National Defence Committee on May 1st, 2012

[James Appathurai]

I think the short answer to that is yes and yes.

I share the view that it's lower on the agenda. It doesn't get talked about as much, and it doesn't get talked about as much by ministers, presidents, and prime ministers. I think to a large extent that's for two reasons. One is that the missile threat and other threats have moved up on their own steam, but also, we do see clear success in international initiatives to identify, locate, and make safe loose—if that's the right word—chemical, biological, and radiological weaponry. We have projects, even NATO has projects, across central Asia, where we are taking radiological tailings material off the ground, out of the ground. Russian stuff is being secured. Ukrainian stuff is being secured.

There's a lot of work to do. When one looks at Libya, one has some concerns, and particularly at Syria, where there is an enormous number of chemical weapons, to make sure we keep track of them.

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

Tell us a little bit about Belarus. It gets forgotten. It's obviously close to Russia and Ukraine, but also to Poland and the Baltic states. What's the NATO strategy there in broad terms?

Finally, you talked about the role of Afghanistan in expanding the range and the quality of partnerships that NATO has. I think that's a very important point. Give us the hard-nosed appraisal. Is the strategic concept working in Afghanistan and in that other neighbouring country, Pakistan, which is not a partner, to the best of my knowledge, but which is crucial to Afghanistan's state? If it's not working as well as we would like, what are the shortcuts with regard to that mission?

[James Appathurai]

Thanks. You saved the best for last.

Belarus is going backwards in terms of democratic development in human rights. The allies would like that to be different, but the bottom line, if I can be as open as I can in this forum, is it's going backwards. Russia has enormous control in particular over the economy. Our policy is to engage with civil society. We can continue to provide support at a low level, but we can't do it at the political level, at the high level. We are very hesitant about the way in which Belarus is going.

On Afghanistan, I think a lot of what this strategic concept has written down is the result of what we've learned through Afghanistan. The close cooperation with the United Nations in the field, which you helped to lead, but all other parties, the expeditionary capability, the partnership with other countries—all of that in many ways is encapsulated in here because of what we learned in Afghanistan. Are there more lessons to learn from Afghanistan? Yes, probably. Is it all working? Probably not.

If you want the one-sentence answer, I think I would summarize the NATO view by the fact that we believe that according to the military metrics and the military mission, that part has achieved quite substantial success, despite the very many things that you see in the headlines. The statistics demonstrate that. However, there is a whole other area of politics, including regional politics, and not just with the Pakistanis, but also with the central Asians and others, where things haven't moved necessarily in the right way, to the great concern of the neighbours, like the central Asians. We're not out of the woods yet.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

I'm going to take my prerogative as chair and ask a few follow-up questions.

As we were going through the strategic concept that is currently in place with NATO, how has this one changed or been modified from previous concepts that are fairly significant that you feel the committee should be aware of? This concept is quite a bit different from previous concepts.

[James Appathurai]

Indeed, and I'd highlight three points. I've mentioned them all, but I'll just come back to them.

First is the focus on crisis management, in particular collective security—in other words, partnership. Those things are really new. Second is all the new threats, cyber, but also energy, and missile defence. I think that is new. The third thing I would mention is what we've discussed, the comprehensive approach. There is the civilian-military relationship, in which NATO basically comes off its island and realizes that we're part of a big world and we need partners with us at all phases, not just before and after we get involved.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

A lot of questions revolve around partnerships, and you just mentioned again that that's one of the major changes in the concept. Section 32 talks about the European Union. Of course, there's a lot of shared membership between NATO and the European Union.

How do you see that partnership evolving, whether it's strengthening or whether you see greater buy-in from the European Union to the overall goals and mission of NATO?

[James Appathurai]

NATO's perspective on the EU has changed fundamentally in the time that I've been there. A few years ago a lot of allies were concerned that the EU would be too strong, and it would compete and suck away resources. Now people are concerned that the EU isn't going to be strong enough. They want a stronger European Union that can take on some of the burden. That's the first thing.

Second, we do a lot in the field and at the staff-to-staff level, but we are blocked at the highest level from NATO-EU cooperation because of outside bilateral issues that relate to Turkey and Cyprus, to be very blunt. As a result, there is unnecessary duplication. There isn't enough coordination, because at the political level we cannot meet, talk, and plan. We try to make things happen at the staff level, and we do. The commanders work beautifully together in the field, but this blockage is a problem.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

The document also talks about defence and deterrents, arms control and disarmament, and non-proliferation. What's NATO doing right now in relation to all the talk coming out of Iran and North Korea about their arms buildup?

[James Appathurai]

On North Korea, there's basically nothing. It's not a NATO role.

On Iran, NATO has not taken any formal steps. There is a process taking place in other fora. Were Iran to become a threat to the alliance or to NATO territory, of course it would be in a different ball game. The 30-plus countries I mentioned that are developing ballistic missile capabilities include Iran. Those 30-plus countries, including Iran, were the motivation for building the NATO missile defence system. You can interpret it from there.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Finally, you said in your opening comments that there is only one game in town for large multinational operations, and that's NATO. Of course, some people picked up on that and the UN-NATO partnership.

Things are evolving around the world. In Syria, for example, a civil war is definitely breaking out. Right now it may not be a direct threat to NATO territory, although it does border Turkey. Are you guys monitoring the situation?

If the Arab League said they had done all they could from a peace standpoint and needed help to go in, and the UN asked NATO to put together a coalition of troops to move in—and I'm certainly talking hypothetically here—would NATO do it there, or anywhere else in the world for that matter, if it wasn't in direct response to the current threats the NATO concept speaks to, which is first and foremost protection of your territory, unless that country is a threat to defence of the territory?

[James Appathurai]

When I had my first day as the spokesman of NATO many years ago, the secretary general at the time, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, said, “Okay, here are your instructions: never answer a question that begins with 'if'.” I never did, so I won't start now.

I can say that based on what you see in the Security Council, that's not a very likely scenario. Second, NATO is not getting involved in any way in the Syria crisis at present. But in a more generic sense, I don't want to leave the impression that the U.S. couldn't command very large operations ad infinitum. They could do it forever. But once you move beyond the U.S., there is no other way to generate and sustain a large multinational operation. That's what I was trying to imply by that.

If there is a consensus in the UN Security Council that NATO should do something, considering the deep commitment of all 28 allies to the UN and the fact that we have three permanent members of the Security Council in NATO, it would be looked at very carefully.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Appathurai, thank you so much for your candour and your analysis of everything that's going on. I'm quite proud of the fact that we have a Canadian civilian at such a high level in NATO and so involved in the discussions that are happening there.

The success of NATO in recent years in Libya, the role it played in Afghanistan, and the continued work on building partnerships around the world and expanding that base and membership are things I believe we all support.

We are adjourned.