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.
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.
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.
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.
They're also staring down a demographic crash, soon (10 - 15% drop with 25% of the remaining polution over 65).
They are basically at their peak right now.
That is Trump's big lie, but it has no basis in reality. This was the cornerstone of Trump's whole pressure agenda on China, and it imploded quickly when the Chinese indicated "We don't care about the American market, trade is only 5% of our GDP, and we have lots of trading partners."
> They're also staring down a demographic crash, soon (10 - 15% drop with 25% of the remaining polution over 65).
Investments in AI and automation make that iffy, investments that, beyond AI, the USA is not making.
> They are basically at their peak right now.
That is the core of Trump's big lie on China, and again, has no basis in reality.
I wonder how much economic power matters when you have to shut down half the construction and manufacturing of a nation because there aren't enough fasteners to go around.
I feel nothing but disappointment from how far the quality of American rhetoric has fallen.
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.
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.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/25/donald...
China ransacked and then sank Nortel.
(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.)
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.
Now, however unlikely you think Russia is to actually start some kinetic shit in the Arctic, I think you're crazy to rate their threat lower than China. China being richer, more disciplined and less dumb only makes the relative threat to Canada even smaller. Russia, being relatively dumb, undisciplined, poor and increasingly reliant on oil exports to prop up their economy makes the probability of Russia daring to start shit higher, not lower.
Edit: Some of you obviously don't take this seriously, so here's a question for any of you. If Russia announces they are going to be drilling oil in arctic waters that are nominally Canada's, and declares their annexation of this territory a fiat accompli, what is Canada's move? Demand help from their NATO allies, which may or may not include America? What if America declines and demands the mineral rights to Canadian territory in exchange for chasing Russia off Canada's sea floor? Canada sure as hell can't fight Russia under the ice cap themselves. Without a credible military response of their, Canada must count on having reliable and powerful allies. Russia's desire and motive are clear, they want the arctic oil. China is dangerous in their own way, the PLAN is very dangerous, but if they're going to start shit it will be over Taiwan and if it involves anybody else it will probably be the USN and maybe the JSDF, not Canada. The real threat the PRC poses to Canada is subversion of the Canadian political system, buying and bribing their way through getting anything they want from Canada. And that's not the kind of threat you can counter with military spending.
Canada is already a substantial component of NATO anti-submarine warfare. Canada is involved in patrolling and has sea and air resources to do just that, and is in the process to acquire more ships for that role.
Canada has about 18 maritime patrol aircraft, while USA has about 60, mostly in the coast guard, and that depends on tasking (some are listed as search and rescue which isn't the same) and the capability to drastically increase that amount by refitting/sacrificing our huge fleet of transport aircraft.
You may have consumed some propaganda. Canada's military forces are well respected everywhere they have ever been deployed. In WW2 they were considered horrifically brutal to german soldiers and treated as a serious threat. In the GWOT, their technical competence and marksmanship was admired. They have a formidable air force, that would be effective at blunting Russian aerial incursions. Canada has spent more effort and resources building up Arctic capability than the US has.
Canada's biggest military difficulties have been weirdly inefficient procurement. They waffle back and forth on stuff that needs commitments.
> If Russia announces they are going to be drilling oil in arctic waters that are nominally Canada's, and declares their annexation of this territory a fiat accompli, what is Canada's move?
Russia does not have the power projection necessary to accomplish this. Canada alone could prevent this. How do they protect their drilling infrastructure on Canada's border when they cannot protect their infrastructure all over their country? How do they protect their oil in shipment from Canadian raids? Russia is so low on some capabilities that they cannot defend against air attack. Russia barely had power projection to do those things when it was the USSR and was actively managing and manning a real fleet. Their blue water navy is in shambles. Their flagship on the black sea was killed by (supposedly) two anti-ship missiles despite having a multilayered Anti-missile defense system that should have been perfectly effective against such a threat. Such systems were always considered worthy in the cold war. That means either those systems don't work as advertised, those systems have a serious and known vulnerability that makes them useless, or the flagship of a Russian fleet was in an active war zone with most of it's systems degraded or nonfunctional. That's pretty horrifying.
The biggest lesson people should take from the Russia Ukraine thing is that things don't have to make sense. Sometimes hundreds of thousands die because a few people in a few places were utter morons and did irrational things and everyone just awkwardly stood by and let it happen.
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.
Maybe 1% of that. Also, numbers are important, but so are equipment, training, and leadership.
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.
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.
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:)
China has zero modern real world combat experience though. they would get steam rolled in any peer to peer or near peer conflict imo.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
(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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
Your use of "brother" is apt. There's a Ukrainian joke that goes something like:
"A Ukrainian man and a Russian man are walking together. They happen upon a $20 bill on the sidewalk. The Russian man says, 'Let us share it as brothers'. The Ukranian man says 'No, let us share it equally'".
The only realistic scenario I can think of when your American "brothers" would go to war across the border is if the Canadian government commences war against its own population. Then I could see the US government intervening, or US fighters independent from the government taking sides in Canada.
The problem is that most people think of these scenarios as something that happens overnight, when in reality consent is manufactured over time. There's a reason you don't microwave a frog.
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.
Then simply marched back home and said “stop being so stupid.”
About 85% of all Canadian militiamen remained at home when called up in 1812. In 1812 and 1813, British regulars and Indigenous warriors (from both the U.S. and Canada) invaded Michigan and Ohio, but didn't get any further than that before the U.S. counter-attacked.
A trade blockade would have massive effects, but I'm not sure cold and hunger are the top of the list.
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.
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.
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?
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
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.
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.
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
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.
That was resolved in 2022 by dividing Hans Island. Canada now has a land border with Denmark.
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.
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.
Contrary to what many many chatterers on the internet say, "nuked to oblivion" is not a thing. A nuclear strikes with many thousands of strategic nuclear weapons against a country as large as the US, Russia or China temporarily degrades the country's economic and military capacity, then it bounces back. It is difficult to predict how quickly it bounces back, but it will not take multiple decades.
I never claimed it is realistic for the US to hold Chinese ports in 2025. The expert I heard talk about it was talking many years ago -- 15 or 20 years ago. I figure that if it was true of China 15 or 20 years ago, it is true of Russia today.
That sounds like a dumb plan on its face, because the evacuations could not possibly be hidden and would totally give the whole "we're about to launch a first strike" plan away.
> Then after waiting for the fallout to subside (e.g., waiting 3 weeks) the people leave their fallout shelters in the countryside and start rebuilding the cities.
And this was a plan for the USSR to come out ahead? Their now-homeless population rebuilding their wrecked cities and the wrecked cities of Eastern and Western Europe?
Did they build enough fallout shelters in the countryside to accommodate their entire urban population for this plan? If they did, I'd like to see the proof.
It wouldn't be clear of the fallout before it ran out of fuel.
Or all the bursts in the territory earmarked for invasion were air bursts while some of NATO's air bases outside the invasion area get hit with ground bursts (to maximize destruction of the runways).
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.
Anyways, doesn't really matter if we're hit directly, we're all dead anyways in a nuclear war.
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.
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.
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?
If I had the exact same life but I had billions of dollars? I wouldn’t worry about it at all.
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.
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?
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?
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.
Because as I already said
>> He managed to stall the others
And even if you don’t, does that look like a safe partner to have as a neighboring country?
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.
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.
Their national anthem is about a battle in that war.
Calling them jokes is just a lie, retroactively trying to make it better.
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.
Why does your president keep saying the opposite?
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.
Via the magic of universal male conscription:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Defence_Forces#Conscri...
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).
(I do agree with what you are trying to say though)
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.
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.
There's a very strong impulse in American society to say that, no matter what situation you find yourself in, there must be a path out of it that doesn't involve doing anything wrong.
If you start with that premise, it's easy to prove that it's impossible to have conflicting duties.
I think this viewpoint is insane, but it's common anyway.
Your enemy is whoever is willing to sacrifice you for their goals, both offensive and defensive. Flags don't matter.
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.
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.
TIL The US pays for the defence of Russia and Belarus and Serbia.
"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.
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.
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.
I do competitive bullseye rifle, and I've done some basic marksmanship coaching. That's about what I'd expect for maybe 6-12 hours of total training on a rifle for someone with zero prior experience with guns.
The basics of rifles is very, very simple. In competition world we just get overly focused on stuff that doesn't matter - our benchmark is like 10/10 shots at 400 yards in an 8" circle. For someone getting basic instructions, 5/10 shots at 400 yards in a 16" circle is probably fine, and that is an order of magnitude easier to teach.
It took me like 3 hours from zero experience to get to that, and another 300+ hours to get to competitively decent at prone (I might be good now but I'm not particularly skilled so it took me a lot of practice). And we're not going to talk about standing because in the competition world what we do is so far removed from reality that it's not worth talking about in this context lol. Someone with run&gun experience can talk about that, I don't know anything about that.
If we're nitpicking, I'm talking about lying in the dirt in a big empty field, not sitting at a bench.
The fighting helped blunt the PVA Spring Offensive and the actions of the 2 PPCLI and 3 RAR at Kapyong were critical in preventing a breakthrough against the UN central front, the encirclement of US forces in Korea, which were at that point in general retreat, and ultimately, the capture of Seoul.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kapyong#Canadian_2_P...
This may be true but we want any adversary to think that we will! We at least ought to be all able and willing to do so. I hope our generals and military command know better but I want them to have multiple options and I want any adversary to have to think twice before breaching our shores.
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"
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?"
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's not obvious to me that the Army won't do whatever it wants with you once you've taken the shilling. I was interested so asked Gemini, so subject to the usual LLM caveats, here's the reply:
"It is possible to join the U.S. Army and be guaranteed a position as a truck driver, provided you meet all the qualifications.
This guarantee is part of the enlistment contract. The specific job you're asking about is known as MOS 88M, or Motor Transport Operator.
[...]
What "Guaranteed" Means
When you have 88M in your contract, the Army guarantees you a slot at the Advanced Individual Training (AIT) for that job.
You will first complete Basic Combat Training (BCT), which is about 10 weeks.
After graduating from BCT, you will go to 88M AIT, which is approximately 7 weeks long, located at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.
During AIT, you will be trained to operate and maintain the Army's fleet of vehicles, including Humvees, light/medium/heavy trucks, and tractor-trailers.
The guarantee is for the training. You must successfully pass both BCT and 88M AIT to officially become a Motor Transport Operator."
(I think this is right, I've heard conflicting info about what recruiters can promise you)
If they are official military, then the truck driver HAS been through Basic and knows the absolute minimum of combat.
You don't have to trust me, this is literally what tons of women did during WW2 in most countries (except germany, who used slavery). Betty White and Bea Arthur both signed up for service as literal truck drivers. In fact, they both worked as truck drivers in different services set up to recruit women to replace men in non-combat roles to free them up for other service. Bea Arthur even went through some form of "Boot camp".
The UK used women heavily, especially in things like running the logistics of the air war. WRNS even did activities like fly transport planes and shuttle fighter aircraft around.
>In December 1941, Parliament passed the National Service Act, which called up unmarried women between 20 and 30 years old to join one of the auxiliary services.... by 1943 about nine out of ten women were taking an active part in the war effort.
The US uses a lot of civilian contractors for logistics, and that is the same idea. However, if the US ever deals with real, serious industrialized warfare again, I would bet on those civilian contractors being consumed by the military.
The US Women's Army Corps alone had 80k women serving, so not exactly millions, but it was a significant effort.
So not only is it the norm for a serious war to often push leadership to free up people doing non-combat duties by replacing them with people "not fit" for combat, it literally went to the extent that in WW2 we pretended to ignore sexism to make it happen and literal women were put in harms way and other "not technically front line combat but in danger of taking fire" roles.
> Like half the users seem to be aggressively ignorant of stuff that's common knowledge in the real world outside the tech industry.
Seriously agree though. That's not a slight, or a "take that", it's a real problem for HN. Tons of people here think they are smarter than average for choosing to browse orange reddit.
Even without a written guarantee, in volunteer forces the senior officers will generally get rid of new recruits who decide they don't want to be there instead of forcing them into a different job. Especially for the combat jobs where even training can be deadly. Better to give them discharge papers and GTFO rather than wasting money training someone who's going to be a poor performer with constant morale and discipline problems.
(Of course if there's ever another world war and conscription is reinstated then the rules will go out the window. But that's not what we're discussing here.)
Recruiters are known to have quotas and push hard. You think your average US Army Recruit manages this morass well?
https://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-jobs/browse-jobs?position...
Even weirder that HN expects the average joe to “get it in writing and check the fine print.” A good number of recruits are not US citizens and may not speak english super well. Some 35k+ active duty and 5k+ added a year for the research inclined.
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>
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.
>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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
Who to obey and simple instructions.
* 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.
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.
What is happening in Canada to cause this?
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?
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.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/carney-budget-to-slash...
Well played, Mr. Carney!
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.
"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.
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.
abrichr•2mo ago