US Threat to 'Take back' the Panama Canal

Andy_Ross said:
I would sink a ship in every lock and blow all the gates.

Tell them it's theirs.

It would take the US years to get it running again if Trump and his cronies are in charge.
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China would be really upset.

And them probably dig a new canal.
 
I repeat it would be very easy to go scorched earth on the Canal. Just a few pounds of Plastic Explosive in the right places on the locks would do it.
 
Not enought. the pumps and gates yes but sink something in each lock as well.
 
There has been talk in the past of creating another canal in Nicuragua. Essentially a Chinese company (Hong Kong, honest!) was behind it. Then it was cancelled. This might revive interest.
 
angrysoba said:
There has been talk in the past of creating another canal in Nicuragua. Essentially a Chinese company (Hong Kong, honest!) was behind it. Then it was cancelled. This might revive interest.
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You do know that Panama was basically carved out of Nicragua to get the canal built?
I am skeptical about antoher canal, simply because of how much it would cost and how long until you actually got iinto profit.
 
dudalb said:
You do know that Panama was basically carved out of Nicragua to get the canal built?
I am skeptical about antoher canal, simply because of how much it would cost and how long until you actually got iinto profit.
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It's not really relevant.

There are more recent plans, and it appears they may have been revived recently, for a Nicaragua Canal.
 
Ron Obvious said:
I'm pretty sure it was carved out of Colombia, actually.
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arthwollipot said:
My map has Costa Rica between Panama and Nicaragua. Perhaps the American maps show something different.
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Yeah, looks to me as though Nicaragua was part of Mexico, then part of the Federal Republic of Central America (along with a number of other countries such as Costa Rica), while Panama was part of Colombia. So what dudalb was speaking of is anyone's guess.
 
3point14 said:
How much would this cost in trade?

My guess would be "a lot".
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That's the price to pay for the US not minding its own ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ business because some ass hole POTUS wants something that isn't his and that he has no right to. Trade would still happen, it would just take a lot longer. A good reason for the US to, as I said, mind its own ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ business.
 
dudalb said:
You do know that Panama was basically carved out of Nicragua to get the canal built?
I am skeptical about antoher canal, simply because of how much it would cost and how long until you actually got iinto profit.
Click to expand...

You do know it was Colombia? The Colombian president even referenced that in his recent complaint about the treatment of deportees.

The Nicaraguan canal would be much longer that the Panama canal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_Canal_and_Development_Project
 
Length isn't really the issue, difference in elevation and hostility of terrain is .
The Canal could and should have been built somewhere else, but the French Architect got his ego-project.
 
3point14 said:
How much would this cost in trade?

My guess would be "a lot".
Click to expand...
Somewhere, in this tread (or maybe another one - without the Search Function I can;t figure it out), I did publish some numbers as t the volume of Global trade and US trade that passes through the Canal. It is huge. Shutting the canal down for even a couple of weeks would be extremely costly.
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
Somewhere, in this tread (or maybe another one - without the Search Function I can;t figure it out), I did publish some numbers as t the volume of Global trade and US trade that passes through the Canal. It is huge. Shutting the canal down for even a couple of weeks would be extremely costly.
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Sure, but it would hurt the nations in the Americas the most. China-EU can go trough the Suez. Africa-EU would hardly be affected. India-China/Russsia would be ok too.
But anything EU-west americas or China-east america's would be massively impacted.
And it's not like the US has a robust enough rail network to pick up a significant part of such lost trade.
 
Here's the thing. Panama is an ally. They continue to work with SouthCom, and the DEA closely. Panama is also the central international banking resource for money laundering. The whole taking the canal back stemmed from the death of President Carter, and the usual suspects grousing about our living up to our end of the treaty, and handing it over to Panama in 1999.

I doubt it will happen, but in three weeks Diaper Donny has set back US-Central American relations almost 30 years.

As far as taking the canal by force goes, I happen to know a lot about Operation: Just Cause. Can we do it? Sure. Will it be as easy as 1989? Hell no. In 1989 we had bases in Panama, with the 193rd Airborne brigade, and a few thousand US Marines, and 7th Special Forces Group already in place as residential units. They lived and trained in Panama, and worked with their PDF counterparts. For the invasion there were a total of 27,000 soldiers, a ratio of 3 to 1 against the PDF. Almost 5,000 of them had been sent down to Panama from Fort Ord and Fort Bragg in October, 1989. It would be the same as if we wanted to capture the state of Georgia today with Fort More, Fort, Fort Stewart, Robins AFB, Moody AFB, and Kings Bay as forward staging areas. It would be a short battle.

Today we have no bases in Panama. The PDF like any other Central American military force, mildly capable, but no match for even our National Guard. And in theory 7thSFG and SEAL teams could infiltrate the canal zone to prevent sabotage ahead of the invasion force (as they did in 1989). The problem with Panama is the jungle. Most Vietnam vets who fought in Just Cause, or just did Jungle School at Ft, Sherman said the jungles there are worse than SE Asian jungles. In 1989 the PDF didn't put up much of a fight because they didn't want to die at Christmas for Manuel Noriega. And because we had relationships with many PDF officers and NCOs we were able to call them on the phone, and ask them to surrender instead of getting killed in battles they would lose. The hard fighting was over in 11 days, the canal zone was under US control in under 20 hours. And unlike Iraq, we put the PDF back into operations, and returned their weapons, and they worked with our forces to chase down Noriega loyalists, and Cuba spies.

The problem with Just Cause is we made it look easy, and it set up Operation Desert Storm, and the legacy of armed intervention ever since. But to date there has been almost no analysis of the invasion beyond a few books (which I own all) and a Rand Corp study. No asks what would have happened had the PDF and Dignity Battalions ( Panamanian Fedayeen, sort of like making the Bloods and Crips into the National Guard) had gone into the jungles to fight us? We were down there from October, 1989 through February, 1990. Had the resistance gone into the jungles we would have been fighting in Panama for at least three years. In 1989 we killed fewer than 500 Panamanians. Any future invasion will kill thousands (potentially) depending on where the fighting occurs. Panama City has tripled in size, vertically and horizontally. We can't assume foreign fighters won't show up in such an operation today.

I doubt China would intervene, but they sure might use our invasion as cover to take Taiwan. We would instantly be at a disadvantage, certainly from a place of credibility as we would be guilty of doing the exact same thing to Panama - taking back something that used to belong to us decades ago. It would be a recruiting poster for anti-American entities worldwide. There is no need for this action. Panama has made no threats. We've reelected a moron.
 
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Axxman300 said:
Here's the thing. Panama is an ally. They continue to work with SouthCom, and the DEA closely. Panama is also the central international banking resource for money laundering. The whole taking the canal back stemmed from the death of President Carter, and the usual suspects grousing about our living up to our end of the treaty, and handing it over to Panama in 1999.

I doubt it will happen, but in three weeks Diaper Donny has set back US-Central American relations almost 30 years.

As far as taking the canal by force goes, I happen to know a lot about Operation: Just Cause. Can we do it? Sure. Will it be as easy as 1989? Hell no. In 1989 we had bases in Panama, with the 193rd Airborne brigade, and a few thousand US Marines, and 7th Special Forces Group already in place as residential units. They lived and trained in Panama, and worked with their PDF counterparts. For the invasion there were a total of 27,000 soldiers, a ratio of 3 to 1 against the PDF. Almost 5,000 of them had been sent down to Panama from Fort Ord and Fort Bragg in October, 1989. It would be the same as if we wanted to capture the state of Georgia today with Fort More, Fort, Fort Stewart, Robins AFB, Moody AFB, and Kings Bay as forward staging areas. It would be a short battle.

Today we have no bases in Panama. The PDF like any other Central American military force, mildly capable, but no match for even our National Guard. And in theory 7thSFG and SEAL teams could infiltrate the canal zone to prevent sabotage ahead of the invasion force (as they did in 1989). The problem with Panama is the jungle. Most Vietnam vets who fought in Just Cause, or just did Jungle School at Ft, Sherman said the jungles there are worse than SE Asian jungles. In 1989 the PDF didn't put up much of a fight because they didn't want to die at Christmas for Manuel Noriega. And because we had relationships with many PDF officers and NCOs we were able to call them on the phone, and ask them to surrender instead of getting killed in battles they would lose. The hard fighting was over in 11 days, the canal zone was under US control in under 20 hours. And unlike Iraq, we put the PDF back into operations, and returned their weapons, and they worked with our forces to chase down Noriega loyalists, and Cuba spies.

The problem with Just Cause is we made it look easy, and it set up Operation Desert Storm, and the legacy of armed intervention ever since. But to date there has been almost no analysis of the invasion beyond a few books (which I own all) and a Rand Corp study. No asks what would have happened had the PDF and Dignity Battalions ( Panamanian Fedayeen, sort of like making the Bloods and Crips into the National Guard) had gone into the jungles to fight us? We were down there from October, 1989 through February, 1990. Had the resistance gone into the jungles we would have been fighting in Panama for at least three years. In 1989 we killed fewer than 500 Panamanians. Any future invasion will kill thousands (potentially) depending on where the fighting occurs. Panama City has tripled in size, vertically and horizontally. We can't assume foreign fighters won't show up in such an operation today.

I doubt China would intervene, but they sure might use our invasion as cover to take Taiwan. We would instantly be at a disadvantage, certainly from a place of credibility as we would be guilty of doing the exact same thing to Panama - taking back something that used to belong to us decades ago. It would be a recruiting poster for anti-American entities worldwide. There is no need for this action. Panama has made no threats. We've reelected a moron.
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Interesting read. Thanks for that.

My understanding is that, contrary to what Trump says, Panama's neutrality is only doubt because it actually favours the US, not China! Of course, this idiotic and bellicose sabre-rattling against Panama is only likely to make them rethink that.

In fact, in all of Trump's behaviour so far, erstwhile allies of the US (Canada, the EU, and countries around the world who are dependent on trade and aid from the US) will have to hedge their bets in future and assume that their ally is no longer dependable given that the rug could be pulled out from under them.
 
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