History Main / InvadedStatesOfAmerica

* ''VideoGame/ShatteredUnion'': The European Union sends peacekeeping forces to the Washington DC area to secure international interests, whereas the Russian Federation invades and annexes Alaska during the [[DividedStatesOfAmerica Second American Civil War]].

* And finally, if you are a First World country who happened to take ''all'' of the points above into account ''and'' prepare for them, you wouldn't ''want'' to invade the United States. Why? Two words: ''Global Economy''. The United States economy, for better or worse, has become intrinsically tied to the economies of practically ''every other'' nation in the world, and there is a ''damn'' good reason that the United States Dollar is a powerhouse in the currency world. Toppling said economy will create a [[DisasterDominoes domino effect]] ''very'' quickly, as other first world economies follow suit, resulting in worldwide goods shortages, price inflation, and financial collapse that would make the Great Depression from the 1930's look downright ''trivial'' compared to what would happen nowadays. Heck, you wouldn't even ''need'' to go to get to the "invaded" part, since just giving the United States ''any'' excuse to pull up stops and devote their entire economy to funding a war (against you) would likely send shockwaves that will come straight back to any nation that attempts hostilities against them.

:: Damn.

* Fifth, as [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment awkward as it is to mention]] it given the nature of UsefulNotes/AmericanGunPolitics, the civilians are armed to the teeth. The [[UsefulNotes/AmericanLawEnforcement civilian police force]] counts over 800,000 law enforcement personnel at the federal, state, and local level -- that alone would be the sixth largest army in the world. Many of them are even given paramilitary training -- controversial when their job is to be police, very handy when you're facing an invasion. Those guys also have much better local knowledge of their own jurisdictions than any foreign invader. Add to that all the armed ''non''-police people -- while some of them are {{Gun Nut}}s who fantasize about just this scenario so they could play the hero, they'll be able to convince quite a few people to join them if an invasion ''actually'' happens. And there are more than 400 million firearms owned by American civilians -- that's more guns than ''people''. Even if you get boots on the ground in U.S. territory, you're going to have to fight for every inch of space in a vast country. As Admiral Yamamoto famously said:

* First, the U.S. is really freaking big. Your army will be stretched pretty thin, especially when you consider that it's got a ''lot'' of coastline from which it can mount a naval defense. And it's got a wide variety of pretty unforgiving natural interior lines as well, from impassable mountain ranges to vast empty plains. The weather can range from unbearably hot in the southwest to bitterly cold in the north. It's ''slightly'' more forgiving than invading Russia -- ''slightly''. And we all know what happened to the people who tried that. Nobody's got the resources to take over a country that big and hold it for any appreciable length of time.
* Second, the U.S. has an incredible war capability. It's got the world's second largest military, with 1.5 million active personnel, and the world's biggest air force and navy (pretty important when most potential invaders are overseas). It also spends more money on its military than most of the rest of the planet ''combined''[[note]]and that's after budget cuts -- less than a decade ago it spent more on its military than ''all'' other nations combined[[/note]]. And the last time anyone attacked U.S. territory, in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, the Americans shifted their entire economy to the war effort and made a machine that could fight in two fronts at once. UsefulNotes/{{Imperial Japan}}ese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto predicted that the Japanese, after launching a sneak attack, would have the upper hand for only six months before the American war machine got so big as to turn the tide, and wouldn't you know it -- Pearl Harbor, December 1941, Battle of Midway, June 1942.
* Third, the U.S. has a ''lot'' of friends. Well, it might be a bit of an [[MutuallyUnequalRelation uneven friendship]] in some cases, but it's there. The obvious sign of it is NATO, which gives it a whole host of "friends" with whom it can share resources. It's also got a habit of installing military bases in foreign countries all over the world -- Japan, Korea, Germany, the UAE -- which would allow it to stop your invasion before you even get to U.S. territory. And the U.S. is also an economic powerhouse and a very big market, meaning they'll buy your exports if you do a good enough job and give you money you can rely on if you're a smaller, poorer country. So, if you're a country big enough to even try to mount an invasion of the U.S. -- China, Russia, India -- you'd piss off so many people that you're hardly going to have any friends to help you out.
* Fourth, as [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment awkward as it is to mention]] it given the nature of UsefulNotes/AmericanGunPolitics, the civilians are armed to the teeth. The [[UsefulNotes/AmericanLawEnforcement civilian police force]] counts over 800,000 law enforcement personnel at the federal, state, and local level -- that alone would be the sixth largest army in the world. Many of them are even given paramilitary training -- controversial when their job is to be police, very handy when you're facing an invasion. Those guys also have much better local knowledge of their own jurisdictions than any foreign invader. Add to that all the armed ''non''-police people -- while some of them are {{Gun Nut}}s who fantasize about just this scenario so they could play the hero, they'll be able to convince quite a few people to join them if an invasion ''actually'' happens. And there are more than 400 million firearms owned by American civilians -- that's more guns than ''people''. Even if you get boots on the ground in U.S. territory, you're going to have to fight for every inch of space in a vast country. As Admiral Yamamoto famously said:

* [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn The Soviet Union]] mostly discounted any significant invasion of the U.S. during the UsefulNotes/ColdWar, but they did have plans for less ambitious operations like airstrikes, missile strikes (conventional or nuclear), special forces raids, and naval attacks. Most American analysts believed if they did come, they'd go through Alaska across the Bering Sea (a [[http://techconex.com/tcblog/2008/04/05/mapping-world-war-iii-soviet-global-invasion-routes/ 1987 Department of Defense plan]] suggested they might do this to draw U.S. forces away from Japan and the rest of Asia, allowing the Soviets to invade there instead). The closest the Soviets came was a scheme of UsefulNotes/JosephStalin's that he concocted in 1948 during the First Berlin Crisis, where if it came to war with the U.S. they would invade Alaska -- and he established a special military formation, the 14th Assault Army, to carry out the plan should the order be given. The plan was trashed and the army disbanded after Stalin's death in 1953.

If done right, can make for an interesting plot. However, can also be {{Anvilicious}} if it is too blatant a rip-off of any real-life war, especially one in which the US was actually involved.

!!! Recorded invasions:
* To date, there have been four attempted invasions of the United States:
** The first and more successful series was executed by the Royal Marines of [[UsefulNotes/{{Britain}} the United Kingdom]] during the UsefulNotes/WarOf1812, who torched all of the Government buildings in UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC except for the Patent Office. There were also other raids through Maine, New York state, and New Orleans, all of which were in response to the United States' invasion and attempted annexation of British North America (Canada) and the US Army's razing of Toronto when this didn't work out.
** The second was by [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar the secessionist Confederate States of America]], when Robert E. Lee led his army into Maryland (in 1862, stopped at Antietam) and Pennsylvania (in 1863, stopped at Gettysburg). In the other direction, some Southerners will still claim (either cheekily or half-seriously) that the defeat of the Confederacy was itself an example, and that 'the Northern [liberal/atheist/socialist/socio-economic] invasion of the South' is still ongoing.
** The third and least significant time was during UsefulNotes/TheMexicanRevolution, when Pancho Villa led a raid on the border town of Columbus, New Mexico.
** The fourth and second-least important was by the Imperial Marines of UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, who seized some of the Aleutian Islands in UsefulNotes/{{Alaska}} as a part of their strategy for defeating the US Navy. Other territories like Guam and the American-run Philippines had been occupied for several months by that point, and since Alaska wasn't a state yet it's debatable whether this example even counts as an invasion of the United States. Legally speaking, the United States proper ''was'' invaded because the Alaska Territory was ''incorporated'', meaning that under U.S. law it was part of the United States proper. On the other hand, territories like Guam and the Philippines were not, because they were ''unincorporated''.
** It should be noted that of these, only the British were even remotely attempting to conquer American territory:
*** The British probably would have ''liked'' to retake their former colonies, but almost certainly saw that as unrealistic (especially since the general view of the war in Britain was that it was mostly a drain on resources the Empire needed to fight Napoleon). There may have been some hope of taking some American territory around the borders as a buffer for Canada or some such but all in all territorial expansion was not a primary British war aim.
*** The South was where nearly all the fighting of the [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar US's Civil War]] was taking place, and General Lee calculated that if his forces could go on the offensive and defeat the Federal Government's armies in a decisive battle (before they had time to bring their massive resource-superiority to bear), they would push for a peace settlement and acknowledge the Confederacy's secession. Lee's move was also motivated by a chronic food supply problem -- Southern plantation holders were [[CripplingOverspecialization so hung up on growing cotton that there wasn't enough fertile land set aside for food crops]], while agriculture in the North was mainly foodstuffs like wheat and corn.
*** Pancho Villa's army was so starved of supplies that he was willing to trespass into the US to get them in what was effectively a glorified supply-run. He was also trying to provoke the United States to invade Mexico: his theory was that the incipient government of Venustiano Carranza (who had begun accepting arms shipments and other aid from the US) would either fail to take action against an invading American force--thus allowing Villa to set himself as the leader of a patriotic volunteer army to fight off the ''gringos''--or that Carranza would put up an ineffective resistance to the invading American force--thus forcing him to call on Villa to lead an army to fight off the ''gringos''. Once he had the army, Villa figured he could fight off the Americans and then turn against Carranza, citing either cowardice (if Carranza had failed to fight) or incompetence (if Carranza had fought ineffectively). Alas for Villa, while the US did invade, he didn't count on Carranza fighting and actually being reasonably successful at resisting the Americans. Indeed, his Federal troops put good enough a resistance to the American expedition that support for Carranza ''increased'' as a patriot who defended Mexico against its big neighbor's meddling.
*** The occupation of the Aleutians was done to divert attention from the Imperial Navy's real objective, the US Naval base at Midway (it failed in this because the US's intelligence corps had cracked the Imperial Navy's radio codes/cyphers and knew exactly what was going to happen). It was also an example of ExecutiveMeddling, since Admiral Yamamoto's plan for Midway wasn't to capture the base but to draw the American aircraft carriers into a trap where they could be sunk (the cracked Japanese codes meant that the US Navy was instead able to reverse the trap). A diversionary operation in the Aleutians contradicted the entire point of the plan, but it happened anyway just because the higher-ups thought it was a good idea.

* At the end of the 19th century, the German General Staff drew up [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_German_plans_for_the_invasion_of_the_United_States#See_also a planned invasion of the US eastern seaboard]]. (See the entry on ''1901'' in "Literature" above.) It is, however, the responsibility of a General Staff to draw up plans for ''every'' eventuality. The Austro-Hungarian General Staff was so paranoid it actually drew up plans for a war with Italy - ''while they were still allies'' (but not Germany, since such a war was seen as being as unlikely as it was unwinnable).
* The replacement of the population of the Soviet Union with ethnic Germans, and acquisition of the region's raw resources was a key goal of Nazi short-medium term planning, but was also key to gaining the requisite superiority over the USA in the medium-term (the 1960s-80s or so). The leadership of UsefulNotes/NaziGermany (and particularly Hitler) were almost certainly intending to take the USA on in the medium-long-term given their rhetoric, privately-held beliefs, and inordinate amounts of attention given to acquiring military baeses in west Africa and central-southern America even before the invasion of the Soviet Union. In the long-long term, [[TakeOverTheWorld betrayal of their ally Japan is almost universally accepted as an inevitable outcome of Nazi victory]] given the fundamental unacceptability of a non-European ethnicity controlling a major world power. However, the sparse details of what little planning for such a war that was done envisioned more of a intercontinental naval-air campaign which would force the US to capitulate via a blockade and long-range (possibly nuclear) bombing. And even the post-Capitulation America was vaguely outlined to be something of a vassal state (or maybe a series of vassal states). Outright occupation of the US was not envisioned.
** Technically the Nazis did manage to invade part of North America when they set up monitoring stations in Greenland after seizing Denmark. Fifteen Greenlanders on dogsleds, 'the Sledge Patrol', shut down the monitoring stations and that was that. Although the closest the Nazis ever got to shooting at the American mainland was U-boats harassing USN shipping in American waters.
* According to a [[http://techconex.com/tcblog/2008/04/05/mapping-world-war-iii-soviet-global-invasion-routes/ 1987 Department of Defense plan]] that projected the path of a Soviet invasion in case of WorldWarIII, Alaska would have been invaded from across the Bering Sea in order to draw American forces away from Japan and the rest of Asia.
** Soviet planning during the Cold War largely discounted any significant invasion of the US (and vice-versa, although US planners did toy with the idea of a landing in or around Vladivostok at certain points). The Soviets did make plans for less ambitious operations like naval attacks, special forces raids, and (most obviously) air and missile strikes of both the conventional and nuclear variety. The one notable exception was a scheme devised by Stalin to invade Alaska in the event of war with the United States he concocted in 1948 at the time of the First Berlin Crisis. A special military formation, the 14th Assault Army, was established to carry out the plan should the order be given. The plan was trashed and the army disbanded after Stalin's death in 1953.
* In 1917, the German Foreign Office unilaterally (without the approval of the Reichstag or the OHL, both of whom thought it was a ''colossally'' stupid idea) offered Venustiano Carranza (yes, that guy again) aid to invade the US with the promise that Mexico would [[MexicoCalledTheyWantTexasBack take back the land that was taken in 1848]] after the Mexican-American War (read: half of Mexico). They didn't do this for a very great number of reasons, not least a little something called UsefulNotes/TheMexicanRevolution, which Carranza was trying to wrap up with a little bow (if only Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata would let him). It didn't help that the Foreign Office had told the German embassy in Mexico to deliver this offer to them... using the trans-Atlantic telegraph line. Which was owned, and all its traffic monitored, by the British. WhatAnIdiot, indeed.
** The other problem was sheer logistics - Mexico was quite outgunned compared with the US (especially if the latter mobilized its resources for war, which an attack would certainly cause), and the only power that would have capable of giving Mexico the arms and aid needed to even consider invasion of the US was ''the US itself'' (anything from Europe would have been cut off by the US Navy and the only other North Americans capable helping them in any way were the Canadians ... who were already fighting Germany).
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_Scheme_No._1 Defense Scheme No. 1]] was a Canadian plan formed in 1921 to invade the United States if there was evidence a US invasion of Canada was imminent. It would have called for four avenues of attack (the Pacific Northwest, Minnesota, Upstate New York, and Maine) in an attempt to throw US forces off balance (given the large numerical advantage the US would have) before pulling back and destroying bridges, buying time for reinforcements from Britain to arrive. Amusingly, those reinforcements would never arrive in such an event - the Royal Navy at the time believed that in a hypothetical war with the US, Canada would be impossible to defend and so would not have sent significant reinforcements. The plan (as well as the corresponding American [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Plan_Red War Plan Red]] formed in 1930) was largely academic in nature, though War Plan Red's declassification in 1974 caused a stir in US-Canadian relations.

* An invasion of the US as things stand now at the time of typing would be very difficult, as the US has the second-largest military in the world, with 1.5 million active personnel, including the largest air force and navy (fairly important when its main rivals are overseas), and spends more on its military than most of the planet's other major nation-states combined (and that's ''after'' budget cuts; less than a decade ago the United States spent more on its military than ''all'' other nations combined). What's more, the country's [[UsefulNotes/AmericanGunPolitics liberal gun laws]] would ensure no end of well-armed partisans to trouble an occupying force.
** Even in the 19th century, it was viewed as all but impossible, Abraham Lincoln, before the Civil War, had a quote that sums it up:
--> "From whence shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall some trans-Atlantic military giant step the earth and crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe and Asia, with a Napoleon at their head, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. No, if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide."
** During UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, Admiral Yamamoto of UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan knew war with the US was going to end in disaster because of the country's vastly greater economic strength - the USA's GDP being ten times that of the Empire's. A couple of quotes from him on the issue:
--->"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass." '''(Note that this quote may be a case of BeamMeUpScotty, as the record over whether or not [[https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2016/12/johannes-paulsen/thought-americans-december-7th/ Yamamoto actually said this is unclear]]. Regardless, it makes a good point.)'''
--->"Should hostilities once break out between Japan and the United States, it is not enough that we take Guam and the Philippines, nor even Hawaii and San Francisco. We would have to march into Washington and sign the treaty in the White House. I wonder if our politicians (who speak so lightly of a Japanese-American war) have confidence as to the outcome and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices?"
*** Unfortunately, the quote above was taken (with the second and third sentences removed) as a proclamation that he would make it happen, somehow, rather than a warning.
** Not to mention the fact that the US also has [[UsefulNotes/AmericanLawEnforcement over 800,000 federal, state, and local sworn law enforcement personnel]], an increasing number of which are equipped with paramilitary weapons, equipment, and training (again, [[UsefulNotes/AmericanGunPolitics US gun laws]] play a factor here), and all of which would have much better local knowledge of their own jurisdictions than foreign invaders (critical in partisan operations). By itself, if they were their own army, the total number of American cops would be the sixth largest in the world, between North Korea's and Israel's.
** Along with much of the above, there's also the fact that the United States is a vast, mostly urbanized, geographically diverse country flanked by two major oceans and superior interior lines. The country's sheer size would work against an invading force, though the country's highly-developed infrastructure could be made to work for them as well as for a defending force. Invading the continental United States would be ''slightly'' more forgiving than invading Russia. ''Slightly.''
** It can probably best be summed up that Invading the US has all the problems of invading Russia and/or China (Huge size, large population), with the additional difficulty of supporting said invasion across 3000 (Atlantic) to 6000 (Pacific) miles of ocean. No nation on Earth has anywhere near the seaborne transport capacity to bring a sufficiently large army across an ocean to invade the United States, even ignoring the fact that they'd need to keep those ships from being sunk by the US Navy and Air Force.
*** To make things worse than dealing with the US military for an invader: US civilians collectively own 400 million+ firearms. There are more civilian owned firearm than Americans. That leaves two options for an invasion of the USA for the civilians. Try to get them to like you and get on your side (which you just invaded their country and probably ruined their way of life, so good luck with that.) Or exterminate them, which, if invading America didn't bring the ire of the rest of the world, then genociding civilians would do so just nicely.
** And, to top it all off, the United States is a NATO member, has a number of unilateral defense treaties with other nations, and is in general much more popular than China, India, or Russia, which are the only three countries that could fend off a conventional land invasion by the USA (though not a determined naval and air campaign). Anyone looking to resist an attack by the USA would have few if any, allies to call upon. Anyone looking to invade could well see much of the developed world in the USA's side. For now, an invasion of the USA is a 'pipe dream'.
* The United States is also economically intertwined with most of the rest of the world. Any potential invader knows that, for example, cutting off American agriculture to the rest of the world will likely result in food riots, quite possibly within their own countries. China, especially, would have to worry about what would become of their economy without the U.S. to sell to, meaning they'd be far more likely to enter the war on the side of the U.S. than to be one of the invaders.
** This is, however, one of the reasons China has been so active in developing relations with other countries like in Africa: other markets to sell their products to means less reliance on the US buying their stuff, which means more flexibility in their foreign policy. Even then, it's still unlikely China might attempt to even invade Hawaii due to the myriad number of other obstacles, but they may be more willing to take a more firm stance in other issues like, say, Taiwan.
* Lastly, none of the countries commonly depicted as invading are really interested in invading the USA as all planners view the logistics of it as a sheer impossibility. In the Cold War, both the USA and the USSR dismissed any serious idea of invading and seizing the other's territory as thoroughly impractical, something which still holds today. They may have drawn up some plans as a thought exercise (a military planner has to come up with plans for damn near anything, even ones impossible to pull off), but never really thought they could do it without bringing forth TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt from all the nukes it would send flying.

* In the AlternateHistory story ''Literature/TheFalconCannotHear'', the turning point in the Second American CivilWar comes when Japan invades the West Coast (controlled by the democratically socialist Provisional Government, or "Blue", faction). They do this in the belief that this will provide relief towards Japan's nominal ally, the fascist "White" faction, and also attract the support of the remaining warlords of the collapsed military junta (or "Khaki") faction. It all backfires horribly, as ''all'' the American factions are pissed at the violation of their sovereignty; the Whites face massive political instability due to their government's supposed allegiance with the invaders, while all the other factions [[EnemyMine band together]] to both repel the Japanese and defeat the Whites (who they blame for the invasion). [[spoiler: It also inspires Canada to declare itself NeutralNoLonger, and join TheAlliance.]]

* ''Videogame/TheNewOrderLastDaysOfEurope:'' MutuallyAssuredDestruction normally keeps even the hateful nations of this timeline from actually trying this. ''Normally.'' If Goering succeeds during the German Civil War, however, he takes to the idea of EternalWar (since the Reich's glory days were in war) and needs to implement one war plan after the other to keep himself from being couped by militarists even more insane than he is... and near the end of his options, he can implement Fall Rockwell, which is a massive naval invasion of the USA. Unsurprisingly, this ends either one of two ways: With the Germanic fleet carpeting the Pacific seafloor in steel and corpses, or in thermonuclear war and the end of the world.

* Eventual end result of the Soviets developing the atomic bomb first and dropping it on Berlin in the back story of ''VideoGame/FreedomFighters''.

* Happens as a NoodleIncident in ''Literature/TheWarAgainstTheChtorr''. A Fourth World "army of economic liberation" lands in the southern United States and promptly gets massacred due to the US secret RobotWar technology. Not to mention they US has rigged the computer chips in the weapons they've been [[BatmanGambit selling internationally for the past few decades to detonate upon command]].
* US is just one of the [[EarthIsABattlefield many countries]] invaded by [[TheReptilians the Race]] in ''Literature/{{Worldwar}}''. Traveling through the country becomes dangerous, supply lines are cut off, people are forced to make do with what they can scrounge. Some of the states end up in Race hands, but, by the end of the main series, the Race vacate the country as part of a peace settlement with the [[InsistentTerminology not-empires]] that manage to hold them off (e.g. US, USSR, Nazi Germany, Japan, UK). Oh, and some cities are nuked by both sides.

--> "From whence shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall some trans-Atlantic military giant step the earth and crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe and Asia...could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. No, if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide."

* The miniseries ''Series/{{Amerika}}'' shows a Soviet-occupied US ten years after the invasion. Subverted though in that the US surrendered without much of a fight after an EMP pulse took out most communications. Most Americans are more interested in getting on with life than resisting. ''Amerika'' was a work that was developed as an apology to [[UsefulNotes/PoliticalIdeologies conservatives]], particularly the [[UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan Reagan Administration]], ''Film/TheDayAfter''. The latter showed how terrible a nuclear war would be for the (many) survivors; the former argued how a Soviet victory would also be unacceptable.

** ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert3'' is more global, but both the Imperial and Soviet campaigns feature invasions of the United States at some point. [[spoiler: Going after President Ackerman at Mt. Rushmore in the Allied campaign after he goes rogue may or may not count.]]

*** To make things worse than dealing with the US military for an invader: US civilians collectively own 300 million+ firearms. There is more than one civilian owned firearm for every American adult. That leaves two options for an invasion of the USA for the civilians. Try to get them to like you and get on your side (which you just invaded their country and probably ruined their way of life, so good luck with that.) Or exterminate them, which, if invading America didn't bring the ire of the rest of the world, then genociding civilians would do so just nicely.

SubTrope of DifferentStatesOfAmerica.

* ''WesternAnimation/SouthParkBiggerLongerAndUncut'': In the climax, the Canadian Armed Forces invade Colorado to rescue Terrance and Phillip from execution.

[[folder:Film]]

** Soviet planning during the Cold War largely discounted any significant invasion of the US (and vice-versa, although US planners did toy with the idea of a landing in or around Vladivostok at certain points). The Soviets did make plans for less ambitious operations like naval attacks, special forces raids, and (most obviously) air and missile strikes of both the conventional and nuclear variety. The one notable exception was a scheme devised by Stalin to invade Alaska in the event of war with the United States he had concocted in 1948 at the time of the First Berlin Crisis. A special military formation, the 14th Assault Army, was established to carry out the plan should the order be given. The plan was trashed and the army disbanded after Stalin's death in 1953.

** Soviet planning during the Cold War largely discounted any significant invasion of the US (and vice-versa, although US planners did toy with the idea of a landing in or around Vladivostok at certain points). The Soviets did make plans for less ambitious operations like naval attacks, special forces raids, and (most obviously) air and missile strikes of both the conventional and nuclear variety.

** Another episode showed a [[MexicoCalledTheyWantTexasBack Mexican-occupied California]], after the US lost the Mexican-American War.

* ''VideoGame/{{Homefront}}'': The basic plot of the game is the United States under occupation by a resurgent North Korea.
** ''VideoGame/HomefrontTheRevolution'': The US is occupied by a ultra neo-liberal North Korea, who in this timeline became the world's number one technological super power and high-end arms supplier, leading to most of the first-world depending on their technology and weaponry. After the US government is unable to pay a huge debt to the North Korean Government (who is controlled by the APEX Corporation), they decide to turn off the entire American military with a kill-switch and later occupying the nation under the pretext of giving aid to the American population and restoring order but secretly using them for slave labor to "cover the debt".
* ''VideoGame/WorldInConflict'': Set during an alternate 1980s, in which the USSR launched an invasion of the US instead of collapsing as in Real Life. The main battles of the war are occurring in Western Europe and the invasion force that lands in Seattle is just there to keep the USA from reinforcing its NATO allies. The backstory also explains that the Soviets previously attempted to invade New York, but the assault was repulsed. No one expected an attack from the other direction.
* ''VideoGame/TurningPointFallOfLiberty'': Set in an alternate 1950s in which the US stayed neutral in World War II and in which Churchill was killed in an accident prior to the war, causing Britain to fall to Germany, which in effect discourages the United States from ever entering the war, solidifying their stance as a neutral country. Eventually, however, the Nazis invade anyways.

* ''VideoGame/RiseOfNations'': In the Cold War campaign, besides starting a [[NukeEm nuclear war]] with them, the Soviets can also stage a conventional invasion of the United States.
* ''VideoGame/ShatteredUnion'': The European Union sends peacekeeping forces to the Washington DC area to secure international interests, whereas the Russian Federation invades and annexes Alaska during the [[DividedStatesOfAmerica Second American Civil War]].

* ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlertSeries'':
** ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert2'' has an ostensibly puppet Soviet government invade the United States with the aid of psychic powers to neutralize the American nuclear arsenal.
** ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert3'' is more global, but both the Imperial and Soviet campaigns feature invasions of the United States at some point. [[spoiler: Going after President Ackerman at Mt. Rushmore in the Allied campaign after he goes rogue may or may not count.]]

* ''Film/RedDawn1984'': A classic example, in which the USSR invades the Western United States (via a Communist Mexico) and a group of high schoolers' efforts to stop it. [[Film/RedDawn2012 The remake]] has North Korean invaders (originally [[ChinaTakesOverTheWorld Chinese]], but changed in order to have it marketable there).

* In ''Film/EscapeFromLA'', a united, [[DirtyCommunists Shining Path]]-led Latin America is on the verge of invading the US.
* {{Discussed|Trope}} in ''Film/HotTubTimeMachine''. Blaine's gang thinks that the time traveling main characters are actually Soviet spies, due to their odd behavior, and the modern-day gadgets that he found in their bags. He mentions the film ''Film/RedDawn1984'', which he owns a poster of in his room.
* Discussed in ''Film/PearlHarbor'' during Roosevelt's first meeting with his advisers after the namesake attack. One general, in underlining just how poor a state the US military is in, states that if the Japanese invaded at that moment they would get as far east as Chicago.

* ''Literature/TheManInTheHighCastle'': Set after the fact, this book depicts an alternate 1960s in which the US was taken over by Japan and Germany from the West and East coasts respectively. The Rocky Mountain States is a Japanese puppet.
* ''The Fall Of A Nation'' by Thomas Dixon (author of ''The Klansman'', aka ''Literature/TheBirthOfANation''). Written prior to US involvement in UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, it has the United States refusing to intervene in the Great War, which stalls to a stalemate. Peace is declared, but it's actually a ruse to allow the combined armies of Europe to invade America.
* ''Literature/TheMouseThatRoared'': The Duchy of Grand Fenwick declares war on the U.S. with the intent of losing immediately and raking in the reparation money. So they send over a small army in Medieval armor and spears, expecting to surrender upon reaching American soil. [[SpringtimeForHitler It doesn't quite work out that way.]]
* Happens as a NoodleIncident in ''Literature/TheWarAgainstTheChtorr''. A Fourth World "army of economic liberation" lands in the southern United States and promptly gets massacred due to the US secret RobotWar technology. Not to mention they US has rigged the computer chips in the weapons they've been [[BatmanGambit selling internationally for the past few decades to detonate upon command]].
* C.M. Kornbluth's novel ''Literature/NotThisAugust'' begins with the surrender of the U.S. to Soviet and Chinese forces. The novel itself is about the resistance movement.
* Gloriously depicted in Floyd Gibbons' THE RED NAPOLEON, where the US and Canada make a last stand against HordesFromTheEast led by a [[YellowPeril Communist dictator and alleged descendant of Genghis Khan]] who has already conquered the rest of the world -- and the Americans win.

* ''Lightning In The Night'', a novel by Fred Allhoff originally serialized in ''Liberty'' magazine during 1940, recounts, in pulp-magazine style, an invasion of the United States by a grand alliance of [[ThoseWackyNazis Nazi Germany]], UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan and [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn the Soviet Union]] circa 1945.
* Eric L Harry's ''Invasion'' has Chine invading the good old USA thanks to US disarmament. Apparently the blinkered government continued to draw down the US military despite the Chinese conquering the world by ''going West'' (having nuked Israel and beseiged Europe).
* The apocalyptic novel ''Resurrection Day'' is set in a USA where the Cuban Missile Crisis led to a nuclear exchange. With the Soviet Union destroyed, Communism fallen, and the USA crippled, the power vacuum leads to a resurgent Britain reversing its post-imperial decline - blamed on American interference - and plotting to avenge the whole 1776 business by grabbing back its North American colonies. And then some. The "Resurrection" of the title is Britain's rebirth as an undisputed world superpower, if only by default as the only country not touched by nuclear holocaust.

* US is just one of the [[EarthIsABattlefield many countries]] invaded by [[TheReptilians the Race]] in ''Literature/{{Worldwar}}''. Traveling through the country becomes dangerous, supply lines are cut off, people are forced to make do with what they can scrounge. Some of the states end up in Race hands, but, by the end of the main series, the Race vacate the country as part of a peace settlement with the [[InsistentTerminology not-empires]] that manage to hold them off (e.g. US, USSR, Nazi Germany, Japan, UK). Oh, and some cities are nuked by both sides.
* In ''Literature/AxisOfTime'', Hawaii ends up being taken by the Japanese in the AlternateHistory UsefulNotes/WorldWarII thanks to the use of 21st century tech. The islands are eventually recovered by the US, [[spoiler:but the tyrannical Japanese governor slaughters 90% of the population out of spite]].
* In Creator/RobertAHeinlein's ''Literature/SixthColumn'' a small group of American soldiers use weapons based on [[AppliedPhlebotinum the convenient discovery of a couple of new fundamental forces]] to fight the invasion of the United States by [[YellowPeril "PanAsia"]], including founding a [[ScamReligion fake new religion]] as a cover for LaResistance.

* ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'': Several episodes featured an alternate 1940s in which the Nazis, equipped with alien technology, were able to capture portions of the East Coast.

* Like the [[Literature/TheManInTheHighCastle novel it is based on]], ''Series/TheManInTheHighCastle'' depicts a United States ruled by the Axis Powers except for a central Wild West-like region in the Rocky Mountain States which is allowed to be independent as a buffer zone.
* The miniseries ''Series/{{Amerika}}'' shows a Soviet-occupied US ten years after the invasion. Subverted though in that the US surrendered without much of a fight after an EMP pulse took out most communications. Most Americans are more interested in getting on with life than resisting. ''Amerika'' was a work that was developed as an apology to [[UsefulNotes/PoliticalIdeologies conservatives]], particularly the [[UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan Reagan Administration]], ''Film/TheDayAfter''. The latter showed how terrible a nuclear war would be for the (many) survivors; the former argued how a Soviet victory would also be unacceptable.
* Parodied by ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' as "[=Amerida=]", a vision of what America would be like after a Canadian invasion and takeover.

* ''The Price of Freedom'' [=RPG=] from West End Games, inspired by the film ''Film/RedDawn1984''. After the Soviets develop an orbital defense system that neutralizes America's strategic nuclear weapons, Soviet occupation forces enter and take over the U.S. The {{PC}}s are American freedom fighters who wage a guerrilla war against the invaders.
* ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_America_(board_wargame) Invasion America]]'' (1976) board wargame by [=SPI=] (Simulations Publications Inc.). The U.S. is invaded by three international coalitions: the European Socialist Coalition, the South American Union and the Pan Asiatic League. The popularity of this game spawned a companion piece the next year, ''Objective: Moscow'', detailing invasions of the Soviet Union by various coalitions of the Western Allies and China from the 1970's to the end of the 20th Century.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}''. After the U.S. was split up into the DividedStatesOfAmerica, Aztlan (formerly known as Mexico) invaded both the southern part of California Free State and the Confederated American States, though they were able to minimize the territorial losses. California was also briefly under the control of a rogue Japanese general.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Deadlands}}'': In 1877, the British invade from Canada and capture Detroit in retaliation for American military adventurism along the Canadian border.
* ''TabletopGame/AxisAndAllies'' is a World War II simulation. Invading the US is ''possible'' but pretty unlikely (it's usually easier for the Axis to get the two-capitals win condition by taking out Britain and the Soviet Union).

* Like the [[Literature/TheManInTheHighCastle novel it is based on]], ''Series/ManInTheHighCastle'' depicts a United States ruled by the Axis Powers except for a central Wild West-like region in the Rocky Mountain States which is allowed to be independent as a buffer zone.