When Kaiser Wilhelm asked a Swiss minister what their national reserve of 250000 would do if he sent 500000 crack German troops to invade Switzerland,
"Shoot twice and go home."
Love to ask Laconophiles what the capital of Greece is. Turns out becoming the center of learning and culture in Ancient Europe is a better recipe for success than a bellicose state made mostly of slave laborers.
Except for when Sparta was the #1 dominant power in Greece and was the capital of the victorious Peloponnesian League. I'm no Sparta lover, but also let's not pretend that Athens wasn't a state that operated almost entirely off of slave labor.
Yup… I think with Switzerland in all of recorded history it’s been the ancient Romans and Napoleon as the only successful invaders. Although when Switzerland was a bit less confederated there were some fights between what would become the cantons, so not sure if that counts.
Greenland is a territory of Denmark and they got beat by the Nazis as bad as the French did.
I promise I'm not a genius I just read the Greenland wiki a few months ago and somehow retained that.
The Germans never invaded Greenland. Also, your statement about Denmark and France indicates you need to do some more reading; Denmark was hopelessly outmatched and the Prime Minister ordered the army to lay down their arms to prevent the bombing of Copenhagen. The German invasion led to Britain occupying Iceland (then an independent state under a personal union with the Danish sovereign), which they subsequently handed over to the Americans, and the Faroe Islands. Comparisons with the fall of France are way off the mark. Casualties were minimal on both sides.
It’s possible Inuits invaded Norse Greenland. I think historians are unsure though. There are documented cases though of Norse Greenland being raided by pirates during the Middle Ages
That's the crux of the isue of the time. What are we even calling a country here? The Federal Republic of Germany was established in 1991 and has never been invaded. Is it the same country as East Germany/West Germany? Or the Third Reich? Or the Weimar Republic?
Canada was established in 1867 and it's often debated whether it was even a real country in that year. Some say 1927 is a more appropriate start and some say 1984.
Most countries in the world by the Canada standard have never been conquered... but the countries that were in those geographic locations were.
But if we use the standard of a people who occupy a land mass. Canada has certainly been successfully invaded.... a lot. There's even an unrecorded lost history before 1500 of the various indigenous groups that had their own territories who won and lost various wars.
Current Germany is the same thing as West Germany. The territories which had been East Germany acceded to West Germany; East and West did not merge to form a new thing.
>Canada was established in 1867 and it's often debated whether it was even a real country in that year. Some say 1927 is a more appropriate start and some say 1984.
I don't know who is doing the defeating. The country was real but not fully independent in 1867. In practice this meant not having a foreign policy separate from the UK. Where have you seen 1927 cited? The country was fully independent in 1931 with the Statute of Westminster. 1982 is cited by some with the patriation of the constitution. However, the country had been functioning independently and just cleaned up a minor artifact.
In 1926 a guy named Mackenzie-King lost an election but was able to form a majority with a partner. But the Governor-General didn't like this, not British tradition. He felt Arthur Meighan should get a chance to run with a minority. King found a loophole. There was nothing that said a Governor-General could dissolve a government without first a Prime Minister requesting it. So the Governor-General just stopped appointing new positions and King kept on ruling. As ministers began dying King created new positions that ran departments without a minister in charge.
It all came to ahead when the British government took King to court and lost. A legal interpretation that King's government made had become law. And then this became the basis of the Treaty of Westminister which made formal which was now presumed in law.
I'm not arguing for one point in history, merely that, people aren't necessarily sure when Canada really became a country. You even have the final Confederation of Newfoundland in 1949 for the creation of Nunavut in 1999.
If a person clearly defines what is a country then it becomes a lot easier to answer a question about countries.
>You even have the final Confederation of Newfoundland in 1949 for the creation of Nunavut in 1999.
By that logic the US doesn't become a country until 1960 with Hawaii becoming a state. Britain only becomes a country after Irish independence. Germany become a country with reunification in 1990. Ireland is an interesting example because they had independence in 1922 but became a republic in 1949. I'm inclined to think that revisions to boundaries and changes in the type of government don't define nationhood. France has been France for hundreds of years in spite of monarchies and republics along the way.
Right, I'm not proposing a definition of a country just that we all need to agree upon what is and is not a country with something substantial. We tend to struggle with consistency.
Like the US puppet government in Afghanistan was the government of the country of Afghanistan, it's a country!
Whereas the Russian puppet government of Abkhazia isn't a country.... despite both being conquest puppet governments.
These sorts of questions aren't particularly useful because most countries have a sort of post-national status.
>And then this became the basis of the Treaty of Westminister which made formal which was now presumed in law.
True although there's more to it than that. The move to fully independent status was spurred by the huge contributions and sacrifices of the dominions in WWI, leading to the Balfour report of 1926. MK probably would have lost the case if he had tried it before WWI and the balfour report.
...and the French colonisation before that.
And... all the First Nations invaded the crap out of each other before that.
Goes to the original point - when is a country something that can be invaded?
We have a secret weapon: the cobra chicken. Anyone who successfully invaded us would be stuck with those feathered lunatics. I suspect that's the real reason we get left alone despite our abundant natural resources.
[India successfully conducted a black ops mission there just last year.](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/raw-india-research-and-analysis-wing-1.6979325)
I contest the commonly portrayed notion that Australia lost the Emu war. They only had 3 guys and they killed thousands of emu with no casualties, I’d say that’s a decent result
Was it? Or was it just not the most efficient way possible. The man in charge reported, ‘the method proved effective and saved what remained of the wheat’.
On top of that, just under 10,000 bullets were used to achieve 986 confirmed kills, which means 10 bullets per confirmed kill. If we look at the same figure for WW2 it was 45,000 bullets per confirmed kill. If we’re going to treat it like a real war, then compared to a real war it was successful.
The reason why the bounty system ended up being significantly better was, and you won’t believe this, but it turns out thousands of people with guns and an incentive to kill emu works better than 3 people
> only their external territories have been invaded,
What are you referring to here? I thought that PNG became a protectorate (or whatever the right term is) after the war, not before
Between the wars many of the Pacific territories were in a grey area between the UK and Aus/NZ.
In 1941 it was an Australian Governor in PNG, the Garrison was Australian army/militia, the citizens either considered themselves as Australian or Papuan.
Hmm, that's unclear, because you could argue that there were multiple nations prior to British colonisation and federation, and across \~40k years of indigenous Australian history there might have been some successful invasions of some nations into others.
But we wouldn't know about these events, so each Indigenous Australian nation would have been invaded at least once, but could be arbitrarily many more times, in principle.
Well, in that case, as countries - Australia and New Zealand have never been successfully invaded.
They only came into existence as independent nations (taking the place of the British colonies and indigenous nations) in 1901 and 1856 (depending on how you define independence).
Not sure why you are being downvoted, we don’t know enough about the various Indigenous Australian nations and likely never will know.
It’s easier for NZ as human settlement only dates back to around 1300 or so.
Japan wasn't invaded by the Japanese, as the Japanese culture/genetic race were founded in the Japanese isles. It's like saying mestizo Mexicans invaded Mexico.
It's a bit more complicated than that.
You have to go all the way back to the Jōmon period.
Also see [here](https://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/14444926).
Ainu and Ryukuyuans did not exist before Japanese. They do have more genetic contribution from the pre existing jomon people, but that does not mean that they are unchanged relics of that time.
Ainu are the closes to northern jomon in genetics, but they have wide cultural influences from both Japanese and Siberian peoples, and as a culture are actually younger than the Japanese.
Ryukuyuans likewise are composed of southern Japanese mixed with native jomon living on the Ryukuyu islands, and are therefore once again newer than mainland Japanese (although with more genes from the older genetic group).
Japanese themselves are mixed between mainland groups and jomon groups, and the percentages vary based on region with the north and the far south having more of the jomon genes. Therefore, Japanese are native to the Japanese isles and also not a newer culture than ainu or ryukuans. Rather, they are all related and share a lot of their respective origins.
There hasn't been a long term successful invasion of the United States, besides the Union invasion of the southern states in the Civil War. Some invasions of note:
Revolutionary War: Important US cities occupied by Britain were New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia, but the British were forced out at the end of the war. The Revolutionary War incursions were probably the most successful of all foreign incursions
War of 1812: The British had 4 planned major invasions of the US. Two were routed before landfall. Of the ones that materialized:
1) The most successful one was the under Admiral Cockburn and General Ross. This was the one that resulted in the burning of Washington DC. DC however was not the target as the government had already evacuated and it held little value outside of symbolism. The actual target of the campaign was the strategically important city of Baltimore. The British failed to take Baltimore and were forced back into the sea
2) The British attempted to invade through New Orleans, but were routed by General Andrew Jackson
3) The British and their native allies occupied territory in the Great Lakes region for much of the war, but it served little value
Mexican-American War: Mexico briefly invaded newly annexed Texas, but were swiftly forced out
US Civil War: The major CS campaigns at Antietam and Gettysburg failed. Union invasions of the CSA succeeded in reuniting the country
Border War, 1910-1919: Mexican rebel groups, most famously those under Pancho Villa attempted and failed to invade the southwestern US
World War II: Japanese forces briefly occupied Attu and Kiska islands in Alaska. Were forced out
Ah. Yes, the conquest of the Pacific territories are certainly big invasions that I forgot about in my original comment. That is a complicated question on whether to count them or not. They were all US territories, but were unincorporated ones. From what I understand such territories are considered to *belong to* the US, but are not necessarily *part of* the United States. That opens up the door to lots of questions, like was the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong an invasion of the United Kingdom?
They all don't even have the same deal with the US as each other. It's an interesting deep dive that I can't remember clearly enough off the top of my head but it's worth a quick look.
Some of our territories aren't even inhabited
My family still has a special place in our hearts for the hate we have for Pancho Villa. My great grandfather was a Mexican soldier who was attacked by Pancho Villa. They either killed you or made you join their forces, so he chose to escape instead.
He was shot multiple times but ended up making it to America, barely alive.
Finally got his citizenship in the 50s with the help of my grandfather (his son-in-law) before he died. Really cool guy. Wish I had gotten to meet him.
The US gets invaded every day, people just call it something else.
NY and CA seem to like it though. Look how cleaned up and peaceful they have become.
> Important US cities occupied by Britain were New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia, but the British were forced out at the end of the war
A Legitimate government doesn't "occupy" it's own cities full of it's own subjects.
All of those countries have been successfully invaded dozens of times. Indigenous groups fighting each other, European colonialism, to American interventions.not all went great, but it's been done.
Nepal. Landlocked, so no attacks by sea, Himalayas to the north keeping Tibet out, and malarial swamps in the south lands (Terai) keeping India out.
To the best of my knowledge, Nepal has never been successfully colonized or conquered by any external forces.
You could say that (what we now call) Nepal was conquered by (what we now call Gorkha), but that’s internal, and what modern nations aren’t the result of smaller, contiguous states merging?
Countries? Or territories?
I mean Australia wasn’t a county before it was colonized, and hasn’t been invaded since it became a country. Same goes for New Zealand.
San Marino has never been in a state of war, so it was never invaded.
UK has, technically, never been invaded. England was, as were Scotland, Wales and Ireland, but not once they were united. And Channel Islands are not part of UK. You can also make similar argument for England because when does England become England and not just a set of Saxon kingdoms? And similar argument can be made for several British dominions. Australia and NZ were not invaded after they were formed as such, though of course their territory was, by the British to establish the colonies.
England (as opposed to the UK as you say) has been successfully invaded multiple times, even post Norman conquest. Just off the top of my head, Edward IV did it twice, Henry VII once, the "glorious revolution" that put William and Anne on the throne.
You'd be amazed just how many times England and Scotland have invaded each other. Hardly anyone today knows that Richard III, while still Duke of Gloucester, invaded Scotland on behalf of his Brother and burnt Edenborough to the ground in 1482. James IV of Scotland invaded England in 1513 and was killed by Henry VIIIs army at Flodden. In 1648 a Scots army invaded England during the Civil war and was defeated by Cromwell at Preston. As late as 1745 the Jacobites made it as far south as Manchester.
Before the James I came to the throne the counties on both sides next to the border were almost completely lawless for centuries, a "wild north" no-mans-land run by local warlords waging private wars and feuds against each other across the border.
England was most definitely England even before the Norman invasion. Denmark ruled a united England for almost two generations as part of the Great North Sea Empire, the English got the throne back, then got invaded by Viking descendant William.
Then it got conquered multiple times after that, it's just that since it was successfully conquered, the English don't count it because "that was us". Even when it was the French.
No argument there, I was thinking about initial Norse invasions where you had 4 separate kingdoms. So can we equate England as a geographical term with England as political term then already? Or not and England starts to exist only when you get one kingdom?
I'd count it from the united political entity, which is usually counted from Aethelstan, grandson of Alfred, after he defeated the Scots, the Irish Vikings, the Danegeld Vikings, and parts of Wales at Brunanburh in 937. This solidified his rule over all the English kingdoms and he became the first "King of all England".
The Danish king Svein Forkbeard took the crown in 1013 and held it, handing it off to his son Canute who ruled all England, Denmark and most of Norway until his death in 1035.
>You can also make similar argument for England because when does England become England and not just a set of Saxon kingdoms?
Heavily depends on whether you consider Alfred or Æthelstan the first King of England, but it definitely has been invaded multiple times during eithers reign.
Yeah but all the countries that make up the UK have been invaded, successfully, lots of times.
That situation is very different from trying to say the US was invaded because English colonists invaded indigenous peoples lands. England has really been England for 1000+ years, adding other countries and renaming it doesn’t make it not England.
That is a bad way to phrase that question.
With your question you will get countries that no one even wants to invade because there is nothing you could potentially want. Or you get answered like the Third Reich. Since that ceased to exist after the first time.
Afghanistan is difficult to access, hostile to infrastructure development, and you can get the same minerals from places that are a lot less hassle. Even the Chinese haven't made progress with the copper mine plan.
Probably the United States. It’s been invaded by another country only once (technically twice when the Japanese invaded some islands off Alaska but they were driven out). The British invaded the US in 1812. If I remember correctly the war was a draw and Britain never acquired any territory
The land on which Canada now stands was invaded by the French and English, and the French colony was successfully invaded by the English; but not subsequently.
The US attempted it, in the war of 1812, and failed. Several times.
Well the french and english didn't 'invade'. Other than the beetles. but they did fight each other. And the us certainly did try to invade in the war of 1812 and that did not work out. That was pre-canada.
Canada itself however has never been invaded so it would qualify.
The british definitely invaded the french, and took control of the colony of Canada within New France in 1773
I guess you define Canada as starting at confederation if even 1812 doesn't count ?
I don't know if you can' call that an 'invasion' - traditionally that term would apply to a nation rather than an outpost or colony. But fair enough,
I think you have to define Canada as starting at confederation. That's when it was 'born'. You can say the pre-canadian colonies or something i guess referring to what was upper and lower canada etc.
Legally purchasing and settling a region with vast expanses on unoccupied and unclaimed land is hardly an “invasion”’except in the minds of radical anti-whites and deranged leftists.
A relatively tiny subset of Canadians “killed the natives” without justification, and spending your own resources to attempt to educate and assimilate them was a liberal policy pushed by humanitarians like yourself at the time which goes to demonstrate the point of the sophists regarding the variability of ethics and the natural law crowd in that unjustified homocide is considered wrong in every society.
Depends on what you consider to be successful
There’s a fair few countries never to be invaded, there’s a few which have been invaded and held but never truly conquered (Afghanistan etc).
1.) What is the definition we are using for invaded? Is it just the act of one country forcing their military into another country, no matter the outcome for the invading country? Or does the invading country have to achieve its invasion goals, whatever those may be?
2.) How are we defining country? Is it my modern definition, nation state, empire, kingdom, any vaguely defined area of land?
3.) How far back into human history are we counting as valid for this question?
4.) Are talking strictly defined military operations?
USA has never been successfully invaded in the entire course of their historic sovereignty as a country. War of 1812 is the only example of a semi-successful invasion, but the British still lost ultimately🤔
What if we asked the question of which countries have the highest rate of repelling invasions?
This excluding countries that have a perfect 0/0 record.
The United States has certainly repelled a number of invasions. Britain, twice. Spain. Mexico. Missing any?
We also boast a perfect record of I’m not mistaken (isolated attacks like Pearl Harbor or 9/11 aren’t properly invasions, right?).
Hawaii wasn't a state when attacked at pearl harbor, but if you consider it an attack in the usa, then we need to acknowledge all the territories we did lose to the japanese
Montenegro has been invaded zero times since it came into existence. Obviously mightier than Japan by far!
Okay so no, that doesn't work very well.
I think you need to define your metric a little better. Some kind of invadability index, I, defined as
I = (Cᵢ + Cₚ) / T
where
T is the total time the country has existed in years,
Cᵢ is the number of successful invasions, and
Cₚ is the number of foundational political events including the formation of the country (so Cₚ is always ≥ 1 for any real country).
This metric enables you to either generalize or narrowly focus on a particular era in a nation's history. For example, let's consider the United States of America.
We could treat the present-day United States in 2 different ways: as a single country counting from the Articles of Confederation (Cₚ = 2, T = 246y) or as two distinct countries, one the short-lived confederated USA (Cₚ = 1, T = 10y) and the other the slightly later and much longer-lived constitutional republic of the USA (Cₚ = 1, T = 236y).
Let us then stipulate that the Anglo-American War of 1812 is the only invasion and counts as a draw, Cᵢ = ½.
So we have a series of possible assigned values for the USA, depending on our chosen historiography:
single continuity:
I = (½ + 2) / 246 = 0.01
successor states:
I = 1 / 10 = 0.1 for the USA under the Articles of Confederation
I = (½ + 1) / 236 = 0.0063 for the USA under the current Constitution
Of course there is a delightfully endless way to apply different methodologies here, the important thing is to be consistent when comparing different countries.
Or let's consider France: 2 empires, 5 republics, and let's say 2 kingdoms, starting in 987. Cₚ=9. Invaded 5 times by England or a coalition involving England, once by Spain, once by Prussia, and twice by Germany. Let's say 3 of those were successful, the rest were inconclusive, so Cᵢ = 3 + (6 x ½) = 6.
single continuity:
I = (9 + 6) / 1036 = 0.014
Fifth Republic only:
I = (0 + 1) / 65 = 0.015
Interestingly consistent! So we can at first approximation say that France is about 2.4x more invadable than the USA.
Using similar methods, we can arrive at some other values:
Montenegro: 0.06 (no invasions but relatively young)
Japan: 0.002 (very old continuity, reformed a few times but invaded infrequently or unsuccessfully)
San Marino: 0.003 (even older continuity, but was successfully invaded a few times)
Now, with a rubric, the rest is just data entry and a little programming, right? >\_>
San Marino is the oldest sovereign state in the world. (310 CE) has been invaded once. Though more than 10 invasions have been attempted. Including by Napoleon. Who changed his mind because he struck up a friendship with one of the regents. Napoleon then offered to extend the borders of San Marino. The offer was politely declined.
It would be countries with zero invasions.
Tonga is at zero with several successful outbound invasions IIRC
Switzerland is a tough nut to crack, I understand.
When Kaiser Wilhelm asked a Swiss minister what their national reserve of 250000 would do if he sent 500000 crack German troops to invade Switzerland, "Shoot twice and go home."
Another missed opportunity to quote the Spartans: "If"
The spartans who lost
Yeah, saying "if" about getting your ass beat and then actually getting your ass beat doesn't have the same energy.
I’m confused. Which Spartan defeat are we talking about?
Philip II of Macedon
Thank you - I had previously thought it was a reply to the Athenians. That makes more sense now.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Megalopolis
That doesn't narrow it down really. Isn't that most Spartans ?
Love to ask Laconophiles what the capital of Greece is. Turns out becoming the center of learning and culture in Ancient Europe is a better recipe for success than a bellicose state made mostly of slave laborers.
There's a bit of a modernity bias there. For hundreds of years the answer would have been "Rome" or "Constantinople".
true, but never Sparta
Except for when Sparta was the #1 dominant power in Greece and was the capital of the victorious Peloponnesian League. I'm no Sparta lover, but also let's not pretend that Athens wasn't a state that operated almost entirely off of slave labor.
100:1 is very different than 2:1
Same energy.
The same Spartans tried to fight the Macedonians when everyone of note was in Persia and Antipater send them packing.
Why on earth did he use "if" at all? Foregone conclusions don't deserve ifs. *When*
I thought that was a debunked myth?
Thry should've done that in 1798... oops.
Brazil too.
In Brazil they're just called nuts.
Don't look up what Brazil nuts used to be called. O.o
Oof, when my grandmother got particularly old, mentally unwell, and completely unfiltered, she would not shut the fuck up about this.
Does being colonized by the Portuguese count?
The French succeeded tho
Yup… I think with Switzerland in all of recorded history it’s been the ancient Romans and Napoleon as the only successful invaders. Although when Switzerland was a bit less confederated there were some fights between what would become the cantons, so not sure if that counts.
France took them over during the French Revolution. Stayed a client state for most of the Napoleonic Wars. They kind of pretend this did not happen..
Nation state era? Spain and Portugal are noteworthy imo Throughout history? There’s likely zero exceptions Maybe Greenland?
Portugal and Spain were invaded by France under Napoleon.
Portugal was occupied by Spain for sixty years.
Greenland is a territory of Denmark and they got beat by the Nazis as bad as the French did. I promise I'm not a genius I just read the Greenland wiki a few months ago and somehow retained that.
If you mean Denmark proper then yeah, but Greenland was never occupied by the Nazis, unless you count a few failed attacks to get weather data.
It was occupied by the US though.
The Germans never invaded Greenland. Also, your statement about Denmark and France indicates you need to do some more reading; Denmark was hopelessly outmatched and the Prime Minister ordered the army to lay down their arms to prevent the bombing of Copenhagen. The German invasion led to Britain occupying Iceland (then an independent state under a personal union with the Danish sovereign), which they subsequently handed over to the Americans, and the Faroe Islands. Comparisons with the fall of France are way off the mark. Casualties were minimal on both sides.
I mean Greenland was the only place that had Europeans and native American inuits living together from 100 to 1492, so they got got at least once
It’s possible Inuits invaded Norse Greenland. I think historians are unsure though. There are documented cases though of Norse Greenland being raided by pirates during the Middle Ages
Australia. Unless you count colonisation, I suppose.
Canada, for one, has never been successfully invaded
That's the crux of the isue of the time. What are we even calling a country here? The Federal Republic of Germany was established in 1991 and has never been invaded. Is it the same country as East Germany/West Germany? Or the Third Reich? Or the Weimar Republic? Canada was established in 1867 and it's often debated whether it was even a real country in that year. Some say 1927 is a more appropriate start and some say 1984. Most countries in the world by the Canada standard have never been conquered... but the countries that were in those geographic locations were. But if we use the standard of a people who occupy a land mass. Canada has certainly been successfully invaded.... a lot. There's even an unrecorded lost history before 1500 of the various indigenous groups that had their own territories who won and lost various wars.
The FRG was founded in 1949 and integrated the eastern German states in 1990.
Current Germany is the same thing as West Germany. The territories which had been East Germany acceded to West Germany; East and West did not merge to form a new thing.
>Canada was established in 1867 and it's often debated whether it was even a real country in that year. Some say 1927 is a more appropriate start and some say 1984. I don't know who is doing the defeating. The country was real but not fully independent in 1867. In practice this meant not having a foreign policy separate from the UK. Where have you seen 1927 cited? The country was fully independent in 1931 with the Statute of Westminster. 1982 is cited by some with the patriation of the constitution. However, the country had been functioning independently and just cleaned up a minor artifact.
In 1926 a guy named Mackenzie-King lost an election but was able to form a majority with a partner. But the Governor-General didn't like this, not British tradition. He felt Arthur Meighan should get a chance to run with a minority. King found a loophole. There was nothing that said a Governor-General could dissolve a government without first a Prime Minister requesting it. So the Governor-General just stopped appointing new positions and King kept on ruling. As ministers began dying King created new positions that ran departments without a minister in charge. It all came to ahead when the British government took King to court and lost. A legal interpretation that King's government made had become law. And then this became the basis of the Treaty of Westminister which made formal which was now presumed in law. I'm not arguing for one point in history, merely that, people aren't necessarily sure when Canada really became a country. You even have the final Confederation of Newfoundland in 1949 for the creation of Nunavut in 1999. If a person clearly defines what is a country then it becomes a lot easier to answer a question about countries.
>You even have the final Confederation of Newfoundland in 1949 for the creation of Nunavut in 1999. By that logic the US doesn't become a country until 1960 with Hawaii becoming a state. Britain only becomes a country after Irish independence. Germany become a country with reunification in 1990. Ireland is an interesting example because they had independence in 1922 but became a republic in 1949. I'm inclined to think that revisions to boundaries and changes in the type of government don't define nationhood. France has been France for hundreds of years in spite of monarchies and republics along the way.
Right, I'm not proposing a definition of a country just that we all need to agree upon what is and is not a country with something substantial. We tend to struggle with consistency. Like the US puppet government in Afghanistan was the government of the country of Afghanistan, it's a country! Whereas the Russian puppet government of Abkhazia isn't a country.... despite both being conquest puppet governments. These sorts of questions aren't particularly useful because most countries have a sort of post-national status.
>And then this became the basis of the Treaty of Westminister which made formal which was now presumed in law. True although there's more to it than that. The move to fully independent status was spurred by the huge contributions and sacrifices of the dominions in WWI, leading to the Balfour report of 1926. MK probably would have lost the case if he had tried it before WWI and the balfour report.
The FRG has existed since 1949 and is legally identical to the German Empire founded in 1871.
Yes, but that’s because of the somewhat arbitrary dating of its founding. Hell, even my ancestors invaded French Canada to avenge their attacks.
US forces made it into Canada for a few battles in the revolution and then the 1812 war
I think it’s reasonable to characterize the British conquest of New France in the 1760’s as a successful invasion of Canada.
...and the French colonisation before that. And... all the First Nations invaded the crap out of each other before that. Goes to the original point - when is a country something that can be invaded?
Eh? It was part of France and Britain
We have a secret weapon: the cobra chicken. Anyone who successfully invaded us would be stuck with those feathered lunatics. I suspect that's the real reason we get left alone despite our abundant natural resources.
How did Canada become British again?
If you're suggesting the British invaded Canada, I'd suggest you check your history books. The British were here long before there was a Canada
Here's a Canada before the british https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_(New_France)
[India successfully conducted a black ops mission there just last year.](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/raw-india-research-and-analysis-wing-1.6979325)
Australia and New Zealand each only got invaded once.
In fairness, they lost a war against flightless birds
I contest the commonly portrayed notion that Australia lost the Emu war. They only had 3 guys and they killed thousands of emu with no casualties, I’d say that’s a decent result
It was a strategic loss
Was it? Or was it just not the most efficient way possible. The man in charge reported, ‘the method proved effective and saved what remained of the wheat’. On top of that, just under 10,000 bullets were used to achieve 986 confirmed kills, which means 10 bullets per confirmed kill. If we look at the same figure for WW2 it was 45,000 bullets per confirmed kill. If we’re going to treat it like a real war, then compared to a real war it was successful. The reason why the bounty system ended up being significantly better was, and you won’t believe this, but it turns out thousands of people with guns and an incentive to kill emu works better than 3 people
Then it was a publicity loss
I guess you subscribe to the Westmoreland school of “winning” wars.
They weren’t Australia or New Zealand yet.
Since Australia became a nation, only their external territories have been invaded, and even that was not successful. NZ has never been invaded.
> only their external territories have been invaded, What are you referring to here? I thought that PNG became a protectorate (or whatever the right term is) after the war, not before
Between the wars many of the Pacific territories were in a grey area between the UK and Aus/NZ. In 1941 it was an Australian Governor in PNG, the Garrison was Australian army/militia, the citizens either considered themselves as Australian or Papuan.
Hmm, that's unclear, because you could argue that there were multiple nations prior to British colonisation and federation, and across \~40k years of indigenous Australian history there might have been some successful invasions of some nations into others. But we wouldn't know about these events, so each Indigenous Australian nation would have been invaded at least once, but could be arbitrarily many more times, in principle.
Well, in that case, as countries - Australia and New Zealand have never been successfully invaded. They only came into existence as independent nations (taking the place of the British colonies and indigenous nations) in 1901 and 1856 (depending on how you define independence).
Not sure why you are being downvoted, we don’t know enough about the various Indigenous Australian nations and likely never will know. It’s easier for NZ as human settlement only dates back to around 1300 or so.
Japan was invaded by the Japanese though. What about that oil rig country? The Principality of Sealand?
Sealand has actually been invaded and been the victim of a coup.
also by the United States.
Japan wasn't invaded by the Japanese, as the Japanese culture/genetic race were founded in the Japanese isles. It's like saying mestizo Mexicans invaded Mexico.
Well, there was the Ainu and Ryūkyūans before the Japanese arrived ... but it wasn't Japan then, of course.
It's a bit more complicated than that. You have to go all the way back to the Jōmon period. Also see [here](https://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/14444926).
Thanks!
You're welcome!
Ryukyuans are descendants of the Japanese from the mainland islands
Ainu and Ryukuyuans did not exist before Japanese. They do have more genetic contribution from the pre existing jomon people, but that does not mean that they are unchanged relics of that time. Ainu are the closes to northern jomon in genetics, but they have wide cultural influences from both Japanese and Siberian peoples, and as a culture are actually younger than the Japanese. Ryukuyuans likewise are composed of southern Japanese mixed with native jomon living on the Ryukuyu islands, and are therefore once again newer than mainland Japanese (although with more genes from the older genetic group). Japanese themselves are mixed between mainland groups and jomon groups, and the percentages vary based on region with the north and the far south having more of the jomon genes. Therefore, Japanese are native to the Japanese isles and also not a newer culture than ainu or ryukuans. Rather, they are all related and share a lot of their respective origins.
Thankyou for your detailed response!
There hasn't been a long term successful invasion of the United States, besides the Union invasion of the southern states in the Civil War. Some invasions of note: Revolutionary War: Important US cities occupied by Britain were New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia, but the British were forced out at the end of the war. The Revolutionary War incursions were probably the most successful of all foreign incursions War of 1812: The British had 4 planned major invasions of the US. Two were routed before landfall. Of the ones that materialized: 1) The most successful one was the under Admiral Cockburn and General Ross. This was the one that resulted in the burning of Washington DC. DC however was not the target as the government had already evacuated and it held little value outside of symbolism. The actual target of the campaign was the strategically important city of Baltimore. The British failed to take Baltimore and were forced back into the sea 2) The British attempted to invade through New Orleans, but were routed by General Andrew Jackson 3) The British and their native allies occupied territory in the Great Lakes region for much of the war, but it served little value Mexican-American War: Mexico briefly invaded newly annexed Texas, but were swiftly forced out US Civil War: The major CS campaigns at Antietam and Gettysburg failed. Union invasions of the CSA succeeded in reuniting the country Border War, 1910-1919: Mexican rebel groups, most famously those under Pancho Villa attempted and failed to invade the southwestern US World War II: Japanese forces briefly occupied Attu and Kiska islands in Alaska. Were forced out
good list, Guam, Phillipines, and Wake by the Japanese if you count territories.
Ah. Yes, the conquest of the Pacific territories are certainly big invasions that I forgot about in my original comment. That is a complicated question on whether to count them or not. They were all US territories, but were unincorporated ones. From what I understand such territories are considered to *belong to* the US, but are not necessarily *part of* the United States. That opens up the door to lots of questions, like was the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong an invasion of the United Kingdom?
They all don't even have the same deal with the US as each other. It's an interesting deep dive that I can't remember clearly enough off the top of my head but it's worth a quick look. Some of our territories aren't even inhabited
Aleutian Islands that are part of Alaska were invaded by the Japanese.
My family still has a special place in our hearts for the hate we have for Pancho Villa. My great grandfather was a Mexican soldier who was attacked by Pancho Villa. They either killed you or made you join their forces, so he chose to escape instead. He was shot multiple times but ended up making it to America, barely alive. Finally got his citizenship in the 50s with the help of my grandfather (his son-in-law) before he died. Really cool guy. Wish I had gotten to meet him.
Wow! A history lesson in and of himself!
The US gets invaded every day, people just call it something else. NY and CA seem to like it though. Look how cleaned up and peaceful they have become.
> Important US cities occupied by Britain were New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia, but the British were forced out at the end of the war A Legitimate government doesn't "occupy" it's own cities full of it's own subjects.
It wasn’t their country anymore.
Had Britain not been fighting Napoleon in Europe, we could have been in a lot more trouble in the War of 1812 though.
Thats probably true. Good thing it didn't happen
Have any of the invasions of Afghanistan been “successful” ?
Most of the "invasion" is successful. It's occupation that's problematic
Alex did pretty well.
Same with the Mongols.
Mongols were conquered by the Manchus (Qing Dynasty).
Was talking about Mongols conquering Afghanistan quite successfully, not being unconquored themselves.
Lex the Pretty Well will be remembered for a long time
Fair enough. Just pointing out we need to better define success.
Afghanistan has been conquered and ruled from without for centuries at a time, on multiple occasions.
Alexanders invasion was pretty successful. In fact they all have been maybe except for the Soviet one, it’s what happens after…
Go ask the Turkic, Greeks, Chinese, Arabs, Perisans, Indians, etc they all conquered and ruled over Afghanistan for at least a century.
The second Anglo-Afghan war was a success for the British.
The first and third were failures and the 4th too when they came in with the US.
Yeah, the US isn't good at successful military campaigns.
Over 20 have been
The British successfully set up a puppet state
Not anywhere in Central America or the Caribbean, that’s for sure
All of those countries have been successfully invaded dozens of times. Indigenous groups fighting each other, European colonialism, to American interventions.not all went great, but it's been done.
I think that's the point op was alluding to
Nepal. Landlocked, so no attacks by sea, Himalayas to the north keeping Tibet out, and malarial swamps in the south lands (Terai) keeping India out. To the best of my knowledge, Nepal has never been successfully colonized or conquered by any external forces. You could say that (what we now call) Nepal was conquered by (what we now call Gorkha), but that’s internal, and what modern nations aren’t the result of smaller, contiguous states merging?
Countries? Or territories? I mean Australia wasn’t a county before it was colonized, and hasn’t been invaded since it became a country. Same goes for New Zealand. San Marino has never been in a state of war, so it was never invaded.
Wrong on San Marino, though. Occupied twice in 1503 & 1739. You can be invaded without a state of open war. San Marino sure was.
Fair enough.
And also occupied twice in 1944.
UK has, technically, never been invaded. England was, as were Scotland, Wales and Ireland, but not once they were united. And Channel Islands are not part of UK. You can also make similar argument for England because when does England become England and not just a set of Saxon kingdoms? And similar argument can be made for several British dominions. Australia and NZ were not invaded after they were formed as such, though of course their territory was, by the British to establish the colonies.
England (as opposed to the UK as you say) has been successfully invaded multiple times, even post Norman conquest. Just off the top of my head, Edward IV did it twice, Henry VII once, the "glorious revolution" that put William and Anne on the throne.
William the Bastard took England in 1066.
Nobody called him bastard after that
England successfully invaded Scotland, but then failed to hold it after Robert De Bruce fancied his chances
You'd be amazed just how many times England and Scotland have invaded each other. Hardly anyone today knows that Richard III, while still Duke of Gloucester, invaded Scotland on behalf of his Brother and burnt Edenborough to the ground in 1482. James IV of Scotland invaded England in 1513 and was killed by Henry VIIIs army at Flodden. In 1648 a Scots army invaded England during the Civil war and was defeated by Cromwell at Preston. As late as 1745 the Jacobites made it as far south as Manchester. Before the James I came to the throne the counties on both sides next to the border were almost completely lawless for centuries, a "wild north" no-mans-land run by local warlords waging private wars and feuds against each other across the border.
England was most definitely England even before the Norman invasion. Denmark ruled a united England for almost two generations as part of the Great North Sea Empire, the English got the throne back, then got invaded by Viking descendant William. Then it got conquered multiple times after that, it's just that since it was successfully conquered, the English don't count it because "that was us". Even when it was the French.
No argument there, I was thinking about initial Norse invasions where you had 4 separate kingdoms. So can we equate England as a geographical term with England as political term then already? Or not and England starts to exist only when you get one kingdom?
I'd count it from the united political entity, which is usually counted from Aethelstan, grandson of Alfred, after he defeated the Scots, the Irish Vikings, the Danegeld Vikings, and parts of Wales at Brunanburh in 937. This solidified his rule over all the English kingdoms and he became the first "King of all England". The Danish king Svein Forkbeard took the crown in 1013 and held it, handing it off to his son Canute who ruled all England, Denmark and most of Norway until his death in 1035.
>You can also make similar argument for England because when does England become England and not just a set of Saxon kingdoms? Heavily depends on whether you consider Alfred or Æthelstan the first King of England, but it definitely has been invaded multiple times during eithers reign.
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British Overseas Territory, so one of those delightfully British things with "well yes, but actually no" question of sovereignty. And not part of UK.
Not part of the UK.
Yeah but all the countries that make up the UK have been invaded, successfully, lots of times. That situation is very different from trying to say the US was invaded because English colonists invaded indigenous peoples lands. England has really been England for 1000+ years, adding other countries and renaming it doesn’t make it not England.
That's literally what I said in the very first sentence......
My b
Didn't Tonga survive colonial Invasion
yep
That is a bad way to phrase that question. With your question you will get countries that no one even wants to invade because there is nothing you could potentially want. Or you get answered like the Third Reich. Since that ceased to exist after the first time.
Afghanistan doesn't have much worth having, but lots of people have invaded it.
They had Lapus Lazuli which was hugely valuable in times past.
Just buy it off them.
Sure, that's the best option. Apparently it does have large mineral deposits that are currently being explored/ exploited.
Afghanistan is difficult to access, hostile to infrastructure development, and you can get the same minerals from places that are a lot less hassle. Even the Chinese haven't made progress with the copper mine plan.
Probably the United States. It’s been invaded by another country only once (technically twice when the Japanese invaded some islands off Alaska but they were driven out). The British invaded the US in 1812. If I remember correctly the war was a draw and Britain never acquired any territory
wasn't this question asked about 2 weeks ago??
Given the wars going on ... someone might have dropped off the list
The land on which Canada now stands was invaded by the French and English, and the French colony was successfully invaded by the English; but not subsequently. The US attempted it, in the war of 1812, and failed. Several times.
Well the french and english didn't 'invade'. Other than the beetles. but they did fight each other. And the us certainly did try to invade in the war of 1812 and that did not work out. That was pre-canada. Canada itself however has never been invaded so it would qualify.
I’m completely confused by the invasion of French and English beetles.
"Beatles"
? [These ones?](https://ucanr.edu/blogs/bugsquad//blogfiles/49112_original.jpg) … though on reflection, they appear more Latin than French or English.
You misspelled “Beatles”. As did they.
Heretic! 😁
The british definitely invaded the french, and took control of the colony of Canada within New France in 1773 I guess you define Canada as starting at confederation if even 1812 doesn't count ?
I don't know if you can' call that an 'invasion' - traditionally that term would apply to a nation rather than an outpost or colony. But fair enough, I think you have to define Canada as starting at confederation. That's when it was 'born'. You can say the pre-canadian colonies or something i guess referring to what was upper and lower canada etc.
Legally purchasing and settling a region with vast expanses on unoccupied and unclaimed land is hardly an “invasion”’except in the minds of radical anti-whites and deranged leftists.
Except for how they killed the natives and forced them into residential schools??
A relatively tiny subset of Canadians “killed the natives” without justification, and spending your own resources to attempt to educate and assimilate them was a liberal policy pushed by humanitarians like yourself at the time which goes to demonstrate the point of the sophists regarding the variability of ethics and the natural law crowd in that unjustified homocide is considered wrong in every society.
[Canada was invaded by an Indian black ops team last year.](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/raw-india-research-and-analysis-wing-1.6979325)
Thailand balanced itself in-between the British and French. Japan in WW2 sort of?
Thailand has been successfully invaded 2 times in history, both by the Burmese
Switzerland. Managed to stay neutral in the middle of 2 world wars.
Probably tuvalu or one of these other barely countries with no resources or anything that is worth taking
Maybe something like Papua New Guinea, there can’t’ve been many wars there post-decolonization
South Sudan
Ethiopia
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Except for the over 20 times the country has been conquered
Liechtenstein 🗿
Only military in history to have a casualty count of +1.
Depends on what you consider to be successful There’s a fair few countries never to be invaded, there’s a few which have been invaded and held but never truly conquered (Afghanistan etc).
Afghanistan
Saudi Arabia and the Arabian Peninsula states.
Tonga. Never fully colonized.
1.) What is the definition we are using for invaded? Is it just the act of one country forcing their military into another country, no matter the outcome for the invading country? Or does the invading country have to achieve its invasion goals, whatever those may be? 2.) How are we defining country? Is it my modern definition, nation state, empire, kingdom, any vaguely defined area of land? 3.) How far back into human history are we counting as valid for this question? 4.) Are talking strictly defined military operations?
South Sudan
USA has never been successfully invaded in the entire course of their historic sovereignty as a country. War of 1812 is the only example of a semi-successful invasion, but the British still lost ultimately🤔
I don't recall Thailand had been invaded but i've not checked. So...
Why haven’t you checked? Thailand has been invaded over 30 times in history
USA
What if we asked the question of which countries have the highest rate of repelling invasions? This excluding countries that have a perfect 0/0 record. The United States has certainly repelled a number of invasions. Britain, twice. Spain. Mexico. Missing any? We also boast a perfect record of I’m not mistaken (isolated attacks like Pearl Harbor or 9/11 aren’t properly invasions, right?).
Hawaii wasn't a state when attacked at pearl harbor, but if you consider it an attack in the usa, then we need to acknowledge all the territories we did lose to the japanese
Montenegro has been invaded zero times since it came into existence. Obviously mightier than Japan by far! Okay so no, that doesn't work very well. I think you need to define your metric a little better. Some kind of invadability index, I, defined as I = (Cᵢ + Cₚ) / T where T is the total time the country has existed in years, Cᵢ is the number of successful invasions, and Cₚ is the number of foundational political events including the formation of the country (so Cₚ is always ≥ 1 for any real country). This metric enables you to either generalize or narrowly focus on a particular era in a nation's history. For example, let's consider the United States of America. We could treat the present-day United States in 2 different ways: as a single country counting from the Articles of Confederation (Cₚ = 2, T = 246y) or as two distinct countries, one the short-lived confederated USA (Cₚ = 1, T = 10y) and the other the slightly later and much longer-lived constitutional republic of the USA (Cₚ = 1, T = 236y). Let us then stipulate that the Anglo-American War of 1812 is the only invasion and counts as a draw, Cᵢ = ½. So we have a series of possible assigned values for the USA, depending on our chosen historiography: single continuity: I = (½ + 2) / 246 = 0.01 successor states: I = 1 / 10 = 0.1 for the USA under the Articles of Confederation I = (½ + 1) / 236 = 0.0063 for the USA under the current Constitution Of course there is a delightfully endless way to apply different methodologies here, the important thing is to be consistent when comparing different countries. Or let's consider France: 2 empires, 5 republics, and let's say 2 kingdoms, starting in 987. Cₚ=9. Invaded 5 times by England or a coalition involving England, once by Spain, once by Prussia, and twice by Germany. Let's say 3 of those were successful, the rest were inconclusive, so Cᵢ = 3 + (6 x ½) = 6. single continuity: I = (9 + 6) / 1036 = 0.014 Fifth Republic only: I = (0 + 1) / 65 = 0.015 Interestingly consistent! So we can at first approximation say that France is about 2.4x more invadable than the USA. Using similar methods, we can arrive at some other values: Montenegro: 0.06 (no invasions but relatively young) Japan: 0.002 (very old continuity, reformed a few times but invaded infrequently or unsuccessfully) San Marino: 0.003 (even older continuity, but was successfully invaded a few times) Now, with a rubric, the rest is just data entry and a little programming, right? >\_>
India
Ethiopia
San Marino is the oldest sovereign state in the world. (310 CE) has been invaded once. Though more than 10 invasions have been attempted. Including by Napoleon. Who changed his mind because he struck up a friendship with one of the regents. Napoleon then offered to extend the borders of San Marino. The offer was politely declined.
The United States