Would U. S. military invasion of Canada generally be as successful as predicted by Canadians?

[Anonymous]

Would U. S. military invasion of Canada generally be as successful as predicted by Canadians?

This is a reference to Howard Coombs:
https://www.queensu.ca/cidp/people-search/howard-coombs-phd

Clearly he has some relevant expertise on the subject being familiar both with Canada's military and the nature of insurgences the only resistance Canada really could offer.

Summery:
* He says Canada would fall quickly in a campaign similar to War Plan Red.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Plan_Red

This would of course be done with modern military doctrine, similar to the invasion of Iraq or Afgainstan, smart bombs and precision strikes to cripple the country while preserving as much of the people and infrastructure as possible.

* Canada Currently has almost no military, with around 68k active solders ready to fight today:
https://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-detail.php?country_id=canada

* Coom'bs said this would largely be a sacrificial force if sent against America 1.3 million better equipped solders ready to fight today.
https://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-detail.php?country_id=united-states-of-america

* Pointing out that America's elite special forces caring out the precision attacks crippling Canada would equal Canada's regular army man for man.

So Canada's only real defense scheme is an insurgency. Here Coombs an actual military expert on Insurgency claims Canada would not likely wage much of one.

* Insurgencies tend to be run by a tiny share of the population and require forign aid in materials and equipment. Canada having no other borders and NORAD being very effective at controlling North American air and sea there is almost no way for anyone to aid Canada.

That means Canadian insurgents would run out of materials and support for their campaign rather quickly.

Updates

1 y

This is a question about how the war would go, NOT whether or not it is a good idea.

Presumably for the context of the question approve is given for the war.

[jshm2]

No. Mainly as Canada is very large and very hard to attack.

Just look at Russia in Ukraine - that was Ukraine plus the EU + USA and they still didn't win, but couldn't get enough foothold to take everything either.

Having a massive army and firepower across a border doesn't mean anything is "easy". It's actually harder, as there are a lot of traps and defences that can be put in place to stall and cut down troops before they can get into interesting positions.

Canada is more rugged than Ukraine.

[Asker]

@jshm2 Russia only failed to take Ukraine within the first few weeks because their logistics sucked and their equipment was poorly maintained. Stranding their army in the Ukraine on the way to kevie.

America has proven in many recent wars it has not only the best logicians in the world able to carry out such invasion on the other side of the world. But the best maintained equipment, So as the Canadian suggested we would overrun Canada fairly quickly.

Worse still for Canada 90% of the population is within 100 miles of the U. S. border so if the U. S. military was propositioned they could occupies 90% of the Canadian population within a day.

The rest of Canada is largely useless attic terrotry almost uninhabitable without the development of infrastructure. This land would be difficult to control as it is even for Canada, but it is also almost worthless. Turn off the power with air strikes and cut off supplies and the winter will do the rest.

[MicahRaine]

We literally guard their borders and fund their military. . . so yeah they'd get absolutely fkd

[Anonymous]

Absolutely. Canada would surrender b4 a shot is fired and play the long game. 4 years later the us would leave.

[Asker]

Probably the smartest strategy, but the Canadian expert on insurgencies thinks that would fail.

On top of that Canada is too valuable to America. Its on the other side of the world excuse wold fail, particularly if Canadians started attacking American targets in America.

[Opinion Owner]

Insurgency generally doesn't work out that well. It all comes down the bottom line, figures on a spreadsheet sheet accountants look at. If you look at Afghanistan the Taliban basically hid out in Pakistan for 20 years knowing that America would leave because there wasn't enough value in Afghanistan to keep the us military there, whereas in Iraq which had the most violent insurgency in recent history the US military still has a presence and largely succeeded but then Iraq has some of the largest deposits of oil/gas in the world.
Also if you look at modern military technology the mere idea of an insurgent with a few rifles ambushing a military column starts to become an unlikely impossibility, there's just nowhere to hide anymore.
Also if you look at the British, French and even America pre WW2 they all had to deal with various insurgencies and how they dealt with them was to let them run out of steam after most of the insurgents had been wiped out. The British in a post ww1 insurgency in the middle east flattened a whole village in the first bombing of a civilian town and in the boer war theylocked up the entire population in the first concentration camps.
Any Canadian insurgency would need outside support to have any chance of succeeding. Most insurgencies were supplied weapons and food from outside to succeed whether it be the Soviets, Chinese and north Vietnamese supplying the Vietcong or the Mujahadeen getting support from Muslim States and the us to fight the Soviets. The Soviets supplied a whole lot of arms post WW2 to insurgencies in European colonial territories like Algeria and Morocco. Who is going to supply Canada? The

[Asker]

The Canadian military expert said probably nobody. NORAD works very well as securing North American air space and sea ways.
Without any borders and an ocean between Canada and the rest of the world forign support for a Canadian insurgency would be almost impossible.

That said if Canada was allowed to become states or even a Territory the 2nd amendment does change things a bit. As they would have access to small arms and bomb making material. The problem then simply becomes money and tracking.
But Canada wold have a chance of sustaining an insurgency then until their will to fight ran out.

If Canada were left as its own country on the other hand and simply had a new regime installed all bets are off, then you would have no weapons, no rights, and maybe concentration camps. As the U. S. Constitution would not apply.

[Opinion Owner]

I think if the us was willing to go all out and take over Canada then nothing would matter.
2nd ammendment wouldn't matter because it's essentially just guys with small arms and we've already seen with the assault weapons ban in the 80s that if there's enough political will the 2nd ammendment can be banned. Besides the idea of a civilian milita standing up to a federal army is long past with the military technology that's out there.

[Asker]

Few insurgencies require anything more than small arms and bombs. Large military weapons like tanks and F16s are only really required if your trying to overthrow a goverment which is similarly protected. If however your banking on the goverment caring about the people then insurgent tactics can bring them to the table.

[Opinion Owner]

What you describe is the past. Take the ho chi ming trail for instance in the Vietnam war, the USAF tried to shut it down with dropping more bombs on it than was probably dropped in WW2. Problem is they could see the Vietcong/NVA on it running supplies to the south at night. Today with drone tech nothing would make it to the south, it would be a grave yard.
Have you seen the CROWs system, now that's 20-30 year old tech and this is a system that can mount any machine in the US inventory from the saw to the M240 to the M50 as well as grenade and rocket launchers. This is a remote weapon that can be mounted on anything from a truck to a tank. It has night vision, telescopic sights, heat vision, target tracking, computer aided balistics, motion detection, gunfire triangulation and can out shoot a sniper. There's no where to hide. The USAF doesn't deploy F16s, they've a whole load of very cheap drones some of which are very cheap drones. It's a digital battlefield now in which any potential combatant when identified whether it be by drone or cellphone chatter or by passive detection of a vehicle can be fired upon by virtually any weapon system from a cheap mass produced suicide drone to an f16 to an artillery strike to a naval strike. There's just nowhere to hide. Even the infantry is changing. In the war on terror insurgents found themselves at a major disadvantage when going up against us forces as they were equipped with body armor, night vision, thermal optics and acog scopes as standard. In fact there were questions about marines executing insurgents in falujah due to high numbers of headsets and Alqueda thought the marines had deployed marksmen but in reality it was the marines with acog scopes on their m16s.

[Opinion Owner]

Now you could say scopes, AR15 type weapons, body armour, night vision, scopes etc are all freely available in thd us and Canada but that was then but 20 years later the game has changed. Now the US has the M7/M5 which fires the 6.8 mm round which will go through body armour, the ammo is going to us plastic casing making ammunition lighter so they can carry 3 times the amount of ammo. Then there's the new smart scopes that are going to be on these rifles. Meaning a soldier will have access to the digital battlefield where targets will be painted for them showing up on their scopes. They will have night vision, thermal optics, telescopic sights, balistic calculators, motion sensors etc all on the one scope meaning they can fire as accurately as a sniper, gunfire location meaning they can easily triangulate the postion of an enemy sniper. It's not the fire power thatscseen a drastic increase but the sheer accuracy and the ability to detect enemy targets. Now where to hide.

[Asker]

I can see your point on the surveillance state allowing the U. S. to potently track every single Canadian better with drones and kill the insurgents. But there too the US would have legal constitutional problems using such power domesicly. So unless Canada was left as a separate country, this might not be enough.

As for the weapons technology even in the past a civilian would not stand much of a chance in a 1 on 1 straight up fight against a solder due to both equipment and training disparity. The trouble is finding the insurgent civilian before they ambush you.

If Canada remained independent it would be simple for the puppet goverment to make itself a police state. Legally Americans would not be happy if our own goverment did that.

[Opinion Owner]

The US is already tracking every single us citizen and though a legal constitutional issue it's largely ignored just like the fisa courts that allow citizens to be arrested, tried, imprisoned indefinitely or executed without knowing their crime and tried in a secret court without jury.
Finding the civilian insurgent is very easy with AI, the insurgent gets shot before he/she can fire as shot. You only have to look at the war in Gazza, Hamas and Hezbollah never imagined they'd be so ineffective against the IDF. The Taliban in Afghanistan basically hid in Pakistan for 20 years and trained their people.
Legally if America invaded Canada and took over it wouldn't matter because the country would likely be a dictatorship at that stage like it. Anything legal or constitutional can be over ridden, discarded or ignored if there is enough political will, power or no one willing to enforce it.
The US public would be aghast at the us military invading Canada.

[NoDecision]

Don't we have enough expenses with just the US? Why would we even want Canada?

[Asker]

Again that is not the question. This topic is how would it go?

For the sake of argument Canada has 33 trillion dollars worth of natural resources. Much of which is largely undeveloped because Canada lacks the economic freedom, investment markets, and labor markets required to do so.

So acquiring Canada under the U. S. sytem would almost double America's potential GDP as if you put the strengths together we would be able to significantly out grow our respective dept. This is what a lot of economies including Canadian investors like Kevin O'Leary have been saying.

So say we did it to secure our financial future.

[NoDecision]

In case you didn't notice, they are making cuts to save money. The US doesn't have the money to develop their natural resources either. In March they are going to have to dig a bag full of change to make our interest payments to China, and to fund the Government yet again to avoid shutdowns.

[Asker]

@nodecision
If Governments made good investors Canada might have developed its own economy. But they don't because even if politicians did understand a good economic opportunity they would spend too much buying votes for the project to be successful.

So instead such development would be funded by the private sector and investors who would pick people who understand the industry and have a history of getting it done.

Canada has generally failed to do that because their parliaments are too unstable limiting their economic freedom, they lack a workforce that has the needed experts, and their economy is too small for the investment capital even if their goverment was stable.

This is again off topic, which is how such a war would go, not why we would fight it.

[BonzoInBitburg]

First off, congressional approval is required and that's highly unlikely. If you think all Canadians will roll over then you aren't paying attention to what's going on up here. We used to like Americans. The playbook would be how the Taliban fought the mighty US military with pellet guns, slingshots and homemade bombs. You don't want to see our Google search history

[Asker]

@bonzoinbitburg

Eastern Canadians at least, and I think all of them have always been anti-American as many Americans who have visited Canada can attest to Canadian bigotry. A bigotry that really comes from a basic insecurity about Canada and how it is really not distinct from America except in that anti-Americanism.

Canada was after all in large part founded by people who fled the American revolution and rejected the ideas there of. Ideas Canadians have since more and more embraced as the natural truths our Founders claimed them to be. Hence if you really think about it Canada itself exist because of something you no longer believe in. A mistake.

Unfortunately Canadians rather than confronting this historic fact and finding a real new identity or at least being open about it are instead demonstrate their insecurity as such people regularly do by bashing Americans and America to justify that which they don't really believe in.

Americans only like Canadians in general because we don't know this, but until world war 2 and the empire for which Canada was created collapsed it was quite overt. That is why there is a War Plan Red, and a Defense Scheme no 1.

Canada was not America's friend but rather America's insecure and hostile brother.
The one that spent much of the 19th centery in open or covert war with America.

[BonzoInBitburg]

You clearly don't know Canada. Canada was not founded in any way by people who fled America. There were plenty of people already here. We don't dislike Americans, we just don't want to be Americans. We are very different from you but Americans can't see it. We have our own problems but we don't have weekly mass shootings and monthly riots. It was very peaceful here until Trump poked the bear

The funniest thing is the US thinks we need you. By far our biggest export to the US was oil and gas that we sold you at a discount rate. The moment tariffs we announced the rate went up to market price and China just signed a deal to buy that oil and gas. Fortunately we were able to sign trade deals with the EU and Mexico this month for the rest of our exports so the only real change is I switched from bourbon to single malt Scotch.

[Asker]

@BonzoinBitburg Quebec was there before. With a history of conflict with both the brittish and the 13 colonies. A fact which dispute french alliance with the 13 colonies Quebec remained loyal to her recently conquering British monarchs. For that loyalty she was repaid with the loss of most of the lands she might otherwise have claimed to new brittish settlers. Who themselfs were eventually abandoned at the interest of that empire.

As for Nova Scotia its original french colonist now reside in Louisianian, the British colonist who were brought in to replace them forcefully were too themselfs far too occupied by British troops to rebel. Nonetheless it is clear even the brother of Quebec is among these united States.

So the idea that Canadians are not American brothers separated by lies or conquest of a distant and now gone empire is tottaly and utterly nonsense!

At least in Quebec you have a very real case for being a separate nation defined by the french language and distinct culture and geography of the people of the Saint Lawrence River.

But the other 5 nations of Canada are only partially in Canada with the bulk of their people, defined by the nature of geography, culture, economy, kinship, and way of life have dedicated themselfs to the cause of liberty in the Deceleration of independence in 1776.

committed to the freedom of the federal Constitution of 1787 and the cause of liberty and equality as proclaimed and foolishly rejected in 1776.

[BonzoInBitburg]

All that means nothing for most Canadians since 44% of our population is 2nd generation or less. All that immigration makes a difference in the culture.

[Asker]

So basically what your saying is Trudeau was right, Canada isn't a nation anymore.. @bonzoinbitburg

If your people don't hold to any common origin and cultural myth then there is nothing but a goverment that binds you, and Government can be changed.

[BonzoInBitburg]

I don't know where you get we're not a nation, that's a bizarre statement. Maybe your news is being filtered because Trudeau has been saying all along we are a sovereign nation. What I'm saying is that we are a long way from 1776. The world has changed a lot since then.

[Asker]

@bonzoinbitburg
The world has changed, most of Canada has gotten a lot closer to America, while the rest of the world has unified into ever larger economic and political blocks the power of which has disambiguated smaller non-aligned blocks.

Canada pays a very high price to be 'independent' and really doesn't get anything for it.

[BonzoInBitburg]

I don't know where you're getting your news or if you're just making up stuff. We are the country that is trading with the rest of the world. The US is the isolationist country with massive tariffs to restrict trade.

[Notherndude84]

Well America hasn’t won a war since Korea.


If you think Canada will hand over their sovereignty you got another thing coming. There will be lots of dead American boys bleeding in the snow if it’s tried

[Asker]

Perhaps but Canadian military experts make a valid case Canada would fall and fall relatively quickly. With an insurgency we can put down with in a relatively short time.

The final outcome of such a war would be the single most beneficial to the empire of any conflict since the "Civil War". America would:
A) Gain long term security over the continent with more defensible borders.
B) more than double our resources and economic potential,
C) Finally expel the monarchy from North America a goal of the American revolution.
D) End the historic Canadian threat undermining our sovereignty and independence once and for all. (remember Canada worked to undermine a wide range of U. S. laws.)
E) End future threats like future Trudeau administrations collaborate with our enemies and try to import their solders to learn to fight on our Continent as this Trudeau admin did.

Basically conquering Canada would be Huge more rewarding for America than any war fought in the last 150 years, and set us up for the next 150 years. We could expend millions of solders and still be better off in the end from such a conquest.

Its hard to see Every future American president refusing to do that.

[Asker]

@notherndude84
When your "experts" are democrats trying to prove their already failed defensive Korea strategy can be successful you can throw their predictions out the window. But what do you expect to get from a strategy that is essentially be a bullet sponge.

You don't win a "police action" against communist, unless you go after the enemy where they come from the war need not ever end.

Given that war was over a country on the other side of the planet that offered nonething to us, it was mere pride that kept us in that conflict. With Canada on the other hand we are talking about vast resources right next to our home the security of which is directly associated with American Security.

If Canadian insurgents attack American targets in America that makes the case for never ending war to occupy and reeducate the Canadians even stronger given we can never walk away and make peace with such a threat.

[GAGsucksballs89170]

It wouldn't

And the idea that we're going to invade Canada, is mind boggling. Instead of getting guns out of schools, we want to invade our friend

[Asker]

As much as America and Canada have a history and cultures build around that to the contrary. That isn't the question here.

The question is how the invasion would go different from what this Canadian expert says if it were to happen.

[exitseven]

The USA vs. Canada hockey game it tonite. Maybe we should leave it all on the ice. ?

[Asker]

Why would we let a game decide the fate of our civilization let alone a game such as hockey?

Regardless that is not the question, the question is how would a war go?

[seeyounexttuesday]

All we have to do is freeze their bank accounts and they’ll bend over.

[Asker]

@seeyounexttuesday
It is sad what happened to Canadian patriots demanding the right not to take an experimental drug. Althou Sanctions might work, I doubt it given sanctions almost never work.

Regardless the question is how would a military invasion go?

[seeyounexttuesday]

Done in a week.

[Ladsin2]

Do they think it'd be easy? Because it'd be easy.

[goaded]

1812!

[Asker]

In the interest of keeping this theoretical I'm not sure you want to tempt western Canadians or most Americans with the prospect of having both their imperial masters burned to the ground again. @goaded

in the U. S. it would be a great opportunity to move the capital west to a more central location or just not have it at all given modern technology.
In Canada the colonies of Ottawa might make the same demand if they don't get a real Constitution out of the conflict.