Before that whole treason thing sullied his historical legacy, Benedict Arnold led an invasion force into Canada during the American Revolution. He failed miserably.
In 1839, a cow (American), a pig (Canadian) and a handful of militiamen (American) were injured in the Aroostook War, a short and unofficial conflict between Maine and Canada over a border dispute.
Invading Canada, it seems, is as American as apple pie. The only problem is that we suck at it. Well, traitors and lumberjacks do, anyway. If you want a job done right, you have to go to the big boys, but surely the federal government wouldn’t ever dream of invading friendly, free-trading Canada. Would they?
Turns out, the United States government did have a plan to invade Canada. “Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan – Red” is a 94-page, step-by-step plan to invade, capture and annex the land of maple syrup.
The plan was one of a handful of color-coded war plans developed as strategies for various hypothetical war scenarios by a War Department with too much time on its hands in the 1920s and 30s. In War Plan Red, the government imagined a conflict between the United States and England over international trade, with Canada, still a semi-independent British dominion at the time, as the launching point for English ground attacks.
Plan Red outlines a series of possible campaigns aimed at capturing key ports, cities and railroad lines before British reinforcements could arrive, preventing them from using Canadian resources and infrastructure to their advantage.
While a joint Army-Navy overseas force captured the port city of Halifax, cutting Canada off from the Atlantic, the U.S. Army would attack on three fronts, advancing from North Dakota, Vermont, and the upper Midwest to capture Winnipeg, Montreal and the nickel mines of Ontario, respectively. American forces were also supposed to capture British colonies in the Caribbean to defend the country from an attack from the south.
The Canadian Response
Those wily Canucks were one step ahead of us, though. Colonel James “Buster” Sutherland Brown developed a plan called Defence Scheme No. 1 a full nine years before War Plan Red was drawn up. Buster’s plan called for Canadian troops to attack and occupy Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis and St. Paul and Albany in order to divert American forces to the flanks long enough for English reinforcements to arrive. This isn’t a bad plan considering the Canadian department responsible for war planning had an annual budget of $1,200, and Buster did most of his reconnaissance by driving across the border, taking photos and grabbing free maps at gas stations.
The hypothetical war, of course, never happened. Canada and the United States became allies during World War II, and partners in NATO and NAFTA. Today, the two countries share the world’s longest demilitarized border, which has the world’s largest number of legal crossings. War Plan Red and its color-coded siblings were withdrawn in 1939 and declassified in 1974. They now reside in the National Archives, where foreign spies can photocopy them for 15 cents a page (War Plan Red is online, too). And everyone lived happily ever after.
And those other color plans? Well, here are my favorites:
War Plan Citron: an invasion of Brazil
War Plan Emerald: intervention in Ireland in conjunction with War Plan Red
War Plan Green: war with Mexico in order to establish a pro-American government
War Plan Indigo: an invasion of Iceland (in 1941, parts of the plan were actually used during Battle of the Atlantic when the US relieved British occupation forces)
War Plan Lemon: an invasion of Portugal
War Plan White: plan for dealing with civil disturbances cause by Communist insurgents
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DON’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ – THE US DID INVADE CANADA AND WAS REPULSED. WE NEED TO ELECT RON PAUL – MAKE OUR ARMY STRONG AGAIN TO FINALLY CAPTURE AND ELIMINATE CANADA.
posted by Joe on 1-22-2008 at 7:31 am
That’s a good point, Joe, but they’re such nice people and they clean up after themselves, why eliminate them entirely?
posted by Andie on 1-22-2008 at 8:24 am
DO YOUR RESEARCH ON RON PAUL BEFORE YOU JUMP ON THE BAND WAGON, THIS GUY IS BAD NEWS. AND I’M NOT JUST TALKING ABOUT HIS NEWSLETTER, HE DOES NOT HAVE FREQUENT VISITS WITH REALITY.
posted by Chris on 1-22-2008 at 8:59 am
if we wait until Friday payday, at about 9pm they will all be drunk and easy to subdue.
We will be shorthanded though because of missing recruitment numbers, and because Bush can’t find his ass with both hands in the dark.
posted by jim on 1-22-2008 at 9:30 am
You caught my interest Chris. What’s so bad about him?
posted by Patrick on 1-22-2008 at 10:09 am
I’M PRETTY SURE THAT JOE WAS JOKING, BTW. I GUESS WE CAN ASSUME HE’S NOT, AND YELL AT HIM ANYWAY.
posted by lotyrin on 1-22-2008 at 10:13 am
The problem with the US plan is that today we would have to outsource the work.
posted by Ted on 1-22-2008 at 10:27 am
Heck, we Canadians have been covertly invading your society for years. And the invasion is working. Our spy network has secretly infiltrated every aspect of the U.S. – actors, comedians, musicians. Even the former economic speechwriter for Bush was a Canadian, and, uh, what? Oh I’ve let the cat out of the bag, they’ve come to silence me, ackk, arg, nooooooo….!!!
posted by Anon on 1-22-2008 at 11:32 am
I wonder what color Iraq was?
posted by GTT on 1-22-2008 at 11:50 am
I believe Iraq was War Plan Orange with Purple Polka Dots.
(mostly because nobody could figure out just what color puce was)
posted by Anita on 1-22-2008 at 12:10 pm
puce is actually a deep shade of red.
although, it sounds like it should be a brownish green color eh?
posted by ashley on 1-22-2008 at 11:39 pm
MY CAPSLOCK KEY IS BROKEN. DOES SOMEBODY HAVE A KEYBOARD I COULD BORROW? NO? OK, I’LL JUST KEEP TYPING LIKE I’M YELLING.
posted by joe chris on 1-23-2008 at 11:14 am
Speaking of attempts to invade Canada -
I recently moved from the US to Britain, and taking a British History course here, I’m occasionally amazed by the difference caused by a change of perspective. I swear that in High School American History we spent a good couple of weeks on the War of 1812. In my British History books – no mention of it. None. Totally unimportant, especially in comparison to the wars with revolutionary and Napoleonic France. The White House was burned down, put they don’t even care enough to be arrogant about it. And once again, attempts to invade Canada failed.
posted by bob on 1-23-2008 at 12:07 pm
The Canadians have been secretly working on genetically altering Killer Whales to enable them to live in the fresh water of the Great Lakes….so that they’ll eat the American Navy as it sails across to invade the Canadian side.
posted by Dave on 10-1-2008 at 8:07 pm
@GTT: You’re assuming we had a plan for Iraq.
posted by Wilson on 11-11-2009 at 9:40 am
Of course we did. Not having an exit strategy is not the same thing as not having a plan. Now, if you mean that he’s assuming we had a plan in the 20s, then that’s debatable, yeah. But we’ve been looking at Iraq for a long time – as have lots of countries.
posted by @Wilson on 11-11-2009 at 10:22 am
These are plans we should have if we already dont:Iran,Russia,China,North Korea,Saudi Arabia,Pakistan,Colombia,Venezuela,Cuba,Vietnam,India and Great Britain(just in case)
posted by CJ on 11-11-2009 at 11:26 am
bob,
The war of 1812 was a brief annoyance to the British who were much more focused on fighting Napoleon. Part of the reason for the war was that they didn’t want the US to trade with France and thus help France.
I suspect that part of the reason it’s not discussed much in Britain is that the British navy (the most powerful military force in the world at the time) took some losses that were very hard to swallow.
When you add the fact that the war basically ended in an armistice with no real victor, there’s no real fun in talking about it, is there?
Craig
posted by Craig on 11-11-2009 at 4:52 pm