National Defence committee  No, thank you.

National Defence committee  I don't know; I really don't know. I've been thinking about this quite a lot, and I can see different scenarios, but I don't have a clear answer. I think it will involve a political judgment about whether we've moved from this stage of just infrastructure to an attack on sovereignty and territorial integrity.

National Defence committee  I was just going to add that there was engagement with Russia. The U.S. and Europe believed, up until this past summer, that Russia had leverage with the Syrians, so for quite a long time there was some constructive engagement. The last vetoed Security Council resolution in July ended the belief that the Russians had leverage, and the engagement has been much less constructive since then.

National Defence committee  I don't think this was all NATO's fault. What I was trying to suggest was that there weren't accountability mechanisms there. I was reading the testimony of General Bouchard to your committee; he said that we did what we do in NATO—that is, we did weekly briefings to the North Atlantic Council.

National Defence committee  I was just going to say that I think it very much depends on how widely you want to define energy and whether you want to consider water as part of energy and really want expand the remit. If you take seriously some of the claims about energy scarcity and its link to conflict, and if NATO were serious about prevention and about where the conflicts of the future might be, then obviously thinking about energy, the distribution of energy, and the likelihood of scarcity is not unimportant.

National Defence committee  I think I can understand why at present we are making the distinctions that homeland security should deal with these aspects and that NATO or our defence institutions should deal with attacks on military infrastructure. However, as we move further down the line, it will be much harder to maintain those distinctions, so it would not be remiss, in my view, for NATO to think slightly more broadly about the types of threats that cyberattacks and activity in cyberspace might lead to, and what, as I mentioned before, the very notion of an attack might mean.

National Defence committee  At present, I take the view that there's not a large role for NATO with respect to the Arctic. That's not because I don't think the Arctic is vitally important—I do—but I think there are enormous governance challenges in the Arctic, and that is the primary issue we need to be investing in.

National Defence committee  I think I would agree that it's not just rebalancing. I do think there is a shift in priorities and emphasis, particularly in how assets are going to be deployed. I would agree that this will create issues with respect to the relationship between the United States and France, the U.K., and Germany, in particular, about the U.S.'

National Defence committee  It is a vast topic, and it's not an area of expertise for me per se, so I want to put that caveat on it. Coming back to the comments I made in response to Mr. Alexander, I think the aspect of cybersecurity that is important for NATO is the difficulty of determining what constitutes an attack and also determining the origin of that attack.

National Defence committee  I think there is more of a conflict between the two if you take a very narrow conception of the national interest as being about direct threats to your security and prosperity on Canadian soil, if you will. Then it becomes much more of a direct conflict to say that what we're doing internationally is essentially discretion; it isn't essential.

National Defence committee  My statement referred to caution about expansion. It wasn't to suggest that NATO should never include Georgia. I think much depends on what we see in the coming decade. Actually, we just went through a very, very important political transition which demonstrated something vital about that society.

National Defence committee  I think in theory it is, but the experience of NATO gives me caution as to whether it could actually work. As I mentioned, if you are going to specialize militarily as part of an alliance, you are going to have to rely on your allies in theatre to show up with the things that you need and to provide them for the collective in a way that will meet your objectives.

National Defence committee  I think it's more of a political commitment that one has to reach. I am a believer in procedures and not relying solely on political commitments. I think you would have to build in the expectation that you would provide those kinds of resources, and you may have to do it by mission as opposed to theoretically.

National Defence committee  Well, what I meant when I was referring to the military staff committee was that it, by implication, would also have combat-ready or available forces to actually execute UN mandates itself, as opposed to having to contract those out. What happened in the Balkans is that you actually had a fair amount of oversight—interestingly, by the UN Secretariat—over some of the decisions that were made with respect to targeting and the actions of troops on the ground, particularly with respect to safe areas.

National Defence committee  I think that in the case of Kosovo, there was no other candidate. NATO was the region's capable agent, if you will, so what you would have seen in that instance, if we believe the evidence put before decision-makers at the time, is more ethnic cleansing and more atrocities against civilians, although retrospectively, I think, the evidence much more shows that NATO's actions actually contributed to further ethnic cleansing.