[Music] the fantasy of a hostile foreign Nation launching a full-scale invasion of the United States has been a common Trope and fiction now for decades and while the idea of a foreign power invading the United States has been around since the nation's founding the modern fictional trend of depicting a foreign invasion of the country sort of dates back to the release of the movie Red Dawn in 1984 Which depicts a joint Soviet Cuban Nicaraguan and Mexican ground invasion of the United States over the Mexican border after Mexico undergos a Communist Revolution that installs a Marxist
government in power there that grants the Soviets military access while its remake that came out decades later in 2012 somewhat more implausibly depicts a joint North Korean Russian invasion and occupation of the US West Coast instead the idea has also been a fairly common Trope in recent video games with Call of Duties Modern Warfare 2 released in 2009 and its sequel Modern Warfare 3 they released in 2011 both depicting a massive Russian invasion and occupation of the entire Us East Coast a feat that stretched the imagination even back then a decade before Russia's struggling invasion
of Ukraine began there's also the video game home front that released in 2011 that depicts a successful North Korean Invasion and occupation of the Western us and then there's also the many Fallout games that in the buildup to Global nuclear war depicts a full-scale Chinese invasion of Alaska from across the bearing straight but obviously as interesting as all of these fictional scenarios are we all know deep down that the United States could never actually become the target of a hostile foreign Invasion we all know that the United States is separated from any major rival by
two vast oceans and we All know that the US military is dramatically more powerful than any rival is we've all been watching how terrible the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been going for the past two plus years now and that's a country that's directly next door to Russia that has thousands of kilometers worth of land borders let alone what an invasion of a much bigger country over on the other side of the world would look like we all generally know that a big foreign Invasion of the United States is impossible but when most of us
don't really appreciate is just how utterly laughably impossible it actually is when you really start digging into the specifics of it and I will argue in this video that even if the entire rest of the outside world combined joined all of their populations and Military assets to cooperate on a mission to invade and conquer the United States it would still be completely impossible for them to all Actually pull it off and here are all of the many many reasons why that's the case first of all any attempted invasion of the United States would have to
immediately encounter thean American nuclear defense strategy and Doctrine which all on its own would immediately halt any Invasion attempt from the outside world you see the United States utilizes a nuclear Triad defense Doctrine a three-legged strategy that involves land-based seab based and Air-based nuclear weapons scattered all across the world that would be logistically impossible for anyone no matter how strong to fully eliminate before the United States could retaliate the landbased leg of America's nuclear Triad is represented by the hundreds of hardened nuclear ICBM launch silos that the country operates and maintains across the Great Plains
in the states of Montana North Dakota Wyoming Nebraska and Colorado deep within the interior of The country thousands of miles away from any Beach head Landing site that an invading Army could potentially attack from there are around 450 total ICBM Silo locations scattered all across all of these territories but only around 400 of the silos actually contain the missiles leaving around 50 of them behind is decoys to disrupt any potential first strike on them and waste an attacker's time under normal circumstances the US president and the SEC AR defense have direct reliable and almost instant
contact with each of the ICBM launch Crews the launch control facilities for each of these missile silos are located at the three different military bases nearby to each of the silo clusters if when under attack contact between these groundbased launch control centers and the remote missile launch facilities is lost specially designed e6b Airborne launch control center aircraft will automatically Assume the command and control of the missiles from the air from within the interior of the country they will maintain direct contact with the president which means that even if an enemy was somehow able to neutralize
all three military bases in their command centers at once in the middle of Montana North Dakota and Wyoming they would still have to contend with somehow shooting down all of these planes as well were an invading enemy to fail each Of the hundreds of icbms that America Parks Underground Across these hundreds of silos pack enough destructive force to blow up an entire city and they have an operating range of approximately 14,000 km enabling them to strike virtually all major population centers across the Americas Eurasia Oceania and most of Northern Africa if they wanted to leaving
only southern Africa and Western Australia outside of America's ICBM range and even if You Were Somehow Able to avoid or neutralize all of these hundreds of land-based icbms you'd still have to deal with a seab based leg of America's nuclear Triad as well the United States maintains a fleet of 14 Ohio class strategic submarines they can be armed with submarine launch ballistic missiles carrying nuclear warheads eight of these nuclear armed strategic missile submarines are home ported in Bangor Washington nearby to Seattle while the other six are home ported in Kings Bay Georgia nearby to Jacksonville
providing the US strategic submarine Fleet with major bases of operations in both the Pacific and the Atlantic each of these strategic submarines are powered by an advanced nuclear reactor on board which enables the subs to operate effectively indefinitely without the need to ever refu this is how on average each of the subs will spend about 77 days continually at Sea and underwater out on patrol followed by around 35 days back At Port in either Georgia or Washington for maintenance before going back out on patrol again because of this rotating cycle of Patrol and maintenance the
US Navy maintains around eight of these strategic missile submarines scattered all around the world's oceans at any given time 365 days a year their exact locations while on on patrol beneath the ocean in any given time is a closely guarded top secret which is the whole point of them they could be anywhere in Any time and a major attack on the United States would have to consider that each of these eight or so strategic submarines that are constantly out on patrol are armed with around 20 trient 2 D5 ballistic missiles that contain multiple independently targeted
nuclear warheads on board the missile's exact range is classified but it's estimated to be somewhere around 12,000 km or more and they're so accurate they can hit their intended targets within only 100 m From all that distance away each one of these strategic missile submarines packs enough apocalyptic Firepower to destroy anent entire country and there are always eight of them permanently deployed around the world at all times in unknown locations that any attacker of the United States would also somehow have to deal with you'd have to somehow find and eliminate all eight of these nuclear
submarines that could be located literally anywhere across any ofers Oceans before they could fire their missiles which would sort of be like trying to find eight needles across three hay stacks each the size of a city and if the sea and landbased LS of America's nuclear Triad weren't enough there's also the airbase leg of the Triad that any attacker would have to contend with as well the US military stores hundreds of nuclear bombs across several of their overseas military bases abroad including across six of their Bases in Europe ranging from kleo brogal in Belgium toal
in the Netherlands Buel in Germany Getty and Aviano both in Italy and at inser in Turkey us strategic bombers stationed at these European bases can be quickly armed with nuclear bombs and given orders to take off for strategic strikes while almost certainly the United States also stores nuclear their bombs in another one of their overseas military bases on a small island here called Diego Garcia in the Middle of the Indian Ocean where American strategic bombers can sorty out from and attack targets rapidly anywhere around the rim of the Indian Ocean putting locations like Western Australia
and southern Africa that are out of range of American icbms to being within range of American strategic bombers combined the land sea and air-based legs of America's nuclear Triad put the entire world into the range of American nuclear Firepower which means that in Order for an enemy to avoid an overwhelming US nuclear response an Invader would have to somehow eliminate every single component of the entire Triad from all of the hundreds of missile silos and their command centers across the interior of the country deep within North America dwell eight of the submarines operating at Secret
locations across the world's oceans and their bases on opposite ends of the country 12 of the nuclear bomb storage sites and Their air bases dotted all across Europe and on the other side of the world in the dead center of the Indian Ocean dismantling all of this would require worldwide logistical coordination and support to have any hope of success already and it's probably just an impossible feat to accomplish on its own and in addition to America's Advanced offensive capabilities with firing their nukes at enemies there's also America's Advanced defensive capabilities with Intercepting and destroying incoming
enemy nuclear attacks as well you see there are only seven countries in the entire world outside of the United States that are known to possess nuclear armed icbms in their arsenals the United Kingdom France Russia Israel India China and North Korea and the only States out of the narrow list that are actually potentially hostile to the United States are Russia China and North Korea but even if every single ICBM armed country Was hostile to the United States they would all still have a difficult time with getting all of their missiles through into the United States
without inviting a US retaliatory strike that would destroy them all as well every nuclear ICBM armed power is located within the Northern Hemisphere and all of them besides for the United States are also located in the eastern hemisphere which means that if any of them were to fire their missiles at the United States the shortest distance for them to take would be by flying over the Arctic Circle in Canada first the US of course has been well aware of this Dynamic for decades now which is why the country maintains an advanced early missile warning system
called the solid state phased array radar system or SSP the whole network maintains systems bases at five geographically separate locations that roughly covers the entire continental United States by early Warning radar and space Sur surveillance with bases within or near to the Arctic Circle in the UK Northwestern Greenland and Central Alaska and additional bases for Pacific and Atlantic coverage based at Beal California and at Cape Cod Massachusetts all of which work together to alert the United States of any potential ICBM approaches hours before they actually strike giving Washington plenty of time to plan out a
retaliatory strike but okay let's just assume that For whatever reason nuclear weapons aren't being used in invasion of the United States and America's nuclear Arsenal has been either successfully destroyed or it's been decided to not use it a massive ground invasion of the US Mainland even if carried out by the entire outside world combined still wouldn't work out for the following reasons first of all is America's vast and interconnected defense Alliance network with dozens of other countries From all around the globe as of 2024 the United States maintains legally binding Mutual defense packs with 53
different countries from all around the world spanning all the countries in NATO including big countries like Canada Spain the UK France Germany Italy Poland Sweden and turkey the Rio treaty in the Americas that includes big countries like Brazil Colombia and Argentina the anus treaty with Australia and New Zealand and more individual defense Treaties that have been crafted with Japan South Korea the Philippines and Thailand out of the top 40 countries in the world by annual military spending after the United States 23 of them are legally obliged to come to America's defense during an attack or
Invasion scenario and that's on top of the estimated 750 or so US military bases that are dotted all across the world that harshly contain any potential American geopolitical rival Russia is Surrounded by NATO countries in the west and by Japan and South Korea in the East China and North Korea meanwhile are heavily contained by American military bases in the region and by America's Regional allies in the first island chain Japan South Korea and the Philippines and to a lesser degree by Taiwan and Thailand while Iran is similarily constrained by American military bases to their South
and West in order for anyone to carry out a Successful invasion of the United States hundreds of these overseas US military bases with tens of thousands of US troops at them would all have to somehow be neutralized first while America's massive defensive alliance system that spans around the world would also have to somehow be dissolved or neutralized too just in order to prevent most of the other most powerful countries in the world from assisting the US and then even if an outside power was able to Somehow do all of that and unite the entire world
against America they would still have to contend with the sheer power of the US Armed Forces themselves which all on their own even without any allies are virtually unchallengeable and that's because the US Air Force and especially the US Navy are truly in A League of Their Own on a global scale in terms of Naval assets other than France the United States is the only country in the world that operates nuclear powered Aircraft carriers and while France only has one of these nuclear powered carriers the United States currently has 11 of them there are 27
aircraft carriers currently in service worldwide across every country's Navy and all of them outside of the American and French navies are powered with traditional diesel or gasoline fuel this enables America's carriers to hypothetically run continually without the need to refuel themselves for up to 25 years with the Need to find a port to refuel for oil eliminated the only limiting factors for a US carrier deployment are Shor leave and food stores and food stores can be provided by helicopters to the carrier if they really really don't want to stop at a port and extend their
mission length 40% of all the operating aircraft carriers in the world right now are within the US Navy alone while 77% of all the world's aircraft carriers belong to the US and America's treaty allies in NATO plus Japan and Thailand and none of the other carriers besides that single one controlled by France can match American nuclear propulsion technology which greatly limits their power projection capabilities China and Russia arguably America's two biggest geopol iCal Rivals at the moment have but four aircraft carriers between them moreover none of the other world's aircraft carriers can compete against the
sheer size of the American Carrier Fleet Either America's aircraft carriers are divided right now between older nimit class carriers that have been in service since 1975 and newer Gerald R Ford class carriers that have only begun entering into service since 2017 and which represent the largest warships that Humanity has ever built each of America's 11 nuclear-powered carriers that are currently in service can carry more than 80 fixed wi aircraft and helicopters on board including dozens of Modern F-35 fighter jets meaning that a single one of America's carriers wields an air component that is more powerful
than most country's entire air forces are but allog together America's 11 carriers have enough aircraft between them to make them the 13th largest Air Force in the world by numbers alone with more aircraft than are even in Britain's royal Air Force that can be exported anywhere in the world and because because America's aircraft carriers are Just so much bigger than the rest of the world's carriers are the deck space on all 11 of them is literally more than double the deck space available of all the other aircraft carriers in the world combined so far the
largest most advanced andc capable aircraft carrier ever built outside of the United States is believed to be the fuan which was only launched by the Chinese people's Liberation Army Navy just a few months before I made this video in May of 2024 Nevertheless the fuan is still only powered by conventional diesel which means that its range is severely limited and largely restricted to just operating near to the Chinese coast and it can only store a complement of 50 plus aircraft on board compared to the 80 plus that can be stored on board American carriers even
if the fuan and every single other operating aircraft carrier in the world right now outside of the US Navy join forces to launch an Allout invasion of the US they would a almost all struggle to even get nearby to the US Shores in the first place because all of them besides the French carrier would need oil and Port refueling sites to keep them going and there aren't too many friendly options for them around the US Mainland and B they would only be capable of carrying around 560 aircraft split between fixed wingcraft and helicopters to the
US Shores which is frankly pathetic Compared to America's amphibious expeditionary capabilities that number nearly 900 aircraft across their carriers and this is a big reason why even the entire outside world combined doesn't even have a a fraction of the ability to project Force around the world like the United States does and why any potential Invader of the US would struggle immensely with even transporting any meaningful air power to North America at all and then if the Carriers weren't enough there's also America's submarine Fleet for any potential Invader to consider as well in addition to America's
Fleet of 14 strategic missile submarines that carry their nuclear weapons the country has 50 Advanced nuclear powered attack submarines within its Fleet as well which are designed to stealthily seek out and Destroy enemy submarines and surface vessels and to project power with on board Tomahawk cruise missiles And Special Operations forces numerically speaking the rest of the world has significantly more submarines than the United States does with Russia and China each having a similar number of total Subs as America does and the rest of the world having several dozen more but just like with America's Fleet
of advanced nuclear powerered aircraft carriers all of America's submarines including all of their attacks Subs are powered by onboard nuclear reactors While most of the rest of the world's submarines are still powered by diesel electric propulsion nuclear-powered submarines are much much more militarily advantageous than diesel Subs are because they're more independent and less reliant on Port since they don't need any fuel to keep themselves running for decades they're also quieter faster and they can literally operate for months at a time continually underwater while diesel electric submarines can Only remain submerged beneath the water for a
few days at a time they need to locate friendly ports to refuel themselves their engines are louder and easier to detect and they're slower meaning the nuclear powered subs are just much better at remaining hidden and attacking enemies with surprise in traveling over longer distances there's also only five other countries besides the United States that currently operate nuclear-powered submarines with Russia Having the most of them at only 31 less than half the total that the US operates while China only has 12 of them in fact all of the other Count's nuclear submarine fleets combined only
roughly match the number of nuclear submarines in the American Fleet well America's nuclear submarines are considered to be significantly more advanced with a current acting commander of the US Pacific Fleet Admiral Samuel perero stating that he believes American Submarine technology is at least one entire generation or about 10 to 20 years ahead of Rivals like Russia or China so while the US submarine Fleet may be at a disadvantage against the entire rest of the world numerically the US US nuclear submarine Fleet relies more on its significant technological superiority and their greater speed stealth endurance mobility
and payload capacities than any rival submarine fleets are capable of and that would be A significant hurdle for any potential Invader composed of mostly diesel electric submarines to ever overcome so with inferior submarines and inferior aircraft carriers a potential Invader of the United States even if it was the rest of the world combined would struggle immensely with projecting amphib Force to the shores of North America because of the US Navy and that's not even to mention the already tenuous Supply chains that invading Nations would have to run across thousands of miles of open ocean to
maintain offensive operations in North America we've already clearly seen the utterly disastrous Logistics of the Russian Army's invasion of Ukraine since 2022 and that's been a ground Invasion into a neighboring country with thousands of miles of directly shared borders with direct rail connections connecting it to Russia's factories military bases and Supply Centers Imagine Russia China or even the rest of the world attempting to run Logistics to support their invading army supply and ammunition needs across the vastness of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans all while being harassed by dozens of stealthy American attack submarines and even
if they somehow were able to do all of that and get through the whole US Navy there's also the US Air Force which is also just amazingly more powerful and capable than any other Global Air Force Bar N it's often said in the US military that the largest Air Force in the world is the US Air Force while the second largest is the US Navy the US Air Force's budget alone is roughly the same as for the entire armed forces of China combined while put together the US Air Force and the US Navy alone possess
nearly as many military aircraft as the next three largest countries do all combined Russia China and India well after you add in all of the other Military aircraft and the rest of America's service branches the full US military controls more aircraft than the next five nations do combined including South Korea and Japan on top of India China and Russia currently the US military possesses around 630 super Advanced F35 fighter jets which is about equivalent to all of the military aircraft combined in the entire United Kingdom and that's just America's f-35s and America's military plans to
purchase About another 1800 more f-35s too which when completed will make America's F-35 fle F alone the world's fourth largest Air Force with more f-35s than total aircraft in the entire Indian military combined and remember that even with all of the aircraft carriers in the world right now outside of the US Navy the rest of the world combined could only really carry about 560 total aircraft to the shores near North America which is fewer total aircraft than America has F-35 Fighters not to even mention the thousands of other Fighters like the F-16 and other aircraft
in the US military's Arsenal that would obliterate all of that in an instant so in order to achieve aerial Supremacy over the US Mainland an invading Army couldn't possibly rely on aircraft carriers to do so and would have to rely on transporting huge numbers of aircraft to land-based Bases around the US instead but unfortunately for any Invader right Now virtually all of America's neighbors have mutual defense packs with Washington and would never allow an Invader to actually base their aircraft within their territory Canada is a member of NATO while the Bahamas Haiti the the Dominican
Republic Guatemala El Salvador Honduras Costa Rica Panama and Colombia are all members of the Rio treaty while Mexico maintains generally very friendly relations with the us as well the only nearby states with hostile Relations to Washington are arguably Cuba Nicaragua and Venezuela right now and none of them have the infrastructure in place to support the huge amount of air power that would be necessary to actually challenge the US Air Force and Navy for Arial Supremacy and even if every country around the United States was openly hostile to the country it would require the transportation to
North America of every single military aircraft located across Russia China India South Korea and Japan just to Simply match the numbers of American military aircraft and they would still have a significant technological and logistical disadvantage going up against the American aircraft okay so we know that an amphibious invasion of the US Mainland is a practically impossible feat for anyone to accomplish so let's imagine that for some reason every country around the United States has become Deeply hostile to the country and Canada Mexico the Bahamas and Cuba all start allowing major outside powers from Beyond North
America to start piling up millions of troops and all of their supplies and equipment to prepare for an allout ground invasion of the US from across the Canadian and Mexican borders with aerial support coming in from the Bahamas in Cuba and other air bases located across Canada and Mexico with another shorter amphibious Invasion Punching into Alaska from across the bearing straight from the Russian Far East into Alaska just for good measure here's why none of that would ever still work out either first of all we need to discuss the idea of invading Alaska from across
the bearing straight as it stands right now Russia's most Far East territory the chukotka autonomous arug could never logistically support itself as a major staging ground for an invading Army into Alaska the entire Population of this territory that's bigger than Texas is only a bit more than 50,000 people making it one of the most sparsely populated places in the world that doesn't really have a lot of infrastructure there are very few roads in the territory and there aren't any Railways or major ports at all meaning that transporting and concentrating a large number of ground forces
and all of their supplies here for an assault across the narrow bearing straight into Alaska would be effectively impossible any possible assault into Alaska would have to be organized from much much further away from Alaska in Russia's Far Eastern parts of ladava stock and nootka or from Japan which presents the same logistical challenge as invading the US Mainland wood the invading forces would have to establish reliable supply lines into Alaska stretching for thousands of miles across the Northern Pacific a difficult lesson that was learned the Hard way by the Imperial Japanese during the second world
war the last time in history that Sovereign American territory was invaded and occupied by a hostile foreign power was between 1942 and 1943 when the Japanese occupied the small and sparsely populated Alaskan islands of ATU and Kisa which they struggled to reinforce with supplies and were only able to hold on to for a year before getting overrun by much better supplied American and Canadian soldiers Okay but what about an invasion coming from the direction of Canada assuming that the Canadians were deeply hostile to the US for some reason and they started allowing millions of foreign
soldiers into their territory for a big ground Invasion across their border directly into the northern us unfortunately for the attacker this direction too would be largely impossible to invade the United States from in any meaningful capacity for Multiple reasons first of all there are significant Geographic impediments to invading the US from the north you have all five of the Great Lakes to consider stretching from Minnesota to New York that largely block an invasion coming from this direction penetrating into the industrial and population core of the Midwest including rivers that separate close by access points like
Detroit and buffalo from Ontario and then you've also got the St Lawrence Seaway that Extends the rest of the way East from Lake Ontario through the rest of North America that empties out into the Gulf of St lawence that would be another challenging feature for an invading Army to successfully cross over and if these big lakes and rivers weren't enough of a defense you also have the northern reaches of the rugged Appalachian Mountains that extend across Northern New York Vermont New Hampshire and Maine that an invading Army would also have to Somehow punch through next
just in order to break into the heavily populated Northeast Corridor moreover you've also got the presence of the huge Canadian Shield that extends across most of the entire country a vast area of exposed rock and very thin top soil where agriculture is effectively impossible and we're building infrastructure like Highway ways or Railways is extremely expensive and difficult the largest town located anywhere on the Canadian Shield Is Sudbury in Ontario and it only has a population of 166,000 people which means that concentrating large numbers of troops and Equipment anywhere on the shield would be effectively an
impossible task to do since the infrastructure to support one there just doesn't really exist this leaves hypothetically the only geographically feasible Invasion route from Canada into the United States in the far west of the country from across the Open Fields of Manitoba Saskatchewan and Alberta down into the Great Plains across the center of the United States or from British Columbia down into Washington State but this option of an invasion route in the west of Canada would also struggle for so so so many reasons first of all there is very little to capture of strategic value
for hundreds of miles away from the border here with major American population centers all located very far away that would require a massive Advance to actually capture the distance from the border here to a major American city like Denver would be about the same distance as the German Army had to advance from Warsaw to Moscow during the second world war and across even more challenging terrain there are the hundreds of land-based ICBM silos located across here that an invading Army could attempt and capture but again there's no way they could make it down to them
in time before America would Simply fire them and then they'd have to advance for hundreds of miles across hostile terrain before reaching anything else important and moreover all all along their Advance the invading Army coming from this direction would encounter probably the strongest Insurgency in the entire country since the rates of gun ownership in the United States are high everywhere but they are the absolute highest up here in the states of Montana Idaho and Wyoming Where more than 60% of the civilian population in all three of these states are reported to own firearms and where
the geography in Western Montana Wyoming and all across Idaho is extremely mountainous and rugged meaning that any invading Army coming from this direction would be effectively faced with an Afghanistan style Insurgency problem and even worse from an invader's perspective here because of how difficult it is to settle anywhere on the Canadian Shield And build any infrastructure across it there's only one single Highway that connects the two population cores of Canada to the east of the shield and to the west of The Shield the Trans Canada Highway and this problem is Canada's Achilles heel when it
comes to potentially supporting an invasion into the United States because the Trans Canada Highway converges in the city of Winnipeg in Manitoba all the US military has to do in order to split Canada into Two separate halves is to advance just far enough across their own border to seize and occupy Winnipeg which would also leave Canada's core around Toronto Ottawa and Montreal incapable of logistically supporting the Western theater with any resupplies of troops with the undeveloped Canadian Shield to the North and the US itself to the South this single action by the US military would
Crush any invading Army's ability to ever get supplies and Logistics to an Invasion Force coming from this Direction with a massive US Air Force would just simply bombard the remaining length of the Trans Canada Highway relentlessly that would eliminate any advancing Columns of troops and armor rolling along it in theory even though the US capture of Winnipeg would eliminate the ability for the east of Canada to support the Western Invasion The Invasion Force could still possibly be supported by the port of Vancouver in The West in British Columbia but that too would prove to be
incredibly difficult to pull off from a geographic perspective Vancouver is completely surrounded by the Cascade Mountains and so the only way to get troops supplies and equipment from Vancouver out to The Invasion front in the East would be through the small number of Highways and Railways that snake through the narrow mountain passes of both the Cascades and then the Rockies too towards the Open Fields in Alberta narrow mountain passes that would be relentlessly attacked and bombarded by the US Air Force and American missiles during an emergency that would shut them down from being usable and
even just getting hostile troops and Equipment into Vancouver to begin with would be a challenging task in its own right with the major US Naval forces including their nuclear submarines located just to the south of Vancouver within the protected Waters of The puet sound that would disrupt any Naval forces from even trying okay so a ground Invasion from Canada into the northern us is probably just about impossible no matter how much International effort is put into it so what about a ground Invasion from Mexico into the southern us this direction is in theory at least
a little more plausible of a direction for an invading Army to take then from Canada but it would also of course still be incredibly Challenging for a multitude of reasons most of the Border in the center here is blocked by imposing geographic features like the southern Rocky Mountains and the vast inhospitable and sparsely populated deserts like the Mojave Sonoran and Chihuahuan that would all be very difficult for invading armies and their supply lines to advance across any big invading Army coming from Mexico would therefore be left with little other choice than to either invade Southern
California from Mexico's Baja California state or into southern Texas from the Mexican states of talpas noeva Leon or coaa unfortunately for any Invader however both of these geographically more plausible Invasion routes are heavily blocked by the two highest concentrations of American military personnel and equipment in the entire world California has the highest concentration of US troops on the planet with 159,000 active duty soldiers based in the state as of 2022 while Texas is in Far Behind with 113,000 active duty troops deployed to the state as well which when combined with Arizona and New Mexico represent
roughly 300,000 active duty US troops stationed nearby to the southern border San Diego immediately across the border from Mexico in the west is a major concentration of the US military with huge Navy and Marine Corps bases that alone is home to 115,000 active duty American soldiers which blocks the narrow Coastal approach into the rest of California with geographic features like the Mojave Desert and the Peninsular transverse and Sierra Nevada mountains all heavily blocking the approach to the east of San Diego and the situation in Texas wouldn't be much better because the biggest US armor base
in the entire world is located very near to the Border here at Fort Cavazos which alone is home To tens of thousands of American troops and hundreds of modern Abram's main battle tanks that could quickly organize a response to a ground Invasion from this direction too moreover the rest of the outside world combined would struggle with Fielding enough tanks in North America to confront the massively lopsided advantage that the US military currently possesses an armor the US military has around 61,000 tanks currently within its arsenal of War Which is more tanks than in the combined
armies of the next three biggest tank forces in the world all combined Russia China and turkey and Russia has recently lost thousands of their most advanced tanks in Ukraine since they invaded in 20202 so all in all the geographic defenses of the United States against an outside Invasion are really unparalleled by just about any other country in the world they have two massive oceans on Either side of them to the East and the West the Cascade Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains all in the west the dramatically impede an invasion from that direction too in addition
to the Mojave sorin and Chihuahuan deserts and to an extent the Grand River that would all impede invasions from the south the Appalachian Mountains the Great Lakes the St Lawrence Seaway and the Canadian Shield and its own sparse population across the Great Plains they would all Heavily impede an invasion coming in from the North in even dense swamps in Louisiana and Florida that would slow down amphibious assaults coming up from the Gulf of Mexico which all combine to roughly protect the core population centers of the United States from every single Direction in an almost 360°
send in short the logistics required to transport un to numbers of soldiers and their equipment to the core population centers of the United States is really Really difficult to actually do while at the same time the logistics of transporting American soldiers and their equipment within the core of the country out to the Frontiers where an invasion would be coming from is really really easy to do the continental US is absolutely covered by nearly 50,000 miles of interstate highways that were designed in part for the easy and Rapid facilitation of us troop movements across the the
country the US has built Out more roads across its country than any other country in the world ever has and on top of the huge interstate highway system there's also America's unrivaled Freight Railway system that can easily and quickly move troops and supplies around as well which extends for around another 140,000 Mi across the country's territory and is the largest and densest network of freight Railways that any country in the world has ever built the United States despite being a Smaller country than Russia Russia is in terms of land has more than double the amount
of railroads as Russia has and more than 4 and a half times as many roads as Russia has enabling America's troops supplies and equipment to move around the country much more rapidly and easily than in Russia and if all of that wasn't enough of an advantage during an invasion scenario the US also possesses the biggest network of navigable internal waterways in the entire world As well with the Mississippi Basin snake in Columbia Hudson inter Coastal Waterway and other nav able Rivers providing commercially navigable paths out to the ocean and throughout the country's interior to dozens
and dozens of American cities and all of their factories which would become another invaluable asset for the movement of American troops and supplies all throughout the country during an invasion scenario that couldn't possibly Be blown up by conventional Firepower and if all of that still wasn't enough of an advantage the us could also implement the defense production act during an invasion scenario as well which would reconfigure civilian Industrial production all across the country into military industrial production with factories located all across the country that would be difficult for enemies to reach and Destroy but easy
for the Americans to Transport finished equipment from as it currently stands at least at the end of 2023 the US military maintained an annual budget of $916 billion per year which is already by far the highest military budget in the world the us alone already constitutes about 40% of worldwide military spending and spends more on their military than the next eight biggest Spenders all do combined China Russia India Saudi Arabia the UK Germany Ukraine and France and under an Invasion scenario where the country is invoking the defense production act that budget would Skyrocket even further
at the height of the Vietnam war in the late 1960s America was spending more than 9% of its GDP on the military nearly three times greater percentage wise than it is currently if the US upped its milit budget back to Vietnam War era levels again today we'd be looking at an annual budget of more like $2.4 trillion a year which is more than The entire combined economic output of major countries like Russia Italy or Brazil are capable of which is just astonishingly insane and even more advantageous virtually all of the natural resources that the United
States would need to actually defend itself with during an invasion scenario are also all located deep within the country's own interior in terms of agriculture cultural potential and food production the US controls arguably the Most aable land of any country in the world and indisputably controls the largest continuous piece of Farmland in the world across the Mississippi Basin the control of all this arable land across the interior of the country is why some people argue that the United States could easily support a population of more than 1 billion people like China or India do today
with even less available Farmland but since America's population is only projected to maybe Climb up up to around 400 million by the end of the century this won't ever happen and the United States will always have the potential for huge food surpluses grown on their own territory which basically eliminates the ability for any country or even Coalition of countries to ever blockade the United States and starve it out of food even if they somehow destroyed the entire US Navy back in 2010 the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture forestry and Fisheries Compiled a list of countries they
determined by food self-sufficiency rates on account calorie Supply bases and it only ranked three countries in the world as being completely self-reliant on calories for their own population France Australia and of course the United States with the US producing 24% more calories within their own borders than their population actually needs to survive America's entire population in military could Continue being wellfed no matter how bad the naval situation around the country's oceans got while invading armies would have to bring all of their own food with them and it's not just food production that the United States
would be completely self-reliant on during an invasion scenario either all of the countries most significant oil and gas Fields outside of the offshore rigs on the Gulf of Mexico are located deep within the Country's interior as well and the United States currently uses all of these fields to produce about 75% of its own total oil supply and about 90% of its own total natural gas supply with a vast network of pipelines running all across the country territory that can quickly move fuel to exactly where it's needed and of the 25% of America's oil supply that's
currently imported more than half of all of it simply comes in from Canada while another 10% comes from Mexico across similar Overland trade routes that are difficult for an enemy to block this means that in addition to 75% of America's oil supply coming from within their own borders another 15 1.5% all comes from Canada and Mexico ultimately meaning that more than 90% of the US oil supply all comes com from within the North American continent which means that a naval blockade of the United States cannot possibly disrupt the US military's fuel supply very Substantially nor
the US economy's electricity Supply and nor could it disrupt America's food supply very substantially even if you somehow wiped out the entire country's Navy and Air Force and enemy soldiers were punching into the country's territory by land and by sea the us could continue producing stuff out of all of its Factories at virtually full capacity and could continue running all of its vehicles Les without a major hit to its fuel supply While the Invaders would still be having to run unbelievably massive Supply chains for their own Fuel and supplies across the oceans and then through
mountains and deserts on the continent and if somehow if everything else fails there is simply the massive and Incredibly well-armed population within the United States for an invading Army to be concerned about as well the US government always maintains The Selective Service program that operates An extensive database of All American men in the country aged 18 to 25 in the event of a huge National Emergency such as an invasion of the Homeland The Selective Service gives the country a pool of 15 million young military-aged men in the country that can be rapidly conscripted from and
trained and equipped for war with that in mind it is generally thought that in order to overcome the inherent advantages of a Defender during an invasion the attacker Should attack with at least a 3 to1 advantage in Manpower which implies then in order to have any realistic chance at overcoming the US military's Manpower potential an attacker would have to somehow Cobble together a force of at least 45 million troops to invade the United States with and they would somehow have to keep all of those troops well supplied across the world's oceans and motivated enough to
continue fighting on a foreign continent which is Just a laughable Prospect altogether and even further in order to combat against an Insurgency after a hostile area as been occupied the general rule of thumb in military circles is to leave behind a force of at least 40 soldiers for every one civilian in an occupied area which is similar to the ratio that the Americans used and occupy Germany after World War II and the NATO forces used in Kosovo after occupying it to 1999 since the total US population is currently Around 336 million people this would imply
that even if a hostile force was somehow miraculously capable of Conquering the entire country they would have to leave behind a for force of at least 8.4 million soldiers all across the country just to have any hope of quelling the Insurgency of America's population which is alone more than twice as many soldiers as Germany invaded the Soviet Union with in 1941 and the Insurgency that would erupt All across the United States would probably be even worse than anything else in the world ever has been because no other civilian population in all of human history has
ever been as well armed as the American population is it's been estimated before that a whopping 46% of all the firearms in the entire world are currently owned by Americans around 393 million Firearms both legal and illegal are believed to be in the possession of American civilians right Now which is millions more guns than the country's total population is this is also why it's estimated that there's roughly 120 firearms in civilian ownership in the United States for every 100 residents and why there are more firearms in the hands of American civilians than in the next
24 countries with the highest rates of gun ownership all combined and there are literally millions of these American gun owners who have fantasized about this exact Invasion scenario taking place every single day who would immediately take to the hills and the mountains and become the deadliest partisans ever seen in human history so ultimately for many many many reasons an invasion of the US Mainland is just not really a feasible possibility no matter how powerful an invading Force might be there's simply far too many obstacles standing in the way between an invading Army and success but
that doesn't mean that the US cannot be hurt or have its interests disrupted in other ways the US Mainland can obviously still become the subject of major attacks from hostile foreign powers if not outright invasions and the biggest and worst attack that ever befell the US on its own territory happened recently only 23 years ago on September 11th 2001 Osama Bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda organization the perpetrators of the deadliest attack in American history that killed nearly 3,000 Americans would later claim that their strategy for carrying out the attack on American soil was to go
the United States and its allies into a costly war of pursuit against them all across the world and over the next two decades following the attacks the United States would indeed wage a global war in response across seven Muslim majority countries from Afghanistan and Iraq to Pakistan Somalia Libya Yemen and Syria in their so-called global war on terror That would end up costing the United States at least $6 trillion doll worth of treasure and more than 7,000 American soldiers lives in blood an unprecedented Global Manhunt was launched across the entire world for years that relentlessly
pursued Osama Bin Laden and his accomplices who were responsible for carrying out the attack that unquestionably demonstrated America's willingness to go to the end ends of the Earth and pursue all available means no Matter how ethically questionable to pursue all those responsible who had dared to attack the American Homeland the global war on terror and The Manhunt for Osama Bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda officers would span multiple presidential administrations and last for years until Bin Laden was finally tracked down to a secluded compound in Pakistan in 201 and eliminated during a daring CrossCountry Special Forces
raid the course of events that led up to the 9/11 attacks themselves and then to the entire Manhunt for bin Laden the led up to the raid on him a decade later in 2011 and the decades long ramifications of America's global war on terror for both the United States itself and for the entire rest of the world is when makes it all perhaps the single most important of all 21st century conflicts to really understand because it explains so much about why our current world looks and functions the way it does but Unfortunately if I made
a really in-depth video about how Al-Qaeda planned out its own logistics for the attack and then how the global Manhunt for Osama Bin Laden and the other Al-Qaeda leaders responsible went and how America pursued its global war on terror the many disturbing violent and controversial details of discussing what still a very recent and horrible conflict in tragedy would cause the whole video to become demonetized and Age restricted which I completely understand understand and believe is actually appropriate but it also ultimately means that YouTube's algorithm would never promote any of the video to you and there's
just simply no way that you'd ever see it here and that's why instead I created yet another fulllength companion video to this one in my ongoing modern conflict series that's about the same length as this video that covers the entire course and Explanation into how alaa was able to attack the United States so successfully on September 11th without getting detected first first and then how the US intelligence Community hunted for Osama Bin Laden all across the ends of the Earth and eventually found him a decade later in Pakistan and I uploaded it directly to nebula
which as I'm sure you've already heard by now is home to tons of exclusive AdFree content like my entire modern conflict series with more Than 30 other fulllength exclusive videos over there that you can go and watch right now covering dozens of recent major Wars and conflicts that'll all help you stay up toate on what's going on in our world and why from this video covering the entire history of the US Al-Qaeda conflict that happened before 911 these ones covering the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in more detail these ones covering the international coalitions
war against Isis and Iraq and Syria all of these ones covering the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine and many many more with brand new episodes releasing every single month and even better I also recently started another completely new monthly video series on nebula called war room which will track all of the latest breaking geopolitical news developing from conflicts around the world and break them down into a single easily digestible monthly video briefing Series that'll help you stay even more up to dat and informed on what's currently happening around the world and why the latest episode
in war room covering all of the breaking geopolitical news and developments from last month in July is already live on nebula for you to go and watch right now and new episodes in war room will be released every every month just like the monthly new episodes in modern conflicts andat meaning two new exclusive real Life floor videos on nebula that you won't find on YouTube going out every month going forward and what's even more you also get access to all of the other amazing exclusive content that's on nebula because the best part about this site
is that it's jointly co-owned by all of its hundreds of creators built by myself and hundreds of other independent YouTubers and podcasters and because it's a subscription based service we all get to work on way bigger and higher Budget Productions over there than we could ever afford to do on our own on YouTube that's why there's tons of other exclusive content that you'll find equally fascinating from all of these other creators over there that you probably also already know as well and right now nebula is also selling lifetime memberships that'll last for as long as
both you and nebula exist lifetime memberships cost $300 and they'll last you forever there's no Tricks or gimmicks you just pay ones and you'll have access to everything that will ever exist on nebula forever that way you can avoid paying a recurring monthly subscription and the capital we're raising from Lifetime subscriptions are being all reinvested into even more new content on the site to expand our even more ambitious projects of movies plays shows and documentaries that are all still soon to come and that I'm very excited about and Best of all if you'd rather sign
up for an annual or monthly plan to nebula that's fine too and you can sign up for one by clicking the button that's here on your screen right now or by following the link Down Below in the description or by scanning the QR code here on your screen any of which will give you an insanely good 40% discount off of an annual subscription it's the absolute best way to help support what I'm doing here on real life lore and as always Thank you so much for watching
