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So, here's my defense plan for Canada. Basic philosophy: it is unsafe to wait for an attack.

1. Get public confirmation from NATO that Article 5 applies even if the aggressor is also a NATO member.
2. Send an ultimatum to Washington demanding a public acknowledgement of Canadian sovereignty by the President and confirmation of non-aggression.
3. In the absence of that acknowledgement, sever diplomatic ties, close the borders, and embargo trade. Blow bridges, tear up roads and rail lines.

4. Evacuate Canadian civilians from the border area; probably 300km or more. Yes, this is where most Canadians live.
5. Declare a security corridor of 300km on the other side of the border, in US territory. Any military activity in that area is a sign of imminent aggression and will prompt a defensive strike.
6. If anything occurs, surge forward and take territory. Keep any war on US soil, not in Canada.

@evan I'm sorry, I agree we need to have a strong plan, but pre-emptively invading the United States is, frankly, insane.

Nothing will more quickly galvanize Americans to believe Trump's lies about how we are soooo bad. Our vestigial armed forces are in no position to make such an effort. Salients are a nightmare to defend, even if forces are equal.
We would be carpet bombed to oblivion.
Abandoning cities just gives them free real estate. Lower home prices 🇺🇸!

And nobody is going to help us.

@AlexanderVI I think you might need to read through it again. In this case, the US has expressed its intention to attack and is moving troops into position within reach of the border.

Letting those troops get into position and cross our border before taking any action would be insane. Especially with 2/3 of the population only an hour from the border.

And don't worry about real estate! It will be much less valuable when it's been pounded into rubble by American bombers and missiles.

@AlexanderVI but I'd love to hear your defense plan. How would you protect Canadian sovereignty in the event of an American invasion?

@evan At present, if there's a full scale invasion, no such thing is possible. This is the most powerful military in all human history we are talking about.

To be clear, yes, a troublesome insurgency that adds to the domestic American polycrisis such that continuing is impossible is likely our only hope. But we should not be unrealistic. Vietnam went on for ages.

And moving millions of people hundreds of kilometres is simply not feasible and would pretty much immediately end our economy.

@AlexanderVI so, because resistance would be hard, accept an occupation and lose any advantages whatsoever, and hope guerrilla actions nudge towards collapse of the empire?

Hand in the guns and fight with sticks?

That's just defeatism.

@evan no, I am not saying that.
I'm specifically saying the invasion piece is not a good idea, in my opinion. Many other aspects of your plan are sound goals, and I sincerely hope we can avoid the worst. I agree we need to maximize friction.

I'm taking a Scouting approach: Be Prepared. We need civil defence organization and emergency preparedness efforts so we can support each other. We should be massively expanding something like the Reserves, maybe even a Swiss approach.

I'm preparing.

Evan Prodromou

@AlexanderVI understood!

I think our only win condition is surviving long enough that the invader loses their will to continue the war and comes to the negotiating table.

I think holding US territory would be bad for US civilian morale. It would concentrate American firepower on troops in Minnesota, Idaho and Northern Maine rather than on the GTA.

It would also give us something to take to the table. Exchanging territorial gains and returning to pre-war borders would be a good outcome for us.

@evan I appreciate this perspective, and it's worth gaming all avenues out, especially novel ones, given this wildly novel context.

I should have better highlighted our concurrence on the need to prepare infrastructure for destruction - Army Engineers should already be planning for how to blow bridges and interrupt transportation routes. The Navy should look for potential chokepoints in the St Lawrence that could be made unnavigable. We should be vigourously pursuing European missile systems.