Braid: Invading Canada would spark guerrilla fight lasting decades, expert says

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An expert on insurgency says an American military incursion into Canada would be a disaster — for the United States.

A military move by President Donald Trump could eventually destroy America’s worldwide power, says Dr. Aisha Ahmad, an associate professor at the University of Toronto.

Dr. Ahmad has studied insurgencies and visited many conflict zones for more than 20 years. She sees a pattern of resistance that repeats itself every time.

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When a country gets invaded, a growing portion of the people fight back.

Would Canadians do that? You bet we would, Ahmad says. Canadian “niceness” is a myth that would vanish overnight in the face of invasion.

Canadians haven’t been forced to see America as an enemy for nearly 200 years. Many won’t want to consider it now.

But we’re learning to take Trump at his own words. Now he wants to tear up the 1908 treaty that fixed our border.

He told Prime Minister Justin Trudeau he considers the agreement invalid. He’s after land, the Great Lakes and access to rivers.

This is the Putin playbook. Claim that you own territory, then take it.

If Canada doesn’t agree to Trump’s mythical new boundary, the next step is sending troops to secure it.

What happens if fighting begins?

“Looking at the sheer size of the American military, many people might believe that Trump would enjoy an easy victory,” Dr. Ahmad wrote in a widely circulated article.

That analysis is dead wrong, she says, because the result would not be determined by a fight between conventional armies.

“Rather, a military invasion of Canada would trigger a decades-long violent resistance, which would ultimately destroy the United States.

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“Trump is delusional if he believes that 40 million Canadians will passively accept conquest without resistance.

“That decision would set in motion an unstoppable cycle of violence. Even if we imagine a scenario in which the Canadian government unconditionally surrenders, a fight would ensue on the streets.

“Even if one per cent of all resisting Canadians engaged in armed insurrection, that would constitute a 400,000-person insurgency, nearly 10 times the size of the Taliban at the start of the Afghan war.”

She states the obvious fact that Canada’s vast territory would be impossible to cover and control, no matter how many troops the U.S. sent.

Canadian Forces loyalists would likely mobilize civilian recruits into guerrilla groups “that could strike, retreat into the wilderness and blend back into the local communities that support them.”

That’s what happened in the French resistance of the Second World War. The fighters were funded and armed largely by the British and Americans.

We wouldn’t be alone today, Ahmad adds. Commonwealth and European allies could provide money and supplies. America’s many enemies would be encouraged to attack at vulnerable spots elsewhere.

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Other academics point out that despite our high-minded disdain for U.S. gun culture, Canada ranks among the most heavily armed nations in the world, with an estimated 12.7 million weapons in civilian possession.

First Nations alone could give the Americans a shockingly hard time.

“A chronic violent insurrection in North America could financially and militarily pin down the U.S. for decades, ultimately triggering economic and political collapse,” Ahmad says.

This would give Russia and China “an uncontested rise to power.”

Such a struggle would virtually destroy Canada, too, she concludes.

“No one in their right mind would choose this gruesome future over a peaceful and mutually beneficial alliance with a friendly neighbour.”

We’re getting into overheated hypothetical territory here. But Ahmad’s views on insurgency are backed by history.

The Americans were run out of Vietnam and Afghanistan. The heroes’ welcome they expected in Iraq turned into an eight-year military quagmire.

It’s hard to imagine anything like this coming to our soil.

But now there’s a crazed commander-in-chief down south who says it’s not our soil at all.

Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald.

X and Bluesky: @DonBraid

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