National Defence Committee on April 26th, 2012

[Col Brian Irwin]

I think certainly right from the onset, we played a role in providing a member to the group of experts and the delegation that was put together to draft the strategic concept. I think it was an 11-member group. We did provide a special expert to that.

Again, not being involved in the drafting or the like, I think the work that was done or their contributions again reaffirm the importance of the transatlantic security link and the like.

I really wouldn't be well placed to give much more. I'd hand it over to Jill.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Okay.

Can you tell us why interoperability among the alliance is essential and what steps Canada has taken towards becoming interoperable to work with its allies?

[Col Brian Irwin]

Certainly, interoperability is in many respects what NATO is all about. It allows nations to bring what they can to an operation. So it goes right from the basics of NATO having standard agreements as to standardization of the type of fuel we might use in our airplanes or to the type of ammunition, on up through to, within our headquarters, how do we talk, how do we plan, and having a common approach to, again, having a higher level platform at the pol-mil level, where we can come together and collectively advance approaches—so agreeing on the framework for a future NATO mission.

But throughout all of that, it's absolutely essential that you have that ability to plug and play as a group of allies—not only as a group of allies, but increasingly, the partners are able to also plug into that. So it's a framework to plug and play at the political-military level, certainly, to plug in at that operational level within the headquarters and those staffs.

Then there are those basic standards of knowing and understanding what the NATO standard would be for certain things where you can plug in at the tactical level.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you, Colonel.

Moving on, Mr. McKay, you have the floor.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

I apologize for being a bit late.

The first question has to do with Afghanistan. Obviously, NATO has played a significant role and yesterday the Prime Minister opened the door to a post-2014 role. Has NATO or DND been asked to prepare for a post-2014 role?

[Jill Sinclair]

Thank you.

NATO's been looking at Afghanistan throughout this period. It will be one of the focuses of Chicago and so we'll look forward to seeing the outcome of the discussions there.

As you know, we discussed the ongoing commitment to Afghanistan at the last NATO summit, and so seeing how NATO, as an alliance, can pull through its effort in Afghanistan is something that has been discussed.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

So it is under active consideration? Am I reasonable to conclude that?

[Jill Sinclair]

Within the NATO context, I'm not going to answer your question specifically, although I appreciate your effort to reframe it.

Within the current context, Afghanistan is on the Chicago agenda. We know that we've kind of all gone into this mission. We're discussing how we can continue the effort in Afghanistan. As the Colonel said, we currently have 950 trainers who will be there until March 2014 as the government has said, and the discussions at Chicago will reveal what they will reveal.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

It's kind of a curious ask that the joint forces, the elite troops, are being asked to stay. What would be behind that?

[Jill Sinclair]

I don't know about any ask for the elite forces to stay.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Well, I thank you for avoiding the question.

[Some Voices]

oh! oh!

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Ah, you poor children.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Just as a reminder, Mr. McKay, as well to our witnesses, as I've often quoted in here, in chapter 20 it's very explicit that members of the departments are excused from answering certain questions that may put their jobs in conflict with the ministers, and with things that are taking place that are discussions between staff and the ministers themselves and anything that might be determined as political versus that as the role of a civil servant. So I can quote it from the book if you wish, Mr. McKay, but I know that you're very familiar—

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

I'd love a quote. As long as you don't take it out of my time, it's fine by me.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I won't, no. You have another three minutes.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Yes, well, thank you for that insight into parliamentary decorum.

Let me just change here. One of the reasons many Canadians are questioning the utility of NATO has to do with the unevenness of the contribution of various nations to the functions and tasks in NATO. Probably this became most obvious in the Libyan mission where Lieutenant-General Bouchard had significant difficulties with the various silos and the various contributions from various NATO nations, including (a) their economic capabilities, and (b) the caveats they would put on engagement.

Being in a theatre of conflict or a theatre of war is difficult at the best of times, but having various of your allies being able to go this far but not any further, or you can share this level of intelligence but not any further, creates some serious operational difficulties. Fortunately, the conflict went quickly and the difficulties of those caveats and economic circumstances were limited.

So the question I have, and I think this goes to the core of how NATO goes forward in the future, is this. What is the plan to overcome those limitations?

[Jill Sinclair]

Thank you for the question.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

You can answer this one.

[Jill Sinclair]

I can answer this one.

You've pointed to the complexities of a multilateral organization that works by consensus and where each country has its own domestic political drivers and shapers.

We've learned a lot through Afghanistan and Libya. We shouldn't forget that these were our first real fighting missions in a long time. You were asking nations to do some really difficult stuff. It was very interesting to see the nature of the political debate across allied members. Some of them simply weren't willing to go there, and others, like Canada, were.

You asked what the plan is to deal with this. I think we are coming to an understanding that this is just a reality of the political geography of NATO. It's a diverse bunch of democracies and we're not going to be able to get to a single approach.

We have to figure out who can bring what to what fight, what they are prepared to do, and to make sure that we have the interoperability, and the visibility of what capabilities are available. We have to deal with some of the issues that General Bouchard pointed to, which are just kind of habits of working in a different way, because he was obviously frustrated by some of what he went through.

But the smarter defence piece, and again, Chicago and the work out of Chicago, a lot of this is going to be about how we have truly integrated the lessons we've learned from Libya, because not everybody is going to do everything all the time.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Assuming you get past whether we do or don't stay in Afghanistan, is there a discussion about configurations within NATO, if you will, for nations that have greater willingness and greater capabilities, versus those who see it as an organization through which they can exercise political influence, or they are in there because they don't want the former Soviet Union coming too close to their territory?

[Jill Sinclair]

Thank you. That's a great question. I think it will be interesting to see how the alliance addresses that issue more specifically. What you want to do is to make sure you maintain the political cohesion of the alliance at 28. But you have to give space to those countries who want to do more to do more, and to those who have to do less to do less.

What you saw around Libya were ad hoc like-minded coalitions within NATO. You saw that within Afghanistan too, where Canada was in the group of the RC-South countries that were doing the heavy fighting in the south. That's emerging as a matter of practice.

What you have to make sure of is how you reconcile that matter of practice with the overarching political cohesion of this alliance. The decisions to do things, like Libya or Afghanistan, are taken at 28. Then you give countries the space under that chapeau to do what it is they are able to do, politically or practically or whatever else.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

My final question—because I'm running out of time—is on the ongoing relationship with Russia. If you project the NATO relationship with Russia over the next five years, assuming NATO continues to exist for the next five years, how do you see that relationship changing? How do you keep the dialogue going with the Russians?

[Jill Sinclair]

It's always dangerous to project, right?

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Yes.