Is Canadian Catastrophizing a known thing? Is American Exceptionalism?
Well, there has been a lot of catastrophizing going on in this thread, but I wouldn’t extrapolate too much from that…
It’s a concept, an abstraction. Certainly, I think there is a segment of Americans who think more or less in congruence with the concept. But, again, there is a wide diversity of thought and political opinion among Americans; therefore, such crude logic as, “You are an American; therefore, anything you say can be dismissed as corrupted by American Exceptionalism,” isn’t going to fly as rational.
It’d have to be higher than the armed services could set people aside. You’d likely have organizational shock set it at 10-20 percent of the officer corps.
Of course, it would not be ten percent. I doubt it would be three. My evidence for that is the entirety of human history. Can you name a case in modern history when the army of a functioning state - which the USA still is - refused to carry out such an order? It doesn’t happen.
Right, because at that point you just get a military coup. There are dozens of examples of that. If Trump keeps doing what he’s doing, even without an invasion, I would not be terribly surprised if there were a military coup anyway.
I can imagine back-channel negotiations in which the military, having been told about the plans for the invasion, go to Republican pols and say, “If you don’t impeach this bastard now, the military is going to step in.”
You are likely to dismiss this as also impossible, but we are in chaotic, uncharted territory right now. Trump is crashing the markets. That pisses off rich, powerful people regardless of party. An invasion of Canada would immediately result in–I don’t even know the fuck what–to the markets and the economy. (And no, I don’t believe that the oligarchs and plutocrats would benefit in such a scenario.)
Here’s the thing about this scenario. So, Trump orders the invasion of Canada, and some significant fraction of the US military, and civilian population, says “Fuck that shit”. This most likely results in a US civil war.
And any such civil war will most likely spill over into Canada at some point. If any NATO allies decide to intervene on one side or the other, Canada is the most obvious staging ground for such action. And that makes us a target. Someone in the US will cross the border, either to attack NATO forces, or to seek their protection if they’re losing against the anti-NATO faction of the US war. Either way, Canada is now host to US belligerents, and is getting bombed on a regular basis.
I would still put the chance of a physical invasion at well under 5%. Canadians complain a lot but are not generally catastrophobes, as evidenced by all of the governments we have re-elected.
But the US publicly “joking” about this, and discussing the borders, intelligence sharing, economic warfare, water rights - this is unprecedented in modern times. Canadians do have a good sense of humour. But this isn’t humorous to us.
Given our many ties to the US, 5% is deeply disturbing.
If the US stops respecting the border (as it currently exists and is internationally recognized) we will start seeing incursions from private citizens and quasi-official local leaders seeking to exploit the new legal gray area created from any lack of US border enforcement (much like is done with armed Israeli settlers).
These types of violations, and the unorganized responses that they invoke from sub-federal and private law enforcement will provide the basis to trigger a larger war of annexation (like what was done with the US-Mexican war). The goal could be to acquire territory (“living space”), but at this point I don’t think we are working with an American political class and public that would stop mid-war. They would take everything they could.
Perhaps would stop at somewhere mid-Ontario satisfied. Southern Ontario and further east might be more trouble then they are worth once you’ve absorbed Western Canada up to Lake Superior. But then again fascists are rarely satisfied.
Agreed.
Trump would not attack Canada without a pretext which most military members believed in, or at least thought had a solid chance of being truthful. That’s the context in which they would be carrying out orders.
Right now, Trump has too little control over the American media. I don’t think it would be necessary for every last bit of the media, available to Americans, to have endorsed the pretext. But you can’t have multiple big television network news operations saying that the pretext is fake. I think lack of media control is Trump’s biggest problem when it comes to consolidating power.
As far as what the pretext would be, any guess is almost certain to be wrong. But to give an idea, suppose that Trump claims some small group of Canadian forces obstructed the U.S. takeover of Greenland, resulting in an exaggerated number of American casualties.
For the record, there is NO secret stash of yellowcake up here.
But there are thousands of tons of Fentanyl being packed up in Canadian labs with intent to ship into the US and kill millions of Americans. I know this because I heard God Emperor Trump say it on NewsMax and Fox. Sean Hannity wouldn’t lie to the MAGAidiots about something so serious.
/s
See how that would work?
IMHO, a coup or civil war is more likely than an invasion of Canada.
That’s why we’re seeing the Trump administration auditioning a few Big Lies. The “Canada is deliberately sending us fentanyl to kill Americans” - every element of that sentence has been tried by a Trump official - is the current frontrunner, though “cheating us on tariffs” is also popular if, so far, not catching on great. “Not a democratic country” was briefly tried and may come back. “Home of terrorism” will be floated within a month or two. They’ll end up sticking with one.
A Gulf of Tonkin incident is extremely likely to take place.
Only if this qualifies as a civil war would I agree:
Or maybe something like this:
I can’t see anything more than that. So — there could be an insurgency, but nothing big enough to topple the regime.
As for a coup, Trump is on top of it, replacing our top military leaders with loyalists.
Now, I do not see high risk of an invasion of Canada before January 2029. Each MAGA term in office will increase the risk. And the risk should be taken seriously.
If polling for MAGA looks dire enough prior to the 2026 midterms I could see a manufactured reason such as the fentanyl lie being pushed really hard. Whipping up enough of the crazy could be a pretext for an invasion in order to change the presumed outcome of the election.
A gaggle of Proud Boys decide to progress the annexation issue. After all they have been told that the existing border demarcation is flawed and not advantageous to the USA. They cross over the border into Canada on Highway 41 on the pretext of hunting, but the actual strategy is reviving the ancient war cry of “54:40 or Fight”.
After all Americans have the inviolable right to travel anywhere on the face of the globe at will and only to be subject to their own laws. This poor shower don’t consider a fair portion of their own laws are applicable either, but whatdayado?
Leaders within the group carry their Jan 6th pardons, which gives them Federal indemnity, don’t it?
They travel about 50 miles into Canadia territory and make camp at Eagle Butte. For the symbolism.
Tipped off, the gaggle’s path further north is blocked by a local militia force comprising @Spoons and a large force of local associates armed with blunderbusses and IEDs. The Canadian patriots are stirred on by @NortherPiper playing “A Gaelic Air”.
The southern line of retreat is cut off by the RCMP.
The Canadian contingent pragmatically decide against casus belli and to wait them out, on the premise that either forest fires or -40C winters intercede soon enough.
Being;
- surrounded on foreign soils and
- with the supply of Bud Lite and Pop Tarts running low
… the Proud Boy gaggle call out for reinforcements, who respond in number from Spokane but are held up at the border and refused entry. Stalemate ensues.
Who on the US side is going to be a voice of reason and talk this down from the precipice?
Yeah. This idea that people are pushing that the US military and American populace would start a civil war over invading somebody else just doesn’t fit with history. Not that of the US or anyone else. It’s just denialism; an American invasion of Canada is Unthinkable, therefore It Can’t Happen.
The technical term is “normalcy bias.” People tend to vastly underestimate threats because of an overdependence on assuming that things will always be like they are normally, which isn’t dangerous. We see this all the time; it’s why people get killed for no good reason in hurricanes, because they cannot grasp that a hurricane isn’t just another big storm (It is demonstrated fact that the vast majority of people underreact to natural disaster warnings.). It’s why people got hit in the ass by the housing market collapse; the housing market hadn’t collapsed before.
It has been usually normal, at least over the last hundred years or so, for a number of things to be true- that the USA and Canada are democratic states that usually abide by civilized standards, that each nation is internally governed by a very set and slow-changing constitution, and that the two nations generally have aligned interests as a result of which their many disputes are settled with mid-level diplomacy.
Furthermore, it is highly desirable that these things happen. Almost everyone LIKED those facts. People do not want them to change.
Well, the thing is, those things are not the same anymore. The USA isn’t like that now. The way to look at this situation is to expand the scope of one’s view beyond the 20th/21st century USA/Canada relationship norms, and to a broader look at what historical norms are beyond that very limited case. Historically, what is the USUAL state of affairs when two countries border each other, one is much more powerful than the other, and the more powerful state is not governed by a clear constitution or international law?
It can happen, but it takes time for the aggressor to built up enough psychic momentum to do it.
The U.S. enacted the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998, but did not change the regime until 2003. And, if not for 9/11, it would have taken longer.
Trump’s threats are serious, not because they will be fulfilled in 2025, but because expansionist threats usually, after a number of years, do turn into military action.
As much as anything it was Bush and Cheney getting into power that was the key change, not 9/11. And Trump is already in office.
The apathy is truly what’s gets me. Trump’s supporters are horrible, I know they won’t question his actions (they’ll cheer). But Trump’s detractors? What possible excuse do they have?
Trump does everything he can to degrade Canada’s economic integrity with the expressed goal of destroying our political sovereignty… “No, you are alarmist. He’s too lazy to invade.” ???
Why is Trump loading the gun? Why are his people cheering him on as he waves it at us? We should not be alarmed? Such utter trash. The only thing that will stop us from being alarmed IS THE RETURN OF RULE OF LAW. No loaded gun in the room! No Trump ruling by fiat executive orders! No psychopath politicians cheering him on as he openly threatens us!
THAT, not anything else, will calm us down. Until then we wait.