Well, contingency planning is part of our lifeblood. We have operational planners. We have defence planners. We have planners at all levels, whether it's at NATO headquarters, Brussels, or within the Supreme Allied Commander's staff in Mons, or down at the Joint Force Command in Brunssum, indeed, down to the Commander ISAF level in Afghanistan.
In all cases, we do prudent military planning, and we're always looking ahead. We're always looking ahead a significant distance in that very context, in not only the missions in Afghanistan, but also the mission in Kosovo, and the NATO response force, Operation Active Endeavour. We have recognized the criticality of having long-term force-generation processes.
That's a new feature, if you like, of NATO planning, which looks at how we can share the burden and adjust the contributions of different nations over a longer period, using a long-term force-generation process that identifies nations' ability to contribute at different times during the cycle of a mission, and then doing the burden sharing that's required to make sure that all can contribute, or get the regeneration time they need over time.
For Afghanistan specifically, I have spoken to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Craddock, as well as to the Secretary General about the need for us to start looking a much further distance ahead, looking at what's going to happen, not only in 2008 and 2009, when, as many nations have indicated, their parliaments will ultimately have to make decisions as to whether or not they remain, and looking at how we can now sustain this mission in the longer term.
Again, going back to the fact that we have had a history of long-term sustainment in Kosovo and in Bosnia—and even Operation Active Endeavour has been in place for more than six years now—we can do it. We have the capacity, but the planning is crucial to success.