This reads like one of those ideas that folks come up in a conference room where "oh these people will just volunteer to do it" and ... nobody asked if they want to or if these are the people they even want to do it.
I worked at a company once and we were acquired. They fired everyone but the folks on my floor. One day I get a call supposedly from HR at the new company (I had no idea who it was). They said they forgot to keep some facilities folks on and they asked if I could do some tasks like ... move garbage and open the door for the mail guy. I had to explain that I had to be on the phone / ready to answer my entire shift and so did everyone who wasn't fired ... it took them a while to figure out that nobody was going to move trash for them / the scale of what they were asking. They thought we would just chip in and become janitors or something. I'm sure it seemed a reasonable solution for everyone not doing it.
ninalanyon
24 000 reserves out of a population of 40 million seems like a rather small number.
Norway has 40 000 in the Home Guard (Heimevernet) rapid reaction force of volunteer part time soldiers and a further 20 000 reserves. All from a population of about 5.5 million.
gpm
The difference here is presumably for the last hundred years, ending last November, there was simply no chance of a invasion of Canada. Nukes might fly overhead and end the world as they struck targets on either side, but other than that we were safe and any significant military action we took part in would be overseas and thus not justify calling up a huge number of reservists.
Meanwhile Norway was occupied in WWII, and after that spent the next decades next to the Soviet Union, and then Russia. There's clearly been a long standing risk of actual invasion.
bonesss
> Nukes might fly overhead
Numerous Canadian sites, military and NORAD, were and surely are on first strike lists from the USSR and later Russia.
The largest established combined bi-national military command in the world involves a fair amount of shared risk.
michaelt
I think "Nukes might fly overhead and end the world [...] but other than that we were safe" agrees that Canada would not thrive during a global thermonuclear war.
mplewis9z
You very conveniently omitted the middle part of that quote: “... and end the world as they struck targets on either side”. That very clearly implies that nukes would not be targeted at Canada, which is laughably wrong. There are multiple significant military sites that are part of NORAD that would be primary targets, let alone major population centers that would be obliterated if it came to full-on Mutually-Assured-Destruction time.
gpm
Pretty sure NORAD sites are mostly far north of our population centres. That sentence was referring to the the other side of us the citizens not "us" the land
Anyways, doesn't really matter if we're hit directly, we're all dead anyways in a nuclear war.
hollerith
Agreed. Also, even if Canada were to shut down all NORAD radars and command posts on Canadian territory and to kick out every US soldier and to tear up all agreements with the US,
Canadian cities and important Canadian infrastructure within 100 miles of the US border (i.e., most Canadian population and infrastructure) would probably get nuked in a nuclear war just so that the US cannot rely on those resources during the US's recovery from the attack.
A large nuclear exchange between great powers (and currently there are 3 great powers, the US, China and Russia) would be followed by the use of conventional military forces. E.g., The US would try to capture and hold major ports of the power or powers that attacked it because holding ports is a very effective way of denying the power the ability to deploy its own conventional forces outside its own territory and the ability to rebuild its nuclear stockpile. Military planners in the power or powers that planned the nuclear strike on the US would know that and consequently would realize that it is essential to slow down the US's recovery from the strike as long as possible.
In summary, if the US ever endures a large nuclear strike, it is very likely that Canada gets nuked, too. Canada's kicking out the US military and declaring the US to be its enemy might cause a minor reduction in intensity of the nuclear attack on Canada, but is very unlikely prevent it altogether.
Yes, Switzerland was able to avoid any attacks from the UK, the US or the USSR during WWII despite sharing a border with Germany, but that was probably near thing. Also, Switzerland was very hard for Germany to invade because of how mountainous it is; in contrast, most of the cities and infra in Southern Canada is separated from the US by nothing but plains. Also, Switzerland invests very heavily in its military capacity, e.g., every Swiss male must do military service, e.g., every bridge in Switzerland is engineered to be easy for Swiss forces to blow up.
greedo
This is counter to both SIOP and what we've found out in the Warsaw Pact archives and from researchers who have been able to interview former Soviet officers and officials.
Just a back of the napkin calculation showed how silly the idea of any conventional forces surviving a full scale nuclear war. The US had around 5K warheads on ICBMs and SLBMs at the peak of the Cold War. This doesn't even count any nuclear bombs or missiles carried by bombers. Now look at a map and count the Russian cities with a population of over 150k. In 1962 (Cuban Missile Crisis), there were roughly 100 cities in the USSR at that size threshold. In a nuclear exchange, all of them are gone. Multiple times over. And most of those cities housed military forces either in them or nearby. So those are all targeted too. Every seaport, every airport, every dam, every major bridge, all targeted. The idea was to make "the rubble bounce." After a full exchange, neither the US nor the Soviets would have had anything left for a conventional conflict, with the exception of a few units that escaped the blast radius. But there would be no transport for these units, so they'd just die of starvation and disease.
> A large nuclear exchange between great powers (and currently there are 3 great powers, the US, China and Russia) would be followed by the use of conventional military forces. E.g., The US would try to capture and hold the major ports of the power or powers that attacked it because holding those ports is the most effective way of denying the power the ability to deploy its own conventional forces outside its own territory and the ability to rebuild its nuclear stockpile.
Do you have a source for that? Because that's pretty unbelievable action to take after a full nuclear exchange that leaves every major city and military base in ruins. I'd expect most if not all the US's force-projection power would be gone immediately after a nuclear war. Sure, maybe there'd be aircraft carriers out in the ocean, but with limited ability to resupply, they'd probably lose their effectiveness sooner than later.
The problem with a large military invasion of North America would be its difficulty to disguise. There's a lot of water buffer that prevents border skirmishes from escalating with easy supply routes to keep an invasion running.
FridayoLeary
You missed an important point which is that Switzerland under the guise of neutrality helped the germans finance the war. For most of the time it very much was not in Germanys interest to invade. If their track record is anything to go by, if they had it probably wouldn't have taken them very long. Very few military lessons can be learned from the Swiss for the simple reason they have never fought in a war. As a Brit i'm obligated to point out that it's a similar story with France because they have never won a war.
When I was in the Canadian army reserves in 1990, we were told that the operating assumption was that every population centre over 50,000 people was a primary target in a general nuclear strike, in addition to every military base or communications/logistics node.
sandworm101
Except that there are several invasion risks, especially in the north. Canada maintains bases there (Alert) to protect its north from being taken by the likes of Russia, the USA and even Denmark (they have a longrunning dispute regarding an island near greenland). Canada also does not want the northwest passage to become an international waterway and so must maintain control over vessels in the north.
>> The Canadian government issued a declaration in 1986 reaffirming Canadian rights to the waters. The United States refused to recognize the Canadian claim. In 1988 the governments of Canada and the United States signed an agreement, "Arctic Cooperation," that resolved the practical issue without solving the sovereignty questions. Under the law of the sea, ships engaged in transit passage are not permitted to engage in research. The agreement states that all U.S. Coast Guard and Navy vessels are engaged in research, and so would require permission from the Government of Canada to pass through
> Denmark (they have a longrunning dispute regarding an island near greenland)
That was resolved in 2022 by dividing Hans Island. Canada now has a land border with Denmark.
asdff
outside edmonton and calgary the vast majority of the canadian population is within 100 miles of the US border. now imagine the logistics of a land invasion from northern canada. Shortest distance would be 1600 miles of wilderness. If you went from alert it would be more like 2500 miles of wilderness and several water crossings. All while you are being absolutely pummeled by US air support. It would be a suicide mission that would make the Kokoda Track campaign look like a boy scout trip.
It is such a different situation in europe. Helsinki is 100 miles from the russian border with road, highway, and rail connectivity and within reach of most of Russias air power.
throwway120385
I think they might legitimately be worried about an invasion from the south.
Canada is not afraid of an invasion through the north. They fear an invasion of the north. They fear the north itself being taken, not that someone is going to drive south.
asdff
Same issue then. Elmendorf and Malmstrom are a whole lot closer than Murmansk and Moscow.
kyle_forest(dead)
[dead]
wyldberry
"ending last November" - Is the implication that a Trump presidency implies a risk of invasion from the South?
Canada has relied greatly on the United States providing a blanket defense guarantee of the continent. The Canadian military is currently operationally worthless across the board, save the cyber domain. There are many reasons for it that I'm not here to list out. However, that does come with grave consequences geopolitically and the Canadian government has been living in the 1900s.
The USA, via Alaska, provides Canada against Russian provocation on the West Coast[0]. This is similar to the near constant probing of NATO states airspace, especially countries near Ukraine [1][2]
The Canadian Navy is severely underfunded (along with the rest of the Canadian Armed forces)[3] with not enough ships to actively patrol and protect it's waters, especially in the North.
The North passages are incredibly important, and will become more important as trade routes. The entirety of the US wanting to buy Greenland is as a part of having an Atlantic outpost to control those shipping lanes. Those trade lanes can be significantly shorter than routes using Suez or Panama canals.
In addition to the trade routes, the US fears a Russian and Chinese alliance because of the access that grants to the North Atlantic. Point blank: Nato cannot build ships anymore, and the PLAN capacity is staggering. This is already independent of CN and RU intelligence probing of the entirety of the west coast.
The world has changed dramatically, and the only thing that really changed in November is that the USA is no longer pretending it can defend the mainland, defend NATO countries, and police shipping lanes on their own. The USA doesn't have the capacity to replace ships, nor do they have the knowledge anymore to do so.
There were literal statements of annexation. Brushed off by some "that was a joke" but they were made.
Lets not downplay that fact.
wyldberry
I personally can downplay them as a joke because it is a joke. The mostly likely path forward for anything like that would instead a certain oil rich province voting themselves independent and then asking the US for aid or to join.
And, if it wasn't a joke, then that's even more of a reason to consider meeting your 2% NATO agreement instead of just phoning it in.
It's downplayable because Trump isn't actually serious about it. He's serious about something until he learns what's possible. Some things are possible (absurd tariffs), other things are not (declaring war on a bordering country).
mensetmanusman
Let’s not downplay jokes. Lol
asacrowflies
I can't take anything you say that serious because of the rather extreme bias. 'buy Greenland" I think seize is a better word if your avoiding the term invade.
palmotea
> The difference here is presumably for the last hundred years, ending last November, there was simply no chance of a invasion of Canada.
The chance of Canada being invaded didn't change at all in November. The amount of hyperbole about Trump has been utterly astounding, and fears of an Canadian invasion are an instance of that.
And my sense is that actually a fair amount of the bad stuff Trump has done (though definitely not all) is a direct result of the overreactions to him [1], so it's probably best not to overreact.
[1] E.g. Democrats fear and loathe him, so they pursued all kinds of legal actions against him while he was out of office to damage and destroy him. They failed, he got re-elected, and now only in his second term, he's corrupted the Justice Department into a club to attack those very same people.
kace91
In the same message you are accepting the president of the United States has corrupted the justice department into a club to attack personal enemies, and claiming people are overreacting. Don’t you see any trace of contradiction there?
And even if you don’t, does that look like a safe partner to have as a neighboring country?
triceratops
> Democrats fear and loathe him, so they pursued all kinds of legal actions against him while he was out of office
So maybe he should'nt've have broken laws. Not give them anything to pursue.
> So maybe he should'nt've have broken laws. Not give them anything to pursue.
It's not so simple: 1) everybody breaks laws, and 2) in at least one case those laws were stretched and abused in unusual ways to specifically target him (his felony convictions, which unsurprisingly were immediately turned into an electoral attack). I'm not a Trump fan, but I'm not a Democratic partisan either, and I think that prosecution was really, really gross.
Unfathomable that people are still downplaying the disaster trump has been at this point. Extremely sad.
wat10000
Obviously the chance of invasion didn’t change in November. Trump took office in January.
The chance of invasion definitely changed then. You think the man is incapable of impulsively ordering the military to invade Canada? Or do you think the military would refuse?
You’re using the language of an abuse victim. Don’t provoke him, maybe if we’re quiet and good he’ll be nice to us. That doesn’t work. You have to get out of the abusive relationship.
The man tried to stay in office past the end of his first term with actions up to and including violence. In any sensible country he would have been thrown in prison at that point. This “don’t overreact, it just makes things worse” attitude is the only reason he’s here to fuck with us again today.
rogerrogerr
Hilariously wrong take - first, Canada does not have a chance if the US wanted to take it. Second, the US does not want to own Canada for a bunch of reasons, starting with the demographic and economic mess that Canada finds itself in.
Hammershaft
Then why did Trump threaten to annex Canada over and over again while declaring a trade war?
rogerrogerr
He says stuff. If you haven’t figured out by now that the stuff he says and the stuff he does are different, I dunno what to tell you.
btf99(dead)
[dead]
bell-cot
Vs. Finland has reserves of 870 000 from a population of about 5.6 million.
Norway has universal conscription, not just male conscription. But not everyone is called up, the military just doesn't have the capacity to train everyone.
And of course we don't feel the need quite so acutely as the Finns.
rascul
Conscription is slavery.
ninalanyon
Not at all. It is part of the social contract here. Women are called up here in Norway because they campaigned for it, not because it was imposed.
And if you are called up but prefer not to bear arms you can do a civilian service instead.
IdiocyInAction
That still doesn't not make it not slavery. What if you don't agree with the social contract?
Not teaching your son a second language so he can escape the country with draft as soon as he's 18 is evil.
You are obligated to give your child tools to choose his future if your government is trying to deny him that choice.
kulahan
Did you respond to the wrong comment or is this flying way over my head? I'm not actually sure how you arrived at talking about children needing to learn another language from this article that doesn't discuss language?
pavement_sort
They are starting a new discussion about the ethics of drafting because you mentioned "universal male conscription".
In that discussion they are saying that it's unethical to have a child in a country that will draft him unless you prepare him (via learning another language, etc.) to leave as soon as he is 18.
(Just explaining, not putting forth any take on the matter).
wagwang
No you have a duty and obligation to the society that raised you.
qball
The converse is also true, however.
If, for example, society sees fit to deprive me of my right to security (for instance, perhaps it deigns to throw me in jail if I defend myself against a home invasion), then society doesn't get to demand I give my life for its security.
In this way, it is society that has broken the contract with me, releasing me of my obligations to defend it. Most people who claim "duty and obligation to society" conveniently forget this is possible. By accident, I'm sure.
How much raising of the typical pleb draftee do you think is done by the politician declaring the war? Society is just a collection of people. Even if there is some original debt from being raised that forms a binding contract with a minor that never consented to it, which I don't take on face, it's hard to imagine how politicians declaring a draft trump the senior shareholders of that contract (the family that did the bulk of the raising).
In any case I would hope we would reject the notion that you can become a slave and made to die for the state because you allegedly owe them for something they did for you before you were old enough to even wittingly object or agree to it.
wagwang
Drafting people to fight in pointless overseas wars is a blatant violation of the social contract and the people who made those decisions should be hung. That doesn't mean you don't have a natural duty to defend the society that supported your very existence.
People wonder why north america has gone to shit and this is it right here.
retr0rocket(dead)
[dead]
philipallstar
Canada, like Europe, has had an easy time of it by letting the US taxpayer pay for most of its defence.
Podrod
>like Europe,
TIL The US pays for the defence of Russia and Belarus and Serbia.
dylan604
How well would 24000 reserves fare against a smaller but well trained group of regular military units? Aren't they pretty much canon fodder?
I guess it depends on the opposition. The counter is look at the quagmire the US military found itself against insurgent opposition because they were not willing to use the same plays as Russia leveling cities. Israel leveled Gaza with the same mentality.
ungreased0675
When Russia invaded Ukraine, thousands of rifles were handed out in Kyiv. Why?
In a straight up fight the reserves have no chance, but they also have the choice to fight differently. In Ukraine, the Territorial Defence forces have absolutely put in work against regular Russian units. Reserve units can be very useful under the right circumstances.
tick_tock_tick
I mean Canada just depends on the USA for nearly all it's defense. The USA isn't going to let anyone invade Canada or Mexico.
mig39
I don't know if you've been paying attention, but the head of the USA has threatened on numerous occasions to invade Canada.
tick_tock_tick
I mean yeah we've famously even had full on invasion war plans drawn up in the past that leaked. Canada isn't going to do anything that changes the USA's ability to steam roll over the country.
pyuser583
Canada's plan was to encourage the US to invade, so the British Navy could attack the US from the Caribbean. The US would get bogged down in the icy Canadian winter, while the Royal Navy took the Eastern seaboard, Mississipi river, and Panama.
The American plan was to throw everything we had at Canada, so it was probably a very good plan.
I don't think it would work anymore.
More practically - in the aftermath of the 1812 War, the US and British North America agreed to demilitarize the border. During WWII, this was preventing mobilization in the Great Lakes region, and Canada proposed undoing the treaty. The US diplomat in charge felt the treaty had historical value and should be kept in tact.
So the US-Canadian border is very demilitarized, by design.
rogerrogerr
Yep - the US is bad at fighting insurgencies, but a state military? Over in days. This does not materially change between Canada’s current military vs 5x their current military.
But fighting pissed-off indigenous Canadians? I wouldn’t sign up for that part.
None of this is relevant because the US does not want to own Canada.
I think some are too focused on recruiting or conscripting citizens for fighting a kinetic conflict.
For the Five Eyes(Canada, US, UK, Australia, NZ) that don’t ever need to worry about conventional invasion, it’s far more about national resilience that relates to national defence.
How does a nation rapidly adapt to warfare that is occurring beneath the threshold of conventional warfare, and in some cases general public detection.
It’s not about fighting future trench warfare, it’s likely more about adaption to disruption to the nation of the electrical grid, logistics systems, and digital platforms.
A contemporary civil defence optimised not to defend against nuclear war but to defend against cyber, informational, psychological, and supply chain warfare.
Less continuity of government(as per Cold awards doctrine), more continuity of economy.
That’s just my 0.02c.
L_226
> For the Five Eyes(Canada, US, UK, Australia, NZ) that don’t ever need to worry about conventional invasion
Australia is extremely at risk of conventional invasion, their current independence is a function of alliance to the strongest navy in the Pacific. Without a US that is willing and able to ensure Australia's free access to the surrounding ocean, AU is absolutely unable to deploy enough of their own military to fend of probably even Indonesia, let alone China. The coastline is just far too long, the military assets too few, and the country too depopulated to be able to stop a determined invasion.
chriselles
I need to push back on your analysis on this. Quite hard actually.
Indonesia lacks the force projection capability to even project an expeditionary force into Northern Australia.
Sustaining an expeditionary force into Northern Australia by Indonesia would leave it incredibly vulnerable to air and sea supply chain interdiction.
With first hand professional domain experience, and without arrogance or hubris, an Indonesian invasion of Northern Australia would be disastrous for Indonesia.
China invading Australia would entail a much more capable, but entirely untested, expeditionary force over much longer and far more vulnerable supply chains.
With just FVEY intelligence support and FVEY forces already forward deployed into Australia, the likelihood of China successfully establishing and sustaining a beachhead to break into Australia with a conventional invasion would be similar to that of Indonesia, due to very long and very vulnerable supply chains.
Unless China glassed Australia with nuclear weapons, any attempt by Xi and the CCP's PLAN/PLAAF/PLA to conventionally invade Australia would be a moon shot too far.
China's fleet steaming south would be severely attrited transitting limited maritime traffic route bottlenecks that would be akin to cattle chutes in a slaughter house, while China's own energy/food/raw industrial materials commercial maritime supply chains would be existentially vulnerable.
That's just to Australia's current fleet of Collins class submarines and tanker supported F35s.
Australia's AUKUS nuclear submarine investment will magnify that current independent threat to China's maritime supply chain.
Which is odd, considering this comedic skit is partially true:
Unconventional attack is far, far more likely. Thus requiring a focus on national resilience and adaptability to crisis.
L_226
The Indonesia comment was a bit of cheek, I totally concede that it would be disastrous for them. However, I don't think that a conventional invasion is too far fetched IFF USN assets withdraw from the western Pacific.
Yes China has to transit the straits around SEA, but how many Collins does Australia actually currently have available to deny these channels, 1 or 2? Additionally, if this scenario happened and the US was in full turtle-mode, how long do you think AU could sustain those F35s? AUKUS won't deliver actual capability to Australia until maybe 2035 at the earliest, and those subs are too large to feasibly use the channels around Indonesia and Malaysia effectively anyway.
But yes I agree, unconventional attacks are more likely.
chriselles
I think biggest threat of invasion for Australia is illegal immigration.
It’s happened before, and Australia has used discrete and unconventional means to disrupt it.
RAN could probably surge 3 Collins boats depending on timings of depot level maintenance.
P8 paired with C17/C130 used as arsenal planes to saturate PLAN air defence and F35 hitting hard targets with LRASM would make it a slaughter.
PLAN’s recent live fire exercise in the commercial air corridor between Australia and NZ single handedly justifies increased defence spending for ANZ.
Personally, I think China’s horrible demographic wall it’s about to hit at 100kph combined with a stagnant economy(140+ car makers today that will surely drop to 20 or less by 2035) leaves Xi with plenty of domestic crisis to solve.
The risk is if Xi needs(or needs to create) an external crisis to activate nationalism and deflect away from domestic strike(akin to Argentina-Falklands 1982).
Even Taiwan might be a stretch too far. Xi will need a guaranteed win.
mikelitoris
Did you mean $0.02? Or 2¢?
HighGoldstein
5,995,849.16 m/s
BiraIgnacio
> The Canadian Forces is counting on public servants to volunteer for military service as it tries to ramp up an army of 300,000 as part of a mobilization plan, according to a defence department directive.
colonwqbang
How much useful combat skills can be taught in only a week? It seems like an extremely low estimate on the training needed to play a useful role in the military.
>Ukraine's paratroopers were ordered to withdraw from the city, leaving the city's defense to a few thousand local volunteers armed with rifles, limited anti-tank weapons and no armed vehicles or heavy weaponry.
duxup
I'm not sure that speaks to the quality of training considering the state of Russian forces, tanks driving alone, crews abandoning equipment, and so on.
mrguyorama
Every combat soldier requires like 10 support soldiers doing things like logistics. Millions of people during WW2 did nothing but drive trucks.
A lot of military burst capacity is about freeing up soldiers who went through all the training and basic and specialization, but are stuck driving that truck.
The guys and gals who fire bullets are just the sharp point of the spear and all that.
It's also why Russia ballooned their "National Guard" forces even though they cannot be deployed outside Russia; They free up soldiers who can.
One of the most important things for a government in an actual "Oh shit real war" situation that requires significant mobilization is a simple census of "Who has the capability to do what menial job?"
mothballed
Light infantry on domestic terrain doesn't need anything like those sorts of ratios. Chechen militia in the first Chechen war defeated the Russians well enough to win independence without any sort of logistics ratio like that on the military side, as did the YPG light infantry that defeated ISIS and held off the Syrian military well enough that they basically truced or better.
Higher ratios might be needed to project power to outside borders, but for defense within the territory they can be combat effective against many possible forces with small ratios of military side logistics.
potato3732842
>Higher ratios might be needed to project power to outside borders
Or operate in an domestic environment where you do not have local support.
<cough> Alberta <cough>
nradov
That's not how it works in any NATO military. Truck drivers and other logistics troops generally never went through any sort of advanced combat training. They can be retrained for another MOS with sufficient time but not quickly enough for any sort of crisis. And in volunteer forces, the troops driving trucks are generally doing that because they specifically enlisted to do that job.
cogogo
The largest volunteer army in the world is the US Army. Please provide evidence that enlistees can specifically be truck drivers if they choose to be.
nradov
What a silly question. I don't need to provide you any evidence. Just walk down to your local recruiting office and ask. If you tell them that you want to enlist but will only do so if they guarantee a truck driver MOS on your contact then they'll absolutely take you unless they've already hit their limit for that fiscal year.
HN is so weird sometimes. Like half the users seem to be aggressively ignorant of stuff that's common knowledge in the real world outside the tech industry. Or they expect to be spoon fed information that they could figure out themselves with a little research.
i don't think they're really expecting people to serve a useful role in the military. it's a "supplemental reserve", meaning a level below ordinary reservists.
it sounds like basically if the country was ever in a situation dire enough that they were calling on ordinary citizens to help with defense, an ordinary citizen with a week's training would be better than one with no training.
or more cynically: it's a way to make a whole bunch of voters feel like they're involved in the military, to make military spending more palatable to voters.
mcny
Maybe I wouldn't be very useful in combat but maybe I can peel potatoes or mop the floors in case of an invasion. I am thinking it frees up someone who is "combat ready" from kitchen or janitor duty. It helps, right?
dmurray
In that case, how does the week's training help at all?
Maybe it's helpful just for you to understand the way the military is organised: if you are conscripted you should report to this base, you'll sleep here, your commanding officer will be someone from this branch of the armed forces, you'll be in a group of X people sharing Y shifts, etc.
tamimio
Maybe some conflicted interest of a company/s that will provide the training so they can milk few contracts that way.
perfmode
Bingo
notatoad
except they say the training will include firearms and drone flight.
imgabe
Everyone in the military should be trained with weapons. If it comes down to it, even the guy who mops the floors is going to need to pick up a rifle if the situation is dire enough. It helps if he held one before at least.
The top brass in Canada would benefit to know who among the civil service has circuitry and dexterous control skills. And if it were me, I’d like a high-res scan of each person with the intent of precomputing who could convince ICE software of an already-established American’s identity.
snypher
Wild, but I like the way you think.
imtringued
It's not even that. It's literally the equivalent of an assessment center. The military is basically looking for promising recruits ahead of time. It's not about having a week's worth of training. It's about knowing who did well or not.
notatoad
yeah, that makes sense.
it's not about training somebody with a gun, it's about putting somebody on the list of "never ever give this guy a gun again"
toast0
One week a year might add up after a while. At least you might be able to reduce the time spent in training should an urgent (but not immediate) need arise. Maybe a few years of this and you can manage basic training in six weeks instead of the usual nine. It should help build training capacity. It would likely help a bit with human resource management should the need arise: having notes on who can handle a rifle, who can handle a truck, and who can handle a drone, etc might help match people with training for what's needed.
potato3732842
A week is gonna be mostly "here's how to function in our organization, this is our trade specific vocabulary, here's a rifle and how you use it"
You use your D-grade troops like that for behind the lines security. You use them to check papers at checkpoints, round up dissidents, keep people from taking pot shots at your supply lines, etc, etc, the kind of stuff you don't need expensive professional infantry[1] or even beat cops[2] for.
[1] Who's expensive infantry skills are unessary overkill
[2] Who can play checkpoint thug at the right level, but who have a bunch of needless expensive training put into them regarding laws, evidince, how to conduct a traffic stop, etc, etc, that is unnecessary.
sigwinch
I think you’re discounting what a physically-unacceptable soldier can do with a drone.
fn-mote
That D rating isn’t for physically unacceptable. It’s for complete incompetence or at least just punching the time clock. A lifetime of working for a bureaucracy that doesn’t care for you isn’t going to bring out the best anywhere else, either. Especially not if that’s a one week a year mandatory service. (I didn’t read tfa.)
xarope
shooting a rifle is "easy" to learn. That's why long guns are used. Hold+brace, point, aim reticle/scope, squeeze.
handguns are harder, since you can't brace the stock against your shoulder, but need to learn how to brace with your wrists and arms.
anti-tank weapons a bit harder still, since you need to maneuver properly and have multiple shooters at the same target. Also, I laugh/smirk everytime I see a movie where someone uses a LAW indoors or in an enclosed space/with someone standing behind.
(I'm ignoring grenades; suffice to say it's not as easy to pull the pin with your teeth as you think)
I think the hard part isn't the shooting, but the tactical movement side; L shape ambush or fire formation when under fire, or presence of mind to seek to leapfrog or flank, ability to communicate under pressure instead of just hunkering down or screaming your head off. It gets complicated very fast since there are vastly different tactics used in forest/vegetation versus urban warfare, and choosing the wrong tactic will get you shot fast (think chess openings; choose the wrong one and unless you are an expert - which you will not be with 1 week of training, you will get mated fast).
bpodgursky
Even having up-to-date contact info, age, health records available for a population you know is physically able to serve is a big first step. Lot of logistics, most western countries don't want a draft that pulls randos off the street and shoves them in a van.
firefax
>How much useful combat skills can be taught in only a week?
You'd be surprised how even a small amount of training can make you deadly with a rifle. Combine that with actually having thrown a grenade, been given training in laying of mines etc.
Also, a huge chunk of "the military" is logistics -- the measure of a soldier is not always whether they can snipe someone from afar.
Retric
Useful for what role? It’s not obvious if someone has near significant or near zero training when they are acting as a stationary guard at a checkpoint etc. Which enables trained troops to preform more useful roles.
They are significantly less likely to do the correct thing if attacked, but a war isn’t going to just be over in 24 hours either so they can be trained up on the job.
stirfish
More likely driving trucks, cooking meals, filling out spreadsheets, etc
jjgreen
Excel? War is hell.
Retric
Cooks and similar supporting roles are often preformed by civilians without firearm training. Preforming background checks on people beforehand makes sense, but there’s little point in firearms training if they aren’t expected to carry a weapon.
al_be_back
It is relative, depends on the "type of warfare" being fought, and the countries/economies involved.
In a high-tech modern warfare, the countries with a fighting force that has higher academic education, higher tech literacy are relatively quick to mobilize and become effective militarily.
tamimio
How much useful combat skills a forced draft will get you? In both it’s none, but the idea is to have a ready cannon fodders that can be utilized while keeping few core employees plus automation/AI to keep the government running if SHTF.
Gud
They will be taught simple but effective instructions in how they are supposed to act in a severe crisis.
Who to obey and simple instructions.
kylehotchkiss
this generation was raised on Call of Duty. As long as they remain faithful in an immediate respawn, they'll make brave soldiers.
newsclues
Just enough to be dangerous.
jjk166
Seems like a generally good idea for creating a large reserve force. It definitely beats general conscription.
I don't see why Canada in particular needs such a large reserve force. This would jump Canada from number 127 to number 52 in terms of percentage of population in reserves, and bump it up to 17th in terms of absolute reserves size. For a nation with basically zero chance of invasion of its home soil and an extremely low risk of internal conflict, it's hard to imagine a scenario where anywhere near this many reservists would be required.
qball
>For a nation with basically zero chance of invasion of its home soil and an extremely low risk of internal conflict
Clearly the Canadian government doesn't feel the same way. If they tried to conscript they'd quickly find themselves in a civil war (for the same reasons the US would), and one the Canadian capital clearly doesn't believe it'd win given how well it fared defending itself in 2022.
Of course, bureaucrats aren't exactly known for their fighting prowess either. This is mostly a statement that "Toronto/Ottawa doesn't need the rest of the country, it can see to its own defense", and to try and retain/engage the Elbows Up crowd (which, being the only reason the sitting government is in power, is completely understandable).
nick_
Are you referring to the "Freedom Convoy"?
BigGreenJorts
If so, the capital did perfectly fine breaking it up, they were just politically hamstrung. But otherwise, it took all of an afternoon and a couple horses to break up that nonsense.
nick_
Yes, agreed.
At this point I have seen many fantastical interpretations of what happened there. I assume popular US media coverage of it was a contributor there.
> Clearly the Canadian government doesn't feel the same way
Not clear at all. One of Trump's demands during this tariff negotiation mess was that Canada isn't spending enough on defense.
So now Canada is finding ways to spend more.
mna_
When Americans tell their ``allies'' that they're not spending enough on their military, what they mean is they're not buying enough American hardware.
hotep99
They are likely being pressured to meet minimum obligations as part of NATO membership. Canada's military realistically isn't going to be called on for defense of the homeland but as part of a support force for NATO.
Tiktaalik
The new NATO funding requirements are so suddenly incredibly high that the government will probably have trouble actually finding the money to spend something on. So things like this are yeah probably a bit of a money sink to meet obligations.
gpm
The US has been consistently signalling that it is considering annexing us since Donald Trump was re-elected in November of last year... the politicians are unlikely to say it outright but I think this is pretty clearly aimed at the US and making it too costly to do so.
jjk166
The US invading Canada isn't a realistic possibility. Any attempt to do so would trigger a civil war within the US, to say nothing of obliterating the geopolitical system. Attempting to annex in any way shape or form is currently nothing more than the musings of an old man, the only way any territorial changes could happen are through peaceful, mutually agreed upon transfer.
If the US were to seriously entertain the notion of invading its neighbor, 300,000 poorly trained reservists aren't going to seriously change the calculus. Canada is strong per capita but it has a fraction of the absolute population, military strength, and economy of the US. Nearly all of its major population centers are within extremely close proximity with the US border. It's military and economy are both heavily intertwined with the US, regardless of what rhetoric is being thrown around. A reserve force is for freeing up the active military to be used most effectively, defending key chokepoints, launching offensives, and operating complicated equipment, with the reservists doing things like preparing defensive lines, manning low risk areas, and supporting logistics. In a war between the US and Canada, the US would be able to launch large assaults with professional soldiers in multiple places with no natural obstacles over the short distance between their origin and objectives. There would be little for reservists to do to help - there would be no low risk areas to man, no defenses to prepare, very little in the ways of logistics to be concerned with. If Canada had serious concerns about the US invading, its money would be better spent on disentangling its armed forces from the US, acquiring counters to US systems, and establishing defensible positions between its border and major population centers.
vharuck
>The US invading Canada isn't a realistic possibility. Any attempt to do so would trigger a civil war within the US
If you had told me this last year, but replaced "invading Canada" with "sending armed military forces into cities under false emergency declarations", I would've also agreed. But here we are. Which state wants to be the first to defect and pit it's national guard (half of whom would probably desert) against the US military?
>If Canada had serious concerns about the US invading...
It's best course of action would be the same as any individual preparing for a doomsday scenario: make friends with those around you. If the US invades or even just encroaches on Canada, I wonder if every European country would realize they're next. Canada can't beat the US alone, but it's allies could make it an extremely painful and unpopular war for the American public.
JumpCrisscross
> The US invading Canada isn't a realistic possibility
Of course it is. Troops would just be moved to “temporarily” occupy shit we want. (Or move to liberate Alberta.) Hell, you could probably do it with ICE agents.
> Any attempt to do so would trigger a civil war within the US
You’d take up arms against the U.S. because it invaded Canada?
Of course you wouldn’t. Neither would others. It would be brushed way as an another atrocity.
> 300,000 poorly trained reservists aren't going to seriously change the calculus
It’s people you have to shoot through. Hong Kong versus Ukraine. Raises the costs from a low-effort political gambit to a real military campaign.
This comment reminds of one on HN from Kharkiv on the eve of the invasion. If you assume something can’t happen or cannot be opposed, that’s indistinguishable from an invitation for an autocrat.
jjk166
> You’d take up arms against the U.S. because it invaded Canada?
In a heartbeat. I oppose violence in general, but if forced to choose between fighting an innocent Canadian and fighting someone who has betrayed America's ideals and turned the nation I love into a mockery of itself, it's a very easy choice. Anyone willing to brush such an unjustified invasion away as another atrocity is an enemy of the US.
> Of course it is. Troops would just be moved to “temporarily” occupy shit we want. (Or move to liberate Alberta.) Hell, you could probably do it with ICE agents.
That's not a realistic possibility.
> It’s people you have to shoot through. Hong Kong versus Ukraine. Raises the costs from a low-effort political gambit to a real military campaign.
Canada has a real military of nearly 100,000. They are highly skilled and well equipped with modern weaponry. If you don't consider fighting them to be a real military campaign, shooting through 300,000 desk clerks who don't even have uniforms isn't going to make it one.
> This comment reminds of one on HN from Kharkiv on the eve of the invasion. If you assume something can’t happen or cannot be opposed, that’s indistinguishable from an invitation for an autocrat.
I am not saying it can't happen, indeed I gave a long explanation of how it could; I am saying it won't happen. I'm not saying it can't be opposed, I'm saying this is a bad way to oppose it, and gave my recommendation for how it ought to be opposed.
JumpCrisscross
> In a heartbeat
I respect you for that. I don’t think most Americans would, particularly if their prosperity isn’t threatened (which it wouldn’t immediately be).
> not a realistic possibility
Why? It’s a precedented hybrid war tactic.
> If you don't consider fighting them to be a real military campaign, shooting through 300,000 desk clerks who don't even have uniforms isn't going to make it one
America could occupy plenty of strategically-interesting Canadian territory before it can mobilise. That’s the advantage of reserves. They’re already distributed.
> I'm saying this is a bad way to oppose it
Do you think it’s counterproductive? Or just useless?
pyuser583
It’s so hard to read these comments and not have the song “Blame Canada!” in my head.
silisili
> Any attempt to do so would trigger a civil war within the US
What makes you say that?
I could see heavy protests, even violent protests, as it's not something Americans want.
I'm not sure I could envision any semblance of an actual civil war, though, but perhaps I'm underestimating things.
carlosjobim
> What makes you say that?
Because the group of men fit to fight such a war would rather rebel against the government than fight a brother war. From lowest recruit to highest general.
If the United States tries to seize Canada they will do so after a protracted blockade in winter that coincides with air strikes on Canadian infrastructure.
A lot of Canadians talk big talk about some sort of insurgency like Iraq, Afghanistan or Vietnam but all those places have borders with other countries that can enable smuggling of supplies to the resistance.
Canada will be blockaded and after a period of cold and hunger the Canadian people will give up.
> Attempting to annex in any way shape or form is currently nothing more than the musings of an old man, the only way any territorial changes could happen are through peaceful, mutually agreed upon transfer.
A possible scenario: Alberta votes for independence, and then applies to join the US - similar trajectory to how Texas went from Mexico to the US via independence, albeit likely much more peacefully
Is this actually going to happen? Probably not. But personally I think it is more likely than all the other farfetched scenarios some people here seem to be taking seriously
k12sosse
Rumours of an Albertan independence have been greatly exaggerated. There's astroturfed big oil preying on grade 10 dropouts on Facebook, And the rest is American CIA bullshit like they've been doing down south for decades.
skissane
Speculation (watching this from the other side of the planet): Danielle Smith doesn’t actually want an independent Alberta; she wants the threat of one to use to extract concessions from Ottawa
I think ideal outcome for her would be for independence to be narrowly defeated-that way she doesn’t have to deal with the headache of trying to actually implement independence, but the narrower the defeat the easier it is to use it to pressure Ottawa to come to the table
dragonwriter
> The US invading Canada isn't a realistic possibility. Any attempt to do so would trigger a civil war within the US
Ok, maybe, but then:
> In a war between the US and Canada, the US would be able to launch large assaults with professional soldiers in multiple places with no natural obstacles over the short distance between their origin and objectives.
Given your earlier claim, surely you must believe that if they defied your wisdom and chose this course of action, they wouldn't be able to do this because they would have to devote a substantial fraction of their military capacity to domestic counterinsurgency efforts, leaving far more limited combat power to actually execute the invasion?
jjk166
> Given your earlier claim, surely you must believe that if they defied your wisdom and chose this course of action, they wouldn't be able to do this because they would have to devote a substantial fraction of their military capacity to domestic counterinsurgency efforts, leaving far more limited combat power to actually execute the invasion?
That does not follow. First, my scenario for how an invasion of canada would go down fundamentally assumes that the conditions preventing an invasion of canada from happening don't exist. The world where Canada must defend itself from a US invasion is a magical, fictional world where the US has managed to launch an invasion.
Further, successfully invading Canada would not require the full force of the US military, and it is not established that the resources needed for the invasion of Canada would even be the same as those required for fighting domestically, nonetheless that the resources would be required concurrently. The men and materiel necessary for disabling the Canadian armed forces and seizing key territory would in general be useless in a domestic counter-insurgency scenario, and vice versa.
The problem with civil war is not its drain on your military resources, it's that the campaign to regain control over the rebelling regions requires you to inflict destruction on your own people. A victory is inherently pyrrhic, and if you aren't careful you may breed sympathy for the rebellion in even more regions. The US should avoid civil war because it's catastrophically bad, not because it would interfere with the canadian invasion effort.
dboreham
Yes but presumably other NATO members would counterattack, e.g. the UK has Trident missiles capable of significantly degrading the US. Modulo any kill switch those might contain.
jjk166
Presumably they would do so anyways without Canada adding 300,000 reservists.
testing22321
A external war that triggers a civil war would be a great way to cancel elections now wouldn’t it.
jjk166
If you are in a civil war and a war with a foreign power at the same time, you're already suffering the worst possible consequences of cancelling elections.
> the politicians are unlikely to say it outright but I think this is pretty clearly aimed at the US and making it too costly to do so.
lol this makes zero impact on that. The Canadian government doesn't even think it's own solder would fight the USA or sadly even run an insurgency. It's the consequence of trying to minimize nationalism and being cultural dominated by the USA for decades.
If the USA wants Canada it gets Canada.
k12sosse
You also get Canadians so enjoy being ruled by your so-called dominated peoples.
electric_mayhem
Canada would be insane to not beef up its military at this point. Mexico should, too.
mikkupikku
If Mexico wants to deter America, their best bet by far is to pose a credible insurgency threat. And in that regard, between the number of Mexican nationals and sympathizers in America, the number of guns in Mexico, the national pride of the Mexican people, and their established proficiency with asymmetric warfare (at least from their cartel elements)... I think they've got their bases well covered. Mexicans have the capacity to make an invasion of Mexico be extremely painful to the American public.
But Mexico using conventional military force to deter America? That's completely absurd.
mrguyorama
Except America has shown that it would rather chew through all it's resources and capability than accept that "The public here doesn't want you, that wont change, go home and save the effort"
How many people in the middle east did we blow up or kill? For 20 years. For a supposed outcome we had no chance of ever getting. Multiple presidents even.
The deterrence effect of an occupation didn't stop Russia, did not stop the USA, does not stop someone who believes you can just bomb the occupied lands harder until all resistance is "quiet", and doesn't seem to be stopping China from preparing itself for the occupation of Taiwan.
That Mexico has zero tanks or infantry fighting vehicles or real self propelled artillery might tell you how they've felt about the odds of the US actually invading again.
(IMO they should get some of these things even if there's no chance of the US invading, given how much firepower some of the cartels have.)
edm0nd
That's not really something Mexico can reasonably do. They are narco-terrorist state and everything there is heavily intertwined with the cartels. They would not want such a thing to happen. War with the US would be bad for their multi billion dollar business.
swader999
I'm ok with you guys taking over. You probably don't want us though.
nxm
No one is stopping you from moving to Mexico, and millions would take your spot in a heartbeat. The amount of privilege is astonishing by some of the posters here
incomingpain
Canada has been running about 1% of gdp military spending, despite obligation of 2%; with new promise to meet 5%. a 500% increase to the size of our military in short order is the promise.
Our reserves are at about 40,000. They announced the plan to go to 400,000. 10x the size. It's not so much about any outside fears, it's just meeting our obligations.The fear about Russia or China is unfounded. The problem is that the USA our greatest ally isn't letting us use them as a shield.
>Federal and provincial employees would be given a one-week training course in how to handle firearms, drive trucks and fly drones, according to the directive, signed by Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jennie Carignan
There's only about 300,000 federal employees. Greater on the provincial sides, but Canada isn't that big. Conscription will be necessary to fulfill these numbers
>The public servants would be inducted into the Supplementary Reserve, which is currently made up of inactive or retired members of the Canadian Forces who are willing to return to duty if called.
It says voluntary, but given the very significant % who need to join and be subject to immediate activation. I dont expect many to volunteer. Reserves at least pays you to have this cost. Conscription will be necessary. They are forcing those government employees ultimately.
mmooss
> The fear about Russia or China is unfounded.
That dismisses the greatest security threats of the era with a word. Most people in that field think those threats are very well-founded. Should Canada take the risk that everything will be fine?
I don't know much about Canada's current plans and how effective they would be.
seanmcdirmid
Canada right now is trying to figure out if the greatest their to their security is China or the USA. They can tie their boat to either against the other, but they can't be allies with both.
mmooss
Can they be allies with neither? They are trying to improve relations with the EU and, most importantly, are members of NATO (where the US is also a member).
seanmcdirmid
Economically not really. China and the USA are the top economies, and China is only going to get more economically powerful, alignment with one or the other in trade at least is inevitable. The EU will be making similar decisions to Canada, and I doubt Canada is going to detach from Europe.
Real question: Is any serious person advocating Canada abandon the West for China? What's their analysis here? If anyone has an article I can read I would love to do that.
incomingpain
>Real question: Is any serious person advocating Canada abandon the West for China? What's their analysis here? If anyone has an article I can read I would love to do that.
Which this 'imminent' factor never happened, but what was imminent was right before this was the announcement of various auto manufacturing moving production out of canada. Not really much to do with china, more of a screw you to the big 3.
China and Canada dont have a free trade agreement. The FIPA agreement is likely to be ended soon as it's possible.
Going from the antagonistic to a major trade deal and changing to chinese alliance would be a bizarre change though.
Given the shit show that is trump tarries and uncertainty, and the threats of 51st state, plenty of Canadians are very happy to turn away from the USA.
I’d be immensely happy if the Chinese EV tarries were scrapped. Given how the us has been behaving, why should we support us automakers.
ahmeneeroe-v2
>plenty of Canadians
I specifically asked about serious people, not the electorate at large.
>why should we support us automakers
Because the US is Canada's sole defense.
SirFatty
"Canada right now is trying to figure out if the greatest their to their security is China or the USA."
I very much doubt that is true. Unless the Canadian government get's their information only from "truth" social.
iinnPP(dead)
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jack_tripper(dead)
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mikkupikku
> Canada right now is trying to figure out if the greatest [threat?] to their security is China or the USA.
How do you get China in that list? Canada would most likely be challenged over their stake in the Arctic and Russia is plainly the greatest threat in that regard, not China. Russia has invested a great deal into arctic exploration and exploitation and pretty clearly sees the region as free real estate up for the taking. America too has a large stake in the Arctic, but has developed comparably fewer arctic capabilities than Russia. For Canada to have any chance of repelling a Russian invasion of their arctic territory would require America to help them, which under present American leadership would be a piss poor position for Canada to be in (not only because Trump has suggested annexing Canada himself, but also because he's said similar about Greenland, underscoring America's own desire to take that same arctic territory.)
Now, I don't doubt that China would also like the Arctic for themselves, but from Canada's perspective, the relative threat of China must be less than that of Russia and America.
seanmcdirmid
Russia can't even invade Ukraine right, I think the world sees them as pretty washed up as far as national security goes (besides them having nukes). China is like Russia, except richer, more disciplined, and not dumb. Canada also has a higher GDP than Russia despite having a much smaller population.
The USA is a fantastic ally! When a small aircraft was recently hijacked from Vancouver international airport, guess which Air Force came to our rescue? Thank you!!
While there’s a lot of news and media about trade wars with the USA, the vast majority 85% of it remains under the free trade agreement. China does not even come close to a free and open market for us and their state sponsored corporate espionage is a real and growing danger.
wk_end
Neither here nor there, but the plane was hijacked in Victoria and then flown over to Vancouver.
(Only picking this particular nit because, as a Victorian, we constantly live in the shadow of our bigger brother, so I need to shout us out when I can. And I fly out of the flying club that the plane was hijacked from, so it's a story that's particularly close to my heart.)
lawlessone
They might be more worried about the recent attempts to annex them.
China didn't strongly suggest that Canada should become its 23rd or 24th province. Also, if the USA keeps dipping its feet into fascism every other 4 year election cycle, every other western democracy is going to start pumping lots of resources into a plan B
I'd imagine the threats of annexation are more concerning than the tariffs.
incomingpain
Russia is weak, they cant even take ukraine. To think they'd have a shadow of a chance against NATO is a joke.
China is strong, their standing army is probably 300 million and if they invaded canada. Our <100,000 CAF will be goners. Since they havent done it, they either dont want to or there's something external to canada protecting it. Either case, an unfounded threat.
>I don't know much about Canada's current plans and how effective they would be.
Ya that original comment about russia/china wasnt a significant part of my post anyway.
jandrese
The idea that China is going to ship 300 million troops to Canada seems absurd on its face. There is just no geopolitical scenario where that happens.
This is more about Canada having enough troops to contribute if NATO decides to intervene in a China-Taiwan war.
chollida1
> China is strong, their standing army is probably 300 million
You may want to check your facts:) The PLA is estimated to be about 3M poeple at the high end of estimates and probably closer to 2.5M people.
Which puts you at 100x too large:)
AnimalMuppet
> China is strong, their standing army is probably 300 million and if they invaded canada. Our <100,000 CAF will be goners.
Having 300 million people and being able to move them across the Pacific Ocean are two very different things.
Yeah, China's building a lot of landing craft. Are those landing craft capable of a 10,000 mile voyage? I doubt it. Does China have a way of loading and launching those ships 100 miles from Canada? I doubt it.
mmooss
> China is strong, their standing army is probably 300 million
Maybe 1% of that. Also, numbers are important, but so are equipment, training, and leadership.
edm0nd
>China is strong, their standing army is probably 300 million and if they invaded canada. Our <100,000 CAF will be goners. Since they havent done it, they either dont want to or there's something external to canada protecting it. Either case, an unfounded threat.
China has zero modern real world combat experience though. they would get steam rolled in any peer to peer or near peer conflict imo.
ferguess_k
TBH I think taking land is stupid, at least taking a lot of land is stupid because you are left with a huge cost and people who hate you. The US has already gone past that point and I doubt China wants to go back this route. Taiwan for sure, but the rest of the world? meh.
stackedinserter
I wouldn't call Russia weak. They have their strengths, one of which is insensitivity to losses. They can grind 20000 soldiers to get a small town, and nobody cares. Also, total control over population, brainwashing the youth, military-oriented economy.
Also, Russia knows how to operate in Arctic, and has real combat experience that none of NATO countries have.
> To think they'd have a shadow of a chance against NATO is a joke.
Which NATO with what army? Do you think Bundeswehr is combat-ready? Is society in any NATO country (except Poland and Finland) ready to fight?
Russians will easily take Baltic countries, for example, is it NATO? Will NATO commit into full scale war with Russia over Estonia? They don't even have guts to block shadow fleet tankers and shoot russian drones over their own territory. Or forget doing something, they can't even stop buying russian oil and gas, because their population will pay more and be upset.
Ukraine stopped them like a bag of teeth would grind teeth of someone who decided to eat them. West is not Ukrainians, even after all these wake-up calls.
scotty79
Greatest security threat so far turned out to be USA.
cthaeh(dead)
[dead]
kakacik
The only reason you can claim russia is not threat to you is their utter corrupted incompetence which had them losing cold war. In their mindset, every single one of you here living in free democratic country, doing and thinking whatever you like are a direct threat to their dictatorship and way of existence. Canada has no reason to not be another russian gubernia, they can come up with some made up claim like they would need one.
One would laugh at all this and ignore them if they didn't have enough functional nukes to cover entire civilization few times over.
Now I am not claiming the above about every russian person, nor attacking their culture or history. Actually history yes, a bit, its pretty sad and explains why they are as they are. They consistently end up with ruling elite who thinks above, maybe apart from Gorbachev (who is despised back home). Don't ever make a mistake of underestimating how fucked up russia as a country is. I keep repeating the same for past 2 decades (as someone coming from country practically enslaved for 4 decades by them) with people mostly laughing it off, apart from last 3 years.
ferguess_k
Why don't they offer to all PRs and citizens? I'd like to learn those skills...
koakuma-chan
Why is the US our greatest ally?
36 stratagems says "Befriend a distant state and strike a neighbouring one"
ahmeneeroe-v2
>The problem is that the USA our greatest ally isn't letting us use them as a shield.
I personally think that Canada can be our (US) greatest ally, but this is only true in the hard-power sense of the word if Canada does actually meet its defense obligations.
Canada has a huge coastline, directly adjacent to our most significant threats (China & Russia), yet doesn't have a navy to speak of.
We need Canada to step up to its own defense so we can keep being equal allies, otherwise Canada is a de facto protectorate and should pay for that privilege.
This reminds me of the movie 300 where an army shows up with potters and other tradesmen, while the army of Sparta were all soldiers.
Opinion: as an expat, I'm not sure who would join the CAF nowadays. Not much to be proud of in my opinion. Without exaggerating, not a single person I grew up with is doing well, and I had to leave Canada to start my family.
al_be_back
> the movie 300
In high-tech warfare we're seeing these days your metaphor is reversed. These artisans (potters etc) are tech engineers, mathematicians, chemists. They are quick to mobilize and become effective (operate drones, robots, cyber, complex machines).
I cannot comment on your opinion of Canada, it's too vague in my opinion.
Generally, western Armed Forces (CAF included) reduced their personnel and spending when the Cold War ended (90s). Rightly so. Since then, war is fought very differently and AF are now very quickly adapting.
Recent conflicts in near/along Levant and near/along the Black Sea, show how effective certain types of warfare are in the current climate.
rvba
> as an expat
How can we know that you arent a russian propaganda account, who created a legend that you live outside of Canada, when in reality you never lived there and your lies that "Canada military bad" are just written from Moscow?
petermcneeley
How do I know you arnt a CSIS account that targets the chats of those with lived experience in Canada and tries discredit them?
TriangleEdge
I suppose it's not possible to know nowadays given LLMs and all.
strombofulous
> not a single person I grew up with is doing well
What is happening in Canada to cause this?
ttz
root cause is believing anecdotes of people on the internet
k12sosse
AMEN. Doing just fine, so is my family. Didn't need to turn my cost inside out to do it either.
TriangleEdge
I suppose "doing well" isn't a very good metric. It's based on my feelings and experiences having traveled to 5 wealthy countries and chatting with people there. Even in third world countries, like Brazil, I didn't see people dying of opioid overdoses everywhere downtown.
ipcress_file
I believe this is a crafty method of reviving "Participaction" without Hal and Joanne.
Well played, Mr. Carney!
neilv
* The article speaks of this personnel like reservists, but could the training also apply to helping defend public infrastructure and institutions, where they work? (For example, if there ever be a need to quickly hand out firearms on-site, or if ever there was a need for random people to know how to observe and report threats?)
* Could this training be practice, before mass military training of most adult citizens?
gpm
> The article speaks of this personnel like reservists, but could the training also apply to helping defend public infrastructure and institutions, where they work? (For example, if there ever be a need to quickly hand out firearms on-site, or if ever there was a need for random people to know how to observe and report threats?)
Can't quite imagine the threat that would cause a need for this in Canada, but sure. Edit: I guess in the north the training would be useful for polar bear defence...
> Could this training be practice, before mass military training of most adult citizens?
Probably not politically viable unless we were invaded (and border conflicts in unpopulated areas don't count). Not logistically viable after the US invades us, and they are the only contender.
Maybe you could manage to make a volunteer based reserve program attractive enough to get a significant fraction of adult citizens? If you could that might be politically viable. I doubt the current government is anywhere near ambitious enough to try.
stackedinserter
> Federal and provincial employees would be given a one-week training course in how to handle firearms, drive trucks and fly drones
What is the use of these "professionals"?
I know russians send these substandard soldiers to meat grinder ("infiltration in small groups" tactics). If they're killed with ukrainian FPV drone, it's fine, at least AFU spent a drone. Is it what Canadians are planning to do?
lukan
It is simply raising the costs for any potential invasion.
When a wannabe imperialist thinks, he can get something easy, he will take it. If he thinks, there will be unknown risks and costs .. he might not.
stackedinserter
It will not raise any cost, these "soldiers" will pose zero threat.
gpm
Minimally trained people pose no threat, this is why the US won against the Taliban...
stackedinserter
Taliban is "minimally trained people"?
cmrdporcupine
Odd how this is on front page of HN but buried way down my feed on (Canadian) Google News and doesn't seem to be front-page news?
Do you have to be a public servant or retired Canadian Forces, or do they take portly middle-aged out of shape software engineers, too? Asking for a friend.
Haven't shot a gun since Bible Camp when I was 12. Could be fun.
motohagiography
im of two minds, where on the one hand having some basic physical competence and responsibility can only improve civil servants, but on the other, the civil service is now stacked with radical partisans, and arming them and organizing them as paramilitaries is going to go exactly how you'd expect.
groby_b
Just in case people miss the core message: This is something you do if you have a credible risk assessment that you think a big conflict is a possibility within the next decade or so.
And, as much as I'd like to focus on deteriorating Canada/US relations, it's likely a dual purpose. The Ukraine/Russia/NATO situation would be the second factor. OK, a triad, China/US is also on the radar. Whatever the weighting, it's pushed Canada to work on a mobilization framework, because the combined risk is high enough.
Which means "oh shit" feelings are entirely appropriate, panic isn't.
observationist
Any rational assessment of Canada's military capabilities, its funding capabilities, and population will lead to a determination that they're not in any sort of position to have any sort of meaningful defense or offense without the US running point.
For that to change would require generational shifts in culture and revenue generation and so on. If the US chooses not to defend them, they're exposing themselves to unacceptable risk. If the US chooses to defend, Canada isn't contributing within the same order of magnitude. If the US chose to attack, then more has gone wrong in the world than you could possibly cope with, having a few thousand more tanks, ships, and helicopters isn't going to save the day. It'd take decades to build up population, R&D infrastructure, resources, and so on, and there'd likely be a lot of pressure to not do those things and use the US military industrial complex instead.
Not saying this is good for Canada, btw, just that the reality is they've kinda coasted on US coattails for decades now, and for better or worse, they're stuck. Which should in turn beg the question - if there's no practical or pragmatic point in spending a bunch of money on military preparedness and expansion, then why's that money being spent, and who's getting paid? Why are bureaucrats being militarized, instead of a discrete, well regulated military being created to meet whatever the need was?
Strange politics.
qball
The bureaucrats are being militarized out of desperation.
The political faction all bureaucrats in the nation belong to can't find enough soldiers. This is because they treat those soldiers with contempt- no young man wants to die for Ottawa. Plus, the volunteer soldiers that come back from Ukraine are not going to be on Ottawa's side if domestic instability ramped up, but will be familiar with the tools of modern warfare.
Ottawa is currently (and perhaps rightfully) paranoid of a domestic uprising just as much as it is of the US invading. The US is strategically wrecking the economy of Canadian citizens only a few hours away and if those citizens violently insist on suing for peace Ottawa might lose its power forever.
So, you do the next best thing- you take the faction with the political power in Canada (in this case, Ottawa bureaucrats) and tell them that if they want to keep their privileges, they must join the reserve.
The fact that if any nation decided to actually attack they'd instantly flee (bureaucrats are not known for their courage under fire; that's why they're bureaucrats!) is a problem for future them. What matters is that, to fuel the jingoism fire long enough to keep the bureaucrat faction in power, they need to be seen to be doing something, and this is that something.
observationist
So it looks like they think they can keep the peasants in line by going full police state with drones and ultra surveillance? Good lord.
I respect regular Canadians quite a lot, but damn, Canadian government officials seem like a social experiment in how far you can push people before they blow up in your face.
Degens from up north indeed.
AngryData
If they arm and empower a significant local population, they do have a credible defense, because the vast majority of leaders in the world knows fighting a decently armed insurgency is extremely costly. They watched the US itself, a military that dwarfs the entire rest of the world's militaries, do it multiple times, along with Russia and a few other countries. The "cheapest" way to win against an insurgency is to literally blow the entire country up until nothing is standing à la North Korea, but that also destroys 95% of the value of taking a country which defeats the entire point of taking it.
ahmeneeroe-v2
I wish I had written this. I think the exact same thing but you articulated it much better than I have been able to.
jandrewrogers
Most people haven't noticed until recently but many countries around the world have been dramatically increasing their defense spending for several years now, pre-dating and somewhat independent of the Ukraine situation. Most of it is targeted for operational capability by the end of this decade. Interpret that how you will.
As an eye-popping number that illustrates this, just the backlog of new foreign weapon sales awaiting approvals in the US is almost $1T on its own. Countries are spending tremendous amounts of money on advanced weapons right now.
ferguess_k
I think it's just they sense that US is no longer willing to be the world police (with its good and bad), so they better either prepare themselves for defence or prepare themselves for offence to grab some lands they have been drooling over for a while.
fidotron
The most damning thing about this is the Canadian gov would struggle to find 300k people in the rest of the population that it would trust with skilling up in those ways. Federal public servants will be the last bastion of the values they try to force on everyone else.
It is in the process of spending vast amounts of money to remove guns from legal gun owners that are subject to absolutely amazing amounts of oversight already.
thunderfork
I don't think this is true. It's just much easier to bring in people when you have access to them to ask directly, basically.
In my short experience in public service, I met a great number of people who were not in lockstep with the so-called "values they try to force" (i.e. the political plans of the current government), so it seems they're not doing a great job of "forcing" those values if that's the plan.
fidotron
They have enough problems keeping the people they currently have in the military on the same page.
The general response to this was amazement that the MP or RCMP actually did anything about it, given what occurs within those.
thunderfork(dead)
[dead]
ahmeneeroe-v2
HN seems to hate this but you're right. The type of people the military relies on are not in power in Canada and haven't been for some time.
busterarm
Especially when most of them are in Western Canada, which keeps threatening to leave.
d4rkn0d3z
"We find that at present the human race is divided politically into one wise man, nine knaves, and ninety fools out of every hundred. That is, by an optimistic observer. The nine knaves assemble themselves under the banner of the most knavish among them, and become "politicians". The wise man stands out because he knows himself to be hopelessly outnumbered, and devotes himself to poetry, mathematics, or phylosophy; while the ninety fools plod off behind the banners of the nine villians, according to fancy, into the labyrinths of chicanery, malice, and warfare. It is pleasant to have command even over a flock of sheep, and that is why the politcians raise the banners. It is, moreover, the same thing for the sheep whatever the banner. If it is democracy, then the nine knaves will become members of parliament; if fascism, they will become party leaders, if communism, commissars, the result is still exploitation. As for the wise man his lot is the same under any ideology. Under democracy he will be encouraged to starve to death under garret, under fascism he will be put in a concentration camp, under communism he will be liquidated." -- Merlin
d4rkn0d3z
Incidentally, in the above quote Merlin is speaking on behalf of the committee of animals to the King.
TylerLives
We're getting off topic, but there is another form of government:
"A peculiar disadvantage attaching to republics...is that in this form of government it must be more difficult for men of ability to attain high position and exercise direct political influence than in the case of monarchies. For always...there is a conspiracy...against such men on the part of all the stupid, the weak, and the commonplace; they look upon such men as their natural enemies, and they are firmly held together by a common fear of them. There is always a numerous host of the stupid and the weak, and in a republican constitution it is easy for them to suppress and exclude the men of ability, so that they may not be flanked by them. They are fifty to one; and here all have equal rights at start.
In a monarchy, on the other hand...talent and intelligence receive a natural advocacy and support from above. In the first place, the position of the monarch himself is much too high and too firm for him to stand in fear of any sort of competition. In the next place, he serves the State more by his will than by his intelligence; for no intelligence could ever be equal to all the demands that would in his case be made upon it. He is therefore compelled to be always availing himself of other men's intelligence."
Arthur Schopenhauer
Hammershaft
Meanwhile the Saudi Arabian Monarchy only just realized that 'The Line' city was moronic and impossible from the start after wasting nearly 5 Trillion $ on grifting consultants.
You would think Trump would be compelled to avail himself with intelligent advisors now that he's a unitary president, but as a flawed human he's more interested in filling roles with loyal gratuitously flattering yes men.
Democracy has serious & potentially fatal flaws, but monarchy is clearly not the answer. I think futarchy is the only glimmer of hope left for sane governance.
SanjayMehta
To fight whom exactly?
raydev
This is likely an attempt to appease Trump on one of the many silly demands he's making in the silly tariff negotiations, this one being increased military funding. Gotta find something to spend money on.
outside1234
These people will just be "drone meat" and frankly this feels like a way to fake their NATO commitments.
whynotmaybe
How can it be fake if it's defense related spending?
stackedinserter
Because it's one week "training".
whynotmaybe
Many NATO countries' healthcare and pensions for retired personnel is included in their NATO spending. Should that also be classified as "fake" because if they're retired or sick, they're not really active anymore?
stackedinserter
Dude, you know what I'm talking about. One week of training doesn't make you any good for modern military. You can draft retirement homes with the same success.
nightshift1
Afaik, Canada's public service jobs are unionized. Maybe it's a trick to make people resign or if they don't, just send them to the front-lines. /s
I resent the implication that us being separate countries is a "historical quirk." It's condescending at best and exemplifies why we feel increasingly distant from the US.
It's like saying that Belgium and the Netherlands, or Spain and Portugal, or Germany and Switzerland are one historical quirk away from being the same countries.
mmooss
It also reprises one of Russia's claims to Ukraine, and that of many other expansionist dictators through history.
Maybe the US should be part of Canada?
colechristensen
You are the one making the assumption that I meant Canada should be controlled by the US when I meant and wrote no such thing.
And Europe _absolutely_ should unite under a single government instead of this pseudo national semi-single-currency/market with a vague poorly representative European government designed mostly just to dance around the fact that these small states are stuck on archaic nationalist ideas and can't get along with a unified purpose. The world needs the strength a unified Europe could provide to counteract Russian aggression, the growth of Chinese power, and the crumbling cornerstone of world order the US is going through.
Being offended is strange.
JuniperMesos
> It's like saying that Belgium and the Netherlands, or Spain and Portugal, or Germany and Switzerland are one historical quirk away from being the same countries.
I think you could say this about any of those countries, although Switzerland's mountainous location means that it would always resist being part of a larger polity.
potato3732842
> means that it would always resist being part of a larger polity.
More like it can resist in a more cost effective way and that subjugating them is worth less.
kakacik
I've heard the same rhetoric (we're brothers, all will be fine) from many russians days before 2022 star of proper war in Ukraine. This feeling sadly means nothing in large enough scale.
dboreham
Those are examples not counterexamples.
jvanderbot
I mean, it's entirely possible that a historic quirk 300+ years ago leads to an increasingly distant relationship today.
It's definitely possible to intepret this the way Russia speaks about Ukraine - "They shouldn't even be a country *except for a historical quirk", but a charitable interpretation would be more along the lines of "things could have gone slightly differently and we'd be countrymen, but instead we brothers from a different mother (country)".
tokai
No need to interpret. The exact same line colechristensen wrote has been used by Russias about Ukraine many times.
_verandaguy
After this past year of US political discourse, you'll forgive me for not extending the benefit of the doubt anymore.
jvanderbot
That is understandable but also unfortunate. Sorry from our side of the 49th
tick_tock_tick
> I resent the implication that us being separate countries is a "historical quirk." It's condescending at best and exemplifies why we feel increasingly distant from the US.
I mean that's a bit of an exaggeration. Canadians are basically Americans for all practical purpose to the degree you can barely tell them apart. It doesn't help that Canada has lacked any real national identity other then listing the few minor differences between it and the USA for decades.
xyzzy_plugh
> Canadians are basically Americans for all practical purpose to the degree you can barely tell them apart. It doesn't help that Canada has lacked any real national identity other then listing the few minor differences between it and the USA for decades.
Why does this even mean? Does national identity even really matter? It's like saying Californians are basically Texans for all practical purpose. Men and women are pretty similar. To suggest that they're so similar they may as well be the same is absolutely condescending.
tick_tock_tick
> Does national identity even really matter?
In the context of this whole article aka getting people to join the military it 100% matters. Do you think people are going to fight and die for a concept they don't care about?
Maxatar
>It's condescending at best and exemplifies why we feel increasingly distant from the US.
As a Canadian, why would it be condescending to suggest that at some point in the distant past, Canada and the U.S. could have been a single country had history played out slightly differently? There is nothing offensive about it, if anything the fact that it's a claim about a historical matter only highlights how the two countries have evolved separately and independently.
Furthermore your other points are kind of bizzare. Spain and Portugal could absolutely have been a single country, and in fact they were under the Iberian Union. There are numerous other instances where the two countries came close to unifying.
The historical possibility of a unified Belgium and the Netherlands is even stronger since those two countries had been unified twice.
Germany and Switzerland however is a long shot, but at any rate I don't think anyone from Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain or Portugal would take offense or find it condescending that some historical event could have gone differently and reshaped all of Europe... taking offense to that suggestion as a Canadian, even during these times seems overly insecure and I don't think it's a sentiment shared by most of us.
tiagod
Although I don't deny it could've happened, Spain and Portugal were different kingdoms during the Iberian Union (Philip II of Spain was known as Philip I of Portugal.)
_verandaguy
It's condescending to describe it as a quirk, in the sense that it's no more a quirk than anything else in history. In the current climate where this sort of rhetoric has been publicly and visibly used by Russia to justify their invasion of Ukraine, and by the PRC to justify their ongoing pressure campaigns against the ROC, I also don't take this kind of wording at face value.
Wars were fought. People died, generations were involved in discourse about national identity and where borders should be drawn.
The US and Canada were both at one point British properties, so by some definitions, we also used to be unified. Then we weren't.
Is it insecure? Maybe. The reality is that in a shooting war, we wouldn't last very long against the US, in all likelihood. Under these conditions, the least I can do is to push back against rhetoric that undermines our legitimacy as our own country.
chawco
Yeah, it's not a historical quirk, really. In talking to many Americans it seems like they don't really cover loyalists at all, or what happened after the Revolutionary War. Much of what became Canada was settled by former colonists from the what became the United States who remained loyal to the crown. My hometown was founded by loyalists from New York -- including the mayor of New York City -- after the Revolutionary War.
Essentially we are even closer than many people think in terms of history, but Canadian identity was seeded from the beginning with the idea of rejecting being "American". We are indeed your closest brothers and sisters because of history, but it's no quirk at all that we're separate -- it's the entire reason we stayed separate at all.
You can also see the reverse play out -- what would become Alberta was settled by large numbers of American colonists moving to Canada, and to this day you can see the cultural impact of that in the politics and world view from the region.
everdrive
Perhaps another sign of the times: commenters are responding with animosity to your suggestion that Americans and Canadians are incredibly close.
exe34
I imagine it's hard to feel too close to people who elected a clown who wants to invade you.
guyzero
It's a historic quirk that the US is a single country. It hardly feels like one most days.
qball
The same is true of Canada, but to a far greater extent since Toronto/Ottawa/Montreal have a permanent veto on whatever the rest of the country wants. The US political system, for all its other faults, has successfully avoided this problem.
It is not a surprise that region can't find anyone else (in the rest of the economic zone over which it claims dominion) willing to die for its interests, especially when their interests have been revealed to be nothing but "loot the rest of the nation".
1986
We have the opposite problem, where if you live in NYC or LA your vote basically doesn't matter at the national level
qball
Yet, that compromise means NYC and LA can still field an all-volunteer army of people who tend not to be from NYC and LA.
Toronto/Ottawa/Montreal, demonstrably, cannot do that.
Which of the two strategies do you think give the cities a greater chance of survival?
vdupras
american: you're the historical quirk!
canadian: no, you're the historical quirk!
native american: you're both historical twerps.
Animats
This isn't using government employees for non-combat tasks to free up troops. It's more like the WWII Home Guard in the UK.
"Federal and provincial employees would be given a one-week training course in how to handle firearms, drive trucks and fly drones...The public servants would be inducted into the Supplementary Reserve, which is currently made up of inactive or retired members of the Canadian Forces who are willing to return to duty if called."
This sort of thing is usually a desperation measure in wartime. What threat does Canada see? US ICE goon squads crossing the border into Canada? Building up the regular military reserves is more normal. Further down, the article says that's happening.
A better use for a Home Guard of government employees would be civil defense. What to do when power goes out, food distribution breaks down, or gas deliveries cease.
I worked at a company once and we were acquired. They fired everyone but the folks on my floor. One day I get a call supposedly from HR at the new company (I had no idea who it was). They said they forgot to keep some facilities folks on and they asked if I could do some tasks like ... move garbage and open the door for the mail guy. I had to explain that I had to be on the phone / ready to answer my entire shift and so did everyone who wasn't fired ... it took them a while to figure out that nobody was going to move trash for them / the scale of what they were asking. They thought we would just chip in and become janitors or something. I'm sure it seemed a reasonable solution for everyone not doing it.
Norway has 40 000 in the Home Guard (Heimevernet) rapid reaction force of volunteer part time soldiers and a further 20 000 reserves. All from a population of about 5.5 million.
Meanwhile Norway was occupied in WWII, and after that spent the next decades next to the Soviet Union, and then Russia. There's clearly been a long standing risk of actual invasion.
Numerous Canadian sites, military and NORAD, were and surely are on first strike lists from the USSR and later Russia.
The largest established combined bi-national military command in the world involves a fair amount of shared risk.
Anyways, doesn't really matter if we're hit directly, we're all dead anyways in a nuclear war.
A large nuclear exchange between great powers (and currently there are 3 great powers, the US, China and Russia) would be followed by the use of conventional military forces. E.g., The US would try to capture and hold major ports of the power or powers that attacked it because holding ports is a very effective way of denying the power the ability to deploy its own conventional forces outside its own territory and the ability to rebuild its nuclear stockpile. Military planners in the power or powers that planned the nuclear strike on the US would know that and consequently would realize that it is essential to slow down the US's recovery from the strike as long as possible.
In summary, if the US ever endures a large nuclear strike, it is very likely that Canada gets nuked, too. Canada's kicking out the US military and declaring the US to be its enemy might cause a minor reduction in intensity of the nuclear attack on Canada, but is very unlikely prevent it altogether.
Yes, Switzerland was able to avoid any attacks from the UK, the US or the USSR during WWII despite sharing a border with Germany, but that was probably near thing. Also, Switzerland was very hard for Germany to invade because of how mountainous it is; in contrast, most of the cities and infra in Southern Canada is separated from the US by nothing but plains. Also, Switzerland invests very heavily in its military capacity, e.g., every Swiss male must do military service, e.g., every bridge in Switzerland is engineered to be easy for Swiss forces to blow up.
Just a back of the napkin calculation showed how silly the idea of any conventional forces surviving a full scale nuclear war. The US had around 5K warheads on ICBMs and SLBMs at the peak of the Cold War. This doesn't even count any nuclear bombs or missiles carried by bombers. Now look at a map and count the Russian cities with a population of over 150k. In 1962 (Cuban Missile Crisis), there were roughly 100 cities in the USSR at that size threshold. In a nuclear exchange, all of them are gone. Multiple times over. And most of those cities housed military forces either in them or nearby. So those are all targeted too. Every seaport, every airport, every dam, every major bridge, all targeted. The idea was to make "the rubble bounce." After a full exchange, neither the US nor the Soviets would have had anything left for a conventional conflict, with the exception of a few units that escaped the blast radius. But there would be no transport for these units, so they'd just die of starvation and disease.
Do you have a source for that? Because that's pretty unbelievable action to take after a full nuclear exchange that leaves every major city and military base in ruins. I'd expect most if not all the US's force-projection power would be gone immediately after a nuclear war. Sure, maybe there'd be aircraft carriers out in the ocean, but with limited ability to resupply, they'd probably lose their effectiveness sooner than later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisky_War
>> The Canadian government issued a declaration in 1986 reaffirming Canadian rights to the waters. The United States refused to recognize the Canadian claim. In 1988 the governments of Canada and the United States signed an agreement, "Arctic Cooperation," that resolved the practical issue without solving the sovereignty questions. Under the law of the sea, ships engaged in transit passage are not permitted to engage in research. The agreement states that all U.S. Coast Guard and Navy vessels are engaged in research, and so would require permission from the Government of Canada to pass through
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Passage
That was resolved in 2022 by dividing Hans Island. Canada now has a land border with Denmark.
It is such a different situation in europe. Helsinki is 100 miles from the russian border with road, highway, and rail connectivity and within reach of most of Russias air power.
Canada has relied greatly on the United States providing a blanket defense guarantee of the continent. The Canadian military is currently operationally worthless across the board, save the cyber domain. There are many reasons for it that I'm not here to list out. However, that does come with grave consequences geopolitically and the Canadian government has been living in the 1900s.
The USA, via Alaska, provides Canada against Russian provocation on the West Coast[0]. This is similar to the near constant probing of NATO states airspace, especially countries near Ukraine [1][2]
The Canadian Navy is severely underfunded (along with the rest of the Canadian Armed forces)[3] with not enough ships to actively patrol and protect it's waters, especially in the North.
The North passages are incredibly important, and will become more important as trade routes. The entirety of the US wanting to buy Greenland is as a part of having an Atlantic outpost to control those shipping lanes. Those trade lanes can be significantly shorter than routes using Suez or Panama canals.
In addition to the trade routes, the US fears a Russian and Chinese alliance because of the access that grants to the North Atlantic. Point blank: Nato cannot build ships anymore, and the PLAN capacity is staggering. This is already independent of CN and RU intelligence probing of the entirety of the west coast.
The world has changed dramatically, and the only thing that really changed in November is that the USA is no longer pretending it can defend the mainland, defend NATO countries, and police shipping lanes on their own. The USA doesn't have the capacity to replace ships, nor do they have the knowledge anymore to do so.
[0] - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-planes-alaska-us-fighter...
[1]- https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_237721.htm
[2]- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Russian_drone_incursion_i...
[3] - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-greenland-panama-canal-wh...
Lets not downplay that fact.
And, if it wasn't a joke, then that's even more of a reason to consider meeting your 2% NATO agreement instead of just phoning it in.
The chance of Canada being invaded didn't change at all in November. The amount of hyperbole about Trump has been utterly astounding, and fears of an Canadian invasion are an instance of that.
And my sense is that actually a fair amount of the bad stuff Trump has done (though definitely not all) is a direct result of the overreactions to him [1], so it's probably best not to overreact.
[1] E.g. Democrats fear and loathe him, so they pursued all kinds of legal actions against him while he was out of office to damage and destroy him. They failed, he got re-elected, and now only in his second term, he's corrupted the Justice Department into a club to attack those very same people.
And even if you don’t, does that look like a safe partner to have as a neighboring country?
So maybe he should'nt've have broken laws. Not give them anything to pursue.
It's not so simple: 1) everybody breaks laws, and 2) in at least one case those laws were stretched and abused in unusual ways to specifically target him (his felony convictions, which unsurprisingly were immediately turned into an electoral attack). I'm not a Trump fan, but I'm not a Democratic partisan either, and I think that prosecution was really, really gross.
The chance of invasion definitely changed then. You think the man is incapable of impulsively ordering the military to invade Canada? Or do you think the military would refuse?
You’re using the language of an abuse victim. Don’t provoke him, maybe if we’re quiet and good he’ll be nice to us. That doesn’t work. You have to get out of the abusive relationship.
The man tried to stay in office past the end of his first term with actions up to and including violence. In any sensible country he would have been thrown in prison at that point. This “don’t overreact, it just makes things worse” attitude is the only reason he’s here to fuck with us again today.
Via the magic of universal male conscription:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Defence_Forces#Conscri...
And of course we don't feel the need quite so acutely as the Finns.
And if you are called up but prefer not to bear arms you can do a civilian service instead.
You are obligated to give your child tools to choose his future if your government is trying to deny him that choice.
In that discussion they are saying that it's unethical to have a child in a country that will draft him unless you prepare him (via learning another language, etc.) to leave as soon as he is 18.
(Just explaining, not putting forth any take on the matter).
If, for example, society sees fit to deprive me of my right to security (for instance, perhaps it deigns to throw me in jail if I defend myself against a home invasion), then society doesn't get to demand I give my life for its security.
In this way, it is society that has broken the contract with me, releasing me of my obligations to defend it. Most people who claim "duty and obligation to society" conveniently forget this is possible. By accident, I'm sure.
In any case I would hope we would reject the notion that you can become a slave and made to die for the state because you allegedly owe them for something they did for you before you were old enough to even wittingly object or agree to it.
TIL The US pays for the defence of Russia and Belarus and Serbia.
I guess it depends on the opposition. The counter is look at the quagmire the US military found itself against insurgent opposition because they were not willing to use the same plays as Russia leveling cities. Israel leveled Gaza with the same mentality.
In a straight up fight the reserves have no chance, but they also have the choice to fight differently. In Ukraine, the Territorial Defence forces have absolutely put in work against regular Russian units. Reserve units can be very useful under the right circumstances.
The American plan was to throw everything we had at Canada, so it was probably a very good plan.
I don't think it would work anymore.
More practically - in the aftermath of the 1812 War, the US and British North America agreed to demilitarize the border. During WWII, this was preventing mobilization in the Great Lakes region, and Canada proposed undoing the treaty. The US diplomat in charge felt the treaty had historical value and should be kept in tact.
So the US-Canadian border is very demilitarized, by design.
But fighting pissed-off indigenous Canadians? I wouldn’t sign up for that part.
None of this is relevant because the US does not want to own Canada.
For the Five Eyes(Canada, US, UK, Australia, NZ) that don’t ever need to worry about conventional invasion, it’s far more about national resilience that relates to national defence.
How does a nation rapidly adapt to warfare that is occurring beneath the threshold of conventional warfare, and in some cases general public detection.
It’s not about fighting future trench warfare, it’s likely more about adaption to disruption to the nation of the electrical grid, logistics systems, and digital platforms.
A contemporary civil defence optimised not to defend against nuclear war but to defend against cyber, informational, psychological, and supply chain warfare.
Less continuity of government(as per Cold awards doctrine), more continuity of economy.
That’s just my 0.02c.
Australia is extremely at risk of conventional invasion, their current independence is a function of alliance to the strongest navy in the Pacific. Without a US that is willing and able to ensure Australia's free access to the surrounding ocean, AU is absolutely unable to deploy enough of their own military to fend of probably even Indonesia, let alone China. The coastline is just far too long, the military assets too few, and the country too depopulated to be able to stop a determined invasion.
Indonesia lacks the force projection capability to even project an expeditionary force into Northern Australia.
Sustaining an expeditionary force into Northern Australia by Indonesia would leave it incredibly vulnerable to air and sea supply chain interdiction.
With first hand professional domain experience, and without arrogance or hubris, an Indonesian invasion of Northern Australia would be disastrous for Indonesia.
China invading Australia would entail a much more capable, but entirely untested, expeditionary force over much longer and far more vulnerable supply chains.
With just FVEY intelligence support and FVEY forces already forward deployed into Australia, the likelihood of China successfully establishing and sustaining a beachhead to break into Australia with a conventional invasion would be similar to that of Indonesia, due to very long and very vulnerable supply chains.
Unless China glassed Australia with nuclear weapons, any attempt by Xi and the CCP's PLAN/PLAAF/PLA to conventionally invade Australia would be a moon shot too far.
China's fleet steaming south would be severely attrited transitting limited maritime traffic route bottlenecks that would be akin to cattle chutes in a slaughter house, while China's own energy/food/raw industrial materials commercial maritime supply chains would be existentially vulnerable.
That's just to Australia's current fleet of Collins class submarines and tanker supported F35s.
Australia's AUKUS nuclear submarine investment will magnify that current independent threat to China's maritime supply chain.
Which is odd, considering this comedic skit is partially true:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cGYQneo-G8
Unconventional attack is far, far more likely. Thus requiring a focus on national resilience and adaptability to crisis.
Yes China has to transit the straits around SEA, but how many Collins does Australia actually currently have available to deny these channels, 1 or 2? Additionally, if this scenario happened and the US was in full turtle-mode, how long do you think AU could sustain those F35s? AUKUS won't deliver actual capability to Australia until maybe 2035 at the earliest, and those subs are too large to feasibly use the channels around Indonesia and Malaysia effectively anyway.
But yes I agree, unconventional attacks are more likely.
It’s happened before, and Australia has used discrete and unconventional means to disrupt it.
RAN could probably surge 3 Collins boats depending on timings of depot level maintenance.
P8 paired with C17/C130 used as arsenal planes to saturate PLAN air defence and F35 hitting hard targets with LRASM would make it a slaughter.
PLAN’s recent live fire exercise in the commercial air corridor between Australia and NZ single handedly justifies increased defence spending for ANZ.
Personally, I think China’s horrible demographic wall it’s about to hit at 100kph combined with a stagnant economy(140+ car makers today that will surely drop to 20 or less by 2035) leaves Xi with plenty of domestic crisis to solve.
The risk is if Xi needs(or needs to create) an external crisis to activate nationalism and deflect away from domestic strike(akin to Argentina-Falklands 1982).
Even Taiwan might be a stretch too far. Xi will need a guaranteed win.
>Ukraine's paratroopers were ordered to withdraw from the city, leaving the city's defense to a few thousand local volunteers armed with rifles, limited anti-tank weapons and no armed vehicles or heavy weaponry.
A lot of military burst capacity is about freeing up soldiers who went through all the training and basic and specialization, but are stuck driving that truck.
The guys and gals who fire bullets are just the sharp point of the spear and all that.
It's also why Russia ballooned their "National Guard" forces even though they cannot be deployed outside Russia; They free up soldiers who can.
One of the most important things for a government in an actual "Oh shit real war" situation that requires significant mobilization is a simple census of "Who has the capability to do what menial job?"
Higher ratios might be needed to project power to outside borders, but for defense within the territory they can be combat effective against many possible forces with small ratios of military side logistics.
Or operate in an domestic environment where you do not have local support.
<cough> Alberta <cough>
HN is so weird sometimes. Like half the users seem to be aggressively ignorant of stuff that's common knowledge in the real world outside the tech industry. Or they expect to be spoon fed information that they could figure out themselves with a little research.
it sounds like basically if the country was ever in a situation dire enough that they were calling on ordinary citizens to help with defense, an ordinary citizen with a week's training would be better than one with no training.
or more cynically: it's a way to make a whole bunch of voters feel like they're involved in the military, to make military spending more palatable to voters.
Maybe it's helpful just for you to understand the way the military is organised: if you are conscripted you should report to this base, you'll sleep here, your commanding officer will be someone from this branch of the armed forces, you'll be in a group of X people sharing Y shifts, etc.
it's not about training somebody with a gun, it's about putting somebody on the list of "never ever give this guy a gun again"
You use your D-grade troops like that for behind the lines security. You use them to check papers at checkpoints, round up dissidents, keep people from taking pot shots at your supply lines, etc, etc, the kind of stuff you don't need expensive professional infantry[1] or even beat cops[2] for.
[1] Who's expensive infantry skills are unessary overkill
[2] Who can play checkpoint thug at the right level, but who have a bunch of needless expensive training put into them regarding laws, evidince, how to conduct a traffic stop, etc, etc, that is unnecessary.
handguns are harder, since you can't brace the stock against your shoulder, but need to learn how to brace with your wrists and arms.
anti-tank weapons a bit harder still, since you need to maneuver properly and have multiple shooters at the same target. Also, I laugh/smirk everytime I see a movie where someone uses a LAW indoors or in an enclosed space/with someone standing behind.
(I'm ignoring grenades; suffice to say it's not as easy to pull the pin with your teeth as you think)
I think the hard part isn't the shooting, but the tactical movement side; L shape ambush or fire formation when under fire, or presence of mind to seek to leapfrog or flank, ability to communicate under pressure instead of just hunkering down or screaming your head off. It gets complicated very fast since there are vastly different tactics used in forest/vegetation versus urban warfare, and choosing the wrong tactic will get you shot fast (think chess openings; choose the wrong one and unless you are an expert - which you will not be with 1 week of training, you will get mated fast).
You'd be surprised how even a small amount of training can make you deadly with a rifle. Combine that with actually having thrown a grenade, been given training in laying of mines etc.
Also, a huge chunk of "the military" is logistics -- the measure of a soldier is not always whether they can snipe someone from afar.
They are significantly less likely to do the correct thing if attacked, but a war isn’t going to just be over in 24 hours either so they can be trained up on the job.
In a high-tech modern warfare, the countries with a fighting force that has higher academic education, higher tech literacy are relatively quick to mobilize and become effective militarily.
Who to obey and simple instructions.
I don't see why Canada in particular needs such a large reserve force. This would jump Canada from number 127 to number 52 in terms of percentage of population in reserves, and bump it up to 17th in terms of absolute reserves size. For a nation with basically zero chance of invasion of its home soil and an extremely low risk of internal conflict, it's hard to imagine a scenario where anywhere near this many reservists would be required.
Clearly the Canadian government doesn't feel the same way. If they tried to conscript they'd quickly find themselves in a civil war (for the same reasons the US would), and one the Canadian capital clearly doesn't believe it'd win given how well it fared defending itself in 2022.
Of course, bureaucrats aren't exactly known for their fighting prowess either. This is mostly a statement that "Toronto/Ottawa doesn't need the rest of the country, it can see to its own defense", and to try and retain/engage the Elbows Up crowd (which, being the only reason the sitting government is in power, is completely understandable).
At this point I have seen many fantastical interpretations of what happened there. I assume popular US media coverage of it was a contributor there.
Not clear at all. One of Trump's demands during this tariff negotiation mess was that Canada isn't spending enough on defense.
So now Canada is finding ways to spend more.
If the US were to seriously entertain the notion of invading its neighbor, 300,000 poorly trained reservists aren't going to seriously change the calculus. Canada is strong per capita but it has a fraction of the absolute population, military strength, and economy of the US. Nearly all of its major population centers are within extremely close proximity with the US border. It's military and economy are both heavily intertwined with the US, regardless of what rhetoric is being thrown around. A reserve force is for freeing up the active military to be used most effectively, defending key chokepoints, launching offensives, and operating complicated equipment, with the reservists doing things like preparing defensive lines, manning low risk areas, and supporting logistics. In a war between the US and Canada, the US would be able to launch large assaults with professional soldiers in multiple places with no natural obstacles over the short distance between their origin and objectives. There would be little for reservists to do to help - there would be no low risk areas to man, no defenses to prepare, very little in the ways of logistics to be concerned with. If Canada had serious concerns about the US invading, its money would be better spent on disentangling its armed forces from the US, acquiring counters to US systems, and establishing defensible positions between its border and major population centers.
If you had told me this last year, but replaced "invading Canada" with "sending armed military forces into cities under false emergency declarations", I would've also agreed. But here we are. Which state wants to be the first to defect and pit it's national guard (half of whom would probably desert) against the US military?
>If Canada had serious concerns about the US invading...
It's best course of action would be the same as any individual preparing for a doomsday scenario: make friends with those around you. If the US invades or even just encroaches on Canada, I wonder if every European country would realize they're next. Canada can't beat the US alone, but it's allies could make it an extremely painful and unpopular war for the American public.
Of course it is. Troops would just be moved to “temporarily” occupy shit we want. (Or move to liberate Alberta.) Hell, you could probably do it with ICE agents.
> Any attempt to do so would trigger a civil war within the US
You’d take up arms against the U.S. because it invaded Canada?
Of course you wouldn’t. Neither would others. It would be brushed way as an another atrocity.
> 300,000 poorly trained reservists aren't going to seriously change the calculus
It’s people you have to shoot through. Hong Kong versus Ukraine. Raises the costs from a low-effort political gambit to a real military campaign.
This comment reminds of one on HN from Kharkiv on the eve of the invasion. If you assume something can’t happen or cannot be opposed, that’s indistinguishable from an invitation for an autocrat.
In a heartbeat. I oppose violence in general, but if forced to choose between fighting an innocent Canadian and fighting someone who has betrayed America's ideals and turned the nation I love into a mockery of itself, it's a very easy choice. Anyone willing to brush such an unjustified invasion away as another atrocity is an enemy of the US.
> Of course it is. Troops would just be moved to “temporarily” occupy shit we want. (Or move to liberate Alberta.) Hell, you could probably do it with ICE agents.
That's not a realistic possibility.
> It’s people you have to shoot through. Hong Kong versus Ukraine. Raises the costs from a low-effort political gambit to a real military campaign.
Canada has a real military of nearly 100,000. They are highly skilled and well equipped with modern weaponry. If you don't consider fighting them to be a real military campaign, shooting through 300,000 desk clerks who don't even have uniforms isn't going to make it one.
> This comment reminds of one on HN from Kharkiv on the eve of the invasion. If you assume something can’t happen or cannot be opposed, that’s indistinguishable from an invitation for an autocrat.
I am not saying it can't happen, indeed I gave a long explanation of how it could; I am saying it won't happen. I'm not saying it can't be opposed, I'm saying this is a bad way to oppose it, and gave my recommendation for how it ought to be opposed.
I respect you for that. I don’t think most Americans would, particularly if their prosperity isn’t threatened (which it wouldn’t immediately be).
> not a realistic possibility
Why? It’s a precedented hybrid war tactic.
> If you don't consider fighting them to be a real military campaign, shooting through 300,000 desk clerks who don't even have uniforms isn't going to make it one
America could occupy plenty of strategically-interesting Canadian territory before it can mobilise. That’s the advantage of reserves. They’re already distributed.
> I'm saying this is a bad way to oppose it
Do you think it’s counterproductive? Or just useless?
What makes you say that?
I could see heavy protests, even violent protests, as it's not something Americans want.
I'm not sure I could envision any semblance of an actual civil war, though, but perhaps I'm underestimating things.
Because the group of men fit to fight such a war would rather rebel against the government than fight a brother war. From lowest recruit to highest general.
A lot of Canadians talk big talk about some sort of insurgency like Iraq, Afghanistan or Vietnam but all those places have borders with other countries that can enable smuggling of supplies to the resistance.
Canada will be blockaded and after a period of cold and hunger the Canadian people will give up.
A possible scenario: Alberta votes for independence, and then applies to join the US - similar trajectory to how Texas went from Mexico to the US via independence, albeit likely much more peacefully
Is this actually going to happen? Probably not. But personally I think it is more likely than all the other farfetched scenarios some people here seem to be taking seriously
I think ideal outcome for her would be for independence to be narrowly defeated-that way she doesn’t have to deal with the headache of trying to actually implement independence, but the narrower the defeat the easier it is to use it to pressure Ottawa to come to the table
Ok, maybe, but then:
> In a war between the US and Canada, the US would be able to launch large assaults with professional soldiers in multiple places with no natural obstacles over the short distance between their origin and objectives.
Given your earlier claim, surely you must believe that if they defied your wisdom and chose this course of action, they wouldn't be able to do this because they would have to devote a substantial fraction of their military capacity to domestic counterinsurgency efforts, leaving far more limited combat power to actually execute the invasion?
That does not follow. First, my scenario for how an invasion of canada would go down fundamentally assumes that the conditions preventing an invasion of canada from happening don't exist. The world where Canada must defend itself from a US invasion is a magical, fictional world where the US has managed to launch an invasion.
Further, successfully invading Canada would not require the full force of the US military, and it is not established that the resources needed for the invasion of Canada would even be the same as those required for fighting domestically, nonetheless that the resources would be required concurrently. The men and materiel necessary for disabling the Canadian armed forces and seizing key territory would in general be useless in a domestic counter-insurgency scenario, and vice versa.
The problem with civil war is not its drain on your military resources, it's that the campaign to regain control over the rebelling regions requires you to inflict destruction on your own people. A victory is inherently pyrrhic, and if you aren't careful you may breed sympathy for the rebellion in even more regions. The US should avoid civil war because it's catastrophically bad, not because it would interfere with the canadian invasion effort.
lol this makes zero impact on that. The Canadian government doesn't even think it's own solder would fight the USA or sadly even run an insurgency. It's the consequence of trying to minimize nationalism and being cultural dominated by the USA for decades.
If the USA wants Canada it gets Canada.
But Mexico using conventional military force to deter America? That's completely absurd.
How many people in the middle east did we blow up or kill? For 20 years. For a supposed outcome we had no chance of ever getting. Multiple presidents even.
The deterrence effect of an occupation didn't stop Russia, did not stop the USA, does not stop someone who believes you can just bomb the occupied lands harder until all resistance is "quiet", and doesn't seem to be stopping China from preparing itself for the occupation of Taiwan.
(IMO they should get some of these things even if there's no chance of the US invading, given how much firepower some of the cartels have.)
Our reserves are at about 40,000. They announced the plan to go to 400,000. 10x the size. It's not so much about any outside fears, it's just meeting our obligations.The fear about Russia or China is unfounded. The problem is that the USA our greatest ally isn't letting us use them as a shield.
>Federal and provincial employees would be given a one-week training course in how to handle firearms, drive trucks and fly drones, according to the directive, signed by Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jennie Carignan
There's only about 300,000 federal employees. Greater on the provincial sides, but Canada isn't that big. Conscription will be necessary to fulfill these numbers
>The public servants would be inducted into the Supplementary Reserve, which is currently made up of inactive or retired members of the Canadian Forces who are willing to return to duty if called.
It says voluntary, but given the very significant % who need to join and be subject to immediate activation. I dont expect many to volunteer. Reserves at least pays you to have this cost. Conscription will be necessary. They are forcing those government employees ultimately.
That dismisses the greatest security threats of the era with a word. Most people in that field think those threats are very well-founded. Should Canada take the risk that everything will be fine?
I don't know much about Canada's current plans and how effective they would be.
In Canada? Oh yes, many serious liberals are advocating ending with usa and becoming an ally with china. About a month ago: https://globalnews.ca/news/11490896/canada-strategic-partner...
Which resulted in the USA suspending all trade talks with Canada the next day.
But over the last decade, the liberals also have ordered various anti-china divestments: https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article...
not to mention: https://electrek.co/2025/10/27/canada-rumored-immently-remov...
Which this 'imminent' factor never happened, but what was imminent was right before this was the announcement of various auto manufacturing moving production out of canada. Not really much to do with china, more of a screw you to the big 3.
China and Canada dont have a free trade agreement. The FIPA agreement is likely to be ended soon as it's possible.
Going from the antagonistic to a major trade deal and changing to chinese alliance would be a bizarre change though.
I’d be immensely happy if the Chinese EV tarries were scrapped. Given how the us has been behaving, why should we support us automakers.
I specifically asked about serious people, not the electorate at large.
>why should we support us automakers
Because the US is Canada's sole defense.
I very much doubt that is true. Unless the Canadian government get's their information only from "truth" social.
How do you get China in that list? Canada would most likely be challenged over their stake in the Arctic and Russia is plainly the greatest threat in that regard, not China. Russia has invested a great deal into arctic exploration and exploitation and pretty clearly sees the region as free real estate up for the taking. America too has a large stake in the Arctic, but has developed comparably fewer arctic capabilities than Russia. For Canada to have any chance of repelling a Russian invasion of their arctic territory would require America to help them, which under present American leadership would be a piss poor position for Canada to be in (not only because Trump has suggested annexing Canada himself, but also because he's said similar about Greenland, underscoring America's own desire to take that same arctic territory.)
Now, I don't doubt that China would also like the Arctic for themselves, but from Canada's perspective, the relative threat of China must be less than that of Russia and America.
While there’s a lot of news and media about trade wars with the USA, the vast majority 85% of it remains under the free trade agreement. China does not even come close to a free and open market for us and their state sponsored corporate espionage is a real and growing danger.
(Only picking this particular nit because, as a Victorian, we constantly live in the shadow of our bigger brother, so I need to shout us out when I can. And I fly out of the flying club that the plane was hijacked from, so it's a story that's particularly close to my heart.)
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/25/donald...
China is strong, their standing army is probably 300 million and if they invaded canada. Our <100,000 CAF will be goners. Since they havent done it, they either dont want to or there's something external to canada protecting it. Either case, an unfounded threat.
>I don't know much about Canada's current plans and how effective they would be.
Ya that original comment about russia/china wasnt a significant part of my post anyway.
This is more about Canada having enough troops to contribute if NATO decides to intervene in a China-Taiwan war.
You may want to check your facts:) The PLA is estimated to be about 3M poeple at the high end of estimates and probably closer to 2.5M people.
Which puts you at 100x too large:)
Having 300 million people and being able to move them across the Pacific Ocean are two very different things.
Yeah, China's building a lot of landing craft. Are those landing craft capable of a 10,000 mile voyage? I doubt it. Does China have a way of loading and launching those ships 100 miles from Canada? I doubt it.
Maybe 1% of that. Also, numbers are important, but so are equipment, training, and leadership.
China has zero modern real world combat experience though. they would get steam rolled in any peer to peer or near peer conflict imo.
Also, Russia knows how to operate in Arctic, and has real combat experience that none of NATO countries have.
> To think they'd have a shadow of a chance against NATO is a joke.
Which NATO with what army? Do you think Bundeswehr is combat-ready? Is society in any NATO country (except Poland and Finland) ready to fight?
Russians will easily take Baltic countries, for example, is it NATO? Will NATO commit into full scale war with Russia over Estonia? They don't even have guts to block shadow fleet tankers and shoot russian drones over their own territory. Or forget doing something, they can't even stop buying russian oil and gas, because their population will pay more and be upset.
Ukraine stopped them like a bag of teeth would grind teeth of someone who decided to eat them. West is not Ukrainians, even after all these wake-up calls.
One would laugh at all this and ignore them if they didn't have enough functional nukes to cover entire civilization few times over.
Now I am not claiming the above about every russian person, nor attacking their culture or history. Actually history yes, a bit, its pretty sad and explains why they are as they are. They consistently end up with ruling elite who thinks above, maybe apart from Gorbachev (who is despised back home). Don't ever make a mistake of underestimating how fucked up russia as a country is. I keep repeating the same for past 2 decades (as someone coming from country practically enslaved for 4 decades by them) with people mostly laughing it off, apart from last 3 years.
36 stratagems says "Befriend a distant state and strike a neighbouring one"
I personally think that Canada can be our (US) greatest ally, but this is only true in the hard-power sense of the word if Canada does actually meet its defense obligations.
Canada has a huge coastline, directly adjacent to our most significant threats (China & Russia), yet doesn't have a navy to speak of.
We need Canada to step up to its own defense so we can keep being equal allies, otherwise Canada is a de facto protectorate and should pay for that privilege.
Opinion: as an expat, I'm not sure who would join the CAF nowadays. Not much to be proud of in my opinion. Without exaggerating, not a single person I grew up with is doing well, and I had to leave Canada to start my family.
In high-tech warfare we're seeing these days your metaphor is reversed. These artisans (potters etc) are tech engineers, mathematicians, chemists. They are quick to mobilize and become effective (operate drones, robots, cyber, complex machines).
I cannot comment on your opinion of Canada, it's too vague in my opinion.
Generally, western Armed Forces (CAF included) reduced their personnel and spending when the Cold War ended (90s). Rightly so. Since then, war is fought very differently and AF are now very quickly adapting.
Recent conflicts in near/along Levant and near/along the Black Sea, show how effective certain types of warfare are in the current climate.
How can we know that you arent a russian propaganda account, who created a legend that you live outside of Canada, when in reality you never lived there and your lies that "Canada military bad" are just written from Moscow?
What is happening in Canada to cause this?
Well played, Mr. Carney!
* Could this training be practice, before mass military training of most adult citizens?
Can't quite imagine the threat that would cause a need for this in Canada, but sure. Edit: I guess in the north the training would be useful for polar bear defence...
> Could this training be practice, before mass military training of most adult citizens?
Probably not politically viable unless we were invaded (and border conflicts in unpopulated areas don't count). Not logistically viable after the US invades us, and they are the only contender.
Maybe you could manage to make a volunteer based reserve program attractive enough to get a significant fraction of adult citizens? If you could that might be politically viable. I doubt the current government is anywhere near ambitious enough to try.
What is the use of these "professionals"?
I know russians send these substandard soldiers to meat grinder ("infiltration in small groups" tactics). If they're killed with ukrainian FPV drone, it's fine, at least AFU spent a drone. Is it what Canadians are planning to do?
When a wannabe imperialist thinks, he can get something easy, he will take it. If he thinks, there will be unknown risks and costs .. he might not.
Do you have to be a public servant or retired Canadian Forces, or do they take portly middle-aged out of shape software engineers, too? Asking for a friend.
Haven't shot a gun since Bible Camp when I was 12. Could be fun.
And, as much as I'd like to focus on deteriorating Canada/US relations, it's likely a dual purpose. The Ukraine/Russia/NATO situation would be the second factor. OK, a triad, China/US is also on the radar. Whatever the weighting, it's pushed Canada to work on a mobilization framework, because the combined risk is high enough.
Which means "oh shit" feelings are entirely appropriate, panic isn't.
For that to change would require generational shifts in culture and revenue generation and so on. If the US chooses not to defend them, they're exposing themselves to unacceptable risk. If the US chooses to defend, Canada isn't contributing within the same order of magnitude. If the US chose to attack, then more has gone wrong in the world than you could possibly cope with, having a few thousand more tanks, ships, and helicopters isn't going to save the day. It'd take decades to build up population, R&D infrastructure, resources, and so on, and there'd likely be a lot of pressure to not do those things and use the US military industrial complex instead.
Not saying this is good for Canada, btw, just that the reality is they've kinda coasted on US coattails for decades now, and for better or worse, they're stuck. Which should in turn beg the question - if there's no practical or pragmatic point in spending a bunch of money on military preparedness and expansion, then why's that money being spent, and who's getting paid? Why are bureaucrats being militarized, instead of a discrete, well regulated military being created to meet whatever the need was?
Strange politics.
The political faction all bureaucrats in the nation belong to can't find enough soldiers. This is because they treat those soldiers with contempt- no young man wants to die for Ottawa. Plus, the volunteer soldiers that come back from Ukraine are not going to be on Ottawa's side if domestic instability ramped up, but will be familiar with the tools of modern warfare.
Ottawa is currently (and perhaps rightfully) paranoid of a domestic uprising just as much as it is of the US invading. The US is strategically wrecking the economy of Canadian citizens only a few hours away and if those citizens violently insist on suing for peace Ottawa might lose its power forever.
So, you do the next best thing- you take the faction with the political power in Canada (in this case, Ottawa bureaucrats) and tell them that if they want to keep their privileges, they must join the reserve.
The fact that if any nation decided to actually attack they'd instantly flee (bureaucrats are not known for their courage under fire; that's why they're bureaucrats!) is a problem for future them. What matters is that, to fuel the jingoism fire long enough to keep the bureaucrat faction in power, they need to be seen to be doing something, and this is that something.
I respect regular Canadians quite a lot, but damn, Canadian government officials seem like a social experiment in how far you can push people before they blow up in your face.
Degens from up north indeed.
As an eye-popping number that illustrates this, just the backlog of new foreign weapon sales awaiting approvals in the US is almost $1T on its own. Countries are spending tremendous amounts of money on advanced weapons right now.
It is in the process of spending vast amounts of money to remove guns from legal gun owners that are subject to absolutely amazing amounts of oversight already.
In my short experience in public service, I met a great number of people who were not in lockstep with the so-called "values they try to force" (i.e. the political plans of the current government), so it seems they're not doing a great job of "forcing" those values if that's the plan.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/rcmp-caf-charges-terrorism-...
The general response to this was amazement that the MP or RCMP actually did anything about it, given what occurs within those.
"A peculiar disadvantage attaching to republics...is that in this form of government it must be more difficult for men of ability to attain high position and exercise direct political influence than in the case of monarchies. For always...there is a conspiracy...against such men on the part of all the stupid, the weak, and the commonplace; they look upon such men as their natural enemies, and they are firmly held together by a common fear of them. There is always a numerous host of the stupid and the weak, and in a republican constitution it is easy for them to suppress and exclude the men of ability, so that they may not be flanked by them. They are fifty to one; and here all have equal rights at start.
In a monarchy, on the other hand...talent and intelligence receive a natural advocacy and support from above. In the first place, the position of the monarch himself is much too high and too firm for him to stand in fear of any sort of competition. In the next place, he serves the State more by his will than by his intelligence; for no intelligence could ever be equal to all the demands that would in his case be made upon it. He is therefore compelled to be always availing himself of other men's intelligence."
Arthur Schopenhauer
You would think Trump would be compelled to avail himself with intelligent advisors now that he's a unitary president, but as a flawed human he's more interested in filling roles with loyal gratuitously flattering yes men.
Democracy has serious & potentially fatal flaws, but monarchy is clearly not the answer. I think futarchy is the only glimmer of hope left for sane governance.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/carney-budget-to-slash...
It's like saying that Belgium and the Netherlands, or Spain and Portugal, or Germany and Switzerland are one historical quirk away from being the same countries.
Maybe the US should be part of Canada?
And Europe _absolutely_ should unite under a single government instead of this pseudo national semi-single-currency/market with a vague poorly representative European government designed mostly just to dance around the fact that these small states are stuck on archaic nationalist ideas and can't get along with a unified purpose. The world needs the strength a unified Europe could provide to counteract Russian aggression, the growth of Chinese power, and the crumbling cornerstone of world order the US is going through.
Being offended is strange.
I think you could say this about any of those countries, although Switzerland's mountainous location means that it would always resist being part of a larger polity.
More like it can resist in a more cost effective way and that subjugating them is worth less.
It's definitely possible to intepret this the way Russia speaks about Ukraine - "They shouldn't even be a country *except for a historical quirk", but a charitable interpretation would be more along the lines of "things could have gone slightly differently and we'd be countrymen, but instead we brothers from a different mother (country)".
I mean that's a bit of an exaggeration. Canadians are basically Americans for all practical purpose to the degree you can barely tell them apart. It doesn't help that Canada has lacked any real national identity other then listing the few minor differences between it and the USA for decades.
Why does this even mean? Does national identity even really matter? It's like saying Californians are basically Texans for all practical purpose. Men and women are pretty similar. To suggest that they're so similar they may as well be the same is absolutely condescending.
In the context of this whole article aka getting people to join the military it 100% matters. Do you think people are going to fight and die for a concept they don't care about?
As a Canadian, why would it be condescending to suggest that at some point in the distant past, Canada and the U.S. could have been a single country had history played out slightly differently? There is nothing offensive about it, if anything the fact that it's a claim about a historical matter only highlights how the two countries have evolved separately and independently.
Furthermore your other points are kind of bizzare. Spain and Portugal could absolutely have been a single country, and in fact they were under the Iberian Union. There are numerous other instances where the two countries came close to unifying.
The historical possibility of a unified Belgium and the Netherlands is even stronger since those two countries had been unified twice.
Germany and Switzerland however is a long shot, but at any rate I don't think anyone from Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain or Portugal would take offense or find it condescending that some historical event could have gone differently and reshaped all of Europe... taking offense to that suggestion as a Canadian, even during these times seems overly insecure and I don't think it's a sentiment shared by most of us.
Wars were fought. People died, generations were involved in discourse about national identity and where borders should be drawn.
The US and Canada were both at one point British properties, so by some definitions, we also used to be unified. Then we weren't.
Is it insecure? Maybe. The reality is that in a shooting war, we wouldn't last very long against the US, in all likelihood. Under these conditions, the least I can do is to push back against rhetoric that undermines our legitimacy as our own country.
Essentially we are even closer than many people think in terms of history, but Canadian identity was seeded from the beginning with the idea of rejecting being "American". We are indeed your closest brothers and sisters because of history, but it's no quirk at all that we're separate -- it's the entire reason we stayed separate at all.
You can also see the reverse play out -- what would become Alberta was settled by large numbers of American colonists moving to Canada, and to this day you can see the cultural impact of that in the politics and world view from the region.
It is not a surprise that region can't find anyone else (in the rest of the economic zone over which it claims dominion) willing to die for its interests, especially when their interests have been revealed to be nothing but "loot the rest of the nation".
Toronto/Ottawa/Montreal, demonstrably, cannot do that.
Which of the two strategies do you think give the cities a greater chance of survival?
canadian: no, you're the historical quirk!
native american: you're both historical twerps.
"Federal and provincial employees would be given a one-week training course in how to handle firearms, drive trucks and fly drones...The public servants would be inducted into the Supplementary Reserve, which is currently made up of inactive or retired members of the Canadian Forces who are willing to return to duty if called."
This sort of thing is usually a desperation measure in wartime. What threat does Canada see? US ICE goon squads crossing the border into Canada? Building up the regular military reserves is more normal. Further down, the article says that's happening.
A better use for a Home Guard of government employees would be civil defense. What to do when power goes out, food distribution breaks down, or gas deliveries cease.