Certainly our intent in any Afghan compact is to work toward a military that can provide security. So when you take a military force and ask how it can be effective, it has to be able to win the confidence of its government and people that it can actually handle security aspects.
It's a very complex undertaking. I don't think you can tie it solely to numbers. The Canadian force is a small force, but I think it has the confidence of its country. It's not necessarily built to cover the whole country, but it has great capability.
So you need sufficient number of people. I can't sit here and tell you exactly what the number is; that wouldn't be fair of me. The Afghans will decide on that. It does need to have a competent command and control structure. The individuals within the organization professionalizing it is certainly a step. It will need a measure of technology so it can survive on its own, and that's certainly the next step to take forward.
I think there is a complicated regime, but how do you build it? You build it the way we're doing it now. You start with the battalions, increase the number that are there, get a little bit of critical mass going, and then professionalize it. So we've done the basic training in Kabul. The battalions go down into the local areas, and then our observer mentor liaison teams, for example, work closely to really professionalize the troops that are there.
They're having great success when they're partnered with us. We bring them enhanced communications and a little bit of our own knowledge and know-how to allow them to succeed. I think they have difficulties when they're on their own. It's a bit of a work in progress.