I think it's clear. David held up the U.S. document that they published in January, which says exactly what you've said, that they are shifting their main focus to the Pacific, albeit 40% or 45% residual U.S. forces—that's considerable—remain within the Atlantic and the Atlantic environs. But they do also say they're withdrawing more forces from Germany.
You might well ask yourself why they are still there. That's another question. Partly they're there for sustainment and infrastructure to support their forces in Afghanistan and elsewhere. They have a big footprint in Germany, with hospitals and infrastructure bases.
I think the shift to the Pacific provides an opportunity for Canada and the Canadian Forces to get more involved in what is becoming more the centre or the nexus of world power. David mentioned that in the mid-nineties, we actually had Canadian frigates—for the first time for any country—not just joining U.S. naval battle groups, but actually becoming integral to the battle group. In other words, a U.S. ship would leave when a Canadian ship joined. We were provided with the communications command and control, and information infrastructure to act virtually as a U.S. unit.
Why did the navy do that? The navy did that to upgrade, or to up-arm, ourselves to become a much higher level navy with that kind of capability and training by being part of the U.S. navy.
I think that has carried on in an even bigger sense in that in this coming RIMPAC, a Canadian admiral is the deputy commander of the entire operation. Australian admirals have done the same as well. So here we have a situation where in Afghanistan, Canadians have commanded U.S. forces—nobody else ever has—and at sea we have Canadians, and Australians in this particular case, commanding U.S. forces in the Pacific.
It's an opportunity, and it's one we're suited for. Our airplanes are now taking part in these operations in the Pacific, as are our army units. There's opportunity there, there's capability to do it, and it raises the profile of Canada in that global area.