From the Stacks: Canadian Defence Scheme Number One

A Plan for a Preemptive Strike on the United States by the British Dominion of Canada, circa 1921

Introduction

In December 2005, the Washington Post published a quixotic article entitled Raiding the Icebox. The piece introduces readers to U.S. War Plan Red, the little-known 1930 plan to conquer Canada. More sardonic than serious, the article acted mostly as a holiday diversion from the quagmire in Iraq: "Invading Canada won't be like invading Iraq: When we invade Canada, nobody will be able to grumble that we didn't have a plan." When interviewed, both Canadians and Americans took it as a joke, competing for the cleverest quip. Winnipeg mayor Sam Katz defiantly vows to the American enemy: "It will be like Napoleon's invasion of Russia."

Americans routinely joke about conquering Canada. But these plans are no joke. As a loyal, self-governing Dominion in the British Empire, Canada served as a proxy for American tensions with Britain throughout the 19th century. American troops invaded Canada during both the American Revolution (!) and the War of 1812. Significant border disputes existed until the 1850s, covering tens of thousands of square miles. Tensions rose during the American Civil War, when Confederates and Irish nationalists looked to Canada as a shelter, launching pad, and target. Even seemingly unrelated matters such as the Venezuelan boundary dispute of 1895 threatened to flare up into conflict between Britain and the United States.

As the twentieth century dawned, tensions lessened as Anglo-American interests coincided more and more. Yet, until the 1920s, there was a real risk that the Anglo-Japanese alliance would draw Canada into war with the United States. The British were quite serious about their alliance with Japan, inviting Japan into the inner circle of the Allied Powers in the Paris peace talks ending World War I¹. The alliance bound Britain to neutrality in the event of war between Japan and one other power, and to military support of Japan in the event of war between Japan and two other powers. As World War I demonstrated, overlapping treaties can have a cascading effect.

Strategic thinking tends to lag behind strategic reality. Despite the end of the Anglo-Japanese treaty in 1921, the US developed War Plan Red in the 1920s to address a possible war with the British Empire. Conversely on the Canadian side, James Sutherland "Buster" Brown prepared for a war with the United States. Thus was hatched Canadian Defence Scheme No. 1.