Except the US would still be massively more powerful than Russia. Russia would end up in a position similar to what France or the UK were in during Cold War I. They would be forced to join the US side of the alliance, but there’s not a chance in hell they would be the top dog. Their other option would be to try to eke out an existence as third power in a US vs China Cold War II, but they’d likely be even worse off in that scenario than they would be as the junior partner to the US.
This is a myth the West likes to tell itself. The Third World had a very different view on the whole thing. Y’all were CN at best.
They have multiple land borders, and a long, long history of opium smuggling. the US can’t even stop drugs from coming across their own border with Mexico.
But a naval blockade is a much easier thing. You can’t really hide a massive cargo ship in the middle of the ocean. We could probably slip in a few submarines, but their cargo capacity would be a mere trickle compared to what we’d need.
Even if they could make it through the blockade, where would they land? We don’t have a lot of deep water ports connected to robust road or rail systems along the northern coast. Any shipping would have to make port in Vancouver or Halifax, which would be very easy to blockade.
Well, the notion here was, they already invaded Canada despite the presence of UK or EU troops, so the “Will they shoot?” question has already been answered. Canada would be surrounded by the world’s largest Navy, which is carrying the second largest air force, so we’re pretty much fucked.
Ja, exactly. Try tell my home country, Zimbabwe that the cold war was a really good thing.
I think a more likely scenario wouldn’t be a full invasion of Canada. Fort Drum is only a few hours’ drive from Ottawa, and we don’t have any troops deployed along that route that could react to stop them if they moved quickly.
I could see a decapitation strike against the federal government in Ottawa, backed up by airstrikes against any Canadian Forces units that get a bit fighty. Present the rest of Canada with an ultimatum, that the US is now in de facto control of the country, and see what happens.
Not sure if you watched the Coen Brothers “Fargo”?
It is based in North Dakota but gives a decent idea of what those snow-bound northerners can do
I have not, but really, “Do stupid shit and see what happens” should be on Trump’s family crest.
“Do insane stupid shit and see what happens”.
Trump is not going to invade Greenland, never mind Canada. Josh Marshall on Greenland:
None of this stuff is going to happen. What’s possible is a bunch of bullshit followed by some negotiations in which the Kingdom of Denmark agrees to some minor changes to the existing agreement which allows the U.S. military pretty vast liberties to defend and operate in Greenland. (That’s the NAFTA model: bullshit followed by some discussions and then huge fanfare for marginal changes to existing agreements.)
It is the same story that we’ve talked about in other contexts: the constant stream of threats and maybes… Absurd tempests in teapots, the effect of which is to have everyone else in a pattern of reaction. He acts — or really doesn’t act, he jabbers — and everyone else reacts. And spin maybe 12 of those things at any one time. And that’s life under Trump.
I add bolding:
Some things we know Trump is serious about. Trump’s clearly going to up the number of deportations. Whether that’s really going to be “mass deportation” or not or what counts as that we don’t know. But we know some version of that is going to happen because he and his people have laid a lot of groundwork for that. Paying for the Trump tax cuts by taking away people’s health care. That’s real. Abusive criminal probes, same thing. We know the difference, because talk is cheap and Trump’s world is mostly talk, threat and bravado. The spike to this latest round about Greenland was textbook Trump, ending on he won’t “rule out” military force. And everyone flutters into a tizzy. Action is when things get real. Are we really falling into this same pattern where we’re into “not ruling out” nonsense cycles?
Yes, we are.
I think it’s fine to debate hypotheticals, but let’s not pretend that an invasion of Greenland is any way probable.
Panama would be the first step though. That deserves the bulk of the attention by prudent low probability contingency planners. I doubt that would happen. But it would be irresponsible not to think a little about it (outside of Panama, where you would want to think harder). If Trump attempted to conquer Panama for purely commercial reasons (aka very stupid reasons - modern war never makes economic sense, because resources are cheap relative to warfare) Canada and Europe will need to reshape their alliances, while Japan will need to rethink them. As an American citizen, I would want to contemplate such a rupture of the social contract.
Gifted TPM post:
ETA: @Der_Trihs has a habit of focusing on scenarios well over 5 years out. His posts should be read in that light. There’s a big fight in Maga-land over the steering wheel, and if the white supremacists win overwhelmingly (they won’t, barring external events like, oh, recession) then we’ll have to deal with US Joint Chiefs that make Curtis LeMay look like a pascifist.
Which side was LG and which was LE pray tell?..
In a sane world, ordering troops to attack an ally unprovoked would be one of those “unlawful orders” we heard about in Basic Training.
I disagree. The United States is more powerful than Russia. And China is probably more powerful than Russia.
But Russia is still powerful enough that neither the United States or China is going to risk a war with Russia.
Extremely stupid reasons. What exactly would we be fighting for in Panama?
Access to the Canal? We already have that.
Ownership of the Canal? Why? We can already use the Canal and somebody else is doing all the work of maintaining it. The United States would be worse off owning the Canal.
Declaring war on Panama in 2025 would be a replay of 1989. It would be an excuse for the President to call himself a war leader.
He thinks it would make him a man.
Denying it to Panama. It’s how Trump thinks, he hates the very concept of mutually beneficial relationships and other people profiting off of something. Even if Panama blew up the canal as suggested, he’d consider that a win as it would mean they didn’t have it anymore.
I think that’s why he’s aggressive to Greenland as well; we have a mutually cooperative relation with Greenland, which in Trump’s eyes makes the US “losers”. Winners would have a relationship of “Greenland gives the US everything it wants in return for nothing”.
“Unprovoked”? Did you not see the dictatorial leader of the illegitimate Canadian regime blatantly telling president Trump “No”?!?!
Whereas the OP – welcome be the new one! – in his original statement has called him whose name shall not be spoken but only belched or farted the Fanta Menace, and
recalling that this is the BBQ Pit, where hijacks are allowed and thus unavoidable, and
considering that Godwin’s Law, though not invoqued yet, is still valid and fully aplicable, and
by virtue of historic precedent
it is now both necessary, pertinent and the right moment to recall for those who knew and to inform those who did not know that
Fanta™
a) was developed by Nazi Germany in 1941 as as a Coca-Cola alternative due to the American trade embargo which affected the availability of Coca-Cola ingredients
b) to circumvent this embargo, Max Keith, the head of Coca-Cola Deutschland (Coca-Cola GmbH), decided to create a new product for the German market, using only ingredients available in Germany at the time, including sugar beet, whey (a cheese byproduct), and apple pomace
c) ingredients Max Keith himself later described as the “leftovers of leftovers”
Therefore the initial description is hereby declared politically and historically correct, pertinent to his argument, accurate in its composition and generally sensible, so that it shall
henceforth
be freely used by all men and women of taste and good will.
Cite, just in case.
And now for something completely different:
Those plans exist and are well known to anybody who cares to know: Blow up the Madden Dam and the Gatun Dam. Blowing up dams is easy: nature works in your favour. Reconstruction would take years, filling the reservoirs up again, with the current drought due to whisper it! climate change a decade.
But if you go this way make damn sure your oponent believes your threat and does not call your bluff.
I have the suspition FTB thinks Pinochet, Videla, Franco, the Shah of Persia and Mobutu Sese Seko were on the side of Lawful Good. Any other interpretation runs into contradictions. And as Ayn Rand wrote: “Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.” And as she is Shirley on the side of Lawful Good, the rest follows easily: Nixon and Kissinger were the good ones, and so were their friends, QED.
No problem. Plans for a Nicaraguan canal have been tossed around for at least 200 years; with Trump’s infrastructure expertise, it could be completed in, oh, two weeks (toss in another couple of days to conquer the country and turn it into a US colony protectorate).
The US was LG.
Originally posted by Woodrow Wilson
The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them.
Whatever you say about the Iraq War – and you can say a lot – it was not fought to gain territory, though some architects (not all) such as Cheney would have probably been happy with a puppet dictatorship. This was very much unlike the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, and unlike Trump’s original proposal to purchase Greenland from Denmark.
Lawful Good doesn’t prop up racists and fascists and murderers. Lawful Good doesn’t assassinate good people. Lawful Good doesn’t destroy villages to save them.
The idea that Cold War USA was LG is a complete fucking lie, anyone who still believes it is a fucking idiot, and anyone who repeats it in public is trying to gaslight those of us who lived it from the other side. Fuck off.
You didn’t just post the words of that KKK-beloved fucking racist as proof of anything? That’s high-larious.
Here’s a quote for you:
“The Sudetenland,” said Hitler at the Berlin Sportspalast on September 26, 1938, “is the last territorial demand I have to make in Europe.”
Words are just dust.
Do you know when the Cold War was? What the fuck does US conduct in the Iraq War (which was anyway abysmal and definitely not LG) have to do with what it was decades before?