National Defence Committee on May 8th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Norlock]

This meeting will come to order. The defence committee is continuing its study of the defence of North America, but before we begin, I'd like to just recognize the presence in the public gallery of the Honourable David Price, former chair of the defence committee.

Thank you for dropping by, sir.

We have before us today two witnesses. The first of our witnesses is Mr. Colin Robertson, vice-president of the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute. We also have Mr. Aurel Braun, a visiting professor from the department of government at Harvard University.

Welcome, gentlemen. As per usual, you will have a 10-minute introduction.

Before we begin, I just want to apologize to those who came here expecting a full two-hour meeting. Apparently we have some exigencies of procedural affairs in the House, and the bells may ring, so this may be, I suspect very strongly, a shortened meeting.

For that reason, we'll ask Mr. Colin Robertson to begin.

Please do your best to keep it within the 10 minutes.

Thank you.

[Colin Robertson, Vice-President, Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute]

Thank you, Chair.

My comments today will address the strategic environment including the threat of cyber, the value of diplomacy, and the enduring value of our defence partnerships with the U.S.A. through NORAD and NATO; the strategic value of sea power and the importance to our economy; and why it is time to incorporate ballistic missile defence into the Canada First defence strategy.

I'll start with the strategic operating environment. Preserving the international order obliges constant vigilance. It means a commitment to both hard and soft power measured in money, people, and kit for our armed forces and foreign service. We live in a world of sovereign states pursuing sovereign interests. Force counts, as Mr. Putin illustrated in Georgia and now in Ukraine. Iran pursues nuclear weapons. Instability continues in the Middle East and North Africa. Maritime territorial disputes between China and its neighbours are coming to a head in the East and South China seas.

These maritime disputes in particular could do far more than merely challenge or change the ownership of rocks and shoals; they may well challenge the rules-based international order, which would in turn threaten the freedom of coastal states, including Canada.

In this environment the core priorities of the Canada First defence strategy continue to apply: first, defence of the homeland; second, continental defence through NORAD, our air and now maritime security territorial defence agreement; third, contributing to international security and stability principally through NATO and a strategic doctrine of collective defence, cooperative security, and rapid response.

The nature of warfare as a competing clash of wills has not changed. The technology has changed its character to the four elements of warfare: land, air, sea, and space. We have added a fifth domain, cyber. Cyber-defence requires much closer collaboration between the private sector and our governments. Shut down our electrical grid system, and you risk the shutdown not just of Canada but the United States.

The Canadian Council of Chief Executives' report recently noted that cross-sectoral and public-private collaboration has already thwarted or reduced the severity of numerous attacks. Information sharing is critical to ensuring the cyber-security of our economy and our country. The international environment puts a premium on diplomacy, traditionally a Canadian asset, but underutilized in recent years.

Intelligence and insight is strategic leverage in Washington, where there is an appetite for a Canadian perspective on the world. At the same time, the rest of the world is very interested in our take on the Americans because, when we are on our game, we understand them better than anyone else. For Canada, our overriding relationship will always be continental, and I would include Mexico now, but it is the United States and then the rest.

The United States is not in decline. The United States remains the most powerful nation in the world. It is a civilization of remarkable innovation and resiliency. It is also the world's biggest market, and we have preferred access to it. Like it or not, the United States bears the global burden of responsibility. Know it or not, it is expected to be the adult in the global commons. With its constant attention on crisis, it doesn't always have time for the neighbours who aren't a problem. This means that in the Canada-U.S. relationship, the onus for initiative is with us. Like a garden, the relationship needs constant tending. We should have representation in all 50 states using, for example, honorary consuls with local networks to support our trade and interests.

To underpin our diplomacy and foreign policy, we need military capability and we leverage this through our alliances, NORAD and NATO. For 65 years the NATO alliance has served Canada's collective defence commitment. NATO is the effective cop on the global beat, the go-to organization when muscle is required to manage chaos and restore order. A strategic alliance of democratic and sovereign states, these adjectives are both a strength and a shortcoming.

NATO's supreme allied commander General Philip Breedlove was in Ottawa earlier this week. I went to hear him, and he posed some hard questions.

First, are we structured correctly to provide a rapid and credible response? Second, is the alliance agile and flexible enough to react appropriately? Third, and even more tough, are our forces positioned correctly to respond?

Less than a handful of the 28 NATO members currently meet their commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defence. We in Canada currently spend 1% of our GDP on defence. It's the lowest of all the major NATO allies. As we prepare for the NATO summit in September, Canada can demonstrate leadership within NATO by significantly strengthening our military capabilities.

Now I'd like to say a few words on freedom of the sea and maritime order. Our prosperity depends on maritime law and order and freedom of the seas. Negotiation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea is one of the greatest triumphs of Canadian diplomacy. Canadian jurisdiction was extended to the continental shelf, effectively doubling our ocean estate.

With 40% of our land mass in our northern territories and 25% in the global arctic, securing international recognition for and protecting Canada'a extended continental shelf must be a national priority. With three oceans at our back and the longest coastline in the world, Prime Minister Harper has said that Canada and its economy float on salt water.

On any given day one-third of the inventory of enterprises like Canadian Tire is at sea. We also ship our major exports by sea. Take pulse, a multi-billion dollar Canadian industry. Production has increased fivefold in the last 20 years. We are the biggest exporter of pulse in the world. It's our biggest export to India and it's shipped to 150 markets.

We are the world's biggest producer of potash, providing half of the global supply. We ship it to 100 markets. We can be an energy superpower once we build east to west pipelines and LNG terminals to get our oil and gas to tidewater and thence to market. For Europe it is a strategic alternative to Russian energy.

We are opening the Arctic Ocean. Last September the Nordic Orion was the first container ship to pass through the Northwest Passage laden with B.C. coal for Finland.

Our ability to enforce law and guarantee safe passage depends on naval power. Navies with air support can project power over huge distances. Last week we deployed HMCS Regina for anti-piracy and anti-terror work in the Arabian Sea, where we've had a near permanent presence since the Gulf War, completing 30-plus deployments since 9/11. It's gone on to join NATO's mission of reassurance in the Mediterranean.

Military capability underpins our diplomacy in foreign policy. To deliver these capabilities we need a competitive industrial defence capacity. You cannot have one without the other. Holding foreign policy military capability and industrial defence capacity all together requires sustained political will and leadership and that's the role of this committee.

For Canada, industrial defence capacity is traditionally a continuation of international enterprises and homegrown niche market SMEs that fit into supply chains. The national shipbuilding procurement strategy and the Defence Analytics Institute give us a framework for building our new navy and coast guard. The key drivers of our procurement process must be getting the ships we need in a timely and cost-effective manner.

I encourage this committee to address the following questions: First, is our industrial defence strategy sufficiently long-term and systematic in approach? Second, does our industrial defence strategy include clear schedules to deliver with incentives and penalties for contractors? Third, given the long time frames for development, do we have the necessary broad political consensus to weather changes in government?

Former American Secretary of Defense Bill Perry told me that no one gets procurement right, but that he had learned two lessons: first, buy off the shelf as much as possible, and second, keep to schedules because of defence inflation. Ian Brodie, my colleague at the school of public policy at the University of Calgary suggests using defence procurement as leverage in our trade negotiations.

I'd also like to say a few words on BMD. It's time for Canada to find shelter under the umbrella of ballistic missile defence, because the threat assessment has changed.

First, North Korea has developed a rogue mobile ballistic missile capacity that's intended to target the U.S.A. But given its wonky aim, if you watch when they shoot their firecrackers on July the fourth, it could just as easily hit Canada with nuclear warheads. Second, Iran has an arsenal of ballistic missiles and is steadily working towards an intercontinental capability. Third, Pakistan with its missiles and nuclear weapons, if it were to go rogue or lose control of its arsenal, it would be a problem. We will likely see more bad actors with access to warheads, intercontinental missiles, and weapons of mass destruction. It's not just nuclear, but also chemical and biological.

BMD is a proportional and prudent response to practical tangible threats. It has been endorsed already by our 27 partners in NATO and our friends and allies in Indo-Pacific, Australia, Japan, and South Korea. We share information and early warning and risk assessment with the United States through our participation in NORAD. It seems ludicrous, but when it comes time to make the critical launch decisions, our officials literally have to leave the room.

The algorithms developed by U.S. northern command to protect the American homeland do not include Canadian cities like Edmonton or Saskatoon. Without our participation the U.S. has no political or moral obligation to defend Canada. In my view, we owe it to Canadians to remedy this situation through an early announcement of participation in BMD.

To conclude, accession to a ballistic missile defence program is the best insurance to protect Canadians. Challenges, whether new like cyber or enduring like industrial defences production, oblige close partnership between the public and private sectors.

We defend ourselves in the international order through institutions of collective defence and security, notably NATO and NORAD. We underpin our security and advance our values through our foreign service, with its eyes, ears and a voice in every important corner in the world, and I would argue furthermore in the United States.

We must have robust Canadian Armed Forces, regular and reserve, well equipped with kit. They represent our readiness to defend our homeland and meet our obligations to collective defence. Given trade and globalization, this requires a coast guard and a Royal Canadian Navy that is “ready, aye, ready“.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Norlock]

Thank you very much, Mr. Robertson.

Professor Braun.

[Prof. Aurel Braun, Visiting Professor, Department of Government, Harvard University, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the committee for inviting me.

You have a longer version of my comments that are being translated, and by the brevity of my calling—professors tend to be much more long-winded—I will try to condense them as much as possible.

My topic is North American defence, Arctic security and Russian imperial delusions. These are large interlocking topics. My purpose today is to provide context, linkages in a broad analysis, with some specifics on certain issues.

In the time permitted, the assessment cannot be comprehensive. I hope to get into more detail in the question period, but at least I want to look at some of the potential threats to Canada, and possible ways to understand, counter, or at least mitigate these.

At first blush it would seem that Canada has a very effective triple layer of protection to guarantee its interests and sovereignty. My colleague mentioned NATO. This is one layer. The second layer is NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which creates an alliance with Washington that is meant to protect our airspace, air sovereignty, overall defence of North America. Last, we have a third layer, and that is Canada itself. We often tend to forget that Canada is a G-7 member. We have a very large economy. We have enormous potential. We can do a lot ourselves. Consequently, it would seem that there would be little reason to be alarmed about threats—and I'm not here to alarm anyone—but I think it is important to look at possibilities.

I want to start off by saying that we are not in a cold war. Despite all of the problems we are witnessing in the east, the world democracies are not facing a massive military threat from a superpower with tens of thousands of tanks and vast numbers of aircraft ready to march across Europe, or a superpower that is intent on devastating North America or North American cities in an ideologically driven war fought for the purpose of imposing some universalistic doctrine.

I'm not going to look at all of the threats; I'm only going to look at some of them. But I think we also have to understand that we cannot simply delink what is happening in the east from our concerns in North America. What is happening in Ukraine, Russian actions there, does affect Canadian security. It has implications for North American defence, for Arctic security, as well as Canadian sovereignty.

I will start on the first section by looking at Russian ambitions and how they impact us in Canada.

Since Mr. Putin returned to the presidency in 2012, but particularly in the past year, Russian claims to the Arctic have multiplied. At one level this ties in with Mr. Putin's strenuous efforts to build up Russia's military might—there are enormous increases in the defence expenditures of Russia—but it also reflects a larger Putinite view of the world as well as the Kremlin's domestic political considerations. We saw that already in 2007 the Russians made a kind of quixotic gesture. They planted a little platinum flag on the floor of the sea. It's a sort of 16th century-style claim that has no validity in international law. But there have been more concrete steps since then.

We know that Mr. Putin made a statement recently, in which he instructed his military to pay strong attention to the Arctic, and declared that “every lever for the protection of Russia's security and national interests must be ensured.” Further, the Kremlin has begun to rapidly reopen and strengthen old military bases in the Arctic, and in the fall of 2013 Mr. Putin ordered the creation of a new strategic military command in the Arctic that is to be in place by the end of 2014.

It is worth noting that the Arctic, which has a very fragile and difficult ecosystem, is generally believed to contain as much as perhaps one-quarter of the world's undiscovered energy resources. Russia has been far ahead of the members of the Arctic Council in trying to explore these resources already. A recent study by the Council on Foreign Relations in New York showed that of the nearly 60 large oil and natural gas fields discovered in the Arctic, 43 out of the 60 are in Russia, 11 are in Canada, six are in Alaska, and one is in Norway. In a sense, given the extreme dependence of Russia on energy, on energy exports, the Russian military buildup ties in with that larger policy. Mr. Putin is playing that military card in multiple ways as part of a larger policy game, but it is also part of a larger imperial delusion that Russia is undergoing.

Let me state unequivocally that Russia today is definitely not a superpower, with the sole exception of nuclear weapons, and it is highly unlikely that Russian will ever be a superpower. It has a GDP that, in nominal terms, is only that of Italy's and just slightly larger than Canada's. On a per capita basis, Russian GDP is that of Barbados.

Further, Russia has enormous demographic problems: a population of 143 million, ethnic issues in the Caucasus. It's plagued by a stagnant unidimensional economy. It is in desperate need of fundamental structural reform if it is to be competitive in a modern international system. It is heavily dependent on energy and weapon sales. Particularly in the case of energy, they are doing everything possible to try to extract more hydrocarbons, which are very heavily pollutant.

Mr. Putin has a choice of trying to build a modern state or trying to build a greater Russia, an imperial Russia. He seems to have opted for the latter, and that affects his world view. Within Russia itself, there is a kind of combination of what I have called in several of my scholarly writings—

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Norlock]

Mr. Braun, I'm going to have to ask you to end here but to continue later, with about three and one-half minutes.

We have to go to vote now. We will come back, and hopefully, we'll have sufficient time for some questioning.

Mr. Bezan.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

It's a 30-minute bell, I understand.

It might be, if there's consent, that we could—

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Norlock]

Thank you very much.

Do I have unanimous consent to let Mr. Braun finish so that we could start the questioning?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Norlock]

There being unanimous consent, Mr. Braun, please continue, for three and a half minutes. Then we'll have to suspend and then resume questioning after the votes.

[Prof. Aurel Braun]

Thank you very much.

I just want to briefly mention the term “political magical realism” which draws on a literary term, “magical realism” where you see in Russia this bizarre combination of fantasy and reality—increasingly more fantasy—with Mr. Putin engaging in a kind of bizarre behaviour as well as very tough repression.

The internal system of Russia is one that is repressive and risible at the same time. Internationally, Mr. Putin has pushed for as much power as possible and it is a delusion because Russia can never become the Soviet Union again. It will not have that power. But this doesn't mean that Mr. Putin is delusional even though Angela Merkel said that he is out of touch with reality.

Mr. Putin's behaviour is delusional not in a pathological sense, but it is a kind of political indulgence that is fuelled both by the fact that the opposition in Russia is not particularly well-organized, but also by the feckless responses that the rest of the world has had to Russian aggression in Crimea and in Ukraine.

I think this affects our defences and our perception and our interests in three particular ways that I will go into perhaps during the question period. The three areas are international law, the UN, and nuclear proliferation. In each one of those areas, there is a reason to worry considerably.

Canada's options depend on that triple layer of defence. The first two layers seem very impressive but they are dependent not on whether the United States has a lot of capacity but whether the United States exercises power. Power needs to be mobilized. Power is not a solid. It is not abstract. It is relative and if it is not mobilized, that capacity is basically wasted.

What we have seen in the case of the current administration is an emphasis on what is soft power but in an ineffective way, not particularly combining with hard power. Power is always a combination of hard and soft power.

As The New York Times columnist, Frank Bruni, very perceptively stated about this administration, the United States under President Obama is “walking small”. That has implications for us because that means we have to look very strongly at the third layer. We must do more ourselves and defence deterrence doesn't come cheap. You have to make the sacrifices because we need to do concrete things. We need to get more aircraft, the way Australia did when they looked at the Chinese threat. We need to push for more submarines, more acquisition of capacity, and this would be the hardware, but also we need to use what I call software—diplomacy—things that we do normally but we need to enhance them.

Let me just conclude. There are no painless sanctions so there is no deterrence on the cheap. We need to reinforce all three layers of defence and in a way that not just Canada, but the United States has to do a lot more in terms of leadership. We have to somehow induce Mr. Putin to engage in a kind of reality check, not just in Ukraine but also in the Arctic where he has been increasingly assertive. We need to combine the hardware and the software, and demonstrate Canadian leadership.

What we have seen with Mr. Putin in the past is that he has shown himself capable of cooperation and compromise, but only when all of his other options are unequivocally removed.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Norlock]

Thank you very much, Professor.

I encourage members of the committee to come back to committee as soon as the vote is completed because it is the chair's intention the minute there is quorum to start the meeting.

Thank you.

The meeting is suspended.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Norlock]

We'll resume. We're at the question and answer time.

I know that Ms. Murray should be coming in the door any second now, because I just saw her coming down the hall. She'll be here in time to take the minutes.

We'll have five-minute rounds, just to offer an opportunity for as many members as possible to ask questions.

We'll start with Mr. Leung, for five minutes, please.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for being here.

We heard a lot of mention this morning about how Canada needs to have a reasonably strong military. That is part of the reason for the protection of trade links, disaster mitigation, and rapid response. All these terms are used to mean “functionally operational” in times of emergency.

There's another component that I feel is very important, which is that a lot of the innovations, tools, and products that come out of the military, out of combat, currently have civilian applications, for example, the Internet, GPS, composite materials, and safety features that are put in cars, such as ABS braking, and so on.

Perhaps you can share with us how Canada as a nation, as we move forward in the 21st century, can best adapt itself to that model of industrialization without having a bad name, as the United States does with the military industrial complex. Could I have your comments, please?

[Prof. Aurel Braun]

My colleague has mentioned the United States as the world's superpower. The success of the United States in terms of innovation—Silicon Valley—is not accidental. There is a connection to the military. A lot of the inventions did come out of DARPA, and they had an impact. This is not to suggest that the only way to get innovation is by having very heavy military expenditures, but there is a valuable connection.

If you have a society that emphasizes freedom of communication, a society where there's entrepreneurship, a society that is open to trade and to ideas, it is one of the best recipes for having the kind of synergy that creates advanced thinking, implementation, and ultimately, also, the capacity to produce.

I think Canada is a very advanced industrialized state. We have been really successful. Often, when I speak to people in Canada, they don't realize what a large footprint we have internationally, how respected we are, and how successful some of our companies are.

I think that in terms of collaborative efforts, in terms of allowing ideas to come in, in terms of immigration policy, we're bringing in and encouraging very bright people to come to Canada. Cooperating on defence with the United States and with our western European allies—I think it has to be that combination. We have to move simultaneously on multiple fronts.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Mr. Robertson.

[Colin Robertson]

Thank you, sir.

I would just reiterate, that in the United States, as you pointed out, DARPA has made huge investments and, in a sense, is probably why we got the Internet. You yourself, I think, said you worked with the RAND. That's been a big asset in the United States establishment, which has had great civilian benefits.

In Canada, in addition to sea, land, and air, we used to have a major defence research side. George Lindsey was a great Canadian who used to be involved in this. We've probably moved away from that slightly, and we probably have more involvement now with the private sector.

We do have absolutely first-rate firms, like MDA, for example, with its Radarsat, which is really world-leading and is supported not only by the defence department but also by the Department of Industry. These are great Canadian assets that should be encouraged.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

What's the best organizational framework to foster that type of innovation? In the United States there's a very close connection between General Dynamics, Boeing, and so on with the military. In Canada what would be our best vehicle?

[Colin Robertson]

I would say supply chains or areas in which we have particular excellence, for example, communications and transportation. We have to be very good at those because of our geography and the kind of country we are. I use the MDA Radarsat example. These are part of the crown jewels of Canada. It's important to keep that side of it.

I do think the public-private partnership is very important. The American model has moved in that direction. As well we need to get involved in the supply chains, particularly with the United States—the United States and all the rest have done defence research—but also with our European and other allies.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Norlock]

Thank you very much, Mr. Robertson.

Mr. Harris, for five minutes.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, gentlemen, for your presentations.

Mr. Robertson, I'd like to ask my first question of you. You indicated in your opening remarks that Canada had made a commitment to spend 2% of its GDP on defence. I've never heard that. I know you have a long history in the diplomatic corps and perhaps you can enlighten us as to when that happened.

If you indeed believe it's the case, are you seriously suggesting—and I think you mentioned the figure of 1.1% this morning at another event—that Canada should nearly double its defence expenditure to get up to $35 billion or $36 billion a year?

Is that your position, and when did we commit to that?

[Colin Robertson]

Sir, if you look at my remarks, I think what I said was that there is a NATO target for all members of NATO, and we are a member, and the NATO target is 2%. We have not come close to meeting that target for a number of years. I was looking at the NATO figures just this week and as you suggested, we're currently at 1%.

My observation would be that if we are in a situation where we are expected to do more, eventually we have to make investments ,and it's not just Canada, it's the rest of the alliance.

I also think we shouldn't be bound simply by a figure, although figures are important because they're an indication of commitment. Also important are your output and results. I would argue there, as I have with some of my European colleagues, that our contribution—for example, the CF-18s, and the Regina moving from the Gulf into the Mediterranean—makes good sense, but the problem is that we don't have a replacement now for the Regina doing work that Canada has committed to helping to do as part of our larger collective defence responsibilities.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I don't mean to cut you off but I do have other questions.

I've looked in vain for the NATO statement of that target, in fact, by agreement, and I haven't found it. There are some countries, like Greece, for example, that expend more than 2% but that may be more a function of their GDP than their commitment to defence.

I want to go straight to the topic of BMD. You seem to be a public proponent of that in various places, including the Senate and again this morning. From a strategic point of view, are you seriously suggesting that Korea is not a superpower, that even Russia is not a superpower, and that it's likely the Americans would let the Koreans get to a point where there was a clear and present threat from a capable enemy that is saying they're going to do this and wait to play catch-up? Is that really serious? I find it hard to believe.

We've seen what happened when Iran was acting up with the Stuxnet move, and the suggestion of the Israelis taking out nuclear facilities when there was a clear and present threat.

Do you really think that Korea is a serious threat to North America?

[Colin Robertson]

Yes, sir.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

You do. Well, thank you.

You also said that as a country, Canada has underutilized our diplomatic resources and expertise, and I would certainly agree.

Do you believe that NATO, and Canada as a NATO partner, should take seriously the commitment to what is called, in a NATO-strategic concept, a commitment to create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons in accordance with the goals of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, and that they would support the efforts stated by Obama, who is talking about getting to zero in terms of dealing with countries like Pakistan, whom the Americans support generously with military support annually without apparently extracting any methods of de-escalating? Do you think that it's time for a worldwide effort to do this get-to-zero thing on the diplomatic level using whatever economic and other levers we have?

[Colin Robertson]

Yes, sir, I strongly believe in non-proliferation, but I also think that we live not in the world as we wish it, but in the world as it is. Because we live in the world as it is, we have to prepare for the worst, and that would include things like ballistic missile defence.

Do I wish that North Korea would develop this capacity? Not at all, but they have unfortunately come fairly close and they are improving their trajectory. This is proven and that's why the Americans, under President Obama and Secretary Hagel, have now placed interceptors in Alaska and California, because the threat today is greater than it was last year, or even three years ago.

Kim Jong-il lives in his own.... We heard about magical realism and President Putin. Well, North Korea would certainly qualify under a magical realism side.

From a Canadian perspective—I'm only concerned about the security of Canadians—it would be useful for us to be part of that umbrella, as are the rest of our allies.