In the 1980s we should have settled the Contra vs. Sandinista question by resurrecting Project Plowshare and building a sea level canal through Nicaragua.

The Panama Canal is being expanded for bigger ships. Not sure why there'd be need for a new canal, since both the new and old sets of locks will work in Panama at the same time.

Costa Rica?

Nothing says "Big Party Fun Canal" like some active volcanos!

My great-grandfather walked across the Isthmus of Panama to catch a ship up to California.

/csb
//don't swim in Lake Nicaragua

The Isthmus of Tehuantepec makes more sense from geological and political viewpoints.

ZAZ: In the 1980s we should have settled the Contra vs. Sandinista question by resurrecting Project Plowshare and building a sea level canal through Nicaragua.

You mean instead of letting Reagan fund Iranian terrorists, right-wing Contra death squads and central-American rape gangs going from village to village conscripting child soldiers at gunpoint? Why do you hate America?

When I was a kid, we were going to create a canal across Nicaragua in an afternoon. With the help of Mr. Peaceful Nukes.

Oh, and...

In before some halfwit rants about Carter "giving away" a canal that U.S. and international laws said had to go back to Panama when the lease expired whether Americans liked it or not.

Breakfast woodsmoke on the breeze -- On the cliff the U.S. Embassy Frowns out over Managua like Dracula's tower.
The kid who guards Fonseca's tomb Cradles a beat-up submachine gun -- At age fifteen he's a veteran of four years of war
Proud to pay his dues He knows who turns the screws Baby face and old man's eyes

Blue lagoon and flowering trees -- Bullet-packed masaya streets Full of the ghosts of the heroes of Monimbo
Women of the town laundry Work and gossip and laugh at me -- They don't believe I'll ever send them the pictures I took.
For every scar on a wall There's a hole in someone's heart Where a loved one's memory lives

In the flash of this moment You're the best of what we are -- Don't let them stop you now Nicaragua

Sandino in his tom mix hat Gazes from billboards and coins "Sandino vive en la lucha por la paz" Sandino of the shining dream Who stood up to the U.S. marines -- Now Washington panics at U2 shots of "Cuban-style" latrines

In the flash of this moment You're the best of what we are -- Don't let them stop you now Nicaragua

Dinjiin: widening, dredging and locking San Juan River on the eastern side would be a PITA.

That's what Chinese labour is for. Have we learned NOTHING from our history?

Harry Freakstorm: Don't let them stop you now Nicaragua

Very underrated album. Thanks, gonna play it now.

Highroller48: Oh, and...

In before some halfwit rants about Carter "giving away" a canal that U.S. and international laws said had to go back to Panama when the lease expired whether Americans liked it or not.

Not an issue: "Under this treaty, the U.S. retained the permanent right to defend the canal from any threat that might interfere with its continued neutral service to ships of all nations."

JohnAnnArbor: Not an issue: "Under this treaty, the U.S. retained the permanent right to defend the canal from any threat that might interfere with its continued neutral service to ships of all nations."

Yup, shouldn't ever have even mattered. Sadly, the rage at Carter has still been that control was turned over to Panama. People just can't grasp that there was no choice and that there's nothing preventing the U.S. from exercizing the defense clauses even to this day. In general, Carter sucked, but many Americans' understanding of Internation Law and how Treaties work within the U.S. legal framework sucks even more.

Mikeyworld: Ocean-going cargo carriers are designed around the size of the locks it's planned to go thru. The smallest in width being Pananama. Suez, the other major locks in the shipping world is almost twice as wide. If the Pananama canal was widened to Suez size, the ships for ocean-going international cargo could be be made twice as wide and, as such, much longer too. More cargo per boat and it reduces the load-on/load-off, where the mistakes are made and the cost of shipping skyrockets, to once. Nicoraurgua just wants to steal the action with a shipping-friendly canal and locks that will, also, reduce the travel times on a shorter route from USA east/west coast

/GED in shipping
//minor in geography

I didn't think Suez had locks.

Mikeyworld: Ocean-going cargo carriers are designed around the size of the locks it's planned to go thru.

This. Most cruise ships and many U.S. warships were designed to just barely fit, too. I believe 105 feet or something like that is the limit. When I went through on a smaller Frigate, it was amazing to see how many ships had just inches to spare inthe locks. Clearly purpose-built.

ha-ha-guy: JohnAnnArbor: I didn't think Suez had locks.

No locks. There is a Suezmax concept though in the form of beam, draft, and air draft.

"Air draft"?

Gough: Angry Drunk Bureaucrat: [3.bp.blogspot.com image 158x139]

You are my hero.

I'm just glad someone else remembers their history.

HoratioGates: Here is the thing- yes, technology is much better now, but it's still a really big project, and the payoff would only probably be half as big as the first one (I'm assuming they'd capture half the traffic), but it would be even worse, because once there is competition there would be a price war for passage. I don't think it would be profitable.

I always thought our meddling in Great Colombia was particularly tragic. One of the things that almost defines a first world country is a diverse economy. It protects the country from market shocks. Great Colombia would have had coffee (or cocaine), the Panama Canal (assuming they built it themselves somehow), and later, oil. It would have likely been a much more viable nation than any of it's parts have been alone.

We didn't do anything to Gran Colombia. We did precipitate Panama's separation from Colombia, of course, but the initial breakup of Gran Colombia was much earlier and was from internal causes.