Could Russia invade Canada? (based on YouTube video)

In My Humble Opinion
21

‘Professionals talk logistics’ while true can turn into a hand waving argument. The ability to logistically support a given operation also depends on how large a force needs to be supplied given the opponent’s force, and how much the opponent can disrupt the logistics.

For example in the Pacific War the immediate reason the Japanese failed to push the Americans off any Japanese island base the Americans invaded, starting with the close run affair in the long attrition campaign at Guadalcanal, was arguably lack of logistical support for the Japanese forces ashore. But because the Americans were able to disrupt it. The Allies failed to disrupt the ad hoc/shoe string logistical capability of the Japanese in a series of highly successful Japanese campaigns over huge distances in the early months of the war. The Japanese didn’t suddenly become worse at logistics starting in August 1942, nor was Guadalcanal farther from Japan (closer to some major pre-war IJN bases like Truk) than parts of the Dutch East Indies the Japanese rapidly conquered some months earlier. It’s just that in the early campaigns Japanese air and naval forces cleared away the threat to the limited and highly taxed Japanese merchant fleet to support forces large enough to defeat the generally poorly prepared Allied ones.

Likewise Russia certainly has a enough ships and a/c to to support a ground force in the Canadian Arctic larger than what the Canadians could deploy there. The question would be whether the relatively small Canadian combat air component, a few dozen F-18’s, could inflict unacceptable losses on Russian ships and transport a/c before being attrited into ineffectiveness itself. And/or whether a bridgehead the Russians gained in a given summer could be extended to populated areas of Canada the same year, or have to winter over. It’s more complicated than ‘professionals talk logistics’.

But also consider the basic geography wrt to how remotely realistic this question is. The only Russian air bases within ~1,000 miles of Canada are in the farthest east portions of Siberia near Alaska. IOW it’s ~1,000 miles right along the north coast of AK to reach the northwest corner of the Yukon Territory. One non-hand wave analysis would be relative Russian and Canadian aerial refueling capability to support tactical a/c covering or interdict landing zones in the Yukon, since 1,000 mile radius while perhaps nominally within range of some Soviet tactical a/c it would not be practical without refueling support, but the required capability is not exactly quantifiable off the cuff. It’s relative to Canadian ability to support (pretty short legged first generation) F-18 operations around 1,300 miles from the nearest full fledged Canadian air base (~1,300 to Cold Lake Alberta from northeast Yukon), but also considering the general advantage of the defense in such a situation, for a given number of a/c. But a scenario where Russian a/c could fly back and forth 100 of miles along the north coast of Alaska with no worry about US forces?

But suspending disbelief, another aspect would be Russian precision guided conventional cruise and potentially ballistic missiles to suppress Canadian bases, v no long range Canadian strike capability to pressure Soviet bases.

In reality Canada has next to no military capability to defend its Arctic from Russia, which has to be factored into relative to Russian capability, rather than some absolute ‘the Russians have no logistics’. It’s all relative. If one side can project only a very small force to a given point, the other side only need ‘the logistics’ to project a sufficiently larger force to prevail, and so on up the ladder. The US keeping a reinforced division adequately supplied on Guadalcanal doomed a Japanese force of elements of a couple of divisions poorly supplied. But if the US force on the island had been much smaller, the same Japanese force would probably have prevailed.

Canada lacks any but a token capability to defend its north. But it arguably simply does not need one in the actual general strategic situation where such a Russian operation would be completely unacceptable to the US, and moreover the parts of Canada closest to Russia are ‘screened’ by Alaska.

22

I’m sure actual Russian logistical planners know this, but people in this thread don’t seem to understand that the high arctic is harder to traverse in summer than in winter. You know that ice road trucker reality show? The reason they drive on ice roads is because there are no roads in summer. The terrain is largely impassible even with tracked vehicles. “They said I was daft to drive a tank across the tundra, but I did it anyways, just to show 'em. And it sank into the swamp!”

It may well be harder to land on the arctic coast and move a significant military force south even if we didn’t contest it at all (besides destroying/mining the Dempster Highway) than it would be to establish a beachhead on the west coast against whatever military opposition we could muster.

23

Probably so, but how are they going to land in BC? Russia has zip in the way of amphibious staging bases on the Pacific. Subs, they got. Landing craft, they ain’t got.

Sure, they could probably send a freighter to Port McNeill and take over the town. For a bit. But how are they going to keep them supplied?

24

Book passage on one of those Alaskan cruise lines?

25

Isn’t Canada is sparsely populated in the north? Most of their major cities are along the US border.

Defending the northern areas could be a problem. However, the brutal climate is a natural barrier to invasion.

Australia had a similar problem facing a Japanese invasion during WWII. Australia didn’t have a large population to defend against invasion.

26

Russian disinformation agents will start spreading news that Russia was the original anti-fascist state and is the most “Woke” country out there and then Justin Trudeau would welcome the marching Russians with open arms.

27

Russia now fields a mostly volunteer military. All off their leadership positions, including junior non-commissioned officer slots that used to be filled with conscripts, are volunteers. They’ve reduced length of service for the conscript minority to a year. Take out a couple months of training time and the turnover is so quick the conscripts mostly go to relatively low priority units. I’d expect any force deployed forward would be overwhelmingly composed of volunteers. That’s generally what we’ve seen in Ukraine. Those deployed skew more heavily towards volunteers than the Russian military as a whole. They’ll also be reasonably well seasoned with combat veterans of recent and ongoing operations.

That’s not the kind of force that is prone to widespread defection.

Got a post-2008 cite for that?

The Russian military wasn’t really all the different than the old Soviet army until that point. Then they performed poorly in the Russian-Georgian war in 2008. It was Georgia so they still won handily but it kicked off a major round of military modernization and reform. Some of that is the shift away from conscription to a volunteer force. Big changes to doctrine and force structure are part of it. New and upgraded weapons have been fielded at a relatively rapid pace.

I haven’t seen a claim that’s as strong as what you said in recent years. Russia has a pretty big logistics burden in support of combat operations along with big exercises in the last couple of years. Logistics units tend to be where they stash their conscripts. Many of them do still seem to perform as badly as the constant turnover of poorly trained conscripts would make you think. It’s not the 80’s or even the 90’s, though. Any assumption that hasn’t been updated in the last couple of years is out of date and needs to be re-looked. Your claim seems to be of the old common knowledge type. It that may not be true anymore.

28

In the video, he claims that the Canadians would be able to purchase necessary equipment from black market sources. I really question how realistic that is. If the United States is serious enough about neutrality to refuse to help an ally, could Canada get its hands on enough missiles, apart parts and such?

29

So Canada suddenly makes itself a worldwide pariah, and Russia decides it wants to have an empire of the north? I’ll go with Russia winning a military victory, but with a few huge fantastical prerequisites.

I’ll start be saying that I think Russia would have to go through northern British Columbia. There’s practically no infrastructure on the Yukon arctic coast. At least in the northern British Columbia Pacific coast, there are ports for cruise ships and fishing boats, plus roads.

Second, I’m supposing that Canada’s military is hugely integrated with the United States and NATO. Losing those two resources means Canada has very little in the way of satellite reconnaissance or foreign intelligence. That makes a Russian surprise attack a possibility, and surprise would absolutely be necessary. (Although even in this alternate universe, there’s no way there wouldn’t be back-door messages from the US to Canada about a Russian Pacific build-up, no matter how at odds the US and Canada might be.)

Third, I’m assuming Canada is going to be in turmoil when it becomes a worldwide pariah. Canada would have the resources to build up its military and security forces, but it would take time and direction. If the Canadian government is addressing thousands of political, economic, and social issues, the build-up would be one of a multitude of problems, not a priority.

On the Russian side, they’d have to move a large chunk of their army and navy to the Pacific. That’s achievable. Russia has a good railway system, and an established port in Vladivostok, home to the Russian Pacific Fleet. That would take time and money. Money’s probably not an issue as Putin’s firmly in control of the Russian government. Time is more of an issue, as the more time Canada has, the better they’d be able to prepare to go it alone. However, we can presume that Russian espionage services would be working to encourage and prolong the turmoil detailed above.

Russia would also have to develop a transport fleet to move it’s army and supplies across the Pacific. Fortunately for them, there’s a global glut in medium-sized freighters (at least there was a couple of years ago). Using existing freighters for supplies isn’t a problem. Converting freighters to military transport is an issue, but it’s a solvable one. Car carrying freight could be converted to carry military vehicles. Ships with hull storage could be converted to troop transports. Converted freighters would be highly vulnerable, but it would be the Russian navy’s job to protect them. And again, surprise would be a necessary element for a successful attack.

For the actual attack, once Russia establishes a beachhead, lands a corps, and generates a cross-Pacific supply chain, their military is going to dominate the Canadian military. In a head-to-head fight, Russia versus Canada, Canada’s going to lose just based on numbers. It might take a while to move the Russian forces across the country, but Canadian forces wouldn’t be able to stop them. Canada’s biggest advantages in today’s world are distance and allies. Distance can be overcome with effort and the element of surprise. Canada without allies would be a hugely vulnerable target. Of course once Russia secured the military victory, they’d still have to deal with 37 million angry Canadians. That wouldn’t be too much fun.

TLDR, if Canada has no allies, no chance for a military and security build-up, and no forewarning, Russia could conquer it, at least militarily. However, those are some pretty big ifs.

30

Yeah, I’ve seen these in the past. But the real issue in these cage match things is the assumptions it ignores. The reason some of these look unbalanced is because - other than the US - the NATO countries military plans ASSUME back up from allied member nations. That is, Canada’s military is the size it is because there’s an underlying assumption that, should Russia lose its mind and invade, they’ll be able to get help pretty quickly from the European NATO states even if, for whatever reason, the US stays out of it.

In the absence of NATO mutual defense agreements, the current NATO countries would be spending more money and time individually on their military and Russia v Canada would be a significantly different conflict.

31

The X factor here is that Canadians are so gosh-darn nice* that the Russians could roll right over them. :dubious:

A big problem re Guadalcanal was that the Japanese consistently underestimated the size of the American contingent on the island and failed to land a force sufficient to drive them off. By the time they had a large buildup (which they had trouble supplying due to American harassment) it was too late to dislodge the Americans.

*we have a Canadian poster who went ape over a joking thread suggesting the U.S. should take over Manitoba (or was it Alberta?), so the reaction to a proposed Russian takeover of the entire country ought to be interesting.

32

The main issue I see is the size of the country, coupled with geography. Even taking the point about the weakness of the Canadian forces, I think that the geography makes it impossible for Russia to conquer Canada.

Take the proposal by Wrenching Spanners for a beachhead on northern BC, the problem is one of communications and transportation.

There’s not many major ports in northern BC. It’s mainly Prince Rupert.

Let’s assume the Russians take it. Then what?

BC is the province in Canada that most lends itself to defence. It’s mountains. Not just a few mountains - four ranges, all part of the Pacific North West cordillera.

There is only one highway and one railway out of Prince Rupert to the east: the Yellowhead Highway and the CNR.

So if I were the Canadian Officer in Charge (God help us! :wink: ) of defence, I probably wouldn’t put up much defence of Prince Rupert.

I’d have the Canadian Armed Forces bomb the Yellowhead and the CNR and cut Prince Rupert’s connection to the rest of Canada. Then what do the Russians do? They’ve captured a port, one that’s cut off from the rest of Canada. But they can’t move east, and they have to bring in all their own supplies, notably oil and food, because Prince Rupert isn’t a farm area. How do they breakout?

Wrenching Spanner’s hypothesis is that once the Russians have that beachhead in northern BC, their military will dominate the Canadian military. That assumes the Canadian military engages them in a major defence. But why can’t the Canadian military just keep them bottled up, and decline a major engagement, in this northern BC scenario?

33

Very good points, NP. Destroying the road and railway would allow the Canadian military to take the week off and visit his mum.

I’m still wondering where the Russians get all the ships for this invasion and supply chain that Wrenching Spanners posits. Landing a corps would take them years. Where would they put them? Port Rupert has 12,000 people and the town is perched on the edge of the ocean. There is absolutely zero place to house a division, much less a larger set of troops. The one runway (short) airport is on another island completely and has to be accessed by ferry.

We’re back to “impossible” again.

34

This is some insane, I-learned-military-strategy-from-a-Risk-board nuttery.

First of all, ignore all the stuff about population and GDP and crap, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that a cross-Arctic invasion is just lunacy, and if you could somehow pull it off, what have the Russians captured? They’re now at the frozen edge of a thousand miles of jack shit. Just moving their troops southward to the parts of Canada that the Canadian government would actually defend would be a logistical exercise completely beyond their capabilities. That would be a hell of a tough go for the USA if the USA inexplicably wanted to invade Canada from the Arctic.

35

Thanks. I was just going to take a look at the air strip issue. Again, Prince Rupert is on the edge of the mountains, so a major air strip is hard to build. Not much flat land, which is why the local strip is on an island off the coast.

Then there’s another point that occurred to me: electricity. Power in BC is mainly generated by hydro-electric dams in the interior. The Canadian Armed Forces would be able to cut the power lines to Prince Rupert. So now the Russians have to bring in oil, food, and electric plants.

All this “cutting off” would be hard on the citizens of Prince Rupert, of course, so then the Russians would have to deal with a disaffected local population…

36

RickJay’s already trenchantly shot down the idea of a landing in Yukon, but let’s just play with that for a bit.

Suppose the Russians land their invading force in Tuktoyaktuk, at the mouth of the Mackenzie. They pretty much have to go there, because that’s the terminus for the only all-season highway. They could “easily” take it, since it’s a small town of about 800 people. Of course, it’s not much of a deep water harbour, being at the Mackenzie delta, so even if they do take it, landing supplies and equipment won’t be that easy

Then what do they do?

They could just sit there and wait for the Canadian Armed Forces. But again, if I was O/C Damn Russians!, why would I commit any forces there? Let them sit on the shore of the Arctic Ocean, freezing their little Russki tushies.

Eventually they realize that the CAF isn’t coming, so they start Operation Southern Canada. They line up whatever mechanized vehicles they have, and start south.

Do people realize just how BIG Canada is? Yukon is our smallest territory, but if you take the road from Tuk to Fort Nelson BC, Google maps tells me it’s 2,354 km. Hope the Russians have brought a lot of tanker trucks filled with gas to keep their mechanized convoy going, because as O/C, I would be doing everything I could to bomb any fuel stops. And, I hope they brought a good engineering corps, because I would be having the CAF bombing the Dempster and Liard Highways, which are the only highways connecting Yukon to British Columbia.

Assuming they make it to Fort Nelson, BC, it’s just a hop skip and a jump to Ottawa and conquest of Canada, right?

Umm, no, actually. Fort Nelson is just a bit south of the 60th parallel. The highways south to the rest of BC and to Alberta are better than the Yukon northern highways, but you’ve still got a ways to go.

Fort Nelson to Edmonton is 1040 km. How,s the gas holding out, Ivan? Will be easier to live off the land, I guess, but what about your air support? Unless you’ve managed to capture and hold the airport at Whitehorse (which of course means leaving some of your invading force as a garrison), you won’t have any air support.

And if you do, how much fuel is available for you at Whitehorse to keep your planes in the air?

And what’s the range for your planes? Can you provide air support all the way to Edmonton? Because you’re starting to get into the range of CFB Cold Lake.

And assuming you get to Edmonton, how big is your force now? Big enough to capture and hold a major city? Because as O/C, I might be tempted to start committing ground forces, in an ugly city fight. Because even if I lose one Canadian soldier for each Russian, that’s likely a fair exchange, given how long your lines of communications are. I’m thinking I can get CAF soldiers from Vancouver, Calgary and Moose Jaw Wing quicker than you can get reinforcements from Siberia via Tuk.

And how’s your air cover for the Battle of Edmonton, Ivan? If you haven’t managed to seize one of the Edmonton Airports, your planes are coming from Whitehorse. That’s a round trip of just under 4,000 km. Do your planes have that range? And how’s the jet fuel doing?

And by the way, how long is it going to take for you to get to Edmonton from Tuk? A month? So we’re already likely looking at being mid-July, because you likely landed in Tuk in early or mid-June.

Winter starts in Tuk by late September or early October, depending on how you define “winter”. And then your logistical problems get worse. Fuel freezes. Rubber cracks. Soldiers get frostbite. The Arctic Ocean freezes, making re-supply by ship much more difficult. You know the drill, Ivan: “General Winter” has long been one of your most valued military assets. But now you’re meeting the Canuck General Winter…

And even if you capture Edmonton, what next? Edmonton to Ottawa is a mere 3,455 km, according to trusty Google Maps. And to get there you have to go through Saskatoon and then Winnipeg. Sure, it’s not like they’re fortress cities, but if you try to just go around them, you’re putting your supply lines at risk. Your *very, very long * supply lines. How quickly are you able to get reinforcements? Repairs and spare parts for your equipment? And how’s your air cover doing, Ivan?

And if you get past Winnipeg, living off the land, now you’ve got to go through the Canadian Shield north of Superior. There ain’t much land there you can live off - unless you can eat granite… oh, and let’s check the fuel tanks again, Ivan - still holding up? And, the Shield is a choke point, with only two lane highways through rock. As O/C, I think I’d be committing a lot of bombing and strafing runs on the Trans-Canada Highway, both to deny access and to do as much damage to your forces as I could.

And by now it’s winter. North of the Shield may not be as bad as at Tuk, but once you’re well below freezing, it’s all relative, isn’t it?

So, my conclusion: yes, the Russian forces may be bigger than the CAF, but the CAF has the strategic advantage of huge size, inhospitable terrain at key points, and winter. The Russians have a tremendously long supply chain to deal with, especially fuel and air cover.

I think Canada would win the long war of attrition, using the very tactics pioneered by Russia against Napoleon, and the USSR against Hitler: fall back, taking advatange of our strategic depth, winter, and our much shorter supply lines.

37

Natural barrier but not insurmountable, depending on opposition. The point about Australia in WWII only reinforces this. It was altogether within Japanese capabilities to conquer Australia in WWII, if it hadn’t needed to supply/defend all the other conquests of Dec '41> ca. Mar '42 against in the US, secondarily depending how much the rest of the British Empire could help Australia assuming no US involvement, and third somewhat hobbled by how much of the Japanese Army was tied down in China and Manchuria.

So the Japanese decided it was not a desirable option (it was considered enough for rough plans and proposals to be drawn up, advocates being mainly in the IJN, IJA more uniformly opposed). But that was a function of the potential opposition and other commitments v the value of such an operation. It was not because natural barriers were literally insurmountable with no opposition, which they rarely are.

Nor would they be in case of Russia wanting to invade the Canadian arctic. Which is a sparsely populated area so why invade it? (but why invade Canada at all? I’m suspending disbelief here to talk capabilities). But it’s actually feasible to invade because it’s within potential range of tactical a/c based in Russia around 1000 mile away, v barely any capability of the RCAF to employ its CF-18’s that far north, 1300+ miles from its nearest full fledged fighter base at Cold Lake, Alberta*. Attacking either coast of Canada is way outside air cover range from Russia, near Canadian forces bases which can support CF-18’s, and Russia has only one a/c carrier of still questionable operational capability. That just would not work, as opposed to invading the Arctic which probably actually would work in the fantasy scenario of disinterest by every other country, just subject to ‘what is the point of this?’ and a very long slog from there to populated areas, needing to build intermediate air fields on the way.

*both countries have a limited number of tankers, <20 Russian IL78 types, and half a dozen Canadian tankers (2 CC-150T’s really suitable for supporting fast jets, 4 CC-130HT’s with some capability). But the Su-35 has a quote unrefueled radius of 900+ land miles v around 1000 from nearest Russian bases, the CF-18 has a quoted unrefueled combat radius of 330 miles v ~1,300 miles from Cold Lake to the northwest corner of the Yukon. The number of Russian tankers even though absolutely larger is still quite small compared to their whole tactical a/f, especially in comparison to the US ratio of tanker assets to tactical a/c. And stated plans AFAIK are only to expand this to perhaps 30 tankers: the Russians obviously still don’t put much emphasis on long range operations by tactical a/c in the real world. However again it’s all relative and, suspending disbelief about the whole scenario, Russian tactical a/c might be able to give useful cover to landing sites on the Yukon coast from bases in Russia relative to the extremely limited Canadian capability to put CF-18’s there to oppose it. And that very limited Canadian capability might also be feasible to defeat with sea or ground based air defense weapons.

38

I thought Russia’s only aircraft carrier got taken out by the dry-dock?

39

It did. The Admiral Kuznetsov is a white elephant of the first order. Every time it has gone out on an exercise it has had to be accompanied by a couple of tugs to make sure it gets back to base. It could probably be taken out by a canoe full of Girl Guides and a pointy stick.

40

Well, the thing is ancient at this point. It’s an old Soviet era relic (it reminds me of some of the star ships in Warhammer 40K)…laid down in the early 80’s, I think it was commissioned in the late 80’s…just in time for the Soviet Union to fall apart and Russia to lose the budget to maintain stuff like that. It wasn’t always as bad as it is today, but it’s had some hard times and probably should have been retired in the early 2000’s when Russia basically had no money to maintain it. But they still wanted to be a ‘superpower’ and having an air craft carrier was prestigious or something, so they kept it on, even when they didn’t have the money to really keep it maintained the way it needed to be.