Canada

When Trump readied the 11th Airborne Division out of Alaska for potential deployment to Minneapolis to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agents in their immigration crackdown, I posted the big scoop: the operations leader for that unit was none other than Canadian Brigadier-General Robert McBride. I subsequently wrote about the intertwined nature of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) and the US military for The Economist.

The ties detailed involved exchanges, secondments, embeds, task forces, and other joint operations, including training. At any time, there are hundreds of our service members sprinkled across the vast US military, with several more in the North American Aerospace Defense Command or overseas serving with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the United States Central Command, and others.

That story rattled both Ottawa and Washington. The Department of National Defence was keen to separate themselves from the idea of a Canadian military member partaking in the brutality visited upon civilians in Minneapolis. They assured the public that there are safeguards in place to prevent a Canadian being “deployed” with an American unit, including that any such actions would have to be approved at the highest levels (but it does happen: see my previous coverage about the Iraq invasion).

But the DND was extremely skittish when it came to answering questions about intelligence sharing between Canada and the US and potential CAF involvement in Operation Southern Spear. Weeks of plugging away at sources in the US military, CAF, Ottawa, Washington, and the Open Source community brought me to the tipping point.

Here’s what I found out: by nature of our military relationship with the US, Canada is implicated in Operation Southern Spear. The question is to what degree.