China Doesn’t Need To Invade America. It Has Canada.

Thucydides teaches that Athens was lost in Sicily. The Sicilian expedition was far from Athens and looked like a side matter, a chance to gain something at little risk. The city’s rulers assured themselves the real contest lay elsewhere, and while they said that, the city’s strength drained away on a distant island. Great powers rarely fall at the center first. They fall around the edges, in the places they stop watching because they assume those places are safe.

For America, that edge is Canada. The border between the two nations is the world’s longest undefended frontier, and people speak of it with pride. Beneath the pride is a structure of trust with few parallels in history. The two nations share the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, and supply chains so intimately linked that car parts can cross the border several times before they are assembled into a car. American security depends on Canadian integrity. Thus, when Ottawa is compromised, Washington is exposed. Whoever holds the side door has little need to break down the front.