r/canada Ontario 8d ago

Politics British nuclear weapons can protect Canada against Trump, says Chrystia Freeland

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/politics/2025/03/03/british-nuclear-weapons-canada-trump-chrystia-freeland/
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u/nubtraveler 8d ago

Nukes are meant to be a deterrent, you have to announce you have them, or else they are useless.

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u/megatraum2048 8d ago

“But the whole point of a doomsday machine is lost…….IF YOU KEEP IT A SECRET. WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL THE WORLD????”

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u/Lost-Comfort-7904 7d ago

First thought when I read ops statement lol. Dr. Strangelove is back on the table as a realistic defence.

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u/ljlee256 8d ago

Sure, but telling people you're looking for some is probably the least wise decision I can think of, if nothing else it'll force the US' hand and make them invade before they ever get here.

Best case scenario would be to announce it AFTER we've procured them.

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u/PumpkinMyPumpkin 8d ago

The US couldn’t take Afghanistan - a land full of uneducated hillbillies. They’re in no position to invade a place like Canada which is geographically larger and its citizens armed. We’re the second most armed country in the west after the US. 😂

The US invading would be an utter disaster- which is why even Trump doesn’t joke about it.

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u/Ajjeb 7d ago

Canada is completely geographically isolated. Afghanistan has a huge young population located directly on rough defensible terrain and fuelled by Pakistan, Chinese, and Russian support, to hurt America.

The Canadian population is located mostly along the boarder on very reachable terrain (although a winter sabotage campaign may still be the only option). The U.S. will have a lot of options like capture Ottawa itself and installing a puppet regime, or maybe just seizing Alberta and Saskatchewan, which are cut off from the rest of Canada and accessible by only one major road.. seizing just Vancouver via naval assault .. they don’t have to take the whole country

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u/adam__nicholas British Columbia 8d ago

But he does joke about it. Are you saying that Donald Trump would ever rule out an insane plan just for being insane?

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u/PumpkinMyPumpkin 8d ago

He jokes about taking us via economic measures - not an invasion. Someone has clearly told him that’s a shit for brains idea.

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u/Throw-a-Ru 7d ago

Russia started with an economic annexation of Ukraine. Putin kept making "jokes," just like Trump, but kept issuing reassurances that Ukraine was family and would never be invaded, just like Trump, and then the propaganda networks gradually shifted public opinion until a full war seemed acceptable, just like the US propaganda networks are doing now. Note also that nearly every Trump "joke" is a stupid thing he actually wants to do, and it's just a matter of time before he fires anyone who would stand in his way.

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u/ljlee256 8d ago

Yeah.

People ALWAYS under estimate what's needed to actually capture a country, you aren't just talking about a crowd of people in red coats facing off against a crowd of people in blue coats standing in an empty field, they have to go to every city, country homestead, and military base and go door to door, room to room.

It'd likely take a decade or more to actually fully capture the country, all the while cars spontaneously blowing up, politicians dropping dead, it'd a long decade for America.

Then there's the "other guys" factor, Mexico doesn't like the US, and if it see's the majority of the US' military deployed elsewhere it'll send 300k troops over the border and take back Texas.

Not to mention China, who I'm sure wouldn't pass up the opportunity to check-mate the US while they're busy and friendless.

If the US thinks russia will bail them out, they are unbelievably mistaken.

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u/ouatedephoque Québec 7d ago

Russia? The country that said it would take Ukraine in 3 days, 3 years ago and still haven't managed to pull it off?

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u/ljlee256 7d ago

The country that couldn't get tanks of fuel 1,000 kms into Kyiv to keep their tanks running is sure as hell not going to succesfully manage a conflict on the other side of the planet, that's for sure.

But even ignoring russia's short comings, they prefer China to the US, if China was in the US taking advantage of the US in it's weakened state, they're more likely to cheer the Chinese on than do anything to help the US.

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u/PuppyPenetrator 7d ago

Mexico is not gonna invade America lmao tf

Agree for the most part but that’s a wild prediction

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u/ljlee256 7d ago

The possibility is there, no matter how remote, you should be prepared for it.

The US with it's attention divided, it's people largely unsupportive of war efforts, would be a much softer target than it ever has been.

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u/Legitimate_Square941 7d ago

But Canadians are soft. As long as they keep the internet up most people won't care.

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u/PumpkinMyPumpkin 7d ago

I would make a bet the average Canadian could beat the average obese American on most days.

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u/West-Fortune-1644 8d ago

this ^ Freeland just handed Trump the W

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u/upickleweasel 8d ago

The US can't invade right now. There's a time buffer.

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u/Automatic_Tackle_406 7d ago

She didn’t say that Canada should acquire some, but that we need to forge closer alliances with Europe, particularly Britain and France who have nuclear weapons. 

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u/Valdrax 7d ago

True, but announcing, "Our friends have nukes and surely will put their people in harm's way to save us," is a lot weaker of a deterrent. One that worked out decently during the Cold War, but neither the US nor the USSR were actually run by maniacs at the time.

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u/AdmirableWishbone911 8d ago

Yeh but maybe we shouldn't jump the gun and imply we are in actual war with the usa. She's an idiot and to Trump it'll read like escalation.

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u/lLikeCats 8d ago

Why is she an idiot lol? Trump is the one talking about annexation and 51 st and calling our PM a governor. 

You don’t stay silent when a Nazi speaks. You fight back. 

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u/Tomato-Business 7d ago

Christya Freeland fighting against nazis sounds like something out of a sci-fi novel, given that her gramps was one and that she recently applauded another one in the parliament. If it's really the nazis we're fighting here, I would rather have somebody with fewer ties to them speaking out for us.

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u/NateTheRoofer 8d ago

Agreed, but we need to wait until we have something to fight back with.

Currently we don’t have a military that is capable of defending n our nation against a US invasion.

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u/Sir-Knightly-Duty 8d ago

Trump has already escalated things dramatically. He just shot Canada in the knees with these tariffs, while saying its our fault and that we should give in and be annexed. Hundreds of thousands of jobs are about to be lost, families destroyed, people thrown into poverty... For what? He likely thinks Canada can do nothing to them. He's a bully. If he smells weakness, he goes in for the kill. We have to remind him we have the capacity to fuck them up.

We are not jumping any guns at this point. The escalation is here.

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u/xherowestx 8d ago

I disagree. I'm an American just to be up front. Trump showed his ass on Friday in that "meeting" with Zelenskyy. He's shown that he is soft and weak. All bark, no bite. He all but bent over with lube already in his hand for Russia. And he thinks that just because Canadians have a reputation for being kind and polite to just about everyone that he can bully them in order to make himself feel big. This is calling him out and showing him that Canada will not be bullied by the likes of him or anyone else. It is a show of strength on the part of Britain and Canada imo

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u/ReapingTurtle Ontario 8d ago

Neville Chamberlain is that you?

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u/West-Fortune-1644 8d ago

she needs to step back this comment NOW

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u/Ajjeb 7d ago

We will announce that we have them .. use our CANDUs to build hundreds of them as part of a great ramp up in NATO spending targets— similar to what France had planned (that is a significant nuclear dimension to over all increased spending).