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Comment by gpm | Hacker News Reader

The MP representing the NDP in this matter is also the MP who represents Canada's northernmost territory (Nunavut). They are clear on who the adversary is, like almost all Canadians are, it is the US. No one else is threatening our territory, whether it's threatening Canada all at once, refusing to officially recognize our arctic territory (even while asking for permission to go through it), threatening to attempt to encircle us by taking arctic territory from an ally that we (and the US, oddly) are bound by treaty to defend, or just pretending our prime minister is a governor of a piece of the states.

Russia is an afterthought at best. They don't border us particularly directly in the arctic. They don't have a modern navy that poses us an actual threat. Even the strongest part of their army - their land army - isn't able to successfully invade a neighbouring country at this point. We don't even have a land border with them.

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If Canada has to defend itself from the US, it will be apocalyptic. I don't think it will matter much whose planes they have.

So I'd expect that the most important consideration would be joint operations with other NATO countries, against other enemies. Which does include the US at this point, but could also include the various threats that pop up, like Afghanistan. They are also part of a continual patrol against Russian and Chinese fighters -- which will also become apocalyptic if it proceeds to an actual fight, so they need a capable fighter in the hopes that the mutually-assured-destruction will stave that off.

I think that's a bit shortsighted. It's sort of an open secret that the current US admin is doing russia's bidding. Obviously America will lose a lot more than gain if it attacked or invaded Canada. There is nothing canada has right now that is inaccessible to the US, the US can deploy troops, bases, train soldiers,etc.. if it had peaceful relations with Canada. keystone XL is sifting canadian oil to US refineries, alaska benefits a ton from canada based supply chain and airspace, alaska strategically is extremely critical to the US, far more than any part of canada, because it's proximity to asia, the US itself and europe by way of the arctic, it is a major (if not the most important) logistics hub the US has in the western hemisphere (I'd say Ramstein in germany is the only other more important hub the US has). All to say that canada attacking alaska would be devastating to the US. If canada simply stopped all relations with the US, I'm pretty sure it will cause a major recession in the US, if not a depression outright. Again, all THAT to say that the hostility against canada is not being done on behalf of the american people but on behalf or russia. Similar to how the hostility against EU via greenland is meant to destroy nato for the benefit of russia.

Russia cares a lot about controlling canada and greenland because of their desire to dominate the arctic. They already control one half of it more or less, but as I mentioned earlier, the fastest way to europe from the americas, and even from eastern russia and north eastern asia to western europe is via the arctic. They want ukraine to dominate agriculture, and gain warm water ports, the arctic to control shipping lines and flight paths (including ICBM flight paths :) ).

With a presumed fallen global order where Canada and the US are not allies in the least, Russia has every reason to invade Canada, if they decide to control all of canada, that'd be an immense victory for them, outside of china no one can stop them from global domination at that point.

Strategically, what Ukraine is for europe, Canada is to north america.

Russia's arctic fleet supposedly is even superior to the US navy's from what little I've heard about the topic. Wars aren't that simple either, Russia hasn't mobilized or entered full wartime mode yet with Ukraine, it's still a "special operation". They're more than willing to mow down tens of millions more of their people. Another interesting aspect of a prolonged war is that they start building internal supply chains to build tanks, artillery, basic supplies,etc.. that is if their economy doesn't collapse, which it hasn't. Oil sales is still keeping them alive (in no small parts thanks to europe). But I'm sure putin is content merely controlling canada via the US as its vassal state.

If Russia had the means to invade Canada and hold territory they might try it. They don't. It's not even within the realm of possibility. It's absurdist fantasy to imagine otherwise. Their military is simply far too weak and the geography too poor.

They could probably land some troops in the middle of nowhere by taking advantage of how slow politicians are to react to incursions. Only to have the troops die from bombs and accomplish nothing but scaring some polar bears.

A beachhead in the arctic is utterly worthless as a starting point for moving south - the logistics simply make it impossible (the north is really big and really empty and has lots of really shitty terrain to cross). Even if you suppose somehow Russia is in principle capable of the logistics, Canada isn't reachable from Russia by the arctic sea except through Denmark or the US - they'd need to be co-belligerents or conquered first (narrow exception of submarines and airplanes of course, but not in large enough quantity to matter). They have no means to "control all of Canada" even if the Canadian military, and the allied militaries with treaties guaranteeing mutual defence, somehow magically ceased to exist.

Meanwhile we've seen from Ukraine that they lack effective air defence against planes far more outdated than what Canada already has... and our military isn't going to magically cease existing. Whatever beachhead they could establish, it wouldn't last long.

All this to say that Russia simply isn't a threat to Canada. The only exception to this is that they have enough nuclear bombs to say "fuck the world" and cause nuclear winter or something similarly stupid - but there's nothing militarily we could ever do to prevent that.

I agree that the US is acting consistent with being a Russian puppet - but the conclusion from that is that the US might invade to the benefit of Russia - not that Russia itself is somehow going to magic up an army capable of an invasion directly across the centre of the arctic ocean.

You make good points, but my point wasn't that Russia would use a beachhead in the arctic, but that it can use flight paths through the arctic to project power in southern Canada. long-range missiles are one thing, but strategic long-range bombers with some in-flight refueling too. As far as an actual invading force, that I concede, they can't do that today, but who knows what they're planning, they have the manpower, the money and the lunacy to build up such a force. Their main advantage is the nuclear deterrent preventing others from invading them back. Canada has been left alone so far (by everyone hostile) because it has (had?) the US's protection, not because of it's fearsome military (although I know they're quite fierce on their own -- just not B52, nukes, ICBMs, aircraft carriers level fierce).

If I had to speculate, they won't try to take populated centers of Canada, but they might make claims to arctic resources and land, and just take it. Start bombing Toronto and Montreal if Canada fights back. They might even do it in the next few years if the US starts enough chaos elsewhere as a distraction. Once they take land, you're not getting it back, why? Back to my original point: They have nukes.

Canada is part of NATO, and if the VDV and the Spetnaz demonstration in Ukraine are any indication of the current level of Russian spec ops, any Nordic country, UK, France and Italy all have better trained arctic/Alpine forces than Russia. Individually.

If NATO survives, sure. And assuming they aren't busy with other distractions at home. The main thing that Russia has that none of the rest do (or so I hear, don't hold me to it), is icebreakers that are superior, and submarines that are also deployed all over the world, including arctic waters.

The key thing is that Russia has some capability. Not superiority, but capability, that's all it takes to make war feasible. Having superior manpower or firepower doesn't guarantee victory, as you can see with Russia and Ukraine. Familiarity, homefield advantage, and political will are very important as well.

They don't. Maybe icebreakers, although I seriously doubt that, but France naval capabilities are superior to Russia, without taking into account carriers and planes.

> There is nothing canada has right now that is inaccessible to the US, the US can deploy troops, bases, train soldiers,etc.. if it had peaceful relations with Canada.

Reminds me of Greenland.

> keystone XL is sifting canadian oil to US refineries

XL was cancelled.

TIL. Thanks.

Fighting a war against the US is futile. Not saying it should be annexed but if it has to be anyone then it may as well be your neighbors who have a lot in common with you. Life in Canada would no doubt improve if it was a US territory.

the goal is to make a war unpalatable to the us public. this is not very difficult to do, since the us public doesn't like it when their own soldiers die. having fighter jets that can be remotely shut down by the us makes it a great deal more difficult.

US citizen also not used to having war at their front door. I assume that would make a great difference.

But what the duck are people (including me) even discussing here? Within a year it has come so far that the US government alienated one of their most important allies and people discussing the possibility of a war against them.

I think this could be a scheme to get other countries to start paying for their own defense more, instead of relying on the US to do it. It is perhaps rude or undiplomatic, but it's supposed to be a kick in the ass. I remember Trump talking to EU leaders years ago to explain this to them, and nothing changed. Maybe now they got the message.

And perhaps the US should start paying for it’s own debt instead of relying on the rest of the world to support it?

I agree! But I think bankruptcy is a foregone conclusion. Our financial situation over decades, facilitated by the rest of the world, has destroyed most industry in the US because nobody can afford to compete with foreigners while getting paid in "strong" fiat dollars. I expect it to end in disaster. The US needs to rebuild industry and eat its own dog food product-wise, but that will be difficult to get back to.

If any weapon can be remotely shut down by anyone, that should be a deal breaker. But is there any evidence that is the case?

How the hell would anyone know? You think they ship detailed plans and schematics to 3rd parties? Even the US government can hardly get those things from the manufacturer in general. Are we to believe that governments that want to backdoor your phone and every other personal device, would not put backdoors into equipment sold to foreign nations?

Life in Canada would no doubt deprove drastically. The loss of healthcare. The loss of language rights. The loss of the right not to be harassed and gassed by secret police. Etc.

> Life in Canada would no doubt improve if it was a US territory.

Nobody ever invaded another country to improve the life of the citizen of the other country.

Countries get invaded to increase the power of the own country and that implies a less favorable outcome for the invaded country.

You're not exactly wrong, but the net outcome can be favorable to the common man in the invaded country. Some takeovers of countries have been (relatively) peaceful as well.

There was a war in 1892 when the US invaded Canada. They ended up giving up and going home.

Not worth it back then I guess...

Everyone will lose their healthcare, that alone sucks. The improvement I think is by your metrics, not theirs. They like paying more taxes for social welfare and welcoming lot of immigrants (up to a point). that's incompatible with US culture.

Their socialized medicine generally sucks. I don't think there's anywhere in the world where medical is cheap and easily available in a timely manner. In countries with "free" (as in "government robs you at gunpoint to pay for it whether you want it or not") healthcare, people often end up paying for expensive private services anyway because of inadequate treatment under the government plan. Since you have to pay for it anyway, and there's no free lunch, I'd rather be able to decide how important my problem is and seek the appropriate treatment whether it is cheap or expensive. Also, insurance companies and providers play an elaborate game to maximize their profits and also scare people into getting insurance. Providers would rather deal with insurance companies than poor people and will cut these huge and exclusive discounts that don't apply to private pay.

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