In Michigan. We could use local supporters to help infiltrate partisan attack squads into the US. See if you can dig up any old Underground Railroad spots, and run them in reverse.
Trump suddenly supporting books and literacy? Now we’re really into the crazy ideas!
Hah! I’m not mad at that typo!
That’s the one “invasion” plan we’d actually have a chance of stopping. Our troops are very high quality, and we routinely fight above our weight class. A full scale invasion would roll over our military in short order, but something this scale? Better bring a few hundred body bags. You’ll need them, even if we end up needing more.
Historically Trump makes the most outrageous claim as an opener and works his way out by saying the other guy has to make a deal. He could claim a crisis and an invasion then milk it for propaganda as ‘negotiations with the Canadians’. He needs the mid term Congress to close the deal with Canada and then he needs another term to close the deal with Canada.
That is true, but this is a different kind of war, where there is no front and firing an artillery round is suicide. In fact the attempted deployment of artillery is suicide. With US air superiority, and drone cover, small teams could capture the centers of control and communication. Then negotiating teams will put the right people together and we will have a workable deal that will be sold to both countries.
On the other hand, given his run rate, Trump may announce the invasion at two in the morning without bothering to tell the Army and deploy a battleship to Winnipeg then demand unconditional surrender.
Except the air superiority and drone cover directly contradicts the “small teams capturing the centers of control and communication”. You can’t capture centers of control and communications with airstrikes, at least not if you want them reasonably intact. That takes away a lot of the support for ground troops that the US traditionally uses in places where they’re less concerned about breaking stuff.
Your small unit will have to go in and take those places in person, and they’ll run into our guys defending them. You either lose a lot of people, or we force you to destroy the very things you want to capture in order to dig out our troops and eliminate the threat to your small ground forces.
And guess what? Our last man standing will set off the demolition charges, so you don’t even get the places intact anyways.
I doubt your TV stations and politicians are heavily defended. The drones are operated from Vegas or North Dakota or some other place far from the target.
You are correct that Canadian troops have and will distinguish themselves. Still, I listened to Trump. He did not call that meeting for nothing. He knows he has to prevent a Dem victory in November. I considered most of his past remarks to be just babbling. They were not.
Particularly after a period of intense propaganda about how the Canadian people are suffering under the radical left wing government. Followed by a quick decapitation event (either assassinations or other), and the installation of a “friendly” Quisling (cough Poillievre cough) who will essentially acquiesce to Trump’s demands.
No need for a full scale invasion, when they can just use the old USSR/Warsaw pact model of taking over countries.
Absolutely. Trump’s army may well be welcomed into Alberta by Danielle Smith (AKA Governor Smith).
This will not be a conventional attack on a country with troops, tanks and blowing up infrastructure. It will be propaganda, surgical strikes, assassinations and local traitors hoping for more power. Pitting Canadians against each other has already started. (see, again, Smith in Alberta)
I would not be surprised if these plans are not being currently drawn up.
What you seem to be missing is that while Trump’s delusions might make him think he can do anything, any actual invasion would need to deal with reality. Fox New’s slavish devotion to the Trump cult might make transforming his proclamations into something politically feasible in the US, but that doesn’t translate internationally, and while the US armed forces can do pretty much anything they want in Canada, there are geographic and logistical requirements that come into play.
You suggested a comparison with the Austrian Reich, aka the Anschluss, and that Canadian resistance would thus be against Canadian authorities. That is completely misguided. In contrast with the situation in pre-WWII Austria, there are maybe 10% of Canadians who would support peacefully joining the US, and fewer still that would volunteer to be occupied. There is no significant element in existing Canadian politics that can be leveraged to support an occupation. As little as I might think of Pierre Polievre, there is no chance he’d agree to be a Canadian Marshal Pétain. There isn’t even a minor 4th or 5th party that is sympathetic to 51st State nonsense. Alberta separatist wackos that want Alberta to split from Canada so they can be ruled by Suncor and Cenovus as God intended a probably the closest thing to a political opening there is, but even they mostly wouldn’t be on board with being annexed by the US.
Therefore, there is no option to rapidly take over and then rule via existing Canadian institutions. That is simply not in the cards. Changing that would require decades of work. It wouldn’t be impossible, but it would take time. Time to identify politicians who are willing to betray their country, to build a political movement built most likely around “why don’t we just submit so the trade war ends”, to find ways to rig elections to get them into office. Time to convince enough rank and file bureaucrats and police and such at least that we’re better off not fighting because that will only make things worse. Getting to the position Russia is in with Georgia or Moldova might be achievable in 20 years. Maybe. It would be very difficult, because Canada’s democratic institutions are much, much, much stronger than those of Georgia or Moldova. Election interference would have to be much more subtle to be effective, and there’s just not a whole lot of room for rigging elections when everything’s done with paper ballots counted in front of scrutineers from all parties unless you already have a significant contingent of them in your pocket. Which is where you’re trying to get to, not where you’re starting out.
No, there’s no feasible Canadian Anschluss that’s happening in Trump’s lifetime unless aliens with life-extension technology appear over DC next week.
So that leaves actual military conquest. That’s totally doable if the Army obeys, but at the moment Trump can’t get a budget through congress, nor can he convince a gathering of generals to provide polite applause to the President of the United States of America making a speech in front of a giant American flag. And even if the Army does obey (which they probably would eventually, unless there’s enough rebellion in Congress to give them cover to refuse orders), the initial conquest isn’t the hard part. It’d take more time than you think, because the logistics would be hard, because Canada is enormous, but it’s all well within the capabilities of the US armed forces. No, the hard part is defending against partisan attacks on both occupying forces and on targets on US soil for decades. 1 person in every 10 north of the Rio Grande hates you, and you can’t tell them from the other 9. Partisans being fed financing and explosives from a government in exile in a Europe that’s building arms factories as fast at the concrete will cure, and scrambling to quadruple the size of their nuclear deterrent.
While not impossible, this is staggeringly unlikely. Trump’s busy declaring war on Antifa, occupying blue cities, and blowing up speed boats in the Caribbean. Talk about the 51st State will remain just talk, for a while at least. If US elections clearly stop mattering after ‘26 or ‘28 that might change, but it’s not in the cards at the moment.
I’m not sure what “USSR/Warsaw Pact model” you’re talking about, given that 17 Red Army divisions were involved in the invasion of Hungary in 1956, and 250,000 troops (from Poland, Bulgaria and Hungary as well as the USSR) took part in the invasion of Czechoslovakia after the Prague Spring in 1968.
I think you’re selling Pollievre short. I wish I could say the same of Smith, but I’m not sure. Depends on what the CEOs of Suncor and Cenovus want her to do, I think.
Which just proves that the denizens of the current malAdministration are even more delusional than Dick Cheney and the Neocons*. Which should come as a surprise to absolutely no one.
* Not a band name. Unfortunately.
Not now, no. But as others have pointed out, an attack on Canada would require a lot of build up, politically speaking. That gives us enough warning to plan for such things. We know we can’t stop a full invasion, so we’ll be looking at other ways to deploy our forces, to most effectively resist the US, and deny them as many of their prizes as possible. We’ll be the Switzerland of Canada, with plans to destroy key infrastructure to impede the invasion, and deny the use of such to an occupation force.
I never thought a US president would stand before generals and admirals telling them to prepare to fight the “enemy within.” There are a lot of “I never thought I’d see” moments with the Trump administration, so it’s hard for me to think they won’t do something because it’s ludicrous and would harm the United States. At least none of our soldiers were be a bunch fatty beardos during the invasion.
By this point, I truly can’t tell if this is serious or joking. Nobody imagines that taking over 41 million population Canada could be easier in any way than 114,000 population Grenada, or “near-bloodless.”
It’s unfortunately serious.
Sounds like following the Putin playbook in Ukraine, eh?
As said before, it won’t be a WWII style full assault.
Start the propaganda campaign to “save” Canadians from the horrible leftist government. “They’ll welcome us as saviours!”
Drop a few hundred troops around Parliament buildings. Decapitate the leadership.
Find some suitable Quislings and put them in charge. Do this step VERY quickly so that they can assure the public “all is well, we’re in charge now, Canada First Yay!” Ditto for a few provincial capitals. Get Alberta conservative leaders onside with the takeover. Promise them a cut of the grift.
Maybe put some troops into a few major centers to “maintain calm”. Arrest anyone who complains.
Declare victory. Start the process of stripping the resources.
51st state? Nah. Vassal puppet regime, yes.
Not that hard.