We have a very good example right now where the government is asking that we send reinforcements into Afghanistan. The tanks are a good example, and we have many other capabilities as part of this package. So these are our new capabilities being projected into the theatre.
We're handling it by looking at what our lift capabilities are here in Canada. We have very few of them at the moment--primarily the Airbus, which you cannot put a tank in, and the CC-130 Hercules, which again you cannot put a tank in. So we're quite limited in terms of strategic lifts right now. I'm very anxious to see a strategic lift so we have more freedom of action and more autonomy from a Canadian perspective.
I have to look at other means to bring the equipment into the theatre. I don't decide on the flow. I'm told we'd like to have those pieces of equipment in theatre for such and such a date, and I try to find the best means to do that. In this instance we are using an An-124 through a contract agency, which can bring two tanks out of Canada. We have an air bridge using C-17s from the U.S.
We have a partnership with the U.S. called the integrated line of communication. We work together and they bring those tanks into Kandahar. So you can see that we are using many different possibilities to bring heavy equipment into the theatre. That's the first wave, and there are other waves coming in.
We're looking at sealift, because sealift is very often much more efficient. So it's a combination of airlift and sealift. We're trying to find the best flow to bring in this equipment and meet the operational requirements of the commander of the Expeditionary Force Command.