Would US troops fire on Canadian civilians?

[Aeschines]

You have some fair points!

@RickJay

Are we really now at the point that you are claiming invasions are not invasions? Will it be just a Special Military Operation?

I wrote ineptly. If we do not have permission from Mexico to enter the country and attack the cartels, which we do not, then it would indeed be an invasion. That said, it’s different than an invasion with the intent to take over a country.

By your own admission the USA is talking about attacking Mexico.

I admit that this has been bandied about in RWNJ circles. I do not know the status of such an intention wrt the Trump regime.

Hell, does the USA have allies anymore?

Yes, we have treaty allies. To my knowledge, no country that was an ally during the Biden admin has become not an ally under Trump.

No, NATO allies are not so obliged. Not with military force, anyway. If you don’t believe me, actually read the NATO treaty. It says they must take “such action as (the individual country) deems necessary.” That’s all. A country could decide “such action” as “necessary” is diplomatic or economic.

OK, that’s interesting.

No NATO country could do anything anyway. No other country in NATO has any ability whatsoever to intervene in any meaningful way, except the UK and France using nuclear weapons, which they will not do. Look at a map.

Well, I don’t know about this. Just as “lend-lease” was not nothing during WWII (before the US formally entered the war), the NATO countries could support Canada in a lot of ways. They could even send actual troops.

Furthermore, it’s actually not legally clear at all what would happen if one NATO country went to war with another. Two NATO countries fought a war in 1974 and NATO stayed out of it, after all.

Ah, Greece and Turkey. Though Turkey seems like a bit of a NATO outlier, especially under Erdogan.

The internal workings of NATO are such that, historically, it has always been assumed they all had to agree to invoke Article 5. An invasion of Canada by the USA will end NATO as it currently exists.

Yeah, it would. Because it would be so gratuitous and absurd. It’s purely academic, as it’s not going to happen, and, as it has been pointed out above, Trump is not threatening military intervention.

[RickJay]

@Aeschines

Well, I don’t know about this. Just as “lend-lease” was not nothing during WWII (before the US formally entered the war), the NATO countries could support Canada in a lot of ways. They could even send actual troops.

No, man, they could not.

If they start staging troops before war, which they won’t, it’d trigger a war. If after, it’s too late.

Canada will not last two weeks; that’s reality. Ottawa would fall in no more than that and every base we have would be bombed off the map. Conventionally we have no chance at all. Once the war STARTS, it is over; Europe cannot send anything across the sea in the face of the US Navy.

After the invasion, an insurgency will begin - a horrific, years-long one. Europe (and others) could certainly fund that.

[Aeschines]

@RickJay

No, man, they could not.

If they start staging troops before war, which they won’t, it’d trigger a war. If after, it’s too late.

Well, the war would already be underway. To be sure, NATO countries that help Canada would find themselves in a different position. But it would be in a different position within total global chaos.

Canada will not last two weeks; that’s reality. Ottawa would fall in no more than that and every base we have would be bombed off the map. Conventionally we have no chance at all. Once the war STARTS, it is over; Europe cannot send anything across the sea in the face of the US Navy.

Paratroopers, etc. Basically agree with you here, however.

After the invasion, an insurgency will begin - a horrific, years-long one. Europe (and others) could certainly fund that.

Yes. And many Americans would be fighting on your side. There would be no more US at this point.

[Horatius]

@Aeschines

Paratroopers, etc

How many could then try to send? How many would survive to land in Canada?

And then you have a few light infantry facing Americans in tanks.

Better to wait a bit, and smuggle them into Canada to stiffen our insurgency.

[Der_Trihs]

@Aeschines

Well, I don’t know about this. Just as “lend-lease” was not nothing during WWII (before the US formally entered the war), the NATO countries could support Canada in a lot of ways. They could even send actual troops.

No, that’s effectively impossible; you can’t sneak significant troops or military materiel over the oceans like that against the kind of surveillance systems the US has. They’d just be sunk trying. This isn’t the era of WWII anymore.

And I expect that if we saw the huge guerilla resistance some people are predicting, Trump and company would just throw a tantrum at Canadian ingratitude and switch to genocide.

Which I expect the American public would just shrug and accept, given how supine it’s been about everything else.

[Tamerlane]

@Aeschines

And many Americans would be fighting on your side. There would be no more US at this point.

This has been expressed multiple times in this thread, but I’ll pile on because you keep saying it - IMO this is a very naïve point of view. Properly primed there would be at least a solid minority in favor of a war of “liberation” in Canada and there would be no civil war, no dissolution over the union over it. The US could conceivably dissolve for other, mostly domestic political reasons in which a war in Canada is just one aggravating factor among many. But comfortable inertia is a mighty big counter-weight even to that. Most Americans are not going to stick their necks out and resort to armed revolt in support of Canada. Protest? Sure. Start a civil war? I sincerely doubt it. They’ll just pin their hopes on the next election.

Don’t make the mistake of projecting your own political idealism onto the American body politic as a whole. Far too many are either apolitical/apathetic or radicalized at this point. The hardcore MAGA crowd might technically be a minority, but a large enough, sufficiently motivated minority is enough to rule a country.

[RickJay]

@Der_Trihs

And I expect that if we saw the huge guerilla resistance some people are predicting, Trump and company would just throw a tantrum at Canadian ingratitude and switch to genocide.

They didn’t in Iraq or Afghanistan.

That is not how it would go. You’re wrong, man; you don’t understand any of the dynamics here, and don’t seme to understand why the US has their eye on us. The result of such a war is very predictable, and genocide ain’t it. The insurgency would last for much longer than Trump will be alive. It would be like Northern Ireland except a HUNDRED times worse. A thousand, maybe. The UK has a demographic in Northern Ireland that wants them. Canada has no demographic that wants the USA. They will find Quislings, but they are a small minority in every province, in every ethnicity, in every city. There is no coherent pro-American group, it’s just the village idiots spread around. (Yes, even in Alberta.)

The question is how much nonstop violence Americans would accept. Americans are amazingly tolerant of their fellow Americans being killed, much more so than the people in any other developed nation, really. Indeed, that’s why there’d be no genocide or official reprisals, just as there were none in Iraq; the risk to the Canadian resistance would be that as they blew up and shot more and more people in the USA, it would just be something Americans would accept as a part of life, like all the gun crime and school massacres. The political class and oligarchs would shield themselves but the entire country is too big, too soft a target, to protect from an insurgency you couldn’t detect. They’d let soldiers and civilians (though I would hope Canada would not deliberately target civilians, I realize some people would) die.

[SunUp]

@RickJay

The question is how much nonstop violence Americans would accept.

Americans can accept plenty of violence as long as it doesn’t end in conscription.

Once The Powers That Be resort to the draft, the clock on U.S. war weariness starts ticking - particularly since the number of draftable young men who would end up classified as 4-F for medical or psychological reasons has been increasing. Donald Trump would never resort to conscription, as it would make him unpopular and not be necessary early on - so it would be the Vance administration that takes the eventual fall.

[Der_Trihs]

@RickJay

They didn’t in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Because the nation wasn’t run by fascists then. There were plenty of people who did want to kill everyone there, they just weren’t the ones giving the orders. Now they are.

[RickJay]

@Der_Trihs

Because the nation wasn’t run by fascists then.

Are you sure you didn’t think they were fascists?

[Der_Trihs]

@RickJay

Are you sure you didn’t think they were fascists?

That’s not a counterargument, it’s a clumsy attempt at a personal attack.

[Smapti]

@Der_Trihs

Because the nation wasn’t run by fascists then.

Remind me who was president from 2017-2021?

[Der_Trihs]

@Smapti

Remind me who was president from 2017-2021?

Trump. Who isn’t personally a fascist (he’s too self absorbed to rise to that level), and was under far greater restraint then. And still wanted to nuke North Korea and shoot protestors.

[Smapti]

You mean to tell me Trump talked about doing things he didn’t do?

That’s wild. It’s like he’s some kind of liar or something.

[Aeschines]

Thank you for your thoughtful response!

@Tamerlane

[…]
IMO this is a very naïve point of view.

I think what I’ve said is justifiable based on our side’s (Liberals’) behavior in recent years.

Properly primed there would be at least a solid minority in favor of a war of “liberation” in Canada and there would be no civil war, no dissolution over the union over it.

“Properly primed” does a lot of work here. IMHO, I don’t think any amount propaganda can prime a sufficient (for Trump’s purposes) minority for a war against Canada, but less a matter of opinion would be that Trump just doesn’t have the time to do such priming. Even Hitler had six years to prepare Germany, militarily and psychologically, for WWII, and that was a much easier sell than trying to prep Americans to attack their beloved and familiar* neighbor.

The US could conceivably dissolve for other, mostly domestic political reasons in which a war in Canada is just one aggravating factor among many.

Exactly. If the US were in a great, solid, happy place right now, it would be a different issue. Rather, this country is a tinder box. I think we’re going to have a civil war and/or revolution pretty soon anyway; an invasion of Canada would be a big factor that pushes the whole thing over the edge.

But comfortable inertia is a mighty big counter-weight even to that.

I would not say much is politically or culturally “comfortable” in the US right now. People, in general, are pissed off at the state of things and the state of their lives and economic fortunes. The fact is that the left and right are pissed off in a huge overlapping area, so I would put more dollars on a revolution than a civil war right now, or on a civil war that rapidly evolves into a revolution against a decrepit government and intolerable corporatocracy.

Most Americans are not going to stick their necks out and resort to armed revolt in support of Canada. Protest? Sure.

It’s a matter of number and degree. I agree with “not most.” But I base my assertion on the furious response to the murder of George Floyd, i.e., BLM. I think it would be much bigger than that.

Start a civil war? I sincerely doubt it. They’ll just pin their hopes on the next election.

I think it would be like 1789 in France or 1989 at the Berlin Wall. The pent up energy against the system in this country is immense, and the results of triggering it are highly unpredictable.

Don’t make the mistake of projecting your own political idealism onto the American body politic as a whole. Far too many are either apolitical/apathetic or radicalized at this point.

I think it is less a matter of idealism and more a matter of titanic dissatisfaction. Trump has been good at channeling that on one side of the political spectrum, but once both sides unite on where they overlap, a true beast will be unleashed.

*Quite frankly, I think most Americans consider Canada to barely even be a “foreign country” in the first place. Personally, I think it’s merely an accident of history that we are not one country, and I don’t see much cultural difference between the two. That said, I do understand why Canada would not want to join the US: Why share in the problems of a bigger, more populous country when it’s not necessary? I wouldn’t want to join the US either, especially in its current state.

[Aeschines]

@Der_Trihs

No, that’s effectively impossible; you can’t sneak significant troops or military materiel over the oceans like that against the kind of surveillance systems the US has. They’d just be sunk trying. This isn’t the era of WWII anymore.

My knowledge of military matters is limited, but I will merely observe that England, France, et al. have a lot of equipment of their own.

And I expect that if we saw the huge guerilla resistance some people are predicting, Trump and company would just throw a tantrum at Canadian ingratitude and switch to genocide.

Americans are not going to start killing people who look and talk like themselves in a neighboring country. I really think it’s just that simple.

Which I expect the American public would just shrug and accept, given how supine it’s been about everything else.

Not really. BLM, etc.

[Der_Trihs]

Canadians have a reputation as “liberals”, which makes them literally Satanic pedophiles in the eyes of the dominant faction in America. What the rest of the nation wants doesn’t matter.

@Aeschines

My knowledge of military matters is limited, but I will merely observe that England, France, et al. have a lot of equipment of their own.

It doesn’t matter; they can’t teleport it across the ocean. The same factors that make the oceans a great defense also makes sending supplies across them agaisnt opposition a hopeless task. Europe could try sending all the weapons they want, it would just all get sunk on the way.

[elbows]

Er, um…Ontario just elected by a large margin, a Conservative Premier. And, all predictions say we’re about to elect a Conservative Federal government led by PP.

All evidence points to Liberals being ejected from office and replaced by Conservatives.

While uninformed Americans assume it’s Liberals coast to coast, they are just…wrong.

[Der_Trihs]

@elbows

While uninformed Americans assume it’s Liberals coast to coast, they are just…wrong.

Since when has the Right cared about objective reality? Facts, truth and logic are liberal vices as far as they are concerned. A morally correct person relies on faith, hatred and dogma being handed down from above.

[psychonaut]

@elbows

And, all predictions say we’re about to elect a Conservative Federal government led by PP.

Really? Have you seen the polling numbers from the last week or so?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/c/cc/20250301140740!Opinion_polling_during_the_pre-campaign_period_of_the_45th_Canadian_federal_election.svg

For those who can’t or won’t click through to the image, it shows a dramatic upswing for the Liberal party this year, with corresponding downswings for the Conservatives and NDP, such that the Liberals and Conservatives are now polling about equally.