It’s 2034, and a couple of years ago the US somehow decided to go with the Manifest Destiny candidate, now president Shora Expande. President Expande has never been shy about their desire to deliver to the US the one thing they’re not making more of: land. It all seemed like a lot of rhetoric…at least until about 4 months ago.
People began to get nervous when Expande began to recall US armed forces members stationed abroad back to the states around Thanksgiving of last year. The average person’s concern was ratcheted up significantly when those troops began to be re-deployed to the US’s northern and southern borders between Christmas and Valentine’s day.
When questioned about the sudden amassment of troops along the borders, President Expande told world leaders and the media that they were planning to be the first US president who was going to take on border defense in a real way because we can’t have the US overrun by people sneaking in.
A few days ago Expande ordered coordinated attacks on border cities in both Canada and Mexico. As the world’s third largest army it’s not really straining the troops to be divided right now; plenty of manpower to go around.
Other world leaders demanded that Expande explain, and they stated that Canada is basically the US anyway so why not make it official, and as for Mexico, it’s cheaper if we simply take over running the whole country rather than continuing to support the millions who come in illegally.
The media (and social media) probably are correctly speculating that not only does Expande want land, they want Canada’s timber and oil, and Mexico’s precious metal resources. And pretty much anything else of value they can get their hands on.
Currently US forces are fighting dirty and have the same weapons at their disposal as they did in 2022, adding a bit to them if anything.
What does the rest of the world do once it becomes clear the president of the US is determined to make North America a single country, by any means necessary? What can they do to stop the war(s)?
I believe the Central and South American Latin countries would rapidly unite to defend Mexico. And I believe the whole world would speak out, at any aggression against Canada by the US.
That could leave the US under attack from both the North and South, not a good spot to be in. Plus, all the grudge bearing former US enemies would be entering the fray from the jump, I’d expect.
Leaving aside the ludicrous scenario of the U.S. invading Mexico or Canada to secure territory, there’s some precedent for committing U.S. forces in a cross-border action.
In 1916, in response to Pancho Villa’s raid on Columbus, New Mexico which resulted in the deaths of 16 residents and the burning of the town, the U.S. sent General Pershing to lead a punitive expedition into Mexico to capture Villa, ultimately involving 10,000 American Army troops and personnel. In the 11 months they were in Mexico, they didn’t succeed in capturing Villa but did almost get into a shooting war with the Mexican regular army. Other powers were mostly preoccupied with their own troubles in WWI, but Germany tried to seize on Mexican resentment against the U.S. in proposing an alliance with Mexico, promising that in the event of hostilities Mexico would be in line to retake its lost territories in the U.S. north of the border (this was a major factor in the U.S. joining the Allies against the Germans).
If a crazy/terroristic faction arose in Mexico which raided into the U.S. and provoked a military response, one could envision Cuba or another nation providing support to that group, which would be insanely stupid but not totally inconceivable.
The history of American incursion into Canada and the lack of anything essential that we need there argues against an invasion, unless curling gets unbelievable popular in the U.S. and we can see no way to succeed in the sport except by vanquishing Canadian competition.
Brazil would stop exporting coffee, China would stop exporting VCRs, Russia would stop exporting vodka and porn, and the rest of the world would rush out to watch Canadian Bacon.
Not that I believe we would ever invade but Canada does have Oil and Gold at very least. They also have a lot of uranium, zin & nickel. Don’t dismiss their natural resources.
Colombia would enact a cocaine embargo and the Mexican narcos would run circles around the US-troops. Canada would win using the Russian tactic: let them enter 1,000 miles into your territory, let the winter freeze them to death. Conquer back and make the fly-over states satellite countries, Nevada is sold to Russia, California is dried up by bombing the Hoover Dam and becomes a Taiwan protectorate, give Manhattan back to the Netherlands, Florida to Cuba (Spain wouldn’t take it, we have enough old tourists on our own) and Vermont to Greenland. Everybody is better off, I think this invasion thing is a great idea. I will pray for it tonight.
Militarily, there’s not much they could do. No one outside North America has any significant military forces inside of North America. So anyone who would oppose the US with force would have to bring everything they need across an ocean to a staging area in Canada or Mexico. An ocean protected by the most powerful navy in history, who are engaged in an expansionist war.
Basically anything that anyone tried to send gets sent to the bottom of the ocean. It’ll make the German sub warfare of WWII look like a slap fight.
If we have some warning, Canada will get in a few good hits, and then fold pretty quickly. Some people would embrace the Americans, saying, “Finally! What took you so long?”, others would look at infiltrating the US and starting a terror campaign unlike anything the US has ever seen.
I have no idea what would happen in Mexico, but they have a far larger population than Canada, have more defense in depth and so would take longer to conquer, and generally seem to have more guns of all types. I’m sure the US would win eventually, but it’ll be nasty.
The rest of the world looks on in horror. Canadian terrorists? My Word! We expected such things from the Irish, but not Canada!
For all intents and purposes, everything in Canada worth occupying is within 100 miles of the border. I think Mexico would be the tougher nut to crack, especially if they can keep their southern supply lines open. And then there are those 20,000 Korean “tourists” in Mexico City to deal with…
Not the oil and the timber, I believe, and some people never know when to stop anyway. I like underestimating the enemy before the fighting starts and deriding them in public. There will be time to run and hide later.
Fair point. But Greenland has got to get something as compensation for having been in Trump’s head, even if it was only a nanosecond. Make a suggestion.
It seems like an easy win for the Americans. But it is not.
Canada would use its substantial fifth column in the States to terrifying effect. The comedy industry would be reduced to a smoking hull and SNL would be cancelled. Imports of essentials such as lobster, potash, fiddleheads, Christmas trees and fiddling music would come to a complete standstill. The Canadian government would register how disheartened it is by the American actions - make no mistake. The tourist industries in Florida and Arizona would be decimated and be forced to serve high fructose corn syrup with breakfast, sending millions of Americans into diabetic comas. Canada would use its powerful military to dump Terrance and Philip propaganda on American cities.
Mexico and its many American based Latinx residents would be even more fearsome. Supplies of guacamole, fruits, vegetables and telenovelas would dry up. Zoot suits would come back into fashion and there would be fearsome rioting in the streets of Miami and Chicago. The rioters would be immune to pepper spray. The ranchera and reggaeton music industries would unite with other powerful business interests to close Taco Bells and Chipotles nationwide. All of South and Central America would state that they are also “America”. They would complain Americans see them as all the same. Yet they are not! Soccer teams would lose their skilled players. And the White House would be so deafened by mariachi music that its very inhabitants would burn it down and decamp to Mar-A-Lago.
And humanitarian corridors would allow Americans to flee to Vancouver. And this time, they would really mean it. Maybe.
This is just silly. The only reason the narcos keep their power is because law enforcement is corrupt. And fear. Cops are bought off, and good cops and civilians are afraid of having their heads on pikes. This hypothetical US invasion would wipe them out in a day. I doubt they would be capable of some Iraqi like insurgency. If there would be any insurgency it would be from American who want their illegal drugs back.
You’re making this action sound appealing!
In answer to to OP, the rest of the world would tsk tsk and talk about embargoes, but pretty much nothing would happen. No one is going to land troops to support the valiant Mexican Freedom fighters.
And they aren’t coming up though Guatemala, because of the wall!
While the US is an empire, the logic of its empire is different from our historical sense of empires. That is, it has no need to invade with military force where it can simply buy its way in. It doesn’t need to take over Canadian resources by sending in the army; it is already there and has deals that pump out oil and much more and profit to the US. Thus the term “Coca-colonization,” a reference to Coca-Cola and the particular logic of US empire.
The US empire is an expansion of capitalism, which is a system for exploiting people and directing surpluses to the few, but it is different from feudalism and other systems in that it uses economic coercion more than physical coercion. As the old labour song puts it, “the whip that drives me onward is my family must eat,” rather than the actual whip of the slaver owner. It does, of course, reserve the right to use physical force when it seems it necessary.
So an invasion is unlikely, as the B 35s would be pounding a fair number of US owned assets. If it did happen, the world would do very little. Britain much prefers its special relationship with the US to any connection with its former colonies. China might be upset if coal and oil were disturbed, but would first seek new deals with whoever controlled the resources. Finland, in this scenario fighting for its life against Russia, might send Canada messages of support but neither could help the other much.
I note in passing that the military/foreign policy writer Gwynne Dyer noted 40 or so years ago that while people talked about “Finlandization” to describe Russia’s dominance of Finland, it would be much more appropriate to talk about “Canadianization” to describe its greater dominance by the US.
I know a lot of people seriously see water as a cause for war in North America, but I really don’t think an actual war would happen, at least, not any time soon. The US has just as much access to 4 of the 5 Great Lakes as Canada does, and far greater access to Lake Michigan. If the US ever gets to the point where water is so scarce that an actual war looks like a good idea to get water, it would be far easier and cheaper to just start sucking the Great Lakes dry.
There’s very little beyond tut-tutting that Canada could do about that. Even if we were inclined to the use of force to destroy the water-sucking facilities the US builds, we mostly lack the capability to do that.
I suppose we could try a sneak attack with the air force, but that’s about it. But even trying that would bring about the war we know we’d lose.
Google Earth says that it’s a straight-line distance of over 1,000 miles from the Mexican/Guatemalan border to the Panamanian/Colombian border Please name even a single country in South America that has a military with the logistics to send a significant number of troops that far.
As far as Central America goes, Costa Rica and Panama don’t even have a military in the ordinary sense of the word. If the Caribbean nations join in, Cuba is probably the military powerhouse of the region, with a whopping 49,000 active-duty troops.
