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I 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…
Canada’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…
There 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…
Recently, 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…
I 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…
