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Do you know how much hard power credibility the US has lost from the Iran War failure? The US couldn't defend our bases in the area or our newly less enthusias

Do you know how much hard power credibility the US has lost from the Iran War failure? The US couldn't defend our bases in the area or our newly less enthusiastic regional allies. It couldn't keep the Hormuz open. The US wasted years worth of advanced munitions inventory defending against relatively cheap missiles. The US couldn't annex Canada if it wanted to. Canada doesn't even need a military to destroy the US via assymetric tactics.

switchbak 4mo ago
"US couldn't annex Canada if it wanted to" - Truly, the state of our military is shockingly bad. The US Marines could annex Canada, and I honestly mean that. I do agree that the US military's perceived preeminence has taken a big blow, but what you're saying is just outrageously false.
- throwaway5752 4mo ago
  I do not think they could. It is not just a matter of seizing something as much as holding it, as everyone has plainly seen in Ukraine, or post-occupation Iraq or Afghanistan. Neither of those latter countries had a large shared land border with the US and ethnically similar populations that would make it easy to attack unhardened infrastructure.
  - TMWNN 4mo ago
    [flagged]
    - defrost 4mo ago
      Consider that responses to hypotheticals often vary wrt actions in the face of reality.
    - switchbak 4mo ago
      I think there's a few things going on here: - surveys are just bad, you have a selection bias right off the bat, especially from an outfit like the globe and mail - the idea is that an invasion would be overwhelming and futile to resist. Russia is not going to invade Canada. I think the assumption would be it'd be China (also very unrealistic) or the USA (this used to be unrealistic). Given an unavoidable end result, I can kind of understand the idea that you wouldn't want to die for that. Plus there's the idea it'd be a soft invasion, where life would be good after. If Canadians had to fight for their actual lives, I would hope you'd see a bit more resistance. But that's the issue when you have a barely functional military, you can't just make one overnight. There's already a good number of folks who would like a US annexation (in theory at least), as you allude to. The cultural aspects are a little more complicated than what you describe, but I'll leave that.

switchbak 4mo ago

"US couldn't annex Canada if it wanted to" - Truly, the state of our military is shockingly bad. The US Marines could annex Canada, and I honestly mean that. I do agree that the US military's perceived preeminence has taken a big blow, but what you're saying is just outrageously false.

throwaway5752 4mo ago
I do not think they could. It is not just a matter of seizing something as much as holding it, as everyone has plainly seen in Ukraine, or post-occupation Iraq or Afghanistan. Neither of those latter countries had a large shared land border with the US and ethnically similar populations that would make it easy to attack unhardened infrastructure.
- TMWNN 4mo ago
  [flagged]
  - defrost 4mo ago
    Consider that responses to hypotheticals often vary wrt actions in the face of reality.
  - switchbak 4mo ago
    I think there's a few things going on here: - surveys are just bad, you have a selection bias right off the bat, especially from an outfit like the globe and mail - the idea is that an invasion would be overwhelming and futile to resist. Russia is not going to invade Canada. I think the assumption would be it'd be China (also very unrealistic) or the USA (this used to be unrealistic). Given an unavoidable end result, I can kind of understand the idea that you wouldn't want to die for that. Plus there's the idea it'd be a soft invasion, where life would be good after. If Canadians had to fight for their actual lives, I would hope you'd see a bit more resistance. But that's the issue when you have a barely functional military, you can't just make one overnight. There's already a good number of folks who would like a US annexation (in theory at least), as you allude to. The cultural aspects are a little more complicated than what you describe, but I'll leave that.