National militaries and defense planners have plans for everything. Or, at least, they should. A few years back, I remember the legacy media went into palpitations and rushed for their fainting couches at the revelation that the Pentagon had plans to invade Iran. Well, that's what the Pentagon does; at the time, I wrote (somewhere) that it would not be in the least surprising if, in the bottom drawer of some dusty file cabinet in the Pentagon's sixth sub-basement, there wasn't an ancient plan to invade Canada. That's what these people do; they make plans for every eventuality so that, when a conflict starts, the people who are doing the fighting can round-file the plans and do things the way the United States military always has done: By winging it.
But, yeah, we have plans. And now, Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney has his people making plans of their own — to counter an invasion by the United States.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney says he prepared for the "extreme tail risk" that the U.S. would invade Canada amid recent trade tensions.
Carney made the statement in an interview with The New York Times published Wednesday, saying he weighed the possibility after President Donald Trump began referring to Canada as the 51st state.
"I think you have a responsibility in these roles to look at extreme tail risk. That’s just risk management. That’s not a base case," Carney told the Times, arguing that "it would be irresponsible not to."
Well, admittedly, he has a point. Every country has a responsibility to plan for every possibility, even a nation that has shared a 3,000+ plus mile demilitarized border with another nation for over 200 years without a single significant incident, something unheard of in human history. And, he's right in pointing out that this is the lowest of low-risk possibilities.
But honestly, what kind of a plan does PM Carney think Canada can come up with? A brief comparison is revealing:
The USA has 1,395,000 active military members, give or take. Canada: 72,000. The USA has 806,700 in reserve status. Canada: 29,100.
The USA has 2,956 combat aircraft, including 1,800 fighters, 147 bombers, and 5,442 helicopters. Canada has 92 combat aircraft, including 76 fighter and 146 helicopters.
The USA has 4,640 main battle tanks. Granted, many of our tanks are overseas. But Canada only has 74 tanks. The USA also has 20,000+ armored fighting vehicles to Canada's 1,500+.
There's a similar balance in naval forces as well, with the USA having 233 naval vessels total, to Canada's 33. That includes the USA's 64 submarines and 11 aircraft carriers, to Canada's 4 submarines and no aircraft carriers.
The best plan Canada may have if, in the wildly unlikely chance that the United States invades, an event for which the probability is so low that one would have to have a doctorate in quantum mechanics to understand it, they would be steamrollered by the United States in about sixteen seconds. The best bet Canada might have would be to spread maple syrup to slow our forces down, then distract our fighting men with a hail of poutine and back bacon sandwiches. That might give Canada's political leadership the chance to flee the country.
Yes, every nation's military should have a plan for any given eventuality. But in this case, Canada may as well not bother. As for Mark Carney: Take off, you hoser.
Editor's Note: Thanks to President Trump and War Secretary Pete Hegseth's leadership, the warrior ethos is coming back to America's military, even with the possibility of facing mighty Canada.
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