Canada's response to US threat of war

Two Canadian government officials have told reporters that a secret ‘model’ is being developed to fight a guerrilla war — against the US! Details emerged after a clash between US president Donald Trump and his Canadian counterpart, Prime Minister Mark Carney at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The development is causing a stir in and beyond Canada.

Carney delivered a lofty speech about the ailing global order, and its imminent end, which appeared to have wound up Trump. The US leader, who appeared to back down from the threat of taking Greenland by force, said during his own rambling speech that:

Canada lives because of the United States. Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.

The fact that Canada and the US fought together in Afghanistan tells us how much the world has changed.

The unnamed Canadian officials were quoted in the Globe and Mail — Canada’s leading liberal paper — as saying that its government had:

modelled a hypothetical U.S. military invasion of Canada and the country’s potential response, which includes tactics similar to those employed against Russia and later U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan.

The same news outlets underlined the Canadian government’s focus on deterrence:

A military model is a conceptual and theoretical framework, not a military plan, which is an actionable and step-by-step directive for executing operations.

An insurgency concept

The Globe and Mail said the officials accept that:

Canada does not have the number of military personnel or the sophisticated equipment needed to fend off a conventional American attack.

This has forced the Canadian military to envision:

unconventional warfare in which small groups of irregular military or armed civilians would resort to ambushes, sabotage, drone warfare or hit-and-run tactics.

The aim of such tactics would be to impose mass casualties on U.S. occupying forces

One official said:

The model includes tactics used by the Afghan mujahedeen in their hit-and-run attacks on Russian soldiers during the 1979-1989 Soviet-Afghan War. These were the same tactics employed by the Taliban in their 20-year war against the U.S. and allied forces that included Canada.

Both countries are founding NATO members.

We’d fight like Ukrainians

A retired Canadian general, David Fraser, said Canada might also use tactics developed by Ukraine, including:

drones and tank-killing weapons like the Ukrainians used against the Russians

A second ex-general named Mike Day said that it was unlikely the US would attack. But added that it had would be very difficult to occupy a country as vast as Canada:

Notwithstanding the size of the American military, however, they do not have the force structure to occupy, let alone control every major urban centre in Canada.

Their only hope would be a Russian-like drive to Kyiv and hope that works and the rest of [the] country capitulates once they seize the seat of power in Ottawa

Day said it was “inconceivable” that Canadians would accept military occupation.

Global breakdown

The overall point is that it is completely wild to be talking about the US invading Canada. It is clear that the global order, as Mark Carney said, is falling part. And it seems to be unravelling at a pace hard to keep up with.

And Trump’s hemispheric ambitions aren’t going away any time soon. US national security journalist Spencer Ackerman wrote an important book titled ‘Reign of Terror’ about how the War on Terror itself destabilised the US and produced Trump. In his latest blog, he said:

The last 36 hours in Davos represent a signal moment in the decline and potential fall of the transatlantic alliance

And he urged that we don’t take Trump’s promise not to attack Greenland at face value. He pointed out Trump’s ramblings about World War Two and Greenland at the World Economic Forum, as well as his recent attack on Venezuela:

Does that sound to you like a crisis defused? Or does it sound instead like he’s building a narrative around which he can escalate the crisis later?

Writing up what Trump says as pure bluster is the optimistic view. Many people made that mistake with Venezuela too. And now kidnapped Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro is in a New York jail. A little cynicism is useful here. It would be an error to occupy Canada, but Trump’s Greenland ambitions are still alive.

Featured image via the Canary