War Plan Red: The U.S. Military’s Early Design to Invade Canada
Would Trump update and activate the century-old Army-Navy strategy for conquering America’s northern neighbor?
As far back as 1919 through the ‘30s, the U.S. War Department actively updated its Atlantic Strategic War Plan: color-coded designs for hypothetical wars against different countries. War Plan Red regarded a design of attack against Great Britain. And it began with invading and possessing Canada.
(Princeton Architectural Press map)
Donald Trump’s recent harping about wanting to make Canada the 51st U.S. state has added to the international stir. Today, it led Jeff Stein in his SpyTalk substack column to publish former Washington Post reporter Peter Carlson’s current recount of his 2005 discovery and writing about War Plan Red. He includes his 2005 piece headlined “Raiding the Icebox”, an article with a lighter flair because no one at the time considered a U.S. invasion to be realistic.
Carlson explains the military’s plan of attack:
First, we send a joint Army-Navy overseas force to capture the port city of Halifax, cutting the Canadians off from their British allies.
Then we seize Canadian power plants near Niagara Falls, so they freeze in the dark.
Then the U.S. Army invades on three fronts -- marching from Vermont to take Montreal and Quebec, charging out of North Dakota to grab the railroad center at Winnipeg, and storming out of the Midwest to capture the strategic nickel mines of Ontario.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy seizes the Great Lakes and blockades Canada's Atlantic and Pacific ports.
The attack proceeds from there to final complete possession.
Completing World War III
Today, any U.S. attempt to invade Canada seems unrealistic to experts, both from the historical sense, as well as what such an invasion might ignite internationally.
The Canadian magazine MacLean’s January article “Why America Can’t Conquer Canada” noted the U.S.’s consistent failures at endless war:
Trump’s fantasies of annexation and conquest are nothing more than that. At this point in its history, America has come off of 70 years of failed imperialist adventures, in which it discovered it couldn’t hold onto Afghanistan or Iraq or Vietnam or anywhere else. America’s military position in the world is shrinking rather than expanding. West Africa is kicking out American forces and replacing them with Russians. Niger vacated its American military bases in August. At least one of the reasons that Trump is boasting about his plans for territorial conquest is that the United States, in its current position of radical instability and a complete collapse of national solidarity, has never been less prepared for conflict.
MacLean’s has its point. The U.S. today is even having trouble holding onto itself. And Trump, with his effort at dismantling the federal government and the nation’s constitutional securities from press freedom, to the rule of law, to relationships with allies appears to be assuring destruction.
We’ll note here that Canada is also a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the 32-member military alliance of countries including Europe and the U.S. Any attempt by the U.S. to take over Canada would seem to only assure a final major ignition to World War III, which is in the early stages of taking place with the European support of Ukraine against Russia.
The European Union, as noted in our earlier columns, has already shown it no longer considers the U.S. an ally since the resurrection of Trump and his support of Russia. Europe has already begun forming new international trade agreements excluding the U.S. And expanding its military budgets with the idea of having to take on Russia.
And maybe having to fight America. When Trump began talking of taking possession of Greenland – which is largely under Denmark’s control -- France’s foreign minister offered to send in military troops to support Denmark and Greenland from a Trump takeover effort. Greenland deferred.
But the French foreign minister also publicly stated that, in a recent meeting of European foreign ministers, they all discussed the possibility of military support for Greenland: i.e., America’s traditional allies now are willing to militarily defend against Trump.
With all this going on, can’t you see militaries from the U.S. to Europe to Russia and China updating their strategic war plans, which these days include not only cyber warfare, but the continued proliferation of nuclear weapons?
And no one has more nuclear weapons than the U.S. and Russia, who also lead in international weapons sales. War is big, big business. And it may be the end of us all, including the moneymakers.
Trump keeps talking about making Canada the 51st state. Is he serious? - ABC News (go.com)
Inside the US War Plans to Invade Canada - by Peter Carlson (spytalk.co)
Raiding the Icebox - The Washington Post
Why America Can’t Conquer Canada - Macleans.ca
Gambling on Armageddon • Stimson Center
Is Trump Growing a Military War Against America’s Allies? (substack.com)
Cooperation, the Global Economy, and Endless War (substack.com)
For more about Trump’s fascism and other vital issues, read my book from Parkhurst Brothers Publishers:
This is amazing. Thanks for posting this Roger.
I actually just talked to college students in Ontario last week and their anxiety about relations with the US was deep and sincere. This is all so terrible.