The concept of mutual support is more appropriate. Whether it is a good or a bad idea is not the question: I believe it's a necessity. The operations in Libya revealed, in particular, that only a few players among the member states, and they included Canada, were capable of providing a sustained effort. The smart defence idea has its equivalent within the European Union. I'm talking about the European Union because the majority of NATO states are European.
It's mainly in response to pressure by Canada and the United States that the Europeans are being led to engage in smart defence. They're doing it as part of what they call pooling and sharing, a concept already slightly more advanced than smart defence within NATO. It was adopted by the European Defence Agency, among others. The Europeans had to consider the mutual support concept, because, on their own, they did not have the capacity to plan an operation from start to finish. Only two NATO countries are really capable of doing that: France and the United Kingdom. And even they currently find it very difficult to do so.
Mutual support is a necessity. It's a good idea if you want to maintain a NATO that is capable of operating where it has to operate and where political leaders decide that it must. If I may take the liberty of making this comment, I would say that thinking has gone much further within another institution, outside NATO, which represents both the allied countries and NATO partner countries. I am talking about the Multinational Interoperability Council, in which Canada plays a very important role. It is doctrinal thinking in this case. Smart defence entails both a doctrinal aspect and a tactical aspect. The contributing countries include Canada, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Australia and New Zealand. There are also observer states. NATO is represented through the Allied Command Transformation. Its staff and the European Union are also represented on it.
For a number of years now, that institution has been considering this mutualization issue, that is to say the concepts of pooling and sharing and smart defence. As we have noted several times here, no state is capable of conducting an operation on its own. Coalition operations are therefore the rule. However, from the moment coalition operations are conducted, there is necessarily a pooling of capabilities. This is also a budgetary necessity, but not uniquely. Among other things, there are various types of knowledge scattered here and there. The Chicago summit should provide a little more impetus in that direction for all allies.