Largest supranational union by modern day?

[TerranGames]

Basically, what I'm asking is about something like the EU. I know there were decisions that could have been made that could have enlarged it, as well as other concepts for supranational unions like the Imperial Federation (and maybe Mitteleuropa?) You know, something with a common market, borders, alliance, and maybe a common currency or military or something.

With a post-1900 POD, what is the biggest supranational union that could form in the world? (A tighter one, like the EU, not like the African Union, or ASEAN.)

Thanks!

 

[prani]

Basically, what I'm asking is about something like the EU. I know there were decisions that could have been made that could have enlarged it, as well as other concepts for supranational unions like the Imperial Federation (and maybe Mitteleuropa?) You know, something with a common market, borders, alliance, and maybe a common currency or military or something.

With a post-1900 POD, what is the biggest supranational union that could form in the world? (A tighter one, like the EU, not like the African Union, or ASEAN.)

Thanks!

The Soviet Union in OTL or any of its variations, You are not going to get anything that is big and which can sustain some level of cohesion.

 

[garabik]

Surviving British Empire, with the union including both Canada and Australia (these two are easy) - especially if India stays in (that is a challenge by itself, but doable), it will easily be the largest in both population and land area. This probably requires evading WWI (and subsequently no WWII as we know it) and a different world order.

 

[historyfool]

Serious Pan-european proposals date back to the 19th century, but the relatively limited warfare of that century did not really provide an incentive for them. In the interwar years there were some stronger supporters, but they did not gain a lot of traction in the diplomatic climate, even though e.g. the SPD in Germany took Europe into her program.

Maybe with a draw in WW1 and a more or less intact power balance these ideas might gain more traction without the otl winner-looser dynamic, just the war exhaustion. In that case we might get the first steps into Europe a few decades earlier, with intact colonial empires that get dragged into this European project. A surviving Ottoman Empire would also add a larger middle-Eastern candidate pool than otl, though likely with the same difficulty to get in as otl.

To a lesser degree a surviving Weimar and thereby avoided WW2 could have the same effect: an earlier European project while (some of) the colonial powers are able to hold onto a larger share of their colonies.

 

[tinyDelta]

A Europe that refuses to give up its african colonies for some reason would eventually have to create a trade/law/military union, and it would be a tight one to ensure control over the colonies, possibly tighter than the EU of today.

 

[CaptainCalvert]

Geographically the most promising grouping would be a Greater India, covering India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka.
However, resolving the political and religious divisions sufficiently to allow this looks like a serious challenge, even if starting very early 1900 or very late 1890s.

 

[Fries]

The New Union, I think. When the late Soviet system fully revealed itself to be truly unsustainable by the late 80's, Gorbachev proposed the USSR to be reorganized into a supranational union not too dissimilar to a stronger version of the modern CIS: the Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics, or the "New Union". Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan all supported it, while Moldova, the Baltic states, Georgia, and Armenia didn't. It was nearly put into effect: it was planned to be signed on August 20, 1991, and ratified later in the year, but the coup of August 19 threw the entire thing into the trash and ultimately resorted in the Belavezha Accords that saw the USSR dissolved by Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Even after the coup, the only countries that supported post-coup independence were Ukraine and Azerbaijan.

The map would look something like this. Artsakh might be more robustly independent: but given how the USSR (and later Russia) reacted to Chechnya's declaration of independence, I doubt it.

For another idea: what if Japan never abandons Taisho Democracy and creates an alternative to the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere that's more like the EU or Commonwealth? I could see that spreading into Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Burma, India, maybe even Sri Lanka and depending on how a surviving Japanese Empire influences the Indochina Wars, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia?

 

[Fulano]

A North American Union product of an alternate, more centralized, NAFTA program. You would need to butterfly the "bad blood" between Canada, Mexico and the United States, but I think it's quite doable.

 

[Simon]

With a post-1900 PoD, what is the biggest supranational union that could form in the world?

Find a way for the USSR to do much worse in World War II so that the Western Allies are able to get to most of Central Europe, Eastern Europe and the Balkans before them. Any European Community is still likely to start with a smaller core group in North Western Europe but it gives it more countries to expand into, and without those lost four decades for the Warsaw Pact members and Yugoslavia I could see it being easier economically. Eventually from the Atlantic to Russia's western border, with a few small exceptions, would be a pretty decent achievement.

 

[Beatriz]

A post-WW3 association of less damaged nations in the Southern Hemisphere might count