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Some Americans too. Remember, Molotovs are cheap and easy to make.
As someone with an inside line on how the CAF operates, I want to note that none of this is new. Canada has studied asymmetric warfare for as long as Canada has studied warfare. Our forces always train around the assumption that their enemy will have superior numbers and equipment, and they learn how to systematically dismantle a superior opponent. Even when we had to reconfigure a lot of our doctrine for Afghanistan, because we found ourselves on the “superior” side of the asymmetric equation, we were able to adapt very quickly because we knew what to expect from our enemy, and we never stopped looking at everything the Taliban threw at us and thinking “How can we use this?”
Canada’s military has a reputation - in Canada, at any rate - for being slow to adapt, but the reality is that what we have is a slow procurement process. We’re not good at getting new equipment into the field quickly, at least on a large scale. But we are very, very good at getting new strategies and tactics into play quickly. None of this is reactive; we don’t wait until bad shit goes down before figuring this stuff out. We’re constantly looking at what’s happening out in the world and paying attention to how our tactics need to evolve to keep up. We’ve been learning a LOT from Ukraine, and we’ve been developing tactics and strategies that both mirror and build on everything the Ukranians are doing. This is basically a lot of what our soldiers do with their time.
When you study Canadian and US doctrines side by side you really see this difference. Americans always assume they’ll have access to resources like supporting fires, air support, long range weapon systems and so on. They always assume that in a firefight they’ll have superior numbers and firepower. Canadians assume that we won’t have those things, and then figure out strategies and tactics that allow you to be effective anyway. And the US are very hidebound in how they think about training and doctrine. They make changes from the top down, across their entire force. Canadians, on the other hand, institute doctrinal change from the bottom up. We give individual units freedom to experiment, develop new ideas, test things, and filter up what works. Literally, there are budgets set aside for “Fucking around”, more or less. Money that commanders can use to test new theories of combat. When you look at stuff like drone warfare and wonder what we’re doing about that, the answer is “Everything.” If there’s a crazy idea out there, there are at least three platoons in the CAF fucking around with that crazy idea to see if it’s worthwhile.
There’s nothing good about the idea of having to fight the US. Everything about this scenario sucks as much as it is possible for anything to suck. But the CAF have basically been preparing for a fight exactly like this for its entire existence. We’ve almost always been the underdog, and we’ve always punched far, far above our weight in spite of that.
That you for the rundown on this! I’ve always wondered and hoped that this was the case. I really like that they give you the space to be creative and test things out. I would imagine that makes you more nimble out in the field. Able to pivot and not be reliant on orders from above to make decisions.
I’ve worked with the navy quite a bit as a supplier so I totally get the part about procurement! But seriously, fuck March madness. It drives me crazy to see the waste just because your budget might get cut.
What an excellent comment
Uh, we invented ruthlessness. They had the whole world come together and agree that even in war there are things you should not do. Bring it 😎
That was 100 years ago though.
We need to get back in the fucking habit.
If Canada is invaded, by anyone, I’ll do whatever is asked of me.
Good time to get your PAL and ham license!
get your PAL license
What’s sitting on the couch watching TV gonna do? You should rather get a gun and prepare to fight.
I’m not you pal, friend!
I did get my PAL last year.
Good time to stockpile hah
Me too and I’m not Canadian
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“Hey, that snowbank just called me a hoser”
“Did you hear something?”
“No”
"I could have sworn I heard someone say “sorry”
“GET DOWN!”
The maple trees are speaking geese
The trees are shooting pucks
I believe that modern military cannot have a winning fight against guerilla warfare.
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You cannot destroy what you cannot find.
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Guerillas know the terrain and soldiers do not. The military intelligence might, but not the soldiers.
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Guerillas know enemy soldiers locations first buy mere observation.
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Guerilla fighters are a cornered animal. They have one way out, through the invader.
Edit: the only way that a modern military can fight it, is blanket indiscriminate destruction.
blanket indiscriminate destruction
Even that doesn’t work, as shown by the fact that hamas still exists even though nearly every structure in Gaza doesn’t.
I think the Lemmite up thread was referring to indiscriminate destruction of people. A complete genocide. An insurgency can’t exist if there’s no population for it to hide in.
With a few exceptions, we’ve kind of backed off on that for the last seventy years or so. I hope that we keep that up.
Basically, yes. Military theorists have been talking about this for a while. The lessons of Afghanistan and Iraq really demonstrated that it takes a remarkably small percentage of population being actively willing to fight against you in order to make it functionally impossible to pacify a region.
And the thing about Afghanistan and Iraq is that neither of them shared one of the world’s longest land borders with the US. Trying to defeat an insurgency that can, whenever the fuck they want, strike at any part of your country, would be functionally impossible. That’s really the one part of We Stand on Guard that Brian K Vaughan got wrong. The real insurgents would be riding their pickups down to Austin and blowing up hospitals and schools.
How about pipelines and substations? Ports? If they can snuggle a drone in they might even go for something like a refinery. Not sure how the security around oil wells looks but hitting a couple of those might also be worthwhile.
Sure, sowing abject terror is one thing but ideally you also want to make the occupation fiscally unsustainable. America has a bunch of very expensive locations that would fit that part of the equation nicely.
Another twist is how familiar Canadians are with US geography, cities, culture, etc. not to mention being able to culturally camouflage with fairly little effort… as long as we don’t have to say “about”
America is also a conglomeration of 50 different states, with different climates, cultures, and accents. Not hard to just claim to be from Minnesota or something like that. Your average Texan won’t know the difference.
Same could be said for most northern border states, Wisconsin people can sound pretty Canadian at times
Just talk loudly and non stop and you will go undetected down south.
Might not take out schools with kids, that’s uncool. More like poison water reservoirs, trash the electrical grid in 1000’s of places. Train track sabotage is also rather easy. There are so many places in the US where a sniper could do so much damage while staying securely under cover - think semi-remote highways, etc. And once we start playing with small drones in urban areas, there’s all sorts of creative damage we can cause.
History is littered with the graves of people who thought that Canadians wouldn’t do something “uncool.” And lets face it, poisoning water reservoirs and trashing the electrical grid are also going to hurt children.
I’m not advocating for any of this. I’m just predicting the inevitable if the US wants to take it that far.
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You know I heard Robert Evans say something a few weeks ago, and I know he has a bit of a habit of letting his points/jokes overwhelm actual history at times so take it with a grain of salt, he said that a lot of the counter Insurgency tactics used by many modern militaries today were actually developed buy and pioneered by the Rhodesian military. Who famously lost their war against the counterinsurgency. That those tactics have actually never been successful in suppressing a counter Insurgency as we saw with Afghanistan and other places. Thought that was interesting.
So, in another comment in this thread I talked about how Canada is one of the best in the world at counterinsurgency because we’re experts at asymmetric warfare (since we usually have to fight like insurgents in order to be effective). But probably the most important lesson we’ve learned, even as a country that’s really good at this, is that there is basically a hard limit on how effective counterinsurgency can ever be from a military standpoint.
Basically, you cannot militarily suppress an insurgency. Military can play a role sometimes, but ultimately the only way to deal with an insurgent population is to remove their motivation. You have to get them to not want to fight. This lesson is actually better seen in Northern Ireland. It was diplomacy that ended the Troubles (for now), not military force.
The Romans figured this out two millenia ago. That’s why they made such a point of offering citizenship to peoples of conquered nations, and constantly expanded the definition of “Roman” to include those citizens. They knew that the key to absorbing new territory successfully was to make those people want to be Roman in their hearts.
To end a Canadian insurgency successfully, the Americans would have to figure out how to make the entirety of Canada happier being American. And unless they’re about to institute protections for women and minorities, abortion rights, public healthcare, a stronger federal minimum wage, gun safety laws, marginally better consumer and worker protections, and a few other things besides, I don’t think they’ve got any real hope of doing that within the next fifty years.
This, by the way, is exactly why our government should not be throwing any of those things by the wayside in our rush to “strengthen” Canada. The core of a nation’s strength is how much the people of that nation believe in it. And that belief comes from seeing how your life is better for being a part of that society. We need to focus on our Canadian identity, and building up those things that strengthen and protect the people of Canada. Businesses and billionaires don’t fight to protect a country; people do.
Excellent comment overall, with the exception of the Roman history bit that is not accurate. Beyond that one bit, hundred percent agree.
Roman history
Tacitus cites Calgacus, a scottish chief: “To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire, and where they make a desert, they call it peace.” Rome did not win minds first and offer peace after, unless you immediately capitulated. If you didn’t immediately open your gates and submit, they first defeated you militarily, they butchered you and enslaved you. Then they gave your land to their veterans. And yes, several decades later you’d be “pacified”. From Corinth, to Gaul, to Jerusalem, to Dacia, just to name the ones that come to mind. It was not pretty.
And the expansion of Roman citizenship was not part of this process by the way. The first expansion followed the Social War and was only given to latin allies who had not forcefully demanded it. After that it trickled to the various client elites, until the edict of Caracalla, which came after the borders of the empire had been stable for about a century and it was arguably only done to allow the state to expand its tax base.
If that’s what it’s gonna take, I’ll learn.
