[DrCaleb]

bootlegga bootlegga:

If the US invades, about the best we could hope for is to make occupation so costly that they eventually leave (kind of like Iraq).

What do you mean "kind of like Iraq" ?? Iraq was a country of brown people who didn't speak the same language and had a completely different culture.

We look like them, sound like them, know them as well as we know ourselves, and they still come from a different culture. A Guerrilla war with us would be 10x worse than Iraq! Like the saying goes, "Canadians are a nice polite people. Until we aren't".

[bootlegga]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

bootlegga bootlegga:

If the US invades, about the best we could hope for is to make occupation so costly that they eventually leave (kind of like Iraq).

What do you mean "kind of like Iraq" ?? Iraq was a country of brown people who didn't speak the same language and had a completely different culture.

What I meant was that a determined resistance to US forces wore them down and gradually turned public opinion against the war in Iraq (just like Vietnam).

The thing about that is we'd have to be willing to spend lives like water, and while I have no doubt there are a fair number of people willing to do so, I'm not sure they are enough of them to wear down the Americans for long enough to get them to withdraw.

It's also a lot tougher because both logistically and strategically, occupying Canada would be easier than occupying Iraq, which is on the other side of the world.

If you capture Winnipeg right off the bat, you split the country in two because we have no other way to transfer troops and equipment across our limited infrastructure (assuming it survives the initial waves of air raids). Tack on the fact that 80% or so of Canadians live within 100 km of the border and a quick strike removes most of our potential guerilla manpower from the map very quickly.

Hell, Fort Drum in upstate New York is only a couple hours from the Quebec border. Same goes for Fort Lewis in Washington State. And they could have drones flying out of a couple dozen bases in the northern US, giving them lots of loitering time over Canada to find targets.

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

We look like them, sound like them, know them as well as we know ourselves, and they still come from a different culture. A Guerrilla war with us would be 10x worse than Iraq! Like the saying goes, "Canadians are a nice polite people. Until we aren't".

I've argued that before as well, but after some thinking on the subject, odds are that if we were to launch guerilla raids across the border, we'd prolong public support of an occupation with every attack, even if we limited them strictly to military targets. Odds are, we wouldn't wear them down after 5 or 6 years like Iraq did - we'd probably need a decade or three to do it.

I like to believe we'd stick it out that long, but I'm doubtful.

[bootlegga]

Thanos Thanos:

Any invader that set foot in Canada would have a nuclear bomb dropped on them by the US within an hour. Odds are the Americans would attack, including with nuclear weapons, and destroy the invasion fleet anyway if it ever crossed the North American territorial limit.

Unless of course it's the Americans themselves.

It may make me sound like a tinhatter, but I really think they are our only long term threat.

China, Russia and other would-be superpowers simply have too many threats/enemies on their borders to commit the resources to invade and capture a large nation like Canada on the other side of the world. That's the reason China and Russia have almost always had large armies and relatively small navies dedicated to protecting their coasts and maritime approaches - they are continental, not maritime powers.

However, in extreme circumstances, I could see the Americans deciding Canada looks better as part of the US than as an independent nation.

For me, the two largest threats are resource acquisition and climate change. Right now, we're more than willing to ship them whatever amounts they want of almost any resource we have (water is the one exception), but if a time comes in the future when we need oil, natural gas or whatever at home and can't afford to send it to them, then they could see that as a threat.

The other extreme is if temps go up too high and much of the US Southwest (and maybe even Southeast) becomes unlivable (extreme heat, flooding, drought, climate refugees from Central America, etc). At the same time, Canada's climate could become more temperate and encourage migrations north.

If Canada was unwilling to allow those migrations and/or bulk shipments of water to drought starved southern regions, the government of the day may decide on swallowing us to deal with those problems.

These of course are long term threats that I don't see emerging until sometime between 2050 - 2100. However, if the world gets its act together and we mitigate climate change, this may never come to pass. That would also reduce the likelihood of them invading us for resources (oil/NG most likely).

[Thanos]

It's not tin-hat. Some of those scenarios are plausible if incredibly unlikely to ever happen. All the trade deals have accomplished those needs for the US anyway and have given them what they need/want without having to resort to military means. The Americans regard everything from the north pole to the Panama canal as their exclusive zone, even if some of that territory isn't under the sovereign control of the US government. It's mere fact that any other major power that attempts anything within that zone is going to get hammered hard by the US. The best example would be the Spanish-American war, where the US finally decided that no other nation was going to be allowed to operate an empire within the territorial range established by the Madison doctrine, and leaving the British & French a few pointless islands in the Lesser Antilles didn't violate that doctrine. It's not about total centralized government control from Washington DC. It's about not tolerating any threat from another power capable of transporting significant military force across one of the oceans.

[Lemmy]

Indeed, Manifest Destiny has been manifested. But "pointless islands"? Martinique is the most beautiful place on Earth, more beautiful even than Caicos.

[bootlegga]

Stunning!

[Thanos]

Lemmy Lemmy:

Indeed, Manifest Destiny has been manifested. But "pointless islands"? Martinique is the most beautiful place on Earth, more beautiful even than Caicos.

I only meant "pointless" in the big-scheme-geo-politics sense. Orbital spy satellites and mid-air refueling have made all the frontier outposts obsolete and made fighting for them/garrisoning them into a waste of resources. Russia, for example, is re-manning a bunch of their old Arctic bases in response to American "provocations". It's entirely ridiculous and it's being done strictly as stunt-booking to keep the population convinced that Putin is personally standing on guard against those diabolical Yankees. Aside from giving his own knob a polish there's no reason for doing something like that. It'd be as dumb as us re-manning all the ancient DEW stations just because some politician said we gotta look tough.

[Lemmy]

Thanos Thanos:

I only meant "pointless" in the big-scheme-geo-politics sense.

Of course. Your mention of those islands just set me on a trip down memory lane. And the thread topic was weather, after all.

Thanos Thanos:

It'd be as dumb as us re-manning all the ancient DEW stations just because some politician said we gotta look tough.

Like every part of Harper's "tough on crime" policy announcements.