Retired general Walt Natynczyk is a former vice-chief of Canada’s defence staff. He served on peacekeeping missions in Cyprus, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and as deputy commanding general of III (US) Armored Corps, with which he deployed to Baghdad in 1998-99.[Stephen J. Thorne]

Rules-based order not working, says British field marshal

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

The rules-based system of international order that has existed since the end of the Second World War has not been a great success, marked by a series of recent mishaps that could usher in a return to the great power system of the past, says Britain’s former defence chief.

Speaking at a fireside chat ahead of the 35th conference of the Royal Commonwealth Ex-Services League (RCEL), Field Marshal The Lord Richards of Herstmonceux said the United States, Russia and China are steering the world order away from the system of political, legal and economic rules and institutions established by the Americans and their allies after 1945.

The rules-based order has been based on principles such as sovereignty, territorial integrity and dispute resolution through diplomacy. It aimed to promote stability, co-operation and predictability in international relations.

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• Canada Day is forever Memorial Day in Newfoundland
• Continental army barracks burned by British discovered in Colonial Williamsburg
• Pictures from my father’s wartime photo album

The award winning book, The Taste of Longing by Suzanne Evans, has been optioned by acclaimed documentary filmmaker Noura Kevorkian. [BTLBooks]

The Taste of Longing: A novelistic biography of WW II PoW Ethel Mulvany

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

“I wrongly thought the last thing you would want to think about,” admits author Suzanne Evans, “is food when you’re starving.”

But having discovered the Second World War story of Canadian Ethel Mulvany, her understanding of hunger changed.

On Feb. 15, 1942, the Imperial Japanese Forces landed on Singapore island and forced the surrender of an Allied garrison of 90,000. In what Prime Minister Winston Churchill considered the “worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history,” thousands of captured civilians, including Mulvany, were among those to be rounded up, separated between men and women—the latter with children—and imprisoned at Changi Jail. The ensuing years would be ones of misery and longing.

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More from The Briefing

• New children’s books shines light on Canadian military experience
• Chaplain historian highlights Canadian padres of WW II
• Veterans’ post-WW II experience examined in new Canadian War Museum exhibit

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