Alex won't be around forever. And if we begin to truly threaten their power in the world I have no doubt they will shed any and all formalities and restraints. Although to truly threaten the current hyperpower will take a long time and a lot of big victories so we have some time at least to build up missile defence (or strategically position an asteroid to be ready to fire at Russia, whatever's easier).
At which time they have both the EU and China on their borders. No superpower has infinite resources.
Do you think Alex's successors would prioritize California in those circumstances?
Do recall that Russia's only land holdings in North America are in Alaska. North America is a secondary theater for them.
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The flip side is that "distant blockade" and more to the point "commerce warfare" in general play a pretty significant role here. The Russians can absolutely lock down the Panama Canal, and I imagine they have a submarine base somewhere in the general neighborhood. Drone-guided antiship missiles aren't exactly stellar at stopping attack subs from potting your merchant marine.
-Distant blockade means hundreds of kilometres off the shoreline. And you can't see ship's flags underwater.
How many subs do you have? How many can you afford to risk on Cali as Germany and the EU grow in power? While you have to watch Turkey and China and the Nordics? Is China sharing satellite intel data on your sub movements, or passing along new ASW weapons for field tests? Is there a drone overhead with a couple depthcharges, or even just a datalink feeding intel back to shore where an AShM-laden truck is waiting?
Is the juice worth the squeeze?
-Like I said, this isn't the Collapse any longer. Even Alexander has to pick his fights.
What are you going to do if United China has flagged merchant ships offloading in San Diego? Do you want to sink their ships, and find out what they'd do in retaliation?
-What of Australia and it's allies?
What if your sometime ally India pulls a France and decides your squabble with Cali is not in their national interest, and they'd rather trade?
Russia is at least as powerful as the old US; it's also much more unpopular, with fewer allies.
-The Panama Canal is neutral. Same as Suez.
The Panamanian state may be a client state of the Russian Empire in this AU; it certainly has no interest in becoming a battleground of the Russian Empire. Nor do neighboring states like the neighborhood heavyweight Brazil, or Argentina or Chile, have any interest in seeing a Russian naval base in their vicinity.
-Nuclear weapons states do not have submarine bases outside home territory or very trusted allies.
The only sub base outside US territory that exists is in the UK.
The Russians aren't putting a submarine base out in the Carribean where everyone and their dog can watch.
It should be note that the Russians do have considerable ability to force California to not do things it doesn't want them to do...
They have considerable but not infinite resources and ability.
And they also have considerable commitments. Commitments that are actually getting more fractious as the old rivals it ran roughshod over get themselves back into shape.
The question is not whether Russia can crush Cali; if they go all out, sure they can, the same way the US can crush the Republic of Iran.
The question is whether they can afford the price they would have to pay to do so.
For example, Russia probably does have the power to keep California from indulging in a highly carnivorous and far-ranging foreign policy. Their ability to expand into Nevada and such along the interstates sounds more like a "by default" thing, in all truth; there's just nothing there organized enough to resist any attempt by a serious government, whatever its limitations, from probing in that direction. At least not until you hit the Mormons in Utah or something.
Other than eventually Hawaii, most of Cali's territorial ambitions are going to be continental.
They can't really do that much to prevent Cali expanding inland, or fostering diplomatic links with friendly states. Not while Chicago plays blocking force against Victoria. And Japan, in particular, is operating over sea and air logistics lines of almost 9,000 km with fewer resources than Russia. While trying to occupy 120% their population of restive Phillipinos and South Koreans, nevermind the Canadians and Americans.
It's been thirty years since the last go around. Cali learned hard lessons.
LANL is actually in New Mexico, not California, so... no... but we DO know that canonically the Californians have at least a limited nuclear arsenal.
It's reasonable to suppose that the Russians got NEARLY all the nukes in the United States, and that lack of maintenance has wrecked many that remain... and the US only has a few thousand warheads total in the present day. You really, REALLY shouldn't extrapolate that there "must be" or "should be" dozens of leftovers, since securing the nuclear stockpile was almost certainly one of the Russians' top priorities because they are not fucking idiots.
-I meant Lawrence Livermore Laboratories. My apologies.
-The Russians aren't superhuman.
Three nuclear powers fell apart in the Collapse that we know of: the US, North Korea and Pakistan. That put thousands of warheads in the wind.Tens of thousands of trained personnel. Fucking Rumford managed to get his hands on a working nuke for crying out loud, and despite the Okhrana agents in regular contact with him
, Alexander didn't have a clue.
The United States currently has about 6,000 nuclear warheads in service, not counting weapons-grade material for thousands more. Pakistan around 150. NK has 20-30. A 90% cleanup success rate on the part of the Russians would still mean there are
600 missing warheads unaccounted for.
None of that counts the nuclear material that can be used to make a bomb.
And none of that counts the smaller nuclear powers with expertise for sale, like Israel and South Africa; the NPT treaties essentially died with the UN.
I suspect Sweden has nukes now, for example; their domestic program ran until 1972, and they had achieved nuclear breakout capability before signing the NPT.
Coming back to the US, several scenarios apply. Like literally having an Ohio roll up from Kings Bay submarine base, Georgia, after Atlanta got nuked and the New Confederacy collapsed. Or a couple of Tomahawk-armed Virginias park themselves off New York Harbor after Rumford and company so blatantly broadcast a massacre of civilian professors on TV set to music.
It is barely 40km of open water from the submarine base in Groton CT to Long Island, and you know those officers didn't leave their families in arms reach of crazies.
Or have a couple B2s/B21s from Whiteman AFB land at La Guardia with their full alert load of gravity bombs or air-launched nuclear cruise missiles.
The Russians would have to be perfect.
And we know they aren't.
Uh... I think you should probably prepare to be surprised. Nuclear capability is very difficult to develop in secret, especially without remote countryside to hide facilities in, and the Russians probably help Victoria ensure that nuclear inspections continue if there's any risk of New York going for The Bomb.
Who said anything about developing it? NYC'd simply buy the things. AND the designs if necessary.
And hire the personnel; the collapse of the US left thousands of them on the market, the same way the collapse of the Soviet Union put tens of thousands of weapon scientists out of work.
With the collapse of both the US and the UN, while Russia treated the world as an all you can eat buffet, non proliferation would have gone out the window for anyone who could afford the program and felt under threat.
