Spawned out of an IRL discussion. It's pretty insane, and probably done already, but for some reason I'm really curious. For one reason or another, the American government decides to invade Canada. They can take as long as they want to prepare and carry out an invasion. The current administration and sufficient Congress members to form a government (do you need Congress to declare war? In Canada the House of Commons must vote on it) support the war, and the military is assumed to follow orders like they would any other. The objective is to annex Canada and make it part of the United States, so capturing Ottawa isn't enough and genocide is too far. Tactically and strategically, how would an American force go about invading Canada? What kind of defence could the Canadians put up? How would the public react on both sides of the border? How would the international community react?
After the USA defeats Canada's regular armed forces they then lose to Canadians in a war of attrition. If they lost against the Vietnamese, Iraqi's a Afghans through their incessant attritional war then Canada's going to do a whole lot worse. The International community would condemn the USA. Arms supplies and advisors to the resistance, then sit back and eat popcorn while they watch American soldiers go home in body bags every week, which in turn inflames US public opinion which would eventually force America to retreat make a deal to pull out and save face yet again. That's probably almost exactly how it would go down.
Most of our population is close to the border, so taking over all of Canadian major cities is only hours in most cases. Our military is good, but too small and too spread out. Land too big, so big,.. 2nd biggest in the world. It will be a short vicious fight, then the US take over. The economy of both countries will go down the drain because Canada happen to be the US biggest trading partner. Plus the rest of Canada will be super happy on one thing, Quebec is now a US problem. Quebec is such a big pain in the ass.
Retreat further into the North and begin guerilla warfare, while the US crumbles under public opinion and international sanctions. No country wants a supercontinent, unless they are the supercontinent.
Would the Canadians have the will to fight that far though? I kind of feel like the US would blitkreig Canada and be occupying very quickly. I do see a resistance fight.....but honestly I can see alot of population, faced with either grabbing a gun and fighting to the death or accepting a slightly different rule of government......would probably just accept it. After the war, I think it would be kind of funny. Let's say Canada surrenders, is annexed, and the provinces become states.....aside from the dissenters, it would almost be business as usual, minus the Queen. I don't think there's much that the US Federal government would really change, and the Canadian states could still run themselves almost just like they do now.
The answer is yes, we do have a will to fight when we get pissed off. Watch a hockey or a lacrosse game. Read abit of Canadian war history..the German used to called Canadian fighting forces as the stormtroopers when we first fought them Canadian are nice, polite and all that stuff..but deep down we are vicious bastard. Especially if your French Canadian, we got the only french that never surrender to anyone (they are such a pain in the ass). Plus they been known be terrorist. doing terrorist hobbies like kidnapping, murder and bombings. Canada was place under martial law cause of it. Lots of oil and gas pipeline we got here..so flammable.
Indeed, and the USA has absolutely no experience in dealing with militant Francophones. In 10 years French will be their only official language
i think canada has nearly as many gun owners as the us does "per population not total" most will be hunting weapons but i think a scoped highpower rifle will be more usefull than a assault rifle for a resistance group fighting the us
We lose. Horribly. Becaue Canada is really like this. More seriously, I think the US can win. And we suffer majorly for it, in all areas. And to the OP: Yes, Congress is required to declare war, and the president can only utilize non-war military action for 60 days without congressional approval. This all came about because before the time limit, non-warfare military action was used in a small southeast Asian country. I think we all know how that turned out.
No change? Adding the Canadians as new states would totally unbalance the US political landscape, causing serious upheaval.
One of the groups that would give the US military nightmares as a resistence group would likely be the Canadian Rangers.
We do whatever we want, and then the rest of the world starts trying to figure out how to castrate a now bat-shit insane violent America. Americans and Canadians overestimate their ability to wage an Afghanistan style insurgency way too much...
Except in this case you have a rather large issue of the US trying to keep control over an area larger then their original country. They're going to be so spread out that they'll be fucked trying to stay in charge for long.
The shared language, similar political structure, and (generally) religion would make both a counterinsurgency and eventual assimilation far, far easier than anywhere else. Not to mention Canada's geographical isolation making it much harder for a third party to ship in weapons with anything like useful regularity or quantity.
No offense but Canada is so much ice and moose. They have an incredibly modern, liberal, prosperous foundation... But that foundation is a stones throw away from the bulk of American power (unlike Afghanistan) and is a fraction of the total size of the country. You aren't Afghanistan. You don't have caves to fall back to. You don't have the institutional or cultural foundations of the Taliban. You dont have the bulk of your military power concentrated in cheap, smugglable, easily maintained manpack equipment or next door neighbors a stones throw away supplying you with military grade equipment. Go freeze in the rural areas of Canada; you're just destroying your own moral and making you a better cluster bomb target. America is dumb at times but it's not dumb enough to try and occupy every barren square inch of the frosty ass Canadian boondocks.
Except that Canadians are not Vietnamese they're neither ready nor willing to endure hardships and consequences of a guerilla war. US breaks Canada handily and the occupation wont be too ugly as well.
Um, why does the parliament of the country being invaded have to support military action defending themselves, wouldn't it be automatically assumed? Do you mean as an opposite to unconditional surrender? And why wouldn't Canadian military follow orders to defend their country, why does it have to be specifically assumed? Since you brought in the aspects of public and international reactions to this scenario, then they quickly overshadow the military action in Canada. Either Western civilization returns to the pre-World War II political culture, where a major democratic country can be tolerated to have total war with another, or more likely USA gets expelled from it and will be declared a rogue state, with EU becoming more and more federal and militarily co-organized out of pure necessity of needing to contain an apparently insane and unpredictable nuclear superpower. The sheer shock will devastate the global economy far, far more than the last recession. Modern globalized generations are completely different in their level of patriotism and being willing to die for their country (the members of the modern volunteer militaries, composed of only small percentage of the population, are exceptions that confirm the rule), people don't eat up nationalistic propaganda with fervor like they used to. World War II was the end of that age. You might as well seriously use vikings as proof of modern Scandinavian military strength. This. How many spoiled (in relative comparable sense to Afghans and Vietnamese) first worlders would truly, honestly be willing to die, for the independence of their country? Especially when taken over by a regime that is not like Taliban/North Korea? I know that I wouldn't just easily do it, maybe only if the new regime really was completely unbearable or executed my family or something like that. I'm not saying that there would not be any, retired military personnel, militia members, people who are just that brave and patriotic, I'm saying that there would not be enough. For a large scale insurgency you need sizable percentage of fanatics, normally either religious or communist. I seriously doubt that modern democratic ideology can mange it, without serious other social issues supporting the revolution, like it was during 18th and 19th centuries.
Fact is apart from rednecks, gangs and some former military and police an average canadian or an american has lots to lose, for the bitching Americans do their lives are awesome, they got good benefits, good oportunities and that makes them cowards, it also makes them incompetent. Nations of incompetent cowards (or wealthy people as some would call them) can do two things when faced with an occupation, shit their pants and squeal like girls, Afganis are tough as nails because their life is tough, Americans and Canadians are soft because they're chubby, no guerilla for first worlders. More on topic. USA invades, Canada loses, Canadians bend over and are shafted by the occupation.
Canada smiles, surrenders without firing a shot and then proceeds to assassinate the US political leadership and any General Staff who resist in our joint Bases, like NORAD. Followed up by a General Call for Insurrection from our deep cover agents in America. Don't worry, Americans will be freed from their tyrannical corporate overlords and their patsies in the White House soon enough. Socialized Medicine for All! We're less outnumbered than you think.
For some reason I have a hard time believing a Canadian insurgency will be as effective as Afghanistan where the ruling government was composed entirely of veteran insurgents trained by the CIA during the soviet occupation of Afghanistan or Iraq where terrorist organizations were just waiting for any opportunity to infiltrate the country and fund insurgent groups.
There wont be a Canadian insurgency just like there would not be an American or a French insurgency, rich people are cowards, too much to live for. Afghans live in shit huts and eat carrion while dodging bullets if you have a life like that you'll make a good insurgent too.
This is just a massive ploy by Canada to get the US to invade it. Then in the aftermath they force the US to take Quebec as reparations. Not this time Canada!
For some reason I also think there's a big difference between Canada and America where there's a striving gun culture that views gun ownership as their way of keeping the government from becoming a dictatorship. It's a stupid belief, but the milita component of the American gun culture is something that does not exist in either of your other examples to any major degree.
