Behind Its Warm Front, the United States Made Cold Calculations to Subdue Canada. 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. The United States government does have a plan to invade Canada. It`s a 94-page document called ”Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan -- Red,” with the word SECRET stamped on the cover. It`s a bold plan, a bodacious plan, a step-by-step plan to invade, seize and annex our neighbor to the north. It goes like this: First, we send a joint Army-Navy overseas force to capture the port city of Halifax, cutting the Canadians off from their British allies. Then we seize Canadian power plants near Niagara Falls, so they freeze in the dark. Then the U.S. Army invades on three fronts -- marching from Vermont to take Montreal and Quebec, charging out of North Dakota to grab the railroad center at Winnipeg, and storming out of the Midwest to capture the strategic nickel mines of Ontario. Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy seizes the Great Lakes and blockades Canada`s Atlantic and Pacific ports. * * * It sounds like a joke but it`s not. War Plan Red is real. It was drawn up and approved by the War Department in 1930, then updated in 1934 and 1935. It was declassified in 1974 and the word ”SECRET” crossed out with a heavy pencil. Now it sits in a little gray box in the National Archives in College Park, available to anybody, even Canadian spies. They can photocopy it for 15 cents a page. War Plan Red was actually designed for a war with England. In the late 1920s, American military strategists developed plans for a war with Japan (code name Orange), Germany (Black), Mexico (Green) and England (Red). The Americans imagined a conflict between the United States (Blue) and England over international trade: ”The war aim of RED in a war with BLUE is conceived to be the definite elimination of BLUE as an important economic and commercial rival.” In the event of war, the American planners figured that England would use Canada (Crimson) as a launching pad for ”a direct invasion of BLUE territory.” None of this information is new. After the plan was declassified in 1974, several historians and journalists wrote about War Plan Red. But still it remains virtually unknown on both sides of the world`s largest undefended border. Invading Canada is an old American tradition. During the American Revolution, Benedict Arnold -- then in his pre-traitor days -- led an invasion of Canada from Maine. It failed. During the War of 1812, American troops invaded Canada several times. They were driven back. In 1839, Americans from Maine confronted Canadians in a border dispute known as the Aroostook War. In 1866, about 800 Irish Americans in the Fenian Brotherhood decided to strike a blow for Irish independence by invading Canada. They crossed the Niagara River into Ontario, where they defeated a Canadian militia. But when British troops approached, the Fenians fled back to the United States, where many were arrested. After that, Americans stopped invading Canada and took up other hobbies, such as invading Mexico, Haiti, Nicaragua, Grenada and, of course, Iraq. But the dream of invading Canada lives on in the American psyche, occasionally manifesting itself in bizarre ways. Movies, for instance. In the 1995 movie ”Canadian Bacon,” the U.S. president, played by Alan Alda, decides to jump-start the economy by picking a fight with Canada. His battle cry: ”Surrender pronto or we`ll level Toronto.” In the 1999 movie ”South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut,” Americans, angered that their kids have been corrupted by a pair of foulmouthed, flatulent Canadian comedians, go to war. Canada responds by sending its air force to bomb the Hollywood home of the Baldwin brothers -- a far more popular defensive strategy than anything Buster Brown devised. But it`s not just movies. The urge to invade Canada comes in myriad forms. In 2002, the conservative magazine National Review published an essay called ”Bomb Canada: The Case for War.” The author, Jonah Goldberg, suggested that the United States ”launch a quick raid into Canada” and blow something up -- ”perhaps an empty hockey stadium.” That would cause Canada to stop wasting its money on universal health insurance and instead fund a military worthy of the name, so that ”Canada`s neurotic anti-Americanism would be transformed into manly resolve.” And let`s not forget the Web site http://invadecanada.us/ , which lists many compelling reasons for doing do: ”let`s make Alaska actually connected to the U.S. again!” and ”they`re just a little too proud” and ”the surrender will come quickly, they`re French after all.” The site also sells T-shirts, buttons, teddy bears and thong underwear, all of them decorated with the classic picture of Uncle Sam atop the slogan ”I WANT YOU to Invade Canada.” What`s going on here? Why do Americans love to joke about invading Canada? Because Americans see Canadians as goody-goodies. Canadians didn`t rebel against the British, remaining loyal colonial subjects. They didn`t have a Wild West, settling their land without the kind of theatrical gunfights that make for good movies. And they like to hector us about our misbehavior. Canadians are well aware of invasion talk. Not surprisingly, they take it a bit more seriously than Americans. When ”The West Wing” had a subplot last winter about a U.S.-Canada border incident, Canadian newspapers took note. When Jon Stewart joked about invading Canada on ”The Daily Show” last March, Canadian newspapers covered the story. When the Toronto Star interviewed comedian Jimmy Kimmel last year, the reporter asked him: ”Is it only a matter of time before America invades Canada?” ”I`m not sure,” Kimmel replied. In 2003, the Canadian army set up an Internet chat room where soldiers and civilians could discuss defense issues. ”One of the hottest topics on the site discusses whether the U.S. will invade Canada to seize its natural resources,” the Ottawa Citizen reported. ”If the attack did come, Canada could rely on a scorched-earth policy similar to what Russia did when invaded by Nazi Germany, one participant recommends. `With such emmense [sic] land, and with our cold climates, we may be able to hold them off, even though we have the much weaker military,` the individual concludes.” Etzinger, the Canadian Embassy spokesman, isn`t worried about an American invasion because Canada has a secret weapon -- actually thousands of secret weapons. ”We`ve got thousands of Canadians in the U.S. right now, in place secretly,” he said. ”They could be on your street. We`ve sent people like Celine Dion and Mike Myers to secretly infiltrate American society.” Pretty funny, Mr. Etzinger. But the strategists who wrote War Plan Red were prepared for that problem. They noted that ”it would be necessary to deal internally” with the ”large number” of Brits and Canadians living in the United States -- and also with ”a small number of professional pacifists and communists.” The planners did not specify exactly what would be done with those undesirables. But it would be kinda fun to see Celine Dion and Mike Myers wearing orange jumpsuits down in Guantanamo.