National Defence Committee on April 26th, 2012

[Jill Sinclair]

The impact of the global financial crisis has really been a topic of discussion around the NATO table, for the reasons you say, and the U.S. and the U.K. in particular, but there is no country that hasn't been untouched. If you look at what Poland is going through, or France or Germany, every country is trying to figure out how to deliver the same sort of impact but in a different way. That's why one of Canada's priorities has been for NATO to take a really hard look at the way we do our capability development and the way we spend NATO resources, basically to do the sort of bottom-up reviews as an organization that Canadian government departments have been doing. In the context of our own fiscal situation, it is a lot better than others. We're in an interesting position of being one of the few countries that is continuing to invest in its defence budget and not just simply slashing. We're just trying to do things a bit differently.

About NATO's willingness to engage, will the defence budgets have an impact on that? I think we're always selective about how we engage. At the end of the day, it's going to come down to the nature of the security challenge and whether countries are going to be willing to put in what they need to meet that security challenge. My own sense is that when they are visceral interests that are at stake, nations will still find a way to do it, but they are going to have to do it much smarter.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

We talked about the fact that NATO operates on a consensus, with all member nations participating in that decision, whether or not they have any intention of participating in the mission that's agreed to. As NATO re-evaluates its strategic concept, has there ever been any discussion—I imagine it would be very unpopular at some level—to go to a Security Council-type model where the countries that are willing to participate are given more of a decision-making role going forward?

[Jill Sinclair]

Thank you. That's a great question.

Every so often people muse about whether we could get away from the consensus principle. But the importance of the alliance speaking with one voice, even if it's at the highest strategic level and then countries individually, nationally, decide how they're going to play that out, that remains so important in terms of the political projection of the alliance. That solidarity is extremely important and that debate to even get to consensus, when you know you're going into a discussion with countries that, frankly, might not even be interested. They have no desire to participate, but they can understand and put themselves in the shoes of their NATO colleagues, to say we understand this is important to you. It's a sophisticated and torturous exercise at times. But I don't think that moving to a Security Council-type model for decision-making would ever take off in any way.

What we are seeing, though, is more—and this refers to an earlier discussion—coalitions of the like-minded, who are going to do certain things together in certain ways under the rubric of an overarching whole-of-NATO decision.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Right.

Just briefly on the NATO training mission, concerns have been raised here about Canadians' perception of NATO, which is that Canada is always there and others sometimes are not. Could you explain or maybe just give some examples of countries that are there working with Canada on the training mission, whose contribution we may not be aware of, some of the smaller countries or countries that perhaps didn't participate in Libya, etc., countries other than the U.S., Australia, and the U.K. that are helping with the training mission right now?

[Jill Sinclair]

We might want to get back to you on that question with some of the details. But I can tell you that the Baltic states, for example.... There are a lot of smaller countries. People don't think about what Belgium does, for example, but Belgium is on the ground, and they continue to be on the ground with their F-16s in Afghanistan.

In terms of the training mission, you have countries as diverse as Georgia, those who would like to do more with NATO, through to, as I say, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. These countries are all bringing what they can. They are modest contributions, but they are part of a solidarity of effort. So there is a lot of diversity. As you say, a lot of publicity is given to those who don't play in the big games, but a lot of people are doing what they can to help out in these missions.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

Mr. Lapointe, you have five minutes.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Thank you, monsieur le président. Thank you, Colonel Irwin.

I am going to take a few moments to ask some questions about parts of your presentation. I assure you that my questions on the matter demonstrate my deep respect for the work of the armed forces.

While some of the things that Mr. Norlock said sound very nice, I do not believe in the slightest that your work should come down to handing out sandwiches somewhere in the middle of Africa. But I do think that sending young people into the line of fire and into minefields is a very weighty decision. That is exactly what we have to do as part of NATO. I believe that we have the right to humbly ask a few questions. I have never been in a combat zone myself. I have never had to provide that kind of service to the country.

Since article 5 was written—and I refer to page 6 of your report—times have changed. Some of the problems we face are not clearly defined and that was not the case at the time. It was clear then that we could talk about one nation being another's aggressor. In your report, we read a lot about piracy, terrorism and cyberspace. These are all realities that have no national roots. Countries are not necessarily involved.

In cyberspace, for example, the threat can be from a group that is not national. It may originate somewhere in Asia but may use cyberspace to attack facilities in South Africa, for example. This is a completely different reality from the one that prevailed when article 5 was written. My question comes from those observations.

In terms of the upcoming negotiations and discussions, is there a desire to establish parameters so that a simple man in the street like me can understand under which criteria and under which circumstances NATO will or will not become involved? Do you follow the drift of my question?

[Jill Sinclair]

I think so.

You've touched upon the idea that 21st century security threats are not necessarily sovereign national security threats.

Is that what you mean by your question?

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Yes, that can make things complicated.

[Jill Sinclair]

That's exactly it.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

How do we analyze it so that at the end of the day we tell Canadians we are doing something about this event but we are not doing something about this other event. What are the filters to analyze all this?

[Jill Sinclair]

I understand completely.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Is it part of what you're going to discuss?

[Jill Sinclair]

That is a very good question.

The problems, the security challenges now, are increasingly in that grey space. Cyber is an excellent example, and we can recall what happened with Estonia a while back when there was a cyber-attack on Estonian infrastructure. How do you reconcile an alliance, which is transforming itself but still probably a little bit more in the traditional space than in the new space? How do you figure out what you're going to do in response to those threats?

I'm not being evasive here, this really is a discussion that is ongoing now. How do you deal with cyber-threats? One of NATO's initial responses to dealing with cyber was at least to put out a cyber-policy, which we did in 2011, I believe. It doesn't talk about military responses. It's more about the political solidarity, the discussion and dialogue on how we can help nations that have come under say cyber-attack in different ways. One of the things that NATO did after the Estonia attack was to establish a centre of cyber-excellence in Estonia to help countries make themselves more robust against cyber-attacks. So we bring the expertise of the alliance to bear.

This is why it's so important to recall that the range of tools that NATO has is not just military. It's just like Canada. It's the whole thing. It's the dialogue. It's the political. It's scientific. It's research and development. So how do you make yourself robust from a security perspective with regard...? We don't have defined parameters yet, but we're trying to deal with these issues like cyber and the non-traditional security threats. We've come up against that in dealing with counterterrorism for the first time in Afghanistan. How do you deal with insurgents who are not nationally based insurgents necessarily? These are new things we're struggling with, to be honest.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Would it be possible to come up with some reference points to help civil society, which has no military experience, to better grasp what is going on? Do you understand what I mean?

[Jill Sinclair]

The reference points, I think, are emerging. As Colonel Irwin just reminded me, NATO did establish a new position of assistant secretary general for emerging security challenges. That may well be somebody the committee would like to hear from. I think he's a Hungarian.

That's exactly what they're grappling with. In fact, when he comes, he will be able to give you some insights, too. How do you transform the alliance to deal? At the moment, there aren't those clear parameters to be able to explain this exactly.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

It's still working.

[Jill Sinclair]

It's still working. What Canadians can know is that there is a common community trying to address those issues together.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Your time is up. Thank you very much.

Ms. Sinclair, what was the name of that expert again?

[Jill Sinclair]

We can give it to you. It's Gábor Iklódy. He's the assistant secretary general for emerging security challenges. We can give you his name.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you. It's somebody we will consider calling.

Moving on, Mr. Alexander....

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Thanks, Chair, and thanks to our witnesses for a very stimulating discussion so far.

If there was a small chuckle on our side when you mentioned that it was a Hungarian national, it's only because one of our members, who is absent, would be able to understand him in his national language, which is not a gift many of us have.

Thank you also, Ms. Sinclair, for the concept of “not nationally based insurgents”. I'm going to use that in another context. It expresses very well a challenge that we all know, of which we are all painfully aware in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Going back to the strategic concept, which is the theme of our report and which was very helpfully described in its broadest terms in your presentation, you've reminded us that there are these three fundamental tasks. Collective defence is, in a sense, a legacy from the past. That has existed since 1949 and in part is a legacy of the Cold War. Crisis management is something that is coming increasingly to the fore in the post-Cold War era, with the Balkans and successive missions that you mentioned. Then cooperative security is this concept of reaching out to a broader and broader range of partners and contacts through the various fora that you've described.

My impression, as a member of Parliament, as one of your former colleagues on the diplomatic circuit, is that crisis management really does take up most of the alliance's effort under this strategic concept. Is that correct or would you say...? How would you express the priority that's given to these three? Is it equal? Is there a precedent? Give us a view.

[Jill Sinclair]

Thank you.

Interestingly, part of the debate within the alliance is exactly around that question: where is the emphasis across these three tasks?

I think if you were to speak to some allies from certain parts of Europe they would say, “Look, the focus absolutely has to be on collective defence. The threat hasn't gone away. It's all about there.” I think if you speak to countries like Canada, it's much more on the crisis management and its on the cooperative security part of this.

So I think finding that balance is something that the alliance is still trying to determine. Obviously, we don't want to have to choose between and amongst those three lines of operation because they're all extremely important.

We have put a lot of emphasis on the crisis management piece. I was remiss in not mentioning earlier that in the strategic concept work, one of the important things that Canada brought to that was this idea of a comprehensive approach, the comprehensive approach to crisis management, which is something that Canada has done for many years. You can't just deal with the military. You have to have the diplomatic. You have to have the development. You have to be in there before the crisis develops. This is something that Canada very much brought to the strategic concept discussion.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Thank you for that. You spoke about the importance of transformation and smart defence. We'll be hearing more on that subject, obviously. Tell us a bit more about the capacity that NATO has itself to look at not just emerging challenges but emerging capabilities, and to identify what shared capabilities are going to be most important in the future.

We're working together on the F-35. We have very similar platforms for our surface combatants with other allies. Interoperability is the name of the game everywhere. But we know that in facing these new challenges, there are new capabilities that no one has in sufficient measure. Do we have a part of NATO that looks at that, that gives due attention to it, and what is Canada's contribution?

[Col Brian Irwin]

Actually, I think that's a great set-up for General Abrial, Supreme Allied Commander, Transformation, who I think will be meeting with you later on in your session, because that's certainly very much really at the core of his mandate. If you go through his terms of reference about exploring new concepts, doctrines, conducting experimentation, and the like, it's very much that looking forward—not just to the NATO 2020 but also that beyond part—as to the types of threats, but also the types of capabilities. So I think he will be really well placed to speak more to it.