US Invasion of Canada: Arrogance or Irrelevant

Fun news this week: the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey said that the US had no war plans for invading Canada. The context was that the military has plans for pretty much any possibility... except that one.

This raises a question:

"Let's be honest, do you really think we would need a 'plan'?" General Dempsey said, while making air quote gestures. http://t.co/uEFfQgfQpj
— James Skylar Gerrond (@JimmySky) June 20, 2014

Is the plan-lessness due to good relations with Canada with no foreseeable desire to invade it despite its plentiful oil (tar sands), fresh water, and moose? Or there is no need for a plan since the Americans are cocky about how easy it would be to invade?

I am not sure Canadians who fear the behemoth to the south are assured by the lack of a plan.  The US has invaded other countries without a decent plan (Iraq), so that is not so much of a deterrent.  On the other hand, I doubt that the US has enough cold weather gear to supply an entire occupation force (for some reason, the white camouflage uniforms also seem pretty neat).  

My neighbor cited the location of Fort Drum as an indicator of American readiness to launch an attack.  Fort Lewis is kind of north, too.  So, the US could move towards Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal pretty easily.  To be clear, Montreal's broken bridges may keep any invasion force on the other side of the river--I would not chance it sending over armored vehicles--which may explain why Quebec and Canada under-invest in maintenance of these bridges.

The lack of major army bases across the middle of the US suggests that the US would have a harder time with a surprise attack taking the middle of Canada.  There can be no lightning strike to seize the tar sands.  This would have to be done by airborne forces.   Given how thinly populated northern Alberta is, one airborne division (which is all the US has now, apparently) is probably sufficient.

So, the US military does not really need a plan.  We can just spitball it.  On the other hand, as we learned elsewhere, the plan for the occupation would have to be worked out since sticking around is far harder than invading.  Quelling a restive Canadian population might be difficult unless we can find some way to lose the next few USA-Canada hockey matches (men's and women's) as well as soccer (women's) and perhaps relocate a few NHL franchises back to where the belong. 

Does a blog post count as a plan?