Already it's a region in which we find a lot of instability. Some of it is historic, but some of it was also brought about by the actions of the Americans and other partners in the region. One of the reasons Turkey is not very content as a NATO member is that obviously it has had a lot of regional disruption, with what's gone on in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Already we have a general area where it's more militarized than it probably has been in a long time, so we're creating a situation in which there's a lot of risk. The question also comes back to countries like Georgia and Kazakhstan and whether they have the domestic political resiliency to push back any sort of.... I think that's also where there are weaknesses. Those countries also face challenges in what we call the control of the monopoly of violence inside the country and stabilizing their borders.
If we could be setting up such a state that is fragile for potential failure, this is something we should care about. Knowing that there are Canadians in Ukraine, this is a risk for Canada particularly, because there are actually Canadian citizens there, but also through NATO in some senses. If NATO calls, it is rare that Canada does not respond. This is one of the things that is central to Canadian foreign policy. It goes multilateral, and NATO is one of the partners that it's going with most frequently these days.
By implication there's an interest for Canada, and the interest is not just whether or not our colleagues, our peers, in Europe have big economic issues or face energy crunches or something like that. It's the threat of multiple instabilities converging that could lead to something we don't want to see.