# So, are we ready for a land invasion? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 5, 2018, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-we-ready-for-a-land-invasion/824014 "2018-11-05T16:39:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2018, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-we-ready-for-a-land-invasion/824014/81 "2018-11-07T14:43:09Z")
> [@Lord\_Feldon](#): > > Yep, just like Ebola in 2014. This seems to be a recurring pattern. Pick an imaginary or greatly exaggerated thing to fearmonger over in the days before an election, and then after Election Day never talk about it again. GOP voters, do you appreciate that you are being played like a fiddle? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2018, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-we-ready-for-a-land-invasion/824014/82 "2018-11-07T14:57:18Z")
> [@Balthisar](#): > > I wouldn’t make that assumption at all, though. If we annexed all of Mexico, there would be no place for them to leave _to_. And those were the days of low population, little to no industry, and not much global trade. It couldn’t be like that at all. Agreed. We are talking about nearly 130 million people. Even if there was some where for them to go, it would be a nightmare either integrating those who want to stay or moving those who would be going. ---
**Author:** ![Brayne\_Ded](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Brayne\_Ded](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brayne_Ded)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2018, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-we-ready-for-a-land-invasion/824014/83 "2018-11-07T17:43:58Z")
There were number of questions put up on Quora on this subject. Yup, you get some pretty loopy questions asked on Quora, but the answers are usually sensible. In this case, a number of ex-military piped up. Their almost unanimous take on the matter: Where exactly would the invasion come from? Through Alaska - no %@ing way. Canada and Mexico as springboards? The only possible way, as an amphibious landing would be impossible across an entire ocean. D-Day across the Channel was hard enough. So you have Canada and Mexico to launch your attack from. Who is going to do this? The US military is roughly equivalent in equipment to all the other forces in the world combined. Boots on the ground? The Rest of the World (RotW) can provide plenty of warm bodies, and in overwhelming numbers in you can just get them into position. Assuming that Our Donald actually manages to seriously piss off the RotW and the grand coalition wants to match in, there is the tiny little problemette of logistics. Apart from several million licentious soldiery, you also need the equipment, weapons and supplies. So, you charter every passenger vessel available - how long wold it take to shift a couple of million? The equipment - world trade stops as every single ship is commandeered. Canada and Mexico have huge areas where all these people and goodies are waiting. I’m sure nobody would notice a thing. OK, they get their shit together and roll into action. Assuming that they do defeat the US military - and this is already the third very tenuous assumption, you then have to hold what you captured. The USA is big, and the citizenry is well armed. A franc tireur in every pot, or something of the sort. So, the mother of all guerilla wars, urban and rural. The Seals were right, though. A sneak attack on the power and communication infrastructure would indeed paralyze the country. This was suggested as a potentially successful form of attack. ---
**Author:** ![senoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@senoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/senoy)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2018, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-we-ready-for-a-land-invasion/824014/84 "2018-11-07T19:21:01Z")
Yes, the US is prepared. As others have mentioned, no one could possibly build up troops on our borders without a reciprocal response except maybe Canada and Mexico. Canada has a tiny military. Its entire military is smaller than the National Guard from states that border it. It’s actually not even close. New York, PA, Ohio and Michigan have the same number of troops as the entire Canadian Armed Forces. They are suffering from equipment shortages, but they probably have more heavy armor for their use than the Canadians have as well. The US has 3000 Abrams tanks in storage, just sitting around. Canada has 80 tanks period, just 80. As for Mexico, they have many more personnel, but their military is largely a police force masquerading as a military. They have ZERO tanks. Honestly, we have more and better heavy armor sitting as war memorials in town squares than the entire Mexican army. Their heaviest vehicles are basically the equivalent of what our SWAT teams drive around in. Fine vehicles that they should be proud of, but not exactly the kinds of things you want to launch a takeover of the US in. Honestly and truly, the US is I don’t want to say invulnerable, but pretty darn close. As much as we like to fret about Russia or China, barring some crazy change in US policy, the US does not have to worry about losing its sovereignty during any of our lives. We might not be able to push other countries around with impunity in the coming century, but the Chinese hordes ain’t coming for Anchorage any time soon either. The advantage we have and the emphasis we put on defense spending really means that we’re a weight class unto ourselves. Our healthcare might suck, our wealth inequality might be disastrous, our education system might be falling apart at the seams, but by God, you don’t want to get in a fight with us. ‘The Cyber’ on the otherhand… well, that’s a different story. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2018, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-we-ready-for-a-land-invasion/824014/85 "2018-11-07T19:30:56Z")
Because Mexico is a small country with the Gulf of Mexico on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other, we could actually do a lot of damage just with carrier based aircraft, submarines, and missile cruisers. We could also blockade their ports. On top of all that, Mexico has virtually no army or navy of any consequence to begin with. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2018, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-we-ready-for-a-land-invasion/824014/86 "2018-11-07T19:35:42Z")
“A small country”? You’ve got some interesting definitions of “small”. It’s the [13th largest country](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_area) by land area. Are you confusing Mexico and Costa Rica? ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2018, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-we-ready-for-a-land-invasion/824014/87 "2018-11-07T19:42:34Z")
ive always been told the Mexican army is mainly for internal security and southern border control these days …. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2018, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-we-ready-for-a-land-invasion/824014/88 "2018-11-07T20:42:57Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > ive always been told the Mexican army is mainly for internal security and southern border control these days …. Pretty much. I did a quick and dirty OOB for them up thread, but the short answer is that they don’t have sufficient military capability (leaving aside the lack of logistics and assuming they could get everything they do have into the battle space…which they also can’t do) to overwhelm even the local guard units in the border states, let alone sufficient military capabilities to hold even one of the big cities near the border in any of the neighboring states. They don’t have the ground forces, they don’t have the air assets, they don’t have the recon assets or the transport for anything like an invasion. Not even if they had total surprise and for some reason the US military was all of on a vacation in Canada. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2018, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-we-ready-for-a-land-invasion/824014/89 "2018-11-08T01:36:41Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > What is different than WWII? > I know that Australia had a lot of troops fighting in Africa and the Mid East, and I don’t know how many American troops were in Australia to replace them. Apart from the fact that the Japanese didn’t try to invade mainland Aus, their supply chain was destroyed by the Americans. If America didn’t want to invade Aus, and if we could depend on somebody else to destroy the American supply chain, then America would have difficulty invading Aus. Otherwise… not so much. ---
**Author:** ![TSBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2018, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-we-ready-for-a-land-invasion/824014/90 "2018-11-08T17:07:18Z")
Would anyone notice or care if the Chinese annexed Alaska? Asking for a friend. ---
**Author:** ![JB99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/439d5e/32.png) [@JB99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JB99)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2018, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-we-ready-for-a-land-invasion/824014/91 "2018-11-08T17:53:09Z")
One of the US’ great geographic advantages is its distance from competitors. The fact is that the US is just unmatched with regard to “force projection” just don’t have the logistic capacity to transport and sustain a large force beyond their borders. The ability to sustain large armies on the other side of the planet (like in Iraq and Afghanistan) is unique to the US. This is also a big part of the reason we have so many overseas bases. We aren’t in these countries out of the goodness of our hearts. Those bases are platforms for projecting power into remote parts of the world. China might sink an aircraft carrier, but they can’t sink Japan. Near-peer competitors like China and Russia have improved their logistics lately and are credible regional threats, but they mostly focus their resources on area-denial strategies to keep the US out of their neighborhoods. ---
**Author:** ![Akaj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akaj/32/145_2.png) [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2018, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-we-ready-for-a-land-invasion/824014/92 "2018-11-09T17:47:20Z")
I dunno. Whenever I play Fortress America, the southern invaders easily take Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Oklahoma, and they usually get Louisiana and Arkansas without much trouble. By turn 4, St. Louis and Kansas City are all that stand between the invaders and the defenseless industrial heartland. If the eastern invaders don’t get bogged down, the whole shootin’ match is usually over before the US can get its space lasers fully operational. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2018, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-we-ready-for-a-land-invasion/824014/93 "2018-11-09T18:59:39Z")
> [@TSBG](#): > > Would anyone notice or care if the Chinese annexed Alaska? Asking for a friend. Yeah, there’s all this talk about how well defended the base 48 are, but what about the other 2? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2018, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-we-ready-for-a-land-invasion/824014/94 "2018-11-09T19:30:33Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Yeah, there’s all this talk about how well defended the base 48 are, but what about the other 2? Well, Hawaii would be pretty much impossible for any power to invade except the US, so we can rule that one out. Alaska is probably out for anyone except Canada and maybe Russia…certainly the poster who asked the question about China can reassure their friend that China has zero chance of invading and taking Alaska. Russia maybe could, if they had total surprise (pretty much impossible since they would have to build up supplies and logistics as well as move a bunch of assets to the region which would be extremely obvious) and could get their invasion force across and established before the Navy and Air Force cut them off at the knees. They could maybe hold it for a few weeks or a month or so at best. Canada could do about the same. Their support and logistics picture is slightly better as is their location (location location), but I doubt they could hold it for any longer than Russia could. Then there is the reindeer/caribou threat…never underestimate them. I think they have the best shot, along with the bears of long term invasion. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2018, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-we-ready-for-a-land-invasion/824014/95 "2018-11-09T19:57:56Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > You could probably repel a land invasion with the Texas National Guard. Wouldn’t be the first time… > **[141st Infantry Regiment (United States)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/141st_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States))** > > The 141st Infantry Regiment ("1st Texas Infantry") is an infantry regiment in the United States Army. The lineage of the 141st includes units tracing origins to the Texas Revolution, such as Company A, First Texas, 1836, and other infantry companies of the First Texas formed in the 1870s and 1880s. > On 24 October 1944, the 1st Battalion, 141st Infantry Regiment of the 36th Division was given the assignment to clear a ridge deep in the Vosges but was then cut off by the Germans. Flanking units ... ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2018, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-we-ready-for-a-land-invasion/824014/96 "2018-11-09T20:16:32Z")
> [@Akaj](#): > > I dunno. Whenever I play Fortress America, the southern invaders easily take Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Oklahoma, and they usually get Louisiana and Arkansas without much trouble. Yeah, but what happens if you don’t let them? ---
**Author:** ![Akaj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akaj/32/145_2.png) [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2018, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-we-ready-for-a-land-invasion/824014/97 "2018-11-09T21:19:56Z")
> [@Snarky\_Kong](#): > > Yeah, but what happens if you don’t let them? You know I’m talking about a board game, right? ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2018, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-we-ready-for-a-land-invasion/824014/98 "2018-11-12T22:29:38Z")
> [@Akaj](#): > > You know I’m talking about a board game, right? Yes. It was a joke about not wanting those states. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2018, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-we-ready-for-a-land-invasion/824014/99 "2018-11-13T00:36:39Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Well, Hawaii would be pretty much impossible for any power to invade except the US, so we can rule that one out. Alaska is probably out for anyone except Canada and maybe Russia…certainly the poster who asked the question about China can reassure their friend that China has zero chance of invading and taking Alaska. Russia maybe could, if they had total surprise (pretty much impossible since they would have to build up supplies and logistics as well as move a bunch of assets to the region which would be extremely obvious) and could get their invasion force across and established before the Navy and Air Force cut them off at the knees. They could maybe hold it for a few weeks or a month or so at best. Canada could do about the same. Their support and logistics picture is slightly better as is their location (location location), but I doubt they could hold it for any longer than Russia could. Then there is the reindeer/caribou threat…never underestimate them. I think they have the best shot, along with the bears of long term invasion. While Russia is physically close to Alaska, that’s not really going to help in any realistic invasion plan. The part of Russia that’s close is way out beyond any supply network. So a Russian invasion would have to be launched from some place like Vladivostok or Sovgavan. At that point, you might as well put China or Japan or the Koreas up as possible invaders; they’re effectively as close to Alaska as Russia is. As for Canada, it’s true Canada is in the best position to invade Alaska. And it’s also in the best position to be counter-invaded by the rest of the United States. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2018, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-we-ready-for-a-land-invasion/824014/100 "2018-11-13T15:33:07Z")
To be honest, Canada is really no more prepared to invade Alaska than Britain is. There is no practical way for troops to move overland from Canadian territory to most of the major targets you’d have to take. Juneau can be taken with some difficulty but it’s not really all that important militarily. If the USA wanted to invade Canada they wouldn’t invade from Alaska, either. Effectively taking Alaska would require an amphibious capability, which Canada does not possess. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-we-ready-for-a-land-invasion/824014.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-we-ready-for-a-land-invasion/824014.md?page=6)