Never mind. I didn’t. The actual questions I have are these:
Have you ever actually listened to an interview with a Trump supporter? I don’t know if they’re necessarily as stupid as they sound, because they seem to be able to walk upright and speak in relatively coherent sentences. But their knowledge of US domestic and international affairs is a bizarre mix of knowing nothing and thinking that they “know” things that are completely wrong. Followon question: Have you listened to the things Trump says at his rallies, and how the adoring crowds cheer and applaud the things he says? I rest my case.
How come, despite the admitted rise of populism in some places, it’s only the US that’s ended up with a demented insurrectionist and convicted felon who is an existential threat to American democracy, whereas other countries manage to elect relatively sane leaders who actually try to lead their countries instead of engaging in grift? See, I don’t ask that every American voter be just like me. I ask that they be at least like the reasonably sane voters in most other first-world democracies.
Oh, come, on man. Gratuitous violence, all out support for rape and ethinic cleansing. What’s a little race-based violence between the victims and the conquerer?
Ok, FTB was talking about the Cold War. I agree with his revision that characterizing US policy at the time as LG is ridiculous.
I was referring only to WWI. Crushing German militarists counted for more than unjustly jailing a number of US anarchists. I’ll note in passing the African Americans are pretty patriotic in my experience, which is quite remarkable given the historic abuse directed at them.
Agreed, it was a simplification to begin with.
While I would argue that democracy is both an intrinsic and extrinsic good, I find this argument interesting. The blessings of democracy don’t automatically make any of its policies moral or good. Sort of obvious, but worth stating.
Quibble: real world democracies are hardly perfect reflections of the character of their populace. Sometimes this works to moralty’s advantage, other times not. But I think your general point holds mutatis mutandis.
Yeah. I probably shouldn’t have gone there. But I will say that it is more of a simplification when applied to a country or the leaders, and less of a simplification when applied to particular actions. When applying it to specific actions, I hope we can all agree that the actions under discussion in this thread would be both chaotic and evil, as opposed to things like Bush Jr. invading Iraq, what LBJ and Nixon did in Vietnam, and the various forms of colonialism and imperialism that European powers and the US have engaged in over the last few hundreds of years. Those things were all evil, but they didn’t bring an end to (or even threaten to bring an end to) the established order in a way that the US invading Canada would do.
No. I would characterize all of those as CE, because they were selfish and ignored established international law. Not L because ignoring precedent, and not G or N because selfish.
I think you’ve overlooked the Saint Lawrence Seaway. I don’t think blockading Halifax would be that significant, compared to the amount of possible shipping down the Saint Lawrence.
An invading force would have to control the Seaway from the Great Lakes up to Montreal, but also the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to prevent supplies coming in that way (I’m assuming in this scenario that Europe would support Canada and send resources). The majority of the Quebec population lives close to the Saint Lawrence and I’d like to think we’d make it fucking hard for an invader to navigate down it. The Citadelle is still operational (lol).
This would also cut off a lot of materials to and from the great lakes region, which would affect plenty of Americans. That shipping could go through eastern US ports, I suppose, but it would still be rather disruptive (and would Europe, who I’ve arbitrarily decided would side with Canada, still even send those ships?).
With modern artillery and missiles, the Seaway would be trivially easy to blockade. Out near the eastern end, it’s about 30-40 miles wide.
Modern 155mm artillery has a range up to 30km, or about 18 miles, so batteries on both coasts along that stretch can close the Seaway to just about all commercial shipping. Military craft might make it through, but they’ll take a beating. Toss in a few of those ATACMs things we’ve seen in Ukraine, and no one in their right mind would try to navigate that under fire.
And that’s before we even blow up some of the bridges that cross is further down towards Quebec City. Drop those in the channel, and it would likely be impassible.
In WWII, the Germans never went near the English channel, because it was considered suicide to even try to navigate in that “narrow passage”. The English channel is huge compared to the Seaway. Any navy on Earth would love to be given the job of keeping people out of the Seaway; it would be a walk in the park compared to almost any other job they could be given.
Artillery in the open firing on shipping would not survive for long against American air power. The lifespan of those men would be measured in hours. We wouldn’t even have time to GET the few 155mm guns we have into those positions.
Conventional resistance is not the answer. It’s a fool’s errand. You need to think guerrilla warfare. Don’t waste 155mm shells trying to shoot at boats.
This was originally about the US shutting down shipping to Canada. The point is, artillery batteries on the shore might not be the best way to do it, but they’re the shortest-ranged weapons you could use. Almost anything else would make it easier to block the Seaway. Put a couple of these boats around that spot, and no one else is getting in:
I understand that even less. Why, if the USA was in control of Canada - as they apparently would be if they occupied the coasts of the Gulf of St. Lawrence - would they be blockading Canada? Why would the world’s most powerful navy many times over not just do it if it had to be done at all?
An invading American force isn’t going to bother capturing the St. Lawrence Seaway, they’re going to conquer the COUNTRY, by taking Ottawa, killing our political leaders, and destroying or capturing CFBs Trenton, Kingston, Petawawa, Valcartier, and Halifax; after that it’s a fait accompli and everything else is cleanup. The question is then how well we can organize resistance and get foreign support.
There will be no need for blockade, the first phase of the war will be over in days.
And no this isn’t entirely fantasy. It could happen. One chance in twenty, I’d say.
Ugh that is so much darker than I care to think about! I naively assumed there’d be interest in maintaining the Seaway for the American great lakes region.
You’ll have to go back to the beginning to understand this. I was making the same point you’re making now.
They wanted to know why Canada would be easier to blockade than Afghanistan.
This Seaway things just showed up today. The point is, while the Seaway is great for shipping stuff in peacetime, anyone trying to use it to re-supply Canada during an American invasion is going to have a bad time. There’s multiple ways they could blockade it, any one of which would deny its use to anyone the Americans disapprove of.
Thule Air Base thus remains indispensable to American defense, and the United States remains very interested in Greenland – and committed to maintaining good relations with Denmark.
Please note that the last hyperlink in the article takes you to a page on the U.S. Embassy & Consulate in the Kingdom of Denmark website …
Well hell, more than once. They actually invaded and took the Channel Islands, and of course they did patrol the coast with torpedo boats and corvettes.
Oh the story of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau is famous and hilarious. A real embarrassment for the Royal Navy. It’s like the Germans literally said “Why, it’s so crazy, it just might work!” and it did.
“Hold it right there, Bub. I have to check your reaction when you say ‘Geez louise, Dunkin’ Donuts are SO much better than Tim Horton’s!', and then I’m gonna need you to say ‘About’…”
