5d ago

How could Canada deter an invasion? Nukes and mandatory military service

theconversation.com

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I just see a lot of our military not being into invading Canada. There is a lot of gray space between aggressively applying 100% to a mission and outright desertion. As a person who's spent a career in the military - I don't really know about the infantry-based guys, but the people I served with are not simple order-following automatons - regardless of oathes to follow orders...doing the wrong thing is doing the wrong thing.
Maybe I'm out to lunch, but I'd bet there would suddenly be a lot of broken equipment, and a lot of injured personnel, along with a demand that the children of our political leadership, be among the first of the "cannon-fodder" and "bullet-cushions" to cross into "enemy" territory. I'd also bet that you could say goodbye to our all-volunteer military recruitment numbers. Logistics would likely be another nightmare, as our civilian population would likely have to be violently forced to allow the military use of the roads to transport themselves north. Unlike our previous military campaigns and wars, where Allied ports were made available to mass our troops and supplies, there would be no friendly ports outside our own borders.
I'm not saying it couldn't be done - our military is larger than the next 13 largest militaries combined, after all. I'm suggesting that between the troubles of invasions in themselves, we'd also be dealing with near civil war conditions within our own borders, massive resignations of key people, desertions & AWOLs, protests and civil disobedience, equipment sabotage, and voluntary military ascession falling off a cliff.
There are plenty of military members who would absolutely, with full faith and dedication, follow any order given to them. I'm sure that there are at least some members of our military who (for some reason) would love to invade Canada. But between the domestic troubles, the half-hearted effort of those who would appear to be participating, and the pain of going to war in the first place. Nah, trump is just sabre rattling....it won't happen.
- I think the one thing you're missing is the American lies. The dehumanization of the opposition. The propaganda. I don't think that the whole country will fall for it like they did with Bush, and it's not like we have a MORE charismatic leader to sell it this time. But AI generated content and bots selling the lies are unfortunately going to convince a lot of people, we're already seeing it. With a leader that is trying to litigate what higher institutions teach and destroying the public education system, the longer that this wears on, the dumber and dumber the electorate becomes. Military leaders not kissing the leader's ring are already being removed from their posts to be replaced with sycophants.
  I hope you're right that there would be rebellion from within the military, and without. Otherwise, we have no friends left and every country on the planet has is justified in rising to the challenge to crush our new axis powers.
  
  You make great points, but some of the dehumanizing advantages used in the Middle East would me much less affective here...Canadians are just north of us, and not on the other side of the world. Their customs, traditions, religions, and holidays are similar to ours, and they look just like us. I'd bet that a good number of Americans have Canadian relatives. I live in VA, and my neighbors wife has dual US/Canadian citizenship, as she's originally from Canada.
  I'm originally from Erie, PA - going up to Niagara Falls was a regular day trip we'd do several times per year. Funny enough, I've never been to the American side of the falls. I've seen it grow from a destination where you could simply parallel park your car next to the railing looking over the falls, to the tourist trap destination it is today.
  The good thing about the education system is that no matter how they try to defend and dumb it down, our people still have to compete with the global, population. We can't import all of our mental talent. Schoolmaster the only place where people gain an education. Kids are smart, resilient, and can often see past the ill-will of adults, no matter how many toys and candies they have.
  The great thing about trump may be that he's so fucking terrible, that he may end up pushing people (voters) to make better, more sensible decisions at the voting booth, more than any other politician possibly can. What he's doing, is not only about values, ideas, and hate anymore. He's actually affecting the bank accounts and livelihood of the people who voted for him, and nothing about any of his policies will result in them not being damaged in at least some way. He is so fucking terrible that he may actually be the catalyst to snap the US out of this "conservative populist march towards fascism."
  
  I certainly agree with you here - all of the fascists of history were HIGHLY effective leaders that actually got shit done. The people lived with it because they did what they said they would do. Instead, this disfunctional band of morons can't seem to get a single thing done without a cavalcade of unforced errors and fuck ups.
  Oops, we deported the wrong guy. Oops, we fired the folks managing our nuclear arsenal. Oops, we fired ATC during a preexisting ATC shortage. Oops, we sent a letter to Harvard earlier than we meant to, and forced our own hand. Oops, tariffs tanked the world economy, they're paused! No wait, they're back on now! Paused again! Well, we'll make an exception for semiconductors though. Except we never said that? No exception! And now oops, someone caught us exfiltrating all government secrets and data to Russia.
  This is the source of my own hope. They're so incompetent and so stupid, execute every plan so poorly... that I find it hard to believe that the American people can ignore it for much longer. Even his racist, Nazi base can't ignore him ruining their lives too.
  
  Him ruining the lives of his racist, nazi base is our best hope.....they don't do facts, data, common sense, or believe their eyes over the voices of the talking heads on their favorite news networks.

61 comments