Keep in mind, the americans have already invaded Canada in the 1800s. They remember, nearly all americans don't.
As I recall, as would most Americans, we invaded Canada as part of the War of 1812 with the UK. Earlier, as I recall, we had invaded Canada during the Revolutionary War in part to get them to join in our rebellion, but no joy.
What surprised me was learning about the
Fenian Raids (1866-1871), which I learned about while researching Wikipedia about the name of a popular local Irish band,
The Fenians (one of whose songs had also made us aware of the
Saint Patrick's Battalion Los Sanpatricios, Irish US soldiers during the
Mexican-American War who defected and fought for Mexico; we visited a memorial to them in Mexico City).
Irish soldiers on both sides of the Civil War banded together after the war to turn their military training and experience to carry on the fight for the Irish cause by invading Canada, then part of British North America:
Wikipedia: Fenian Raids:
The Fenian raids were a series of incursions carried out by the Fenian Brotherhood, an Irish republican organization based in the United States, on military fortifications, customs posts and other targets in Canada (then part of British North America) in 1866, and again from 1870 to 1871. A number of separate incursions by the Fenian Brotherhood into Canada were undertaken to bring pressure on the British government to withdraw from Ireland, although none of these raids achieved their aims.
In Canada, the incursions divided its burgeoning Irish-Canadian population, many of whom were torn between loyalty to their new home and sympathy for the aims of the Fenians. Protestant Irish immigrants were generally loyal to the British and fought with the pro-Union Orange Order against the Fenians.
While authorities in the United States arrested the men and confiscated the arms of the Fenian Brotherhood, there was speculation that some in the U.S. government ignored the preparations undertaken by the Fenians due to anger over British assistance to the Confederacy during the American Civil War. The Fenian raids were one of the factors that led to Canadian Confederation, as the provinces united to face the threat of invasions.
Of course, we never heard of that in American history class, but a Canadian friend at church (UU) told me that they most definitely learned about it in their schools. From the quote above, I would think part of the reason it's covered is much like why we cover the Boston Tea Party and the Boston Massacre in our schools, because the Fenian Raids were a factor in the formation of Canada as a country.
I would note that an acquaintance who had spent some time living and working in Canada told me that Canadians celebrate St. Patrick's Day by wearing
orange.
So Canada's history features invasions from the south, from
us, so current affairs must look to Canadians a lot like history repeating itself.
There's also "Case Red", which I read about in
GAMING THE INTERWAR: HOW NAVAL WAR COLLEGE WARGAMES TILTED THE PLAYING FIELD FOR THE U.S. NAVY DURING WORLD WAR II, a thesis by a student at the Naval War College.
War gaming has a long history at the Naval War College (NWC) where naval officers training for command at sea can develop their skills starting with tactical level "The Duel" between ships up to running extensive campaigns. Much of the actual Pacific War, such as "island hopping", had been worked out on the floor of NWC's Luce Hall. A similar story is how the
Western Approaches Tactical Unit (WATU) used war gaming to determine how the German U-boats were attacking convoys and to develop tactics to fight them -- lots of YouTube content tells their story.
The point I'm getting to from that thesis is that the NWC games after WWI started with the opponent being the UK ("Red"), the reasons being that 1) the British Navy was the most powerful navy so they'd be good to practice against and 2) at the time a conflict of national goals with the UK was possible. From another source (TV war documentary) described that we were ill-prepared to fight the German Navy because all our planning in the Atlantic had been against the British. A few years into the Interwar Period our war gaming attention shifted from "Red" to "Orange" (Japan).
At the same time, US Army gaming was directed northward to Canada (pp 23-24):
quote:
Despite British parity, pacifism, and the rising threat of Japan, Army planners pushed for the establishment of War Plan Red in 1930. With limited input from the Navy, who had started to look more towards possible Japanese aggression, the Army saw conflict against Great Britain as a land war in Canada (Crimson). To support this supposed war, the Army delegated security of the sea lines of communication between Great Britain and Halifax, far to the east of American possessions, to the Navy, with secondary goals to capture Jamaica, the Bahamas, and Bermuda to appease naval desires for Caribbean bases. American land forces would perform the decisive engagements, seizing as much of Canada as possible, and naval forces would defeat the relieving force as it sailed with the Royal Navy, as it had been wargamed by the NWC. In War Plan Red the United States had a contingency for dealing with a threat from the east.
We should keep in mind that the military develops war plans for the purpose of preparation, not because we're intending to actually attack those countries. Rather, it's so that when problems do develop we aren't caught unprepared, but rather can take immediate action -- in contrast in Dec 1941 when Japan had seized large parts of the West Pacific our government was scrambling trying to figure out what natural resources we no longer had access to.
I have to wonder how much of Trump's "sudden" aspirations for expansion stems from our library of war plans. Remember his question the first time around (from memory): "What's the good of nuclear weapons if we don't use them?" We can only look towards the next hurricane season with great trepidation.
BTW, war gaming is not just for the military, but also for economic and diplomatic planning. Refer to the documentary,
War Game (2024), about a simulation in which American officials deal with a coup after a disputed election (eg, Alexander Vindman, Steve Bullock, Wesley Clark, Heidi Heitkamp, Doug Jones, Bill Kristol).
Obviously, other countries do the same kind of planning. Without a doubt, our allies (becoming former allies) have developed their own plans for how to handle the defection of the USA to the Axis of Evil.
Elbows up!
Edited by dwise1, : added link to the PDF of the NWC thesis I cite
Edited by dwise1, : Clarified description of "War Game" (2024)
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