If a foreign power tried to invade Latin America or make a military expansionist move there, how powerful would be the continent at resisting the invasion?

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If a foreign power tried to invade Latin America or make a military expansionist move there, how powerful would be the continent at resisting the invasion?

Comments

  1. TheKeeperOfThePace Avatar

    Guerrilla tactics and terrain advantages would play a role, but conventional resistance would be limited. Great tactics without strategy.

  2. AmorinIsAmor Avatar

    Which power? Are we banding together?

  3. Geologo-Loko Avatar

    Brazilian army will do nothing about it and try a coup d’etat instead

  4. lojaslave Avatar

    Individually most countries would initially fail, except maybe Brazil, in the longer term with guerilla tactics, you’d probably end up with an Afghanistan type Pyrrhic victory for the invader.

    If we were magically united, we’d probably win outright, but that is a very unlikely scenario.

  5. Hal_9000_DT Avatar

    The invasion would probably go very quickly. The occupation? Good luck to any foreign power trying to fight Latin American guerillas LMAO

  6. Ponchorello7 Avatar

    The only country we have to fear anything from is the US, and militarily, there’s almost nothing we could do about that.

  7. GladiusNocturno Avatar

    Assuming for a moment that every country agrees to fight back, I think we stand a fair chance. I believe Brazil has the strongest military in the continent, but I’m not sure.

    The key part in this is that it’s really going to depend on which foreign power would try to do this. With the way the region is currently governed. A US invasion would be supported by El Salvador and Argentina as long as they don’t start with them. But if it’s Russia, Venezuela would immediately join in, while I suspect Colombia and Brazil would try to remain neutral and play diplomacy as long as they can. I can see Colombia’s Petro joining Russia along with Venezuela or at least not standing in Russia’s way, but Lula might not and might fight back only as a last resort.

    The region doesn’t have enough unity to stand together against a common enemy. The ideological differences between the countries and the high levels of corruption would stand in the way of a full united front in the short or mid-term. At least in my opinion.

  8. HzPips Avatar

    A lot of people make fun of our army here in Brazil, but it has historically been a quite effective fighting force.

    Because of conscription it is very large and could get a lot larger if needed because most conscripts are dismissed for personnel excess.

    He have a respectable domestic arms industry, and although a lot of our hardware is from the Cold War we do have some modern and capable stuff, like gripen jets.

    Infrastructure wise we have plenty of roads and airports, making it very difficult to bomb them all, and our armed forces have quite a few modern cargo airplanes, so supplying isolated areas should be possible.

    Our navy is decent, but doesn’t have an active aircraft carrier, so it’s capabilities get limited.

    We don’t have nukes, so in a nuclear war scenario we would lose.

    Overall I would say that the only country that would be capable to wage a successful campaign against Brazil would be the United States, they have enough aircraft carriers to achieve aerial superiority and bomb us into submission. Most of our economy and population is near the coast, so they wouldn’t have to go in very deep.

    Occupying such a large territory would be challenging, I don’t think even the USA would be able to do it.

  9. tworc2 Avatar

    We would have a legendary strong worded opposition

  10. yafeters Avatar

    Do we know if the Rio Treaty is still active?

  11. deltagma Avatar

    They could ‘take over’ and topple all the governments… sure… some governments will fall faster than others…

    But there would be a never ending guerrilla war… and just as a flea can kill a dog, so too will the guerrilla eventually win by the invading military eventually giving up..

  12. No_External196 Avatar

    Same story as La Conquista. We would just betray each other until the foreign power decimates rebels and then it’s traitors’ turn.

  13. ThorvaldGringou Avatar

    I think we can repeal any power right now, any european power, Russia, idk about China.

    Except the US. I believe that the US is the major threat to Hispanic sovereignty since the XIX century.

  14. TalkForward7768 Avatar

    Mexican Navy is full of extremely well trained, mean SOBs – also, if you’re counting all of Latin America you’d need to keep in mind that deep jungle terrain is extremely tough to fight in against a well-trained army. / But yeah I’d say we’re toast vs long range missiles

  15. catsoncrack420 Avatar

    USA Monroe Doctrine of the 1800s still holds today. Look that up , US can intervene and may. If the USA is the imperialist power invading, not much Latam can do but local resistance. Being from Dominican Republic we’d be conquered in a day. Then local militia groups would coordinate on….yep WhatsApp.

  16. Evening-Car9649 Avatar

    Which foreign power? The USA will not stand for any foreign power taking Latin America. All other answers to the contrary are wrong.

  17. mauricio_agg Avatar

    The strength would be inversely proportional to such enemy’s logistics. We’re sitting on our own hemisphere.

  18. Small_Dog_8699 Avatar

    Mexico doesn’t possess a single operational fighter jet and has not for almost a decade.

    The navy seems to operate in a role more like the US Coast Guard. Law enforcement and search/rescue.

    But Mexico would be hard to take and hold owing to the terrain and the guerrilla game would likely be impossible to beat over the long term as the drug cartels have demonstrated.

  19. carloom_ Avatar

    I mean it is not hypothetical, look at the reconquista in Argentina and Uruguay, the siege of Cartagena de Indias. If people are defending themselves against a foreign power they would fight valiantly.

    But if for instance, is to remove a dictator ( Maduro ) then they will support the invasion.

    The resistance will start depending on the population’s position.

  20. vcmequer Avatar

    Uma coisa que nós latinos não vamos aceitar novamente é dominação estrangeira, isso precisa ser levado em consideração.
    Aqui no Brasil, por exemplo:
    Todo brasileiro ADORA falar mal de outros brasileiros, como são, como vivem etc.
    Mas no momento em que um GRINGO quer falar qualquer coisa do brasil todo mundo se junta pra se defender.
    Vejo isso acontecendo dentro desse caso hipotético..
    Outra exemplo, Brasil X Argentina:
    Qualquer brasileiro adora zoar os argentinos, por QUALQUER motivo assim como os Argentinos zoam os brasileiros… (ainda odiamos o fato de alguns deles serem uns racistas de merda).
    Mas quando a Argentina está prestes a quebrar, quem a auxilia? Pois é.

  21. MoldovanKatyushaZ Avatar

    The USA would be able to rout every single Latin country in a matter of weeks

  22. Jordanmanuel Avatar

    Panamá and Costa Rica would Solo everyone that tried that 

  23. elnusa Avatar

    The invasion would very likely be successful at first, no doubt. Few countries would give any real support to a neighbor being invaded… and in some cases would probably even support the invaders. The real problem would come after. Many average people in several if not most Latin American countries are so used to violence and precarious/uncertain life that resistance would be persistent, long and brutal, making the country invaded ungovernable (assuming its not an invasion to outs a hated tyrant or already weak unpopular government).

  24. jorsiem Avatar

    Depends.

    If by foreign you mean China or Russia, then the US would 100% get involved because there’s no way they let any one of those expand into their backyard.

    But because this is the reddit and USABAD has been the theme here lately, I’m assuming you mean the US turns on the region.

    Well then the answer is pretty much nothing. The US army can take every latin american armed force single handedly. A SINGLE carrier strike group is bigger than the army + navy of every single country except maybe 3 or 4 countries. and the US has 11 of them. And that’s just the Navy, not even counting the US army or the Air Force.

    Also, nothing since there’s no NATO or any military alliance, I doubt any other country would voluntarily get into a fight with the US because of altruism lol. Unless of course Russia or China decides to either get involved or fight a proxy war, then it’s WW3 and all bets are off.

    Also, none of this is ever going to happen so calm your tits

  25. Radiant-Ad-4853 Avatar

    I don’t think anything would happen. 

  26. Environmental-Arm269 Avatar

    Would anyone even resist?

  27. arthur2011o Avatar

    Invoke the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, and this will include the US, so…

  28. MidnightYoru Avatar

    depending on the foreign power, our armies would join them.

  29. ozneoknarf Avatar

    The whole region? Impossible to take over, The US at most could take Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean and maybe even the coastal regions of Colombia and Venezuela. But trying to conquer the andes, tha amazon and the Brazilian coastal mountains would just be suicide and logistically impossible. Its like trying cross the alps except it two times as high and the fighting 100 vietnams wars at the time.

  30. ObjectiveBoth8866 Avatar

    There’s this little problem, there’s a country called Chile that has an history on selling other countries.