What was once unthinkable is now something Canada has to consider: a possible US military attack. Prime Minister Mark Carney said last week he was preparing for unthinkable scenarios such as American aggression.
He made clear that the risk of such an attack is very low and its likelihood remote, but said that as US-Canada relations are redefined under President Donald Trump, it is his responsibility to consider every possibility. Canada’s military planning for a possible US attack stems from Trump’s global tariffs and his repeated threats to make Canada the 51st US state.
In 2025 Trump said the chance of the US using military force against Canada was “very unlikely”, saying he would keep up economic pressure to achieve political goals instead. Military experts who spoke to the BBC also consider a US invasion very unlikely, given the two countries’ long, close defence cooperation, but the prospect still worries Canadians. A Leger poll after the US seized Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January found more than 30 percent of Canadians think a US attack on Canada is possible.
Lieutenant General Christopher Coates, who served 34 years in the Royal Canadian Air Force, said war between the two is hard to imagine. “I spent my whole career in military operations, but I never imagined an attack on Canada could come from US territory,” he told the BBC. The two countries work closely across many areas of defence, are both NATO members obliged to defend each other, run joint defence operations in the Arctic and share intelligence regularly; so even if the US did attack, it might begin not with a direct military assault but with covert methods such as cyberattacks, he said.
Relations have not always been good. According to Tim Foran, a researcher at the Canadian War Museum, resisting US expansionism in the 18th and 19th centuries was an important part of Canadian national identity; in the War of 1812 American forces repeatedly attacked Upper Canada, Lower Canada and the maritime colonies, and after the First World War Canada drew up a plan for a possible war, worried by growing US power.
Matthew Schmidt, an associate professor of national security at the University of New Haven, said the fact that Canada is preparing for such a scenario is itself a big sign of a changing world order. Canadian military modelling published by The Globe and Mail earlier this year suggests that if the US attacked, Canada’s key strategic positions could be overwhelmed within a week, and outgunned Canadian forces might turn to guerrilla tactics. The paper reported in January, citing senior officials, that Canada might seek military help from allies such as France and Britain. It is thought to be the first time in a century that Canada has drawn up military plans against a possible US attack.
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