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chile is pretty obviously a long country
from north to south the country extends
for 4
270 kilometers which is even longer than
the distance of new york city to san
francisco
despite that enormous length though
chile is way
less thick with an average width east to
west of only
kilometers about the same distance from
new york city to
hartford connecticut so just for the
simple sake of being goofy
what would chile end up looking like
today if it was
well longer like way longer
if chile was more ambitious historically
and didn't stop with just taking over
bolivia's coastline but ended up taking
over the entire pacific coastline of the
americas
stretching up all the way into
modern-day alaska
what would chile end up looking like
today or rather what would chile look
like today
if for some reason she was just given
all of this land
and became known as longer chile for
starters
there is some historical precedent here
ever since gaining independence from
spain
all the way back over 200 years ago in
1810
chile has been long and she has sought
to become longer
in 1879 chile went to war with both
bolivia and
peru in order to extend her length
further north along the pacific
she defeated both of them and as a
result she
won land from both which not only made
her shape longer
but transformed bolivia into a
landlocked country which is something
that bolivia has been salty about
ever since to this day sad salty little
landlocked bolivia maintains a navy with
thousands of personnel for the sole hope
of
one day regaining her coastline from
chile historically
chile's coastal ambitions ended there
but if they didn't
here's what the country would look like
if it kept on going all the way
up to alaska first off length chile's
new length in a straight line from the
southernmost point on the drake passage
to the northernmost on the arctic ocean
in alaska would be
15 738 kilometers
which means that if you were looking
sideways at a globe longer chile would
stretch across
39 of the earth's entire circumference
naturally santiago would remain longer
chile's capital city but it would no
longer be chile's largest city
here's where all of the top 10 largest
metros in the longest country on earth
would be
with santiago itself falling down to
only third place
behind los angeles and lima with dozens
of large
wealthy and powerful cities like
anchorage vancouver
seattle san francisco los angeles san
diego and guadalajara
longer chile would have an estimated
population of just
over 150 million people and a nominal
gdp
of 3.945 trillion us dollars
making it the third largest world
economy just
barely ahead of germany and remaining
well beneath japan
now here's the fun stuff with the
domination of the entire pacific
coastline in the americas
longer chile would end up controlling
both a very strategic
and very unstrategic area on the bright
side
longer chile would end up controlling
some of the world's most important trade
outposts with control of panama would
come control over the panama canal
and all of the trade benefits that come
with that the port of cologne on the
atlantic is the busiest port in latin
america
and the caribbean while the port of
balboa on the pacific side
is a little more than half as busy if
combined into a single entity the port
of los angeles and the port of long
beach
is the busiest cargo port anywhere
outside of asia and by
far the largest anywhere in the americas
combined with the other large pacific
ports of manzanillo in mexico
oakland seattle and vancouver longer
chile would have one of the world's
greatest trading empires all of the
maritime trade flowing between the
americas
and asia would have to either flow
through the territory of longer chile
first or go through the long route
around south america
because that route would be a lot more
expensive longer chile could take
advantage of her positions across the
pacific and
dominate trade between asia and the
western hemisphere
on top of that anchorage airport is the
world's fifth busiest airport for cargo
while los angeles airport is the world's
third busiest for passenger traffic
further enhancing longer chile's
position as a trade
juggernaut financially geographically
and logistically
longer chile would seemingly be in a
tremendous position
and unlike other empires i've made up in
the past longer chile's linear shape
does offer it some unique advantages for
example
you'd only need to build a single line
of logistics and transportation across
the entire country in order to connect
everything together and luckily
most of the infrastructure for that is
already in place
there's existing roads along the coast
that connect punta arenas in chile with
kali and colombia and with yaviza panama
all the way up to vancouver canada the
only two
gaps in the system that would need to be
filled are in the dense rainforest
between kali and yaviza and across the
barren tundra from vancouver to
anchorage
if longer chile ever came into conflict
with one of her neighbors over access to
the pacific
these would be the primary weak points
to consider and conflict would almost
certainly happen historically chile was
capable of taking over bolivia's
coastline
because well what the hell is bolivia
going to do about it with their salty
landlocked navy but taking over the
pacific coastline from countries like
the united states the world's foremost
military power
is quite another thing despite the loss
of valuable population and economic
centers on the west coast the united
states would still remain absurdly more
powerful than longer chile she would
still have nearly twice the population
base
and would still control not only the
entire gulf and atlantic coasts
but would still maintain important
pacific possessions as well
like hawaii and guam along with
important naval bases in japan
and south korea america would still be
very
capable of launching a two-front naval
assault on longer chile with a
vastly more powerful navy which is only
the beginning of my explanation for how
longer chile would be
completely unsustainable an enemy naval
force seizing the narrow ismus of panama
would effectively cut the entire country
in half
and also block longer chilean fleets
from being able to quickly access the
caribbean while longer chile is
well very long she is not particularly
wide and lacks
any semblance of strategic depth take
the area around the los
angeles metro for example the distance
from the core population and economic
engine that is
la from the united states would be so
short that the
vastly more powerful american military
could quickly move in from the border
and immediately threaten or seize it
or alternatively move to cut it off from
the rest of the country with quick and
short pincer strikes to the north or the
south
thus denying any resupplies getting into
the city from land
any hostile power could do this to
longer chile at any point across her
border
all it takes to completely divide the
entire country in half
and disrupt the entire flow of supplies
up and down
is a quick advance from any point to the
ocean and with a population of only 150
million to defend a front line
stretching over 15
000 kilometers it would be impossible to
sufficiently defend
everywhere against everyone utilizing
the gaps in longer chile's road network
an attack in north america would mean
that the only method of getting
reinforcements there would be to either
resupply them by sea
or to march them through the extremely
difficult terrain of the darien gap
that would certainly bring about high
and costly attrition rates and with
american naval presence in the pacific
still dominant coming out of major bases
like pearl harbor in hawaii
it would still be immensely difficult
for longer chile to resupply north
america by sea
as well despite them controlling
literally the entire pacific coast
her core areas that would contribute the
most to gdp like los angeles san
francisco seattle or vancouver would all
be able to quickly be captured back by
the americans and canadians in this
scenario which is why longer chile would
likely just not be able to last very
long on her own
she would need to find some strong
allies that would be willing to help her
but with an inevitable war of reconquest
from the united states looming with
plenty of other regional countries
eagerly willing to assist them
it's not really certain that anybody
would really be willing to help
chile would have greatly overextended
themselves by transforming into longer
chile and for that
they would almost certainly fall and be
cut down to size
not all of the land located inside of
longer chile would be useful or
productive
obviously not even 100 miles away from
the bustling downtown of san diego
lies the forgotten about salt and sea
and the multiple
scattered ghost towns that dot her
shores a few weeks ago i went to visit
these ghost towns for a documentary that
i'm producing on them that will be the
first episode of a new series on ghost
towns that i'll be releasing
exclusively on nebula now i'm sure by
now
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