How a US Invasion of Canada Would Really Unfold—And How We Fight Back

A soldier stands guard during training at CFB Suffield, Alberta. (Jeff McIntosh / Canadian Press)

This story was originally published on thewalrus.ca

By Peter Jones

What to make of a United States which threatens the sovereign territory of an allied democracy? Which invades another country to snatch its head of state and then makes the rest of the regime “an offer it can’t refuse” with respect to its oil resources? Where the head of the central bank is subjected to a sham criminal investigation for refusing to let the head of state interfere where the law forbids it? Or in which gangs of masked government thugs roam the streets, picking up anyone they wish and consigning them, with seemingly no due process, to a semi-legal hell on earth—and even shooting citizens who get in their way with seeming impunity?

It is almost beyond comprehension, as is the fact that much of the American political and judicial system has simply stood back and let this happen. This is, after all, a system founded on separate but equal branches of government whose primary function is to check one another and prevent the rise of the kind of despotic monarch Americans rejected when they handed in their British citizenship.

The situation prompts one to think the unthinkable. We now live in a time where, even if something remains highly unlikely, it is no longer impossible.

And so, as President Donald Trump continues his semi-invasion/proxy takeover of Venezuela and keeps threats to Greenland simmering, my thoughts turn to an unsettling question. What would we do if our restive neighbour to the south decided to test, once again, Thomas Jefferson’s maxim, propounded in 1812, that taking Canada is “a mere matter of marching”? How would we actually defend ourselves?

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The analysis would depend on the related questions of why the Americans would go about invading us and how they would do it. On the question of why, Trump’s mercurial personality makes it difficult to base an answer on presumption of rationality. If Canada’s relations with him deteriorate to the point that he is seriously thinking of military action, that point will probably come after an acrimonious exchange over something like his desire to