A lot of time pop culture is based on different happenings in the world. One of these is how threats can permeate books or movies based on the time.
In the early 1900s Erskine Childers wrote, Riddle of the Sands, which focused on the threat of Germany and the arms race between England and Germany at the time.
Jumping ahead slightly the 1960s saw a fear of communism as the Cold War was being fought indirectly between the United States and the Soviet Union. This brought about books, movies, and even today we have TV shows which focus on this period of time and what was happening.
Most recently, however, the threat being portrayed is often of Asian origins, more specifically focusing on North Korea. The movie Red Dawn (2012) is a remake of the 1984 movie of the same name with the difference being that the United States was invaded by a combined Cuban/Soviet task force in the original, while North Korean troops invade the country in the newer version.
This is also evident in an Australian movie which was based off of a book called, Tomorrow, When the War Began.
Though North Korea has made threatening moves in the past few years I'm not sure if this, albeit, small fear is justifiable. I don't actually see North Korea being able to invade such large countries and be successful, the only fear I actually see is if their claims to nuclear weapons are real. In that case, however, they'd have no need to invade and the phrase "mutually assured destruction" from the Cold War would again be popular.
The other world issue which could bring with it a threat of invasion is the disputed Arctic and a possible war between Russia, Canada, and the United States who are all laying claim to it. However, media is reporting cooperation between the countries currently, so hopefully all will be resolved peacefully.
Now the reason I bring this up is that a friend and I were discussing what would happen if someone were to invade Canada. Their comment was that if anyone invaded Canada, why would they want Saskatchewan? Essentially, according to my friend, Saskatchewan has nothing to offer. There's relatively few people, it's completely land locked, and if we simply practiced slash and burn as the Russians did when both Napoleon and Hitler attempted to invade the country that all would be well as our winters can be quite harsh.
I nodded along, but quickly realized this might not be the case. Though Saskatchewan has a vast amount of nothing according to many people the fact remains that we actually have a lot of natural resources. We have an abundance of fresh water and trees in the north, potash, food production, and possibly the most important to an invading army, uranium.
So, if Canada is ever invaded, Saskatchewan might actually be a place they would like to take. With our sparse population this would either make it quite easy or extremely difficult. Would we simply give up? Or would we organize ourselves into guerrilla units sabotaging the invading forces as they attempted to gain strongholds?
I personally hope this remains a simple exercise of the mind as I wouldn't want these threats to become a reality. I like to think that I would fight, but I've never been put into a position like that and it's hard to say what you would actually do until the time comes.
However, I do believe that overtaking Saskatchewan would come with challenges.
Though dated by nearly 10 years an article on the CBC website stated that the Territories and Saskatchewan had the most guns per capita in all of Canada. The North reportedly had one gun for every person, while Saskatchewan had two guns for every five people. So, I like to think that we could put up a strong fight, especially during the winter months.
