World Empire

Was a World Empire possible at any time in history? How could it have been achieved?
The Mongols, British, Habsburgs, French and many others managed to control a huge amount of land for some time, but I'm talking about something that surpasses all that and controls most of the populated and economically relevant regions of the world (no tribal areas, deserts, glaciers, taiga).

World War 2 was probably the last time a nation could have realistically created a world empire. Now, with the US playing world police, and the huge population, mass media, it would be almost impossible unless you get another Napoleon taking control of the US in modern times or something along the lines

Maybe during the years where America was the only country with a nuclear weapon (1945-1949), but Americans were tired of war.

You mention the Mongols, but it seems like the Mongol empire was inherently unstable due to its size back in the days before railroads, telegraphs, etc.

It seems like it would have to be in the 19th century or later (the heyday of the British and other massive empires).

I can imagine an alternate scenario where after WWI, Russia gains control of much of the Slavic lands and all of Eastern Anatolia from the Central Powers. Larger than that and it seems remote.

>World War 2 was probably the last time a nation could have realistically created a world empire

I don't see WW2 creating a world empire, whichever side wins. Unless it's a bizarre scenario where the Western Allies fail so hard the Soviet take over Europe and decades later most of the world.

these guys were the closest to doing it

Well just for the fact that the Nazi "Empire" existed and almost took all of Europe, and wasn't afraid to exterminate entire populaces, shows that the tech was there to hold large landmass empires together, and that there was a ideology that could support such a large empire

The thing about the post 1900 world, and especially post-1950, is that many countries industrialized and armed themselves and these would resist more effectively. See Japan, Russia, China or India and Pakistan after independence.

Before 1900 most of the economic and military power was concentrated in Western Europe and the US.
So if some entity managed to control these before this point, they would control the rest.

But the technology pre 1900 would make it extremely hard to hold these empires.

>Nazi "Empire"
>relevant

Even if they won and occupied everything they wanted, which is already a stretch, you still had the US as a powerhouse and most of the colonial Empires out of reach.

The colonial empires would probably have fell apart without their colonial homelands or other colonial allies to hold them up. I'm not going to get into another "how germany could have won" argument, but Europe was a very urbanized and powerful region of the world. If you have this area completely under your control, and a lot of things go right, hitler throws out some retarded ideals, then it's not impossible to think about.

Colonial empires existed before, like the Spanish and Portuguese Empire, and they lasted some centuries, no telegraphs or railroads, just sea power.
Now if they stayed united and also managed to absorb the other colonial Empires, thing would have been interesting.

But if you read into how they actually held this power, it was more of a "I'll come around once a year to collect taxes, otherwise, you can run your own town or tribe however you want". With this question, I was thinking more of a direct control and more centralized government.

my hypothesis

Still impossible. Nazi economy relied completely on plundering conquered lands and was completely unsustainable without war. It was impossible for them to control Europe.

Reminds me of this

wheraboo wet dream

I give you soviet union but how are they supposes to be able to defeat le eternal brit?

Once they have the Soviet Union and oil they can out-produce allies and win the war or come to some settlement
UK is a tiny surrounded island, it would be easy for a giant empire to take

Yeah if we just assume everyone else is fucking retarded they could conquer the world sure
What would actually happen is Japan would just ally with the US.

>Once they have the Soviet Union
But they can't have the USSR. There is no fucking way the Germans could ever take over the Soviet Union.

It's literally the other way around.
There's now way the soviet union would fall against the reich, specially with Stalin's nationalism at play.

Yeah they could if they had a two pronged invasion, one north and one south surrounding them and destroying their production in the urals
why would hitler invade if he didn't think there was a chance he could win? He's obviously a brilliant strategist

but they would be elated to be liberated from communism

>Hitler
>brilliant strategist
please tell me you're joking

>It would be easy for a giant empire to take

No way he's getting past Moscow.

>Keep on increasing the German minority
>Supplant East Asians
Delusional as fuck

all you gotta do is kill them all
what's so hard?

What the fuck is the point of conquest if you just execute all the conquered?

After defeating SU and Brit, german could have the manpower to do it.

They failed to even kill all; the Gypsies and there were only like a few hundred thousand of them, no way they are wiping out several dozen million asians

And who exactly is going to do the killing? You don't expect there to be many Nazi troops after the bloody conquest of the USSR, do you?

After they beat Asia into submission they can gradually build up populations through incentives to breed, using the new conquered lands as well
this will give them billions of soldiers to do any work

>After they beat Asia
Because beating several hundred million people with a 6 million army is totally possible. Not to mentio, how many of those 6 million troops are going to die in the USSR?

Definitive evidence that Wehraboos are in fact retarded

There is no sense in one state. 2 clashing empires dividing whole world - limit of unification.

Who would start a war with no possibility of winning
just because history happened to turn out a specific way doesn't mean it could have only happened that way, there is a lot of chance involved

there can only be one, with time one will defeat the other

autism: the post

Achaemenids

>arguing with pollacks

Absorbing would be trigger breakup. The main reason of state is wars. Global empire, no enemies? fuck this, separatism and breakup.

>another Napoleon
Trump

If Tump was even 1/3 the caliber of Napoleon then the U.S future would not look as bleak

The United States could have established a global empire right after WW2 with nuclear weapons.
That opportunity was gone as soon as the Soviet finished their bomb.

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