National Defence committee  I think that's an accurate assessment.

National Defence committee  Yes, absolutely. I think that experience in Libya actually was a continuation of what eventually evolved in southern Afghanistan. While you have approval at the level of the entire alliance to conduct an operation, it's a smaller set that's actually doing the day-to-day operation

National Defence committee  I think it is. I think the nations of the smaller subset are experiencing some pretty significant challenges financially, and are going to undergo some fairly steep reductions, but compared to a lot of the other members of NATO they look pretty good in comparison. Those that were

National Defence committee  It will certainly be very interesting to see what happens. Certainly President Sarkozy was a pretty active international player, I think it's fair to say. So whether or not the new president, even if he wants to, has the financial resources, for instance, to devote to taking a ve

National Defence committee  I think the absolute bottom line is that burden sharing is an issue, but I think it's one that we simply need to accept. Rather than continually hope that certain members are going to do more, recognize the fact that there's a smaller subset—the “swimmers” is what some folks call

National Defence committee  I think it's already becoming clear that the United States is going to de-emphasize its attachment to Europe. I think there have been a number of statements long-standing from the United States that they're looking for Europe to do more. If you actually look at the specifics of

National Defence committee  I'm not sure about the reputation part of that, but in terms of our skills sets and our capacity to do things, I think absolutely that would be the case.

National Defence committee  With respect to the last point, I'm not aware that issue was raised because I don't believe there were instances of cluster munitions being dropped in Libya.

National Defence committee  I haven't read the Senate bill, so I don't want to comment on that in too much detail. I think the current approach we've been taking does make sense. We don't want to totally proscribe our ability to work with folks who use these kinds of munitions, because as long as the Unit

National Defence committee  I don't think we're saying we'll use them, just that we're not going to not participate and operate with folks who do.

National Defence committee  Again, I'm not familiar with any previous experiences of the Canadian Forces using them, so I'd take issue with the use of the words “our using them”. I'd just point out that—

National Defence committee  Right. I think you're getting into specifics that I can't necessarily address, but I would simply state that I think there is an opportunity for arrangements like NATO to try to set out rules of engagement and any kinds of restrictions that other members of a coalition, like Cana

National Defence committee  The short answer would be no. I think if there are countries that have a desire to go further, then only a limited degree of coordination can happen in Brussels.

National Defence committee  Thank you. I think the size of the military that's involved does make a difference, so obviously Lithuania is very circumscribed in the kinds of capabilities and the numbers they can devote to any particular task, so they are forced to specialize quite heavily. Therefore, for c

National Defence committee  The strategic concept was relatively comprehensive. I think the critical issue is going to be trying to match capabilities to the intent that's laid out in the strategic concept. There is a lot of good stuff in there, a lot of aspiration with new security threats, and also new in