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.