So You Want to Fight Canada? - The Steady State

Canadians can be extraordinarily gracious. But behind the courtesy is a country with formidable national pride, military history and strategic importance. Geography, history, economics and national security all point to the same conclusion: antagonizing Canada is not a display of American strength. It is an exercise in strategic stupidity.

It is difficult to impossible to understand what motivates Donald Trump to do, say, or believe anything. And when it comes to Canada, he demonstrates abysmal ignorance of geography, politics, and situations, and profound unawareness of and staggering lack of curiosity on a regular basis. His continuous dishonesty about the country, its leaders, its economics, and its policies does nothing but demonstrate his fatuity. Trump appears eager to “take on Canada,” maybe to try to incorporate our northern neighbor into the US, maybe to flex his international muscle.

He is picking the wrong fight.

I served in the US Embassy in Canada in the early 2000s. I loved it. The work was great, the people were great, and, once the super in my building fixed my thermostat, even the weather was great. Canada is the second largest country, by land mass, in the world; only Russia, with ten time zones, bordered by three oceans (the Arctic, Atlantic, and Pacific), is larger. Despite Canada’s size, it is home to only .5% of the world’s population. The government is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, and the culture is a very diverse multicultural society with strong indigenous and European roots. Canada is really cold; today, Ottawa is ranked as the seventh coldest capital in the world.

Canada has, historically, enjoyed mostly peaceful relations with the US, and the Canadian and US governments cooperate on a wide range of issues. The relations are generally close and warm. We work together on North American Defense Issues (NORAD), sharing space and information. The National Security Agency of the US also shares workspace with its Canadian counterpart, the Communications Security Establishment. We are close allies within NATO; following 9/11, Canadian Forces sent troops to support the US in Afghanistan, and while Canada did not send military forces into Iraq in 2003, the country provided indirect military support to US operations by sending naval vessels to the Arabian Sea, and Canadian AWACS surveillance planes to assist U.S. fighter jets. During my tenure, in August of 2025, when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police called me to offer their support, and Canadian Forces went on to provide personnel, equipment, and supplies to New Orleans during the hurricane and for months after it ended. We continue to work together “seamlessly,” per the US Embassy and Consulate, across shared maritime boundaries to stop cross-border crime, despite Trump’s assertions to the contrary.

Canada and the US are interdependent. We manage shared river systems and hydropower generation through the Columbia River Treaty and the International Joint Commission, which regulates shared boundary waters and tries to prevent and solve environmental disputes. Canada and the US have integrated supply chains, manufacturing and agricultural exchanges across North America, and Canada supplies crude oil, natural gas, and uranium to the US. The nations operate an integrated electricity grid. All of which seems to encourage Trump in his efforts to subsume the Canadian nation into ours.

On a societal level, Canadian hockey is the national pastime, and skating was certainly a part of what many people did when I served there. In Ottawa, I lived in a building next to the canal, which, in pre-climate change days, froze solid in the winter and was, I think, the largest outside skating rink in the world. When my Canadian counterparts, some pretty senior Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials, learned that I didn’t know how to skate, they made it their business to teach me how. After about two hours of lessons, I could, while on ice skates, stand up, move forward, turn right or left, and sort of hold my own on the canal, which was filled with skaters, shoulder to shoulder, on weekends. Going out of their way to make the resident leader of the US national security community comfortable with their national pastime is just one example of Canadian diplomacy and decency.

The relationship between American and Canadian citizens is also close. The Canadians have their own football (not soccer) league, and Canadian baseball and hockey teams are every bit as popular there as they are in the US. Canadians and US citizens travelled frequently to each other’s countries with no passports required: until January 8, 2007, Americans flying to Canada could use alternative proof of citizenship, such as a government-issued photo ID (like a driver’s license) and a birth certificate, and before June 1, 2009, Americans could cross into Canada on land or sea with those same documents.

Canadians are, in my experience, preternaturally nice. Canadians from all walks of life stepped up to offer all manner of assistance during my entire time there. Officials with whom I worked made sure I understood the details of Canadian national security officialdom. My neighbors included me in gatherings of their friends and families, including invitations to villas in St. Tropez and communities in South Florida. From finding the best hidden cafe in Montreal to Costco in Ontario, to a fabulous view of Lake Louise, to the best warm sweaters in Vancouver, people took the time and made the effort to help if I found myself looking (and being) uncertain in any circumstance.

HOWEVER…(and this is where Mr. Trump might want to pay attention) taking “Canadian nice” for anything weak or vulnerable is very likely to fail spectacularly. That “nice” will vanish and be replaced by an unexpected and unpleasant reaction. They are nice, but they are neither stupid nor weak. Throughout WWI and WWII, Canadian soldiers in action earned the Germans’ deep respect and no small measure of fear: during both WWI and WWII, German soldiers sometimes referred to Canadian shock troops as Sturmtruppen (stormtroopers) because of their ferocity and success in trench raiding. Early in the war, the Germans lumped the Canadians with other British imperial troops. After facing the viciousness of the Canadian Corps in major engagements like Somme and Vimy Ridge, the Germans grew increasingly wary of the Canadian troops.

So, Mr. Trump, continue to mock and taunt the Canadians, continue to talk about them as the 51st state, continue to poke at our ally to the north at your and our country’s peril. You would do well to remember how interconnected our national economies, electric grids, and national security are.

And, do not be surprised when the Sturmtruppen arrives, and no one comes to your aid.

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