Re: [FT][SG][DS] Canada, the US Civil War II, and the structure

Adrian spake thusly upon matters weighty: 

> OK - let's agree on a set of basic assumptions here.	Unless we want
to
> rewrite the complete GZG background, we work with several limitation. 
The
> US has a civil war.  The Canadians and Brits intervene.  They join
together
> and form the NAC.
> 
> Done deal.

Agreed in entirety. If I'm objecting to things, it is in the hope of 
coming up with plausible explanations, not of changing what we have 
to work with.
 
> OK, so we don't go there.  That isn't really the point, though.  The
> Canadian and British forces aren't INVADING the United States - that's
> patently rediculous.	I figured that the Canadians and Brits end up
> fighting A BIT, and those they fight are remnants of one or two of the
> factions that fought the civil war and aren't ready to give up yet. 
Much
> more like what we do in Bosnia (like when the Canadian and French
forces
> fought the Croatians - small battle in the grand scheme of things,
though
> not to the guys on the ground at the time...) than, say, the Gulf War.

Except I think it would be "US forces, with Canadian and British 
reinforcements, engage seperatist elements in Georgia... or 
wherever". That would point to us supporting the US in operations to 
secure their country. 
 
> >> Neither we nor the British have enough troops even with callups to
> >> manage this. Maybe with significant US help. or UN help.
> >
> 
> Hang on a second!  First, this is taking place several decades from
now.
> The Canadians fielded an army of over a million troops, plus the third
> largest Navy, plus the fourth or fifth largest airforce in the Second
World
> War. 

I hate to say it, but NOT RELEVANT. Or not very anyway. The character 
of Canada in the 1930's and 1940's is not the character of Canada 
today. Nor is fielding a force at all the same. And we keep shrinking 
our force despite committing it globally quite often. This is 
unlikely to change as much as your scenario suggests. But I don't 
think that renders history un-explicable, it just requires a more 
moderate eye. 

  What do you think would happen if the US disolved into
> civil war and started tossing nukes around - that we'd sit around for
two
> or three years and hope nothing happens to us, with our three regular
> brigades strung out with one guy every ten kilometres along the border
with
> his snow shoes and a slingshot?

Not that you'd hold a border that way in the modern age anyway since 
we'd be vulnerable to seacost attacks, envelopments on land and in 
the air....

  Come on??  Our military is structured to
> turn into 3 or 4 divisions in four months NOW - what is going to
happen
> over the next three decades?

It is, and it is not. On paper, some of that theory exists. In 
practice, that is not expected to work I believe. We don't have the 
materials chain to make this work - we don't have the stockpiles of 
IFVs, arms, electronics, commo, etc. nor the tranport capabilities to 
make this a reality in that time frame. And our huge surplus of 
officers which is supposed to make this happen are inexperienced (for 
the most part) in large scale operations and we just don't have the 
capabilities of the US Army. In WWII, we bled for two to three years 
including at least one HUGE disaster so we could reach a decent level 
of operational capability. And that was in a shooting war. And the 
level you needed to reach was not as high as the bar today. 

  Is it reasonable to think that we might get a
> government sometime between now and 2020 that, unlike the present one,
> actually knows one end of a rifle from the other?

Umm. Possible? Yes. Likely.... I dunno. We aren't much like that 
here. And even when a Defence Minister writes a good white paper, he 
gets reined in by the all powerful Finance Minister. 

  Second, we aren't
> INVADING the US in the timeline.

Not entirely, although some of what you've wrote intentionally or 
otherwise reads that way (at least to me). Or at least it suggests a 
greater level of capability than I think we can muster. 

  They were going to send a combined force
> of maybe one division into central Africa a year ago to help
distribute aid
> and restore order.  Over an area bigger than Texas with MILLIONS of
> displaced refugees.

And you'll note this did not tranpire. They have contingency plans to 
invade the US I think.... but it won't happen either. And for a 
thousand reasons, not just one. The point is, the military is asked 
many times to plan for a thing and they always do it to the max. Even 
if they never get what they plan for. Plan for a division, and you 
might get two battalions. 

  It isn't always sheer numbers - but how you apply
> those numbers.  You can do a LOT in an area if you are the only guy on
the
> block that is confident, armed to the teeth and well organized.  Like
after
> a years-long civil war.

This is a point that needs brought out more then. 

  Third - IT'S A STORY...

It is. But it's also a colaborative effort to put together a 
semi-plausible NAC.

> However, our total reserves only number around 18,000 nation-wide, I
think.
>  The Canadian reserve structure is designed to be the cadre of a
massive
> callup for a general war in Europe - very Cold-War.

Maybe less so today than a couple of years back. 

.  We were set up with the idea that the
> brigade in Germany would fight initially (and at it's peak in the late
> '70's and early '80's, the Canadian Brigade in Germany regularly won
"Best
> Brigade" in NATO - they were very good), and be immediately reinforced
with
> the other regular brigades shipped over.

Immediately has an interesting context when viewed in light of 
*shipping* stuff across the Atlantic. 

> We've never structured our military for power projection, only
collective
> defense.  Projecting power has never been a national interest.

Which is perhaps some of the point I was getting at. 
 
> Incedentally, on a per-population basis, our military (total about 80
or
> 90,000 including reserves and regulars) equates to a 900,000 strong
> military in the US - given that the US has not quite ten times our
> population.  It isn't that bad if you look at it this way - very
comparable
> to many other countries on a per-population basis.

We have 1 Flag rank officer for every 1,000 men. The nearest NATO 
competitor is somewhere like Belgium with 1 Flag rank for every 
27,000 men.  I think our land forces may be in correct proportion to 
our size (not our spending though...), but the real issue in control 
of Canada and the US is geography. We have too darn much to cover.

> We couldn't do it.  At all.  We'd be completely reliant on US logistic
> support. 

... to assist the US..... do we see the problem here? (I think so)

 When the Canadian government decided to lead a deployment into
> central Africa to help displaced refugees a year or so ago, they
started
> chartering Russian heavy lift transport aircraft.  They were
considering
> hiring Russion RO-RO ships to transport our heavy equipment.	On the
other
> hand, so did the US during the Gulf conflice...

Yes, OTOH, the US has a military airlift command which can at least 
deploy a lot of its RDF to a troublespot. We have a few C-130s. I 
don't think we could deploy even a light brigade and support it. 
 
> We aren't going to fight them.  This isn't about how Canada and
Britain
> would invade the US *today*, it's about how Canada and Britain
intervene in
> the US, after being invited in by the remaining US government (which
> presumably would control much of this force).

The issue here I guess is: The US is beaten down enough it thinks it 
needs help, and we posit that it is beaten down enough from this war 
that it joins the NAC. Yet it is not beaten down enough, and does not 
have powerful enough seperatist groups or enemies that we can't help 
them out effectively. That seems interesting to me. 

 
/************************************************
Thomas Barclay		     
Voice: (613) 831-2018 x 4009
Fax: (613) 831-8255

 "C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot.  C++ makes
 it harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg."
 -Bjarne Stroustrup
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