The only reason there is no chance of someone other than the US invading us is because of the US. Not sure why this is a hard concept to grasp. Whether we should be grateful for that is up for debate, I guess.
Canada hasn’t been threatened because North America is dominated by a single, overwhelmingly powerful state.
If the U.S. didn’t exist, the continent wouldn’t be peaceful, it would look like every other multi-country region through history.
In most plausible alternate histories where the US doesn’t exist, Canada doesn’t either.
I really don’t see how any of this is relevant to Trump’s “Canada lives because of the US” comment. There’s no way Trump is talking about hypothetical alternate histories where the US doesn’t exist as a single polity. He’s claiming (falsely) that Canada is dependent on US protection. In fact, in the historical reality we occupy, the US has prevented zero invasions of Canada.
The historic reality we occupy includes the US. Its influence affects other countries attitudes and actions and prevents them from having ambitions on the huge unprotected landmass of Canada.
Maybe explain what prevents a country like Russia or China from taking us over now if the US suddenly stopped existing?
I’m confused so little pushback on, ‘We’ve always protected you! You owe us bigly!’, attitude.
It’s time for Canada and Mexico to make it clear that THEY are what protects America from invasion on two sides. ALL of their land borders. Makes things pretty secure for them, don’t you think? Unlike most countries America likes to waltz about making lots of enemies. They are afforded the opportunity partly because they are solidly safe and secure on two sides. Not by politics, or accord, but by land mass.
Clearly, they owe us!
Oceans and logistics. No nation on the planet has ever had the sealift capacity to mount an invasion of Canada that the Canadian Armed Forces couldn’t repel by themselves.
Obviously the presence of an allied US makes the equation even more unthinkable for any hostile nations, but unless the US is actually providing ports and land as a springboard for attack the military prospects don’t change all that much with a neutral US.
That argument assumes wars are still fought like Normandy.
No major power needs to invade Canada to defeat it, they only need to isolate, coerce, and disable it. The reason this hasn’t happened isn’t Canadian sealift denial; it’s that any attempt would immediately trigger U.S. escalation. That deterrent exists because the U.S. exists.
We don’t have strategic depth to defend our borders. China or the USSR could just isolate us. The same claim you make that Oceans would prevent anyone from attacking also prevents us getting resupplied by any allies willing to do so.
If they chose a Normady like invasion, they could land small forces where they want and while we try to get troops there, they could land in other places including in the middle of the country. They can launch missiles and destroy anything they want to. They’ll see our troops moving and destroy them. We have no counter. In most cases, they could land brigades and we wouldn’t know they were there until they attacked.
A couple weeks ago I was in Shenzhen at the SEG electronics market looking at a drone with a 150cm wing span. Cheap, looked like a tiny Osprey with tilting rotors. It claimed a flight time of 125 minutes at 100km/h. A couple dozen of those with grenades and an advanced unit of Pioneer types would devastate any army base we have and render all planes on the ground unusable and we have minimal capability to repair or build new.
They’d destroy our army, navy, and air force before we could fire a shot AND only then chose to land at the location of their choice.
Okay, I’m just going to assume you aren’t actually Canadian and have no knowledge of Canadian geography from now on.
Then I’ll assume you have no knowledge of modern warfare.
Dude, you literally just said that China could land forces in land-locked parts of the country. That’s not how ships work. I don’t know how to respond to that without laughing.
You also seem to think that China (I’m just going to ignore “the USSR” because they broke up in the 90s. Really. It was in the news.) could not only get enough forces across the Pacific to pose a threat to us, but could deny sea lanes in the Atlantic to our European allies. But sure, I’m the one who doesn’t understand things. Drones are neat and all, but the Pacific is really, really, really big.
Anyways, the fact that the nature of warfare is changing and China is an emerging military superpower (100% focused on force projection across the Taiwan Strait, not the Pacific Ocean which is slightly wider) doesn’t really have any impact on whether Canada “only lives” because of the US, which is a backwards-looking question.
This discussion began as a pushback against Trump’s implication that the US has in the past protected Canada from harm, which is not a conjecture supported by any evidence. If you want to move the goalposts and talk about national security going forward, we could have that discussion I guess, but in that case the larger threat to our sovereignty is a lot closer and more menacing than China.
Well there is the problem. I think he meant that Canada exists because the US exists. Not because they protected us from a specific invasion threat. Any future potential threat is avoided because of our proximity, IMHO.
That’s a very, very charitable interpretation. I think Trump’s statement sounds like a mob boss running a protection racket.
Canada gets a lot of freebies from us. They should be grateful but they’re not. I watched your prime minister yesterday. He wasn’t so grateful. But they should be grateful to us. Canada. Canada lives because of the United States. Remember that, Mark, next time you make your statements.
This is edited from something I posted on Facebook a couple of days ago - curious what my fellow Canadopers will think.
I’m just going to throw an idea out there. Up to the end of February, Canadians who have any kind of investments - mutual funds, RRSPs, RESPs, etc. - usually have a chance to talk to their banker or other investment group about how it’s all going and what to do with what they’ve currently got.
Now, ever since ethical mutual funds first came out, many financial advisors have pushed them aside, saying ‘you’re deliberately causing your money to earn less’. Sorta like how grocery stores have done their best to make organic food look like it costs more for inferior produce…
In light of the disrespect that the US has shown and continues to show, disrespect that has already led to a consumer boycott and the ‘elbows up’ movement, I wonder if it’s time to divest ourselves of US financial products.
And yes, I’ve heard that the boycott has been losing momentum - it’s been a long time now to do without whatever favourite thing you like to buy that’s made in the US.
But if Donald Trump’s comments from the World Economic Forum at Davos don’t make you want to see the boycott succeed, I don’t know what to tell you.
I’m no financial expert - when you’ve got nothing, there’s not much point in following the financial news - and that’s why I’m throwing this one out. What do you think? Is this a plausible pro-Canada strategy?
Like Carney, huh?
I found this Beaverton article was helping me deal with losing Catherine O’Hara - Nation could really use Catherine O'Hara to deal with passing of Catherine O'Hara - The Beaverton .