Ottawa should block Donald Trump’s chosen ambassador to Canada until the U.S. president stops questioning Canada’s sovereignty, says one expert.
“We could potentially use (this) as a way of signalling the seriousness with which the Government of Canada is viewing this unwelcome talk,” said University of Victoria international relations professor Will Greaves.
“It is an overt, aggressive policy that (Trump) seems to be shifting his administration to endorse. And if we are remotely serious as a country, we should regard that as a hostile action and embrace a wider array of tools in our response towards it.”
This issue is that Trump is an unhinged lunatic now in charge of arguably the most powerful military in the world. We would need to be careful how we push back so he doesn’t have an excuse to start an actual war. I once thought that no US President would be dumb enough to pull that trigger, but I am starting to have my doubts.
I don’t think a single unhinged lunatic in all of human history ever suddenly became reasonable because their victims began walking on eggshells. In fact, the opposite happens. Just ask his buddy, Putin.
Trump will do what he wants, no matter what our response is. So, we can tell the world that we will not cave to this madman, and hope that our allies back us up.
Either way, we lose hard by not doing anything or being too light in our response.
And yes, a war is possible - no matter what we do - that’s the unfortunate reality of having a lunatic in charge. We have the support of NATO if it comes to that. Trump will need to decide whether he wants to be dragged around town like Mussolini, or not.
Sadly it’s unlikely you’d get any military support. The ranges involved prohibit anything but an armada of aircraft carriers from doing anything significant in a north-american theater of war. So the few NATO aircraft carriers that aren’t US owned (UK 2, Italy 2, France 1 (3 helicopter carriers)) won’t be able to help you guys out. They (and any troop transports) would be destroyed before they come anywhere close to the US.
It would take many decades for the European half of NATO to develop a military strong enough to take on the US on your side of the atlantic. At that point Canada might be so integrated into the US that the people who’d like us to come help you won’t be enough for us to actually risk it.
The only thing we Europeans could realistically do is completely sanction the US. This of course would likely be the excuse the US eventually uses to lash out physically, which could lead to a world war (possibly the last world war). Europe’s safest move is to just wait it out until the US snaps out of the insanity, or gets more unhinged and starts attacking itself (civil war. Hopefully a non-nuclear one). Then when the US lies in ruins (or the right people win quickly), Canada might be a country again.
All that said, I think an invasion is very unlikely at the moment. If the order to invade Canada went out tomorrow, much of the military would most likely revolt and depose the government. Of course this might change over time as more loyal generals are installed.
The current administration is filled with morons, but I think even they are smart enough to realize they are not yet in a position to do anything but be economically annoying. So if Trump goes full retard and says he’s going to order an invasion, the people around him will stuff him away in an old folks home and let JD take over.
Honestly, this would be the stuff of heros.
And if they don’t outright revolt, then they’ll forever be known as the army that supported another Nazi leadership. They would be a stain on human history for all time.