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.
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.
I have asserted that one of the Soviet war plans made available to western scholars in the 1990s had a massive attack with conventional forces occur right after a nuclear strike. Are you saying that I am lying or severely mistaken in my interpretation of the news reports I saw about this war plan?
Also, if they ever implemented this plan, they could evacuate their cities and military bases beforehand. You didn't address this factor.
I also disagree that the US strategic nuclear forces could have destroyed all or even the majority (e.g. 75%) of the Soviets' conventional forces even if the Soviets had no advance warning or time to disperse anything into the countryside -- partly because the forces' being dispersed was their standard and routine posture.
But the overwhelming record, both archival and from officers in the Warsaw Pact since the fall of the Berlin Wall was that nuclear weapons were always considered an essential component of attacking the West. Both tactical nukes and chemical weapons were planned for and considered integral for Soviet and Warsaw forces success.
As to your contention that the Soviet conventional forces would have survived in any coherent fashion after SIOP was initiated is wishful thinking. Fortunately, that timeline was never entered.
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.
One Soviet war plan that was made available to Western scholars in the 1990s anticipated this invasion of Northern Europe (with conventional forces) starting immediately after the Soviets make a large nuclear strike on Western Europe. Note that tanks crew are basically immune to nuclear fallout provided they are trained to operate in fallout. Also, fallout is not like Chernobyl: it dissipates very quickly so after 3 weeks soldiers not inside tanks will be able to operate in what were 3 weeks earlier very deadly fallout plumes. (Also, the plumes never cover the entire attacked territory, but only about half of it: its just that it is impossible to predict which half.)
This particular plan avoided any attack on Britain or France (and I presume also the US) to make it less likely that Britain and France will choose to use its nukes on the USSR, but hits West Germany, the low countries and NATO airbases in northern Italy really hard to soften them up for the invasion by tanks. In summary, the plan was to grab territory, then dare NATO to take it back or to nuke the USSR in retaliation (knowing the USSR would probably respond in kind to any nukes France, Britain or the US launch at the USSR).
I've also heard experts other than Friedman say that Soviet planners always believed that a nuclear exchange would be followed by war between conventional forces.
I heard years ago from some expert that if the US ever decided that China must be suppressed as much as possible by military means, it would be foolish to try to capture the whole country (i.e., it is too big and too populous for the US to try to do what it did to Japan at the end of WWII) so capturing and occupying its ports (which of course the Western powers held collectively for decades in the past) would be the likely military goal. I figure the same thing is true of Russia. Note that as long as it has Denmark on its side, the US would not even need to occupy St Petersburg: no ship from St Petersburg is getting into the open ocean if Denmark does not want it to. Ditto Russia's ports on the Black Sea and Turkey. I.e., Russia has geographical constraints that give it even less access to the world ocean than China has. In my mind, in any existential conflict with Russia, it would be natural for the US to try to take away what little unfettered access to the world ocean Russia does have.
> One Soviet war plan that was made available to Western scholars in the 1990s anticipated this invasion of Northern Europe (with conventional forces) starting immediately after the Soviets make a large nuclear strike on Western Europe. Note that tanks crew are basically immune to nuclear fallout provided they are trained to operate in fallout.... This particular plan avoided any attack on Britain or France (and I presume also the US) to make it less likely that Britain and France will choose to use its nukes on the USSR, but hits West Germany, the low countries and NATO airbases in northern Italy really hard to soften them up for the invasion by tanks. In summary, the plan was to grab territory, then dare NATO to take it back or to nuke the USSR in retaliation.
If the USSR nuked non-nuclear NATO, they just assumed their opponents wouldn't retaliate with nukes at all? At a minimum I'd expect the Warsaw Pact countries would have gotten nuked in retaliation. And, IIRC, NATO planners anticipated an attack along these lines, and had nukes lined up to directly target the attacking communist military formations (so those formations wouldn't just be dealing with fallout).
> I heard years ago from some expert that if the US ever decided that China must be suppressed as much as possible by military means, it would be foolish to try to capture the whole country (i.e., it is too big and too populous for the US to try to do what it did to Japan at the end of WWII) so capturing and occupying its ports (which of course the Western powers held collectively for decades in the past) would be the likely military goal.
It's a completely unrealistic goal. If China hasn't been nuked to oblivion, I don't think the US could ever dream to hold its ports against a counterattack (especially given China's rate of modernization and sheer industrial capacity). If China has been nuked to oblivion, the US would almost certainly be wrecked as well, and in no state to send over anyone to hold Chinese ports.
> (which of course the Western powers held collectively for decades in the past)
That was a loooong time ago, when China was basically at a pre-modern technology level and comparatively extremely weak. That's not the case anymore, and China is now arguably the more powerful country (in the ways that matter to such a conflict) than the US.
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
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.
Calling them jokes is just a lie, retroactively trying to make it better.
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.
1) It's the case that was given the most attention by far (and furthered a persecution narrative that probably helped Trump). 2) The existence of other prosecutions does not excuse one that was done selectively and improperly.
What wasn't weird were the other cases that didn't complete before Trump was re-elected and ended them.
He certainly did try to directly ask for votes 'to be found'(the Georgia case), overturn the previous election with Jan6 and his general rhetoric(the DC case), and steal and conceal boxes of classified material (the Florida case)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_prosecution_of_Donald_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_prosecution_of_Donald_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_election_racketeering_...
The prosecution against Hunter Biden, by contrast, was legally uncreative. The federal paperwork for gun purchases asks: “Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?” Biden wrote a book about how he was addicted to drugs during the same time he answered “no” to this question in buying a gun. Lying on a federal form is a felony under 18 USC 1001. It’s a slam dunk, mundane prosecution that required zero creative lawyering.
Pointing to the other cases against Trump doesn’t undo the egregious abuse of the New York criminal prosecution. If even CNN’s legal analyst has to admit that Democrat prosecutors “contorted the law” to prosecute Trump, why should anyone believe their characterizations of the other cases?
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.
Sure one man's campaign finance violations/embezzlement (I can't recall the details) are another man's politically motivated prosecution. That wasn't the only case against the guy though. It was the only case that concluded. Winning the election saved his skin. He was cooked otherwise.
> Sure one man's campaign finance violations/embezzlement (I'm hazy on the specifics) are another man's politically motivated prosecution.
Come on, don't be lazy: it's clear you're totally unfamiliar with the case, and a snowclone dismissal isn't clever. The tl;dr is he was actually guilty of a misdemeanors, which where promoted to felonies through unprecedented prosecutorial maneuvering. And it's pretty clear that maneuvering only happened because the prosecutors wanted to get Trump personally for something, and spend a lot of time looking and strategizing how to do it.
If a prosecutor looked at your conduct that closely, for that long, they could almost certainly nail you (or anyone) for a felony, too. And it's pretty important for a fair and democratic legal system that they don't target individuals like that.
Exactly. There's zero chance that anybody not named Donald Trump would have been prosecuted in the same way for the same circumstances.
> If a prosecutor looked at your conduct that closely, for that long, they could almost certainly nail you (or anyone) for a felony, too. And it's pretty important for a fair and democratic legal system that they don't target individuals like that.
It's unfortunate that America is no exception to "show me the man and I'll show you the crime". One wonders if that had always been the case.
Only criminals think everyone else is a criminal
With jaywalking and driving over the speed limit on one end, and murder on the opposite, you're positive that a motivated prosecutor can't ruin your life?
Everyone does, all the time, without even knowing it. There are so many, and many of them are so broad or vague, that everyone is vulnerable to selective prosecution.
Also, are you telling me you've never broken a law? Never were speeding? Never jaywalked? Never decided you were too drunk to drive, so slept it off in your car?
Lol. You just haven't been scrutinized by government yet.
Also, FYI you're far, far, far better off having real deal criminal prosecutors coming after you trying to get you on a violation of real deal criminal laws because then you have real deal rights with tons of precedent backing them up and literally everyone in the system being trained on how not to violate them lest you get off. If the EPA, your local zoning code enforcer, the parking ticket people, the USDA, etc, etc. come after you you have basically no rights because it's theoretically a civil and not a criminal matter and these organizations are free to unilaterally run their process however unfairly they see fit limited only by what they feel exposes them to risk of politicians trying to reign them in (see also: everyone's complaints with ICE these days). Yeah they can mostly only fine you but if you don't pay (because you dispute) the whole system acts as a ratchet, they lien your house, etc, etc. and you inevitably wind up in court, but with none of the procedural and precedent protection because once again it's non-criminal.
Don't believe me? Try it.
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.
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.