the main market for our exports.

No other country except the US or Great Britain had ever an influence over the region comparable to the one exerted by those two countries. Germany had some investments after 1900 in the South Cone, but those were mostly abandoned after WWI. Japan was never a big player.

Of course, a country like the USSR, which was a world power who was also the leader of an ideology that was at a time quite atractive for many in Latin america who were fed up of inequality, backwardness and other nations meddling in internal affairs, might be lucky enough to have one country of the region to side with them even if it means a great risk for such a country, as the local hegemon may easily cut all links with this country and the rest of the world. Only a powerful ideology can make the leaders of a country and its people take such a bet. But even so, this "gift" may not be easily exploited by the outside power, as the power which exerts influence over the region would only tolerate a country under its sphere of influence to side with its rival power if this outside power isn't allowed to use this country as a base for its operations. This is why Cuba was only allwed to stay communist as long as no nuclear missiles, Russian submarines or other military stuffwas deployed there.

So, to have a more "intersesting" (in a Chinese sense) Latin America during a world war, we'd have to either reduce the influence the US and BRITAIN exerted and have other players involved (which is hard) or we could have those two countries in different sides in a world war.

If, for example, there was a war between the US and Britain in 1900, you could have Argentina, Uruguay and Chile siding with Britain, and Brazil siding with the US. It would be like OTL Chaco war in the 1930ies, were the US covertly supported Bolivia, and Great Britain backed Paraguay (or was it the other way round), but in a much bigger scale.
 
I guess a central question is why would latin countries want to side one way or the other? the US or Britain would put pressure on countries to stand down or join their side, but there's really not much reason for latin countries to get involved otherwise. Mostly, I'm guessing they stay neutral and look to profit any way possible.
 
Of course, a country like the USSR, which was a world power who was also the leader of an ideology that was at a time quite atractive for many in Latin america who were fed up of inequality, backwardness and other nations meddling in internal affairs, might be lucky enough to have one country of the region to side with them even if it means a great risk for such a country, as the local hegemon may easily cut all links with this country and the rest of the world. Only a powerful ideology can make the leaders of a country and its people take such a bet. But even so, this "gift" may not be easily exploited by the outside power, as the power which exerts influence over the region would only tolerate a country under its sphere of influence to side with its rival power if this outside power isn't allowed to use this country as a base for its operations. This is why Cuba was only allwed to stay communist as long as no nuclear missiles, Russian submarines or other military stuffwas deployed there.
Well, Cuba did use money from Soviet subsidies (ie, triangulating them) to help fund armed insurrection in other Latinoamerican countries. They didn't succeed, but it did happen.
It's also not that hard to imagine Allende getting Soviet military support and Argentina attacking More-Communist-than-OTL Chile in behalf of three-useless-islands/god, fatherland, family/capitalism/Uncle Sam - but that's still kind of a proxy war.

Me thinks there are two issues with your proposal. First, get the USA and the UK in a shooting war. Second, get Latinamerican countries to not only declare against one of the two powers (when they might be shielded by their allies navy), but against a neighbor with a land border.
So I'm just out of ideas.

EDIT:
Wait, this was in Pre-1900? Maybe Mexico can join the UK if the UK and the USA go to war while delimiting the border between NW USA and Canada, or some other incident I don't quite recall? The problem is that Mexico needs plenty of British or other European support to dare. Assuming, of course, this is after the Mexican-American war.
 
I guess a central question is why would latin countries want to side one way or the other? the US or Britain would put pressure on countries to stand down or join their side, but there's really not much reason for latin countries to get involved otherwise. Mostly, I'm guessing they stay neutral and look to profit any way possible.

Me thinks there are two issues with your proposal. First, get the USA and the UK in a shooting war. Second, get Latinamerican countries to not only declare against one of the two powers (when they might be shielded by their allies navy), but against a neighbor with a land border.
So I'm just out of ideas.

.

OK, you are right, you are both right, it's not enough to have a war between the US and britain to have Latin American countries join one or the other and start shooting each other. we need to know what's the context, why the US and GB are fighting, and if the war is presented as an ideological cruzade or not, for example, to know if countries under the British sphere of influence would start fighting those under the American sphere of influence. Cause, you don't start a war against your neighbour just for the sake of doing so or just because your trading partner is at war, since you can stay neutral and benefit from the chaos.

But what I wanted to point out is that, in a war between the US and the UK in the late XIX or early XX century, at least the condition exists for Soth American countries to side with one or the other. You need more than that to have them join, but the IDEA of Latin America as a key scenario (or one with heavy fighting) in such a world war is possible... something that, according to what I have come to think, isn't possible if world wars take place as IOTL, cause no Latin American would join the side against which both the US AND the UK are fighting, since it would be cathastrophic for themselves...
 
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