Ambitious imperialist expansion saw the Russian Empire straddle continents to stake its claim in North America. For the emerging United States, it was a threat to the ‘Manifest Destiny’ of its western expansion, and free access and control of the Pacific Coast. For the global superpower of Great Britain, its own imperialistic ambitions would be threatened and add to the existing embarrassment of losing its American colonies. By retaining its American territories Russia would be a major player in the region, and a possible game changer, influencing and even dictating the very future of North America as we know it.
How important a bargaining chip would California and other American territories be for Imperial Russia in relations with global powers?
If the Russians had held on to their North American possessions and Hawaii (on which the Russians established forts and briefly considered annexing), it would have given them considerable leverage over the United States and the European Greatconquests of Mexican territory in the mid19th century might have been rendered more difficult if the Russians had decided to ally with the Mexicans to prevent further US expansion. Confronting a first-class European power would have stretched US military capacity to its limits before the Civil War. The Civil War would also have provided the Russian Empire with the possibility of intervening on either side from its Californian base. Equally, the Russians could have chosen to supply the native American peoples with modern weapons to thwart US expansion westwards. During the Crimean War Britain’s Canadian possessions could have been threatened by Russian forces based in California. At the very least Britain would have had to divert considerable forces to safeguard Canada. A stable Russian base in California would have provided Imperial Russia with the opportunity to fundamentally reshape the global balance of power.
