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Une guerre Anglo-américaine?

Shocking! Une nouvelle glanée par Influence Communication dans le Daily Express de Londres d'hier nous apprend que les États-Unis avaient un plan pour fomenter des troubles politiques au Québec… dans les années 30!

Mais l'article souligne surtout un plan vieux de 70 ans, prévoyant une guerre entre deux pays depuis longtemps alliés: les États-Unis et l'Angleterre. Imaginez… Extraits de l'article en question (en anglais, désolé).

AMERICA'S SECRET PLAN TO WAGE WAR ON BRITAIN

by York Membery

LEADER – As the Queen arrives in the US today at the start of her state visit. . .

THE special relationship between Britain and America might appear to be cast in stone ^ an almost God-given state of affairs between the world's two foremost English-speaking powers.

After all, it has been the cornerstone of British foreign policy since the Second World War ^ and is arguably the main reason why Britain's troops are fighting alongside America's in Iraq.

It is also a large part of the reason why the Queen is beginning a state visit of America today ^ to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in North America.

However, it might surprise some people to learn that 70 years ago ^ in 1927 ^ mutual antagonism over naval disarmament was so serious that it led to talk of an AngloAmerican war.

Thankfully, it did not come to that but it did lead to the drawing up of a secret US war plan, War Plan Red, which astonishingly looked at how America could take on and defeat the might of Britain and her Empire. Quite how much the White House and President Calvin Coolidge knew about this plan is unclear.

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However, you only have to read the 94-page Joint Army And Navy Basic War Plan: Red, to see that it was no joke. Indeed, the forgotten document, now gathering dust in a little grey box in America's National Archives, showcases a bold, step-by-step plan to take on and defeat Britain.

SO WHY was it drawn up? A degree of rivalry had always underpinned Anglo-US relations and after the First World War ^ a conflict which many Americans believed it had been wrongly dragged into by Britain ^ the US military attache in London reported to his superiors that "America was getting too serious a rival" for Britain, which was "endeavouring to surround us with potential enemies", specifically "Mexico, Japan and South America" which she was "lining up against us".

Such thinking might have displayed a ludicrous degree of paranoia but by the late Twenties some leading figures in the US military really did believe that Britain posed a threat to Uncle Sam. In fact, American military strategists had developed plans for war with Japan (code name Orange) and Germany (Black), among other countries it perceived as possible enemies. But Britain? Her wartime ally just a few years earlier?

US military strategists argued that America's growing commercial power might result in Red (the code name for Britain in the war plan) seeking to eliminate America as a commercial threat "by the destruction of Blue (US merchant marine and foreign) trade and by acquisition of the Panama Canal".

Furthermore, it saw Britain as the one nation that really might be able to beat the US in a war, thanks to the might of the Royal Navy and the proximity of Canada (then part of the Empire) to the States.

Cue the drawing up of one of the barmiest, most surreal military documents to emerge in the course of the 20th century.

The plan, approved in 1930, suggested that in the event of war, Britain could assemble a massive naval force ^ 14 battleships, 38 cruisers, five aircraft carriers and 130 destroyers ^ in Halifax, on Canada's east coast, within 40 days. Furthermore, it could amass a 2.5 million-strong imperial army on Crimson [Canadian] soil, before launching an attack on the US.

"The effect on the Blue industrial region would be far-reaching, " concluded the plan. Its creators anticipated a war "of long duration" because "the Red race" is "more or less phlegmatic" but "noted for its ability to fight to a finish".

In those less than politically correct times, planners also suggested that Britain's Army could be reinforced by "colored" troops from the colonies. "Some of the colored races come of good fighting stock and, under white leadership, can be made into very efficient troops, " it stated.

To meet the proposed threat, US military planners drew up an audacious war plan. The US Army would invade Canada ^ as it had done in the War of 1812, when it was repulsed by British troops ^ and try to seize Halifax to prevent its use by the Royal Navy.

However, that was just the start.

The US navy was to intercept supplies of Canadian wheat and Argentine meat bound for Britain in a bid to make her go hungry ^ just as the U-boats tried to do a decade later in the Second World War. And US marines were to seize British possessions in the Caribbean, such as Jamaica and the Bahamas.

FINALLY, the US hoped to foment possible revolt in India and Quebec and encourage the Irish to give "active support to an American Expeditionary Force attempting to secure a base of operations on the Irish coast".

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