Was the Argentinian conquest of the desert worth it? Why couldn’t they take the whole southern cone instead of splitting it with Chile?



Where else could they have realistically expanded that would be useful today?

>>14988128 (OP)

>Was the Argentinian conquest of the desert worth it? 

Patagonia has oil and gas, cool glaciers and forested lake landscapes, it's suitable to raise sheep and even wheat with some irrigation, and there's some minor mineral wealth as well so yeah it was worth it.



Just stopping the native raids on Euro settlers and preventing a foreign power from setting up shop there made it imperative.



>Why couldn’t they take the whole southern cone instead of splitting it with Chile?

The south of Chile was more densely populated, by the native Mapuches. In fact the conflict was - partly - caused because the Mapuches begun crossing the Andes and spilling over to the Argentine side, making war on the native Tehuelches creating conflict with raids on settlers as well.



The Andes are also a fairly impassable barrier. They are the tallest mountain range outside of the Himalayas. While San Martin crossed them with an army in the 1810s, this was an impressive undertaking and not something that any army could do at a whim. 



The railroad uniting Chile and Argentina was only completed in 1910 because of how long and complex digging a tunnel through the Andes was.



>Where else could they have realistically expanded that would be useful today?

Uruguay and Paraguay if we were feeling frisky but I'm not sure it's worth the hassle to antagonize Brazil, the whole region, and the Great Powers. These countries serve a role as buffer states.



I think our 1880s leaders did a good job. Roca left a prosperous country behind at the end of his second term. And we have enough land. The country is underpopulated as is, it has a low population density.

>>14988128 (OP)

>Why couldn’t they take the whole southern cone instead of splitting it with Chile?





Bro the Andes

>>14988128 (OP)

>Was the Argentinian conquest of the desert worth it?

More land in this day and time can almost never be a bad thing if it's coastal and grants you eez, granted they didn't know anything about it then as it is now, but yes. The only other alternative really is someone else has it and that's usually not good. 

>Where else could they have realistically expanded that would be useful today?

It's pretty easy to see there wasn't anywhere else for them to go. If it's not one of the buffers, it's Brazil or the mountain niggers.

good post

>>14988128 (OP)

>Where else could they have realistically expanded that would be useful today?

Nowhere because south american colonialism was a stillborn fever dream for the 3 people who thought of it. Peruvian slave trade/chiles single island/brazils african naval base aside
