Canada

This is a good assessment. For some added context, the idea of annexing Canada is astonishingly unpopular in the US. Even among Republican voters, only 25% approve. No one in the White House understands where this insanity is coming from or why, no one in the Republican party is in favour of it. It's basically just Trump and Navarro.

So while it is absolutely insane that the possibility of a US invasion exists, there's no real likelihood to it. Russians see annexing Ukraine as a good and right thing to do. They don't generally want Ukrainians to suffer - they see them as fellow Russians - but they see annexation as in their best interests. There's no such appetite in the US. The American people have zero interest in a senseless war against an ally.

But Trump is largely unchecked, and he may try anyway, no matter how much the attempt would destabilize his own nation. That's a risk we have to prepare for.

Either way, our days of treating the US as a reliable ally are over. Canadian soldiers bled and died for them in Korea and Afghanistan, and fought shoulder to shoulder with them in both world wars and multiple peacekeeping operations, and this is the thanks we get? Fuck that, and fuck every American that allowed this to happen.

Excellent post. The Finland comparison seems very appropriate.

I also complete agree about getting off American social media, especially Facebook.

But personally I believe the US would descend into civil war before this happens

Which doesn’t mean we shouldn’t prepare for this possibility, starting yesterday.

We can use the money we were pissing away on F35s to create a national corps, who would be trained in the types of guerrilla warfare we’d need in this scenario. And be cross-trained to respond to climate emergencies such as floods and hurricanes and fires. And help build out infrastructure to shore up our east-west corridors and access to the north.

The strategic situation favors the US immensely, with all our cities situated directly on the border. There's basically no way to mount any kind of serious defence of Canada. Every city, almost every strategically valuable location, would be lost in days.

But our nation is superbly suited to guerilla warfare, with our vast forests providing excellent cover against aerial and satellite observation, and the CAF is superbly good at fighting against superior numbers and firepower because they train around the assumption that they will be fighting an enemy that outclasses them in equipment and numbers. Manuever warfare, hit and run strikes and defeat in detail are core to CAF tactics, and they know how to fight in ways that maximize their impact while minimizing losses.

They're also very, very good at what they do. Canadians routinely demolish Americans in wargames and training operations. Our training standards are much higher and it bears results. This isn't much help against the sheer scale of the American military; a holding action like the one Ukraine is putting up against Russia would be functionally impossible. But a guerilla war would make the Americans pay a heavy toll for every day they tried to remain here.

The US would control the cities, but all of those strategic resources that Trump wants are deeper in the interior and much more vulnerable to hit and run attacks by a determined Canadian military presence, while ordinary resistance fighters would be able to launch terror strikes against vulnerable targets all across the continental US. They would have to place security forces everywhere, while we can choose to strike anywhere. Just the financial and political weight of protecting every state capitol, every senators home, every factory, every distribution centre, every power plant... Hell, every mall and school if we want to go that far... Would be absolutely crushing. How long would the American people put up with going through checkpoints to get to work, being pulled over and searched my soldiers to get to the grocery store, all while watching bombs blow up in their neighbourhoods and their tax dollars get pissed away on the world's largest and most expensive national security operation? America is swimming in debt and piling on more to give tax breaks to billionaires, and a right wing government has no way to embrace the kind of radical economic thinking that could try to solve those problems. How long could they even sustain an occupation for?

We need to take cues from Ukraine and work on a drone airforce and navy.

Get millions of the things.

We have the robotics capability to lead the world in this.

But personally I believe the US would descend into civil war before this happens, with “blue” states having suppressed voting rights trying to secede.

How? By waving little round signs? By holding sing-alongs? By getting outraged whenever anyone doesn't like the latest Disney movie? What gives you the impression that anyone on the American left would be willing to expend the kind of effort and sacrifice necessary to mount a serious revolt?

Fingers crossed because most battlegrounds would be in blue states. I hope that if he tries to force blue states to fight their neighbors, those states would rather secede and fight back

Russia used weaponized its culture against its neighbors for generations... To the point here every country has a small but strong and vocal regime bootlicker culture.

Speaking American is high risk behavior

Getting off Facebook is one of the most important things we can do since it's the largest spreader of misinformation.

This is SUCH an important point. The biggest and most painful band aid that needs to be pulled off is the cultural one. Our collective cultural identity has been steadily, gradually eroded by the loud, brash braying that the asses to the south continually emit day in day out. If it's not clear to us by now, Americants don't view anyone outside of their bubble as real people, or anything beyond a thing to be exploited. A means to their end.

The crucial realization though is that they absolutely depend on the their cultural exports to validate and legitimize their global behavior. A product and service boycott is good. A global cultural boycott that utterly repudiates their entire way of life is what's required though.

I would like to see Canadian cable TV replace (at least some) American channels with international ones from the other English speaking countries.

And delete Faux news entirely.

.

Yes, I know the number of homes with cable continues to shrink, but it's still got a massive installed base.

I'm from the US and fled to Canada during the second Bush Jr. administration. The funny thing is I'd kill to have that lovable idiot back in office. It's amazing how you never really appreciate what you've got until you have something MUCH worse.

I have family in the military down there. Wouldn't it be funny if they had to come up here to kill me and my family and seize my land? Boy wouldn't my face be red! That would just be hilarious!

"within 3 months of the next presidential election cycle" if the last two have been any indication, we're already 2 months in.

Let's see if the mid-term election happens and/or how it goes.

in a way, Trump is actually succeeding in getting NATO member countries to reach the 2% GDP commitment for military spending... by scaring countries into arming themselves against the United States.

it's like convincing your friend to install an alarm system by threatening to rob them at gunpoint.

We don't need to go north. There's plenty of space in, say, western Ontario that's going unused.

Speaking of improving infrastructure, cbc is building out local news and hiring (permanent contracts in a unionized gig btw, for any fantastic yet out-of-work journalists scrolling by).