3 ms·

"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

"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 5mo 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 5mo ago
  [flagged]
  - defrost 5mo ago
    Consider that responses to hypotheticals often vary wrt actions in the face of reality.
  - switchbak 5mo 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.

3 ms·

"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

by switchbak 5mo ago

throwaway5752 5mo 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 5mo ago
  [flagged]
  - defrost 5mo ago
    Consider that responses to hypotheticals often vary wrt actions in the face of reality.
  - switchbak 5mo 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.