So i’m guessing we’ve all heard that the Fanta Menace is going on a power trip, and wants to make Canada the 51st state, has talked multiple times about invading Greenland, etc…
So my question is, what realistically would happen if he is actually serious? Canada is a commonwealth country, and if i’m not mistaken, the commonwealth countries all have a defensive pact with eachother. So that’s probably the UK / Aus / NZ / getting involved, and potentially large chunks of Africa too. Add in NATO, Japan, South Korea, etc, and i don’t see how that isn’t a world war……
Militarily I doubt anyone could do much to help Canada. They’d have to cross oceans and the US has the biggest navy by far.
They’d probably resort to massive economic retaliation. Huge tariffs and/or outright bans on anything from the US. Maybe seize ships carrying US goods. Close their countries to all travel from the US. Expel US embassies. Stuff like that.
I expect the Commonwealth countries and NATO countries would make speeches decrying the US invasions but would do absolutely nothing militarily and very little economically. They would gain nothing from helping Canada and would suffer greatly from any economic reprisals.
China and Russia and North Korea and Cuba, on the other hand, might do more, for their own geopolitical reasons.
Canada would be conquered almost immediately, between a hugely outmatched military and its population being concentrated close to the border. Since the attack on Mexico would be a part of the Right’s race war I’d expect the attack to be outright genocidal in nature, including a good chance of nuclear strikes on cities.
In both cases I’d expect widespread nuclear proliferation & economic retaliation, and a general world re-alignment towards China as the relatively sane world power and a necessary ally against the US. The result would be a new Cold War between the US and the China/Europe alliance.
The Commonwealth countries do not have a defensive pact with one another, and it’s unlikely that any of them would want to get into a shooting war with the US for any reason.
NATO countries do, of course, have a defensive pact with one another, and conceivably Canada (or Denmark) might invoke the NATO treaty if attacked by the US. However the result is more likely to be the collapse of NATO (a virtual certainty in this scenario) than other NATO countries getting in a shooting war with the US.
Reaction would be severe, and wouldn’t be confined to Commonwealth countries or NATO countries. But it would fall short of going to war with the US; it would be diplomatic and economic measures short of that. I would expect a lot of countries that currently host US bases to ask them to leave, though.
The big question to me is will the Joint Chiefs be willing to push back and push back hard? I am not saying they would disobey an order but they can certainly advise the president on really bad ideas and, maybe, resign if the president refuses. That might be enough political pressure to get Trump to refrain from some really bad ideas like invading Canada (or wherever).
I would also expect massive and continuing protests throughout the US over something like this.
I think invasion of Canada or Greenland is vanishingly small. Mexico is pretty small, with military action likely to be something like SOF raids or airstrikes. Panama… maybe.
With the fighting the hypothetical out of the way I think Panama is the only invasion that doesn’t guarantee the end America as the dominant world power.
I think attempting to invade Canada with basically no pretense of anything other than a landgrab actually results in a US coup. Denmark = breakup of NATO, European arms buildup, nuclear proliferation, and massive increase in Chinese influence. Mexico = covert action and funding of insurgent groups.
When one superpower starts acting aggressively, other countries seek alliances to protect themselves. Look at how Finland and Sweden joined NATO after Russia invaded Ukraine.
The same would happen if America invades Canada or Mexico or Greenland or Panama. Other countries would seek alliances with Russia or China.
It was probably Putin who suggested all this nonsense to Trump. When America acts stupid, Russia benefits.
I think that underappreciates just how mad a scenario this is. I agree that no-one wants to take on the US militarily, but there would be extensive sanctions and yes, likely a worldwide recession as a result. But there’s no way in hell the world would shrug this off.
Well Russia too, and that may not be a coincidence, given the hotline between El Vlad and Trump, Musk et al.
ETA: Ninja’d by Little_Nemo…
In the case of Canada, I would expect Canadians to prove that guns are perfectly legal in Canada, and that they would use them. Plus, Canadians would prove that they are just as good as the Iraqis and Afghanis at building and using IEDs.
Afghanistan is about the same population as Canada and the US couldn’t achieve victory in 20 years there. I suspect the US would learn the same lesson in Canada.
The US trying such a thing would wreck both countries (in different ways) for a century or more.
Very good points. Plus, Canada is a helluva lot bigger than Afghanistan. While I don’t doubt that the US military could occupy us if they wanted to, do they really want to be so spread out, unlike in Afghanistan? Canada is five time zones wide, and extends north from the 49th to practically the North Pole.
Plus, we’ve got winter. It sunk Napoleon and Hitler in Russia; it will sink Trump too.
If we are seriously going to entertain the thought that trump will nuke Mexico, then I’m going to say that if trump tried to invade Canada he’d be out of office before the sun went down. There’s crazy and then there’s crazy!
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