What if Canada were to invade the US?

Answer 1

The large scale invasion of the United States by Canada, would be impractical by military standards. It is within Canada's military capability to annex Alaska and in an effort to answer your question we will look at that specific scenario. More then likely a preemptive suprise attack would be likely targeting air fields and ports. Since nearly all the ports in Alaska are within air strike distance and a standing navy is not usually present the initial air attack by Canada would focus on airfields. Ensuing land forces would more then likely secure and terminate the oil pipeline and disable and fortify rail and highway access towards Alaska while blostering border fortifications along the continental US. A quick land thrust securing the ports in Alaska and capturing the Captial Juno would be a political target. Navy mobilization from Hawaii by the USA would begin immediately and move to reclaim the ports. The US would not likely engage in a retalitory land strike into Canada but border relations would be tense. It would be a logistical and political nightmare to fully enage along the US\Canada border with conflicts more then likely raging at the Canada \ Alaska border. It would be possible for a retalitory capture of Toronto but that would mearly act as a political bargaining chip. It would be possible for Canada to secure Alaska indefinately (successfully capturing it) but the political fallout would far outweigh any gain of annexxing Alaska. They would be more apt to incite Alaska to cede from the USA and peacefully join Canada in which the political retaliation would be diminished. The capture of Alaska by Canada would more then likely be an espionage\propoganda driven event rather then military. In the event of a full land invasion into the 48 continental states the odds of success are nearly 0%. With the gun laws and infrastucture as they stand in the US the Canadian military simply could not maintain an extended invasion. They literally would run out of ammunition before reaching the Ohio river (Based on a rough calculation of lbs of ammo manufactured and distributed and a conservative lbs of ammo expendded per square mile) and the general weapons and ammunition manufacturing is in the southern part of the USA. The northern front gets fed ammo from the south while the invading army gets progressively further away from their ammunition production facilities. In addition the highways provide civilians high mobility in an insurgence scenario making the simple economics of invading the USA a dangerous proposition leaving the door open not only for rebuking the invaders but following up and counter-attacking leaving Canada with either suing for peace or becoming annexxed themselves. And quite frankly once Canada hit Chicago the Candian Army would have bigger things to worry about then the USA military... Chicago can be a rough town even by military standards... Now if Canada and Mexico were allies and attacked then things get interesting (two fronts), throw in some South American countries and now you have a serious threat. The key would be to secure the coasts so Washington, Oregon, California would be ideal targets for Mexico and the New England coast to Florida would be idea for Canada. Cut across in the south then move up the middle along the Mississippi fanning off from there may work, but no matter what it would take a declariation of surrender from the State Govenors and possible the state's represenatives for the international community to accept Canada\Mexico's conquests if that would ever happen.