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The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States (US), or simply America, is a country located in North America.
The United States expands across the continent from the easternmost portion bordering the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico to its westernmost portion bordering the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by the Dominion of Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The United States has several overseas territories as well, which include Alaska, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and several Pacific islands. Alaska borders Canada to its east while Hawaii is made up of multiple islands in the Pacific.
History
Main Article: Timeline of the United States since 1917
While the United States ironically prospered while the rest of the world was involved in the Weltkrieg, with American banks and industries supplying Britain, France, and the other Entente Powers, the immediate aftermath of the war proved far more disastrous. With the collapse of both the British and French governments, to say nothing of the loss of both of their overseas empires, American companies were suddenly faced with the irrecoverable loss of countless millions of dollars in investments, loans, and other contracts. German dominance over global trade ensured that the United States was progressively forced out of European, African, and Asia markets. A slow decline took hold, followed by increasingly vicious domestic social and political conflict.
By the mid-1930s, the ineffective second term of President Herbert Hoover has threatened the very two-party political system that has dominated the US government since the American Civil War of the last century. Previously, the Democratic and Republican parties maintaining the support of American industry and big business, with any "extremist" groups being fragmented and disunited. Two grand coalitions have risen to challenge the traditional system, with the first being the populist and technocratic America First Union Party, with the second being the revolutionary syndicalist Combined Syndicates of America. Each group is mobilizing its supporters and fielding candidates to become the 32nd President of the United States come the next election in 1936.
Politics
Ever since the American Civil War of the 1860s, the United States government has operated under a two-party political system. To the right of the political spectrum are the market liberal-leaning Republicans, while the the left are the member of the Democratic Party, itself divided between social liberals and a minority of social conservatives from the southern states. After the New York stock market crash of 1925 and the government's inability to help the country recover, far-left and far-right organizations have formed in various parts of the country.
In the so-called "Red Belt" consisting of New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan and most of the other Great Lakes-bordering states, the Combined Syndicates of America has grown popular and even won the so-called Empire State. The CSA is a coalition of various unions of America under the initiative of the IWW, and its leader John "Jack" Reed. The CSA succeeded in uniting the far-left in the country and is working with other socialist and communist parties.
In the traditional Deep South region, Louisiana Senator and prominent populist Huey Long has organized the far-right in the so-called America First Union Party. Long's Share Our Wealth program has earned him prominence even beyond his home state, and he plans to run for President in 1936.
Both the Combined Syndicates and the America First Party have the capacity to rise up as paramilitary forces and popular militias around the country, and should either one not be elected they are prepared to take power by force if necessary.
Military
Army
The United States Army is the largest branch of the American military by number of men enlisted. Although the US Army is neither large nor powerful when compared to the German Heer, the nation itself has huge reserves of manpower and industrial strength, meaning that the Army could easily outfit a larger force if needed.
The United States Navy is the most modern and powerful branch of the military. It is one of the few navies in the world that operates aircraft carriers and boasts a significant amount of other capital ships. The Navy maintains a presence in two oceans, the Pacific and the Atlantic, with the Pacific Fleet being the stronger of the two. While still lagging behind, the US Navy is one of the few that could come close to rivaling Germany's Kaiserliche Marine.
Air Force
The United States Army Air Corps is directly subordinate to the Army and, as such, is currently operated as a supporting force, covering soldiers on the ground from above and providing tactical reconnaissance. The Air Corps has sought to expand its operations to the US Navy and, perhaps, become its own independent branch should the need eventually arise for such a large aerial force. The Air Force is extremely powerful and fully capable of taking on the German Luftstreitkräfte in a one-to-one confrontation.
Foreign Relations
The United States has political, economic, and military authority over two countries, the small Liberia in West Africa, and the Philippines, an island nation located in the Western Pacific.
The US maintains friendly relationships with the rest of countries of the Western Hemisphere, including Cuba, Honduras, Panama, and the United Provinces of Central America.
America has an antagonistic relationship with its southern syndicalist neighbors or Mexico and Centroamerica, as well as Germany due to economic and trade reasons.
Culture
The United States is considered a prime destination for immigration from around the world and, as such, has an extraordinarily heterogeneous society retaining the cultural heritage of hundreds of various ethnicities and nationalities. The country is a "melting pot" of cuisine, art, literature, and, most importantly, politics. Due to the sheer number of people arriving at Ellis Island, practically every ideology known to man has at least a nominal presence within the United States, which leaves the nation more susceptible to internal conflicts and even civil unrest should the current administration remain inefficient and arbitrary.