There would be no value here in underestimating the challenge that it poses, and Afghanistan is just one example. There were at one time 46 or 47 different nations contributing troops. The majority of the countries there might be from NATO, but there are many officers and soldiers from countries other than NATO, and that is a true challenge.
But through NATO we do have organizations that are designed to.... For example, for officers joining a joint headquarters, ISAF has two major headquarters. One has overall campaign responsibility, and there is a joint command headquarters that really looks at running the operation.
A couple of years ago, I was but one of 14 general officers serving in that headquarters, which represented about 11 different nations. So we come from diverse backgrounds but we also link back into that joint doctrine we have from NATO. That joint doctrine is taught at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto. So I first learned about the NATO joint doctrine when I was a major at the Canadian Forces College some 15 years ago. So that's a constant theme all the way through.
We continually strive for opportunities to train alongside other allies. We have a group of officers through the Directorate of Army Doctrine and Directorate of Army Training who attend working groups on a near monthly basis with our NATO allies and who constantly work issues and keep lines of communication open. That provides a core, and that core capability in any organization will provide the impetus for joint operations.
There are always going to be friction points in any organization just by combining more than one person. These are just things that we teach our individuals to work through.