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Comment by bdamm | Hacker News Reader

Canada does have enough nuclear material to dirty-bomb-style wipe out the eastern seaboard of the United States. Canada is the only country that wouldn't need to move their arsenal in order to perform an immediate no-warning military invasion of the United States. This assault may not win anything for Canada, but it would decimate the United States, and so in a game of mutual destruction, Canada has a card.

I've been told by un-citable sources that this is a pillar of Canadian military strategy and the primary reason the United States will not attack Canada.

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Dirty bombs are a pretty empty threat and are a terrible first strike device. They don't "wipe out" anything. They are mostly area denial plan. Nobody would die immediately. The US would be able to fully retaliate with regular nuclear weapons. They wouldn't even need to do that. The USA could defeat the Canadian armed forces in several weeks and then ethnically cleanse the country to make room for all the refugees from the dirty bombed cities.

You'd also wouldn't be able to coat the entire seaboard with enough radiation to be all that dangerous.

If Canada really wanted a nuclear deterrent, it could just build or buy a nuke. Hell the USA would probably give them nukes with the codes. It's done so with other NATO allies in the past.

dirty bombs are totally ineffectual at anything beyond freaking people out per multiple studies. [1] the US wouldnt invade canada because canada is already essentially a client state that rarely doesn't bow to the US, and there is practically no added value in invading compared to the current arrangement. 90% of canada lives within 50 miles of the US border for a reason, and it aint just the weather. whoever told you this has no idea what they're talking about.

[1] https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/f...

I'd be lying if I had a hard time imagining the Canadian military taking on the largest military in the world.

I don't see the US taking over Canada before a World War would break out, however, which I think is a bit more of a realistic mitigating factor.

There also would need to be a motivating factor. US doesn't have any reason to want to take over Canada.

We are one people (other than Quebecois) divided by an arbitrary border. In some sort of nationalist upheaval I could Americans wanting to "reunite" with Canada or something like that.

Or if the midwest grain fields stop yielding enough during a global drought, the USA might turns its eyes to newly thawing land up north.

It would look more like Germany taking over Austria than Germany invading Poland in any case.

By 2021 over a million positions are expected to be vacant as employable candidates opt for positions in the US and Europe. It appears global plans for Canada's destruction are proceeding satisfactorily.

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