Making Canada proud. One story at a time.
Ryan Flannagan is the author of Take Whiteman, A CANZUK at War novel. Visit Ryan's website: www.raflannagan.ca to learn more about Ryan and his writing.
A fellow aspiring author asked how my advert for Take Whiteman ended up in his FB feed. He was looking for a few tips on Facebook ads but once I got on a roll, I banged out this tome. If you’re interested in the writing, have a gander at what’s below. I’m still very new at the writing thing, so take everything with a pinch of salt. In fact, nothing below guarantees success. They are only the lessons I’ve…
Leave a CommentThe Quick Answer is No. Let’s start off by answering the question of what is AUKUS? First, AUKUS stands for Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. As best I can understand, AUKUS is a three-country defence pact that proposes the involved countries work together closely on several defence-related issues in the Pacific region, including the transfer of technology that would allow Australia to acquire nuclear submarines (henceforth to called SSN = Submersible Ship Nuclear). It’s this last point…
Leave a CommentI regularly listen to the Defence Deconstructed podcast, which regularly delves into a range of topics concerning the Canadian Armed Forces (the CAF). Recently, I listened to a conversation that discussed the brutal Wall Street Journal opinion piece that took Canada to task for its anemic defence spending, which is approximately 1.3% of GDP. Inarguably, it was the single most damning piece of opinion regarding the sorry state of Canada’s defence capabilities in recent memory. In listening to the conversation…
Leave a CommentCanada’s Policy Position on the Ukraine War: The Ugly Reasons Canada’s number one foreign policy challenge is Ukraine. To date, Canada has sunk nearly $3 billion into this war and Justin Trudeau and his cabinet have been full-throated in their support for Ukraine and its entry into NATO. To many, Justin Trudeau is an unserious person who cares very little about foreign policy issues. To that, add the fact the man seems a bit of a pacifist, or at the…
Leave a CommentThere have been two recent articles here in Canada about Canadian Special Operations Forces Command (CANSOFCOM) that identified issues within Canada’s special forces community. The first addresses a number of HR issues within Joint Task Force 2 (JTF-2). These issues range from burnout to the mishandling of sexual violence allegations. The second article outlines what I would call the “poor cousin syndrome” that various units in the CANSOFCOM have toward JTF-2, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) tier-one fighting unit. In…
Leave a CommentAnd is Such a Disengagement a Bad Thing? As a conservative middle-class man, I’m increasingly worried about the status and role of men in Western society. As you look in the past, there are many examples of the bad things that can happen when societies don’t provide men with positive societal outlets that allow them to engage and thrive in society. Perhaps the most recent and greatest examples are the years that led up to WWII. In the fifteen odd…
Leave a CommentQuestion: What “rights” aren’t Canadian middle-class men willing to accept when it comes to trans rights? The short answer is almost all. However, there are few areas that conservative middle-class men are not prepared to say yes to. This essay will identify what these issues or rights are and why it is conservative men will make efforts to prevent them from happening. Now, as will be my contention in the series of short essays I will be producing in…
Leave a CommentI recently listened to a podcast where Canada’s Chief of Defence Staff talked about the future of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). As things tend to go with senior leaders from any large governmental organization, it was a guarded talk. There was however one thing I seized on from the General’s remarks. Specifically, on two occasions, he indicated that the CAF would have to choose capabilities (current or future) that it wouldn’t be able to take on. The comment got…
Leave a CommentRecently, I wrote a detailed blog on why the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) can’t meet its recruiting targets. Further to that post, the CAF announced it would allow Permanent Residents (PRs) to apply to the CAF. Subsequently, it was announced that 2,400 PRs applied to the CAF. This was an important and positive policy change for the CAF. If done well, recruiting, training and holding onto PRs could go some distance to increasing the CAF’s enrollment numbers and increasing the…
Leave a CommentI did some reading up on Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy and the consensus seems to be that it’s a step in the right direction but that it is also modest. In Take Whiteman and its sequel, China plays a role, but it’s primarily in the background. In my novels, the United States is in the midst of a civil war and has largely pulled back from its international commitments. I have also assumed China has taken Taiwan and is asserting itself…
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