Because this mission is a very broad-reaching one, with 37 nations involved, I think no single nation would be the cause of failure of this mission, understanding that some nations have a larger commitment than others because they're capable of providing more. Canada is among those that have provided a much larger commitment than others, but again with a force that has been expeditionary for decades and is quite capable of doing the operations that we now see in Afghanistan, something many forces have patterned their deployments on. We find from a NATO perspective that there are many forces, if they're going to partner with a nation in Afghanistan where they have a smaller capability, that will always seek out nations like Canada to partner with because they know how beneficial that would be to their own ability to make a difference, but also knowing that Canada is very capable from an operational and an overall mission point of view.
What I would say from the consequences point of view is that this would be extremely damaging for NATO and for the international community if we were to fail in Afghanistan. This is the first expeditionary operation for NATO in the post-Cold War timeframe—expeditionary in the sense that it's well outside the traditional Euro-Atlantic area, not looking at Bosnia or Kosovo in the same light in terms of expeditionary—and this really defines what NATO is all about in terms of not trying to be a global NATO, not by any stretch, but rather, trying to be a NATO with global partners and trying to project security and stability much further away than it had in the past, especially with comprehensive political guidance, having identified that as close in being out to 5,000 kilometres from the Euro-Atlantic area, and far out being about 15,000 kilometres.
So if we were to fail, we would damage our credibility in an almost irretrievable way, in my view. Hence the importance of all nations recognizing that and continuing to commit to the long-term success of the mission.