I agree kind of with what Michael said.
I wanted to convey that the world will be beset with all sorts of crises that might arise out of food, resources, and civil strife. Not all of these crises will directly threaten Canadian security. In fact, most of them won't. Therefore, we will be fortunate enough to make decisions. If we don't have the capabilities that are suitable, then we won't go. I think that's something we need to recognize.
What do we have to be ready for? We have to be ready so that when the government decides, given military advice, that it can make a contribution, then what we put on the ground is useful to our allies and will not unduly endanger the forces. You can think of a whole list of scenarios in which there will be challenges. Most of them will not directly affect Canadian security, and most of them will not allow for a military solution. That should be a source of comfort to us.
We have, for example, the latest U.S. policy statements, which talk about a pivot to the Pacific. Now that the Chinese Deputy Prime Minister is visiting, as one commentator put it, we should just call it a pirouette, because we don't want to get them too excited.
With the Chinese navy rising, if it is indeed rising, does this mean we shift to the Pacific? Does this mean we invest in more capital forces? It's not clear that this is what we should do. We will need a minimal capability to patrol our own oceans. Since, on the naval side, we don't have a coast guard and a navy.... We use the navy the way countries like the United States would use the coast guard. So a credible naval presence is possible.
We will likely deploy abroad, so some sort of strategic lift is going to be necessary. But we're not Federal Express: we don't absolutely, positively have to get there overnight. Therefore, investing further in rapid deployment may not be what we want.
This is where choices have to be made.
Look at where we've gone in the last 15 years. If you were a planner in NDHQ in 1989 and you predicted we would be going to Yugoslavia, Haiti, Somalia, and particularly into Kosovo, and then into Afghanistan, you might have had a short career. Yet that is precisely where we were going. It seems to me, and this is where General Hillier may.... If we do go, we need to be large enough to make a difference; we must be useful to our allies; and we must not unduly endanger the mission or the forces we send.
One thing—and this has been part of our discussions, and if I may say so, I think it's more academic—is that when we deploy abroad, we influence others by deploying. Do we make a difference? Does the President of the United States say, “Canada, you have permission. Come down to Washington and tell me how to run things”? Influence is a very difficult thing to measure overall. I think we should go where we can make a difference on the ground. It's in our interests, or it doesn't conflict with our interests. And as I've suggested, it's consistent with our values. Minimal capabilities will have to be retained, but we won't be able to go everywhere and support every ally.