National Defence Committee on Sept. 14th, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

We're a minute early, but everyone's ready to go, so we'll start.

I would like to welcome Mr. O'Toole and Ms. Vandenbeld to the committee today. Thank you for appearing.

I welcome my colleagues back from the summer in their ridings.

Welcome to the first of four panels on defence and foreign affairs; specifically, Stephen Burt, Mark Gwozdecky, and Sarah Taylor. We'll discuss the changing situation in North Korea and how that may or may not relate to Canada.

We have four panels. I'm going to be very disciplined on time, so whether you're asking a question or responding, please look at me once in awhile. If you see this, you've got 30 seconds to wrap up. In order for this thing not collapse into an accordion and rob people of their time at the end of the day, if I don't get your attention, I'll just politely say that we need to move on. Please forgive me in advance if I seem abrupt, but I have to keep us on time.

Having said all that, Foreign Affairs is first to speak, for up to five minutes.

Mr. Gwozdecky, you have the floor.

[Mark Gwozdecky, Assistant Deputy Minister, International Security and Political Affairs, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Honourable members, thank you for the invitation to speak to you today.

Canada, like many other countries, is gravely concerned by North Korea's reckless and provocative actions in pursuit of nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. This concern is not hypothetical. North Korea has now demonstrated a capacity to deliver missiles intercontinentally, with a range that could reach most of North America. In this sense, the threat from North Korea is real, strategic, and global in nature.

The current crisis has been decades in the making. Since it first became known that North Korea was pursuing a nuclear weapons program in the early 1990s, the international community has continuously sought to persuade North Korea to permanently and verifiably denuclearize. These efforts have not yet succeeded.

Although it is difficult to be certain of the reasoning behind the actions of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, we feel that North Korea's behaviour is motivated by a single priority: the survival of the regime.

North Korea has developed and refined a brutal system of internal repression that has systematically deprived its people of fundamental human rights for more than 70 years, for the sole purpose of protecting the regime from internal threats.

The human rights situation in North Korea is absolutely appalling. The regime sees external threats and feels vulnerable. It knows it cannot match the technological and military superiority of South Korea and the United States. It believes that building the capacity to strike North America with nuclear weapons safeguards its own security.

On the peninsula, North Korea and South Korea are technically still in a state of war, and their fragile truce is being strained because of North Korea's plans to equip itself with nuclear weapons and to perfect the delivery systems.

Beyond sanctions and sustained diplomacy, there are no easy or obvious policy alternatives. North Korea's actions represent a grave threat to regional security and a risk to our friends and allies South Korea and Japan as a result of North Korean missile tests, many of which are landing within their exclusive economic zones and at least one test that overflew Japan on August 29. North Korea has abducted citizens of other countries, conducted assassinations abroad, and repeatedly threatened its neighbours with the use of conventional and nuclear weapons.

As disturbing as the thought of a nuclear-armed North Korea is, the citizens of the Republic of Korea have lived under a significant conventional threat from North Korea since World War II. Thousands could die in a matter of minutes should military conflict erupt. Currently the risk is significant that misinterpretation of intent or miscalculation could lead to an unintended escalation, including military conflict. Canada has therefore strongly called for a de-escalation of tensions.

The profound consequences of conflict also underlie Canada's position that the North Korean nuclear issue must be resolved peacefully through dialogue and diplomacy. Minister Freeland has had direct, sustained, and systematic contact with foreign ministers of the United States, China, and South Korea, and in August with the North Korean foreign minister to press our point that this issue needs to be resolved peacefully and diplomatically.

The six-party talks, led by China, with Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Russia, and the United States, were conceived in 2003 to find a peaceful resolution to security concerns resulting from North Korea's nuclear weapons program. Six rounds of those talks resulted in little progress, and in 2009 North Korea announced it would no longer participate in those talks.

North Korea is currently the most significant threat to global nuclear non-proliferation and the regime that tries to prevent it. It is the only country to have conducted nuclear tests in the 21st century, having conducted six tests to date, including its most recent one on September 3. Its nuclear tests contravene its international legal obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, but they also undermine the long-standing norm against nuclear testing established by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. With the sole exception of North Korea, the rest of the world maintains a voluntary moratorium on nuclear testing.

In 2009 inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency were forced to leave North Korea, and since then have had no direct access to North Korea. They must rely upon things like satellite imagery to monitor the nuclear program there. We therefore cannot say conclusively how much explosive fissile material North Korea has produced or how many nuclear devices it may possess.

North Korea is willing to proliferate dangerous technologies, as demonstrated through its export of ballistic missiles and materials to Iran and Syria and by its involvement in Syria's construction of a covert nuclear reactor. That reactor was destroyed in 2007.

Through increased diplomatic and economic pressures, North Korea must be persuaded to change its current and dangerous course.

Canada played and continues to play a role in striving to change Pyongyang's agenda. In 2010, Canada adopted a controlled engagement policy regarding North Korea in order to draw the regime's attention to the fact that its behaviour has consequences for its bilateral relations. The policy limits official bilateral relations to the following issues: regional security concerns; the humanitarian situation and human rights; inter-Korean relations; and, finally, consular matters.

North Korea is increasingly isolated on the international stage. Even the countries that have historically maintained a minimum level of relations with North Korea are breaking or weakening those ties. Canada has also demonstrated leadership by exerting economic pressure on North Korea.

Canada's long-standing unilateral sanctions under the Special Economic Measures Act are among the strictest in the world and include, among others, a ban on all exports and imports, as well as a ban on the delivery of financial services to North Korea and its people.

The Security Council has adopted nine separate resolutions imposing sanctions on North Korea. Despite this, we believe the international community must exert greater pressure and coordinated bilateral and multilateral engagement with Pyongyang so it realizes that the costs of pursuing nuclear weapons outweigh any perceived benefit. To change course from its current dangerous path, we must convince Pyongyang that it can achieve its goals through peaceful diplomatic means.

Canada has called on the Security Council to take further action to constrain North Korea's proliferation efforts, and we insist that all states fully implement those sanctions. The grave and global nature of the threat posed by North Korea to its neighbours, and indeed to international peace and security, merits the significant and continuing efforts of the international community to address this problem.

Thank you very much for your time and attention. After my colleague finishes speaking, I'll be pleased to answer any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you for your testimony.

Mr. Burt, are you five minutes, 10 minutes...? We're already off to an overrun.

[Stephen Burt, Assistant Chief of Defence Intelligence, Canadian Forces Intelligence Command, Department of National Defence]

It should be five.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you. You have the floor.

[Stephen Burt]

Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thank you for inviting me this morning.

I am very pleased to appear before you today and share our views on North Korea and on the threat it represents for North America, to the extent that I am authorized to do so in an unclassified environment.

When assessing the threat to Canada posed by North Korea's nuclear and conventional weapons, we look at the country's intent and its capabilities. Tracking or predicting changes in capabilities is sometimes challenging, but is usually possible within a reasonable margin of error. Gauging current and evolving intent is more complicated, and predicting future intent and staking one's security on that prediction is highly risky.

When a state like North Korea acquires a capability, it remains in its arsenal regardless of whatever changes may happen in its political calculus and intent, and while it is sometimes difficult to forecast intentions, North Korea has a long-stated desire to be able to target North America with nuclear weapons. With this in mind, I would like to briefly highlight for you today both the likely motivations behind North Korea's weapons program and the state of its current technical capability.

According to defence intelligence officials, North Korea believes that the progress of its nuclear and ballistic technologies are essential to ensuring the survival of its current regime in the long term.

Since Kim Jong-un came to power in 2011, we have seen a significant increase in the number of ballistic and nuclear tests. The regime has clearly communicated its aspirations. During a plenary meeting of the Workers' Party of Korea in 2013, Kim Jong-un outlined those aspirations by demanding the simultaneous pursuit of the country's economic development and its nuclear program. Those two objectives focus on strengthening the state and on its long-term survival.

The North Korean regime feels that it is the only legitimate government on the Korean peninsula and wants to be recognized as such by the entire world.

North Korea's propaganda also highlights a desire to be seen and treated as an equal to the United States, and Pyongyang appears to believe that this will be achieved only if it is recognized as a nuclear power. If we take its statements at face value, there are signs that the government in Pyongyang may be willing to talk, so long as there are no preconditions, including international demands that it give up its nuclear program. Pyongyang maintains that its nuclear weapons are the most dependable and realistic guarantee for peace on the Korean peninsula.

To summarize, the development of an effective nuclear deterrent has been a key long-term goal for North Korea for some time. It sees these weapons as crucial to its survival, and it wants to be recognized as a nuclear power.

I'll move on to North Korea's capabilities in terms of weapons of mass destruction. As I have already noted, Pyongyang has expressly indicated that it wants to be able to target North America with nuclear-armed missiles. To that end, North Korea has now performed six underground nuclear device tests. The first was in 2006, and the last was on September 3, 2017.

A previous North Korean claim that its nuclear device test of January 2016 was a successful thermonuclear weapon, or hydrogen bomb, remains unsubstantiated. However, the high yield of the 2017 test is consistent with either a boosted fission device or a two-stage thermonuclear one. North Korea claims that this test involved a miniaturized thermonuclear weapon designed to be mounted on an intercontinental ballistic missile, which can deliver a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse in a strategic attack. These claims are credible but unverified.

North Korea's nuclear device testing history has demonstrated real advancements in the development of nuclear weapons. Its possible detonation of a thermonuclear device suggests that it will likely be able to produce an arsenal of high-yield nuclear warheads without the need to produce additional weapons-grade fissile material. Nevertheless, defence intelligence judges that North Korea will continue to increase its stockpile of weapons-grade fissile material.

It is difficult to determine accurately how many nuclear warheads North Korea may possess or may be capable of producing. Our low-confidence estimate is that it probably possesses a number of nuclear devices capable of being delivered by shorter-range missiles, and that it aspires to having a deliverable intercontinental nuclear capability. We judge that it probably has produced enough fissile material for at least 30 devices, and all signs indicate that North Korea will continue its nuclear testing program and efforts to enhance its nuclear capability.

I should also note that North Korea is widely believed to have offensive chemical and biological weapons programs. While it is unlikely that North Korea has the capability to target North America with chemical or biological agents, understanding all the weapons of mass destruction capabilities North Korea may pose is crucial.

Finally, separate from its nuclear program, North Korea has aggressively pursued its development of ballistic missiles of various ranges, including intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs. In July of this year, it twice tested the Hwasong-14 ICBM, and Pyongyang has now demonstrated rocket booster capacity with a range that could reach Canada and the majority of the United States.

Nevertheless, some gaps in our knowledge remain. For one, North Korea has not demonstrated credible re-entry vehicle performance at intercontinental operational ranges. However, Pyongyang has now clearly demonstrated a real capability to reach North America. Additionally, North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons and delivery systems and its threat to target nuclear ICBMs at potential adversaries anywhere in the world directly undermine global non-proliferation norms and threaten Canada's key regional partners in Asia.

While we do not currently have proof of a fully functional nuclear ICBM, given the progress they have made so far, we believe it's only a matter of time before North Korea develops a reliable nuclear-armed ballistic missile.

Thank you.

I will be pleased to answer any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you.

I'll yield the floor to Mr. Mark Gerretsen.

You have up to seven minutes.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our panel for being here this morning.

Perhaps I'll start with you, Mr. Burt, as you were the last to speak. You talked a lot about the capabilities of North Korea and of it being only a matter of time before those capabilities could become what they are striving to achieve, but I didn't hear much talk about what you thought the actual threat was to Canada specifically. Do you feel that North Korea is a threat to Canada? Put a different way, are there circumstances in which North Korea would want to attack Canada?

[Stephen Burt]

As I said at the beginning, for us, threat is a combination of intent and capabilities. This is my third time with the committee where I've walked through this paradigm, and I've sensed a bit of frustration with it previously.

The reality is that in the intelligence business, capabilities are a lot easier to deal with than intent, because they are more concrete. North Korea's statements have talked about their desire to have the capability—they have had very colourful rhetoric on a number of occasions—but they have not talked about what they would intend to do with that capability. I suspect their goal has been focused on what it is they hope to achieve capability-wise.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

But they have indicated that they regard the U.S. as a potential target, correct? There is a lot of rhetoric around that, is there not?

[Mark Gwozdecky]

Yes, there is, but there has been no direct threat to Canada. In fact, on the contrary, in recent contacts with the North Korean government, including in August when our national security adviser was in Pyongyang, the indications were that they perceived Canada as a peaceful and indeed a friendly country. So on the contrary, we don't sense a direct threat; we sense that, for the time being at least, they perceive us as not an enemy and therefore potentially a friend.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

That is based on what they're saying.

[Mark Gwozdecky]

Yes.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Okay.

Mr. Gwozdecky, you referred to talks that started in 2003 and mentioned how effective those were. You talked about Canada and the importance of having dialogue and diplomacy. I think at one point you even said, although it may have been in the translation, that Canada must use diplomatic pressures.

Can you give some indication as to how effective those diplomatic pressures have been?

[Mark Gwozdecky]

In terms of whether we have reached our ultimate destination, we have not yet succeeded there. Diplomacy requires a great deal of patience.

I would just highlight, as an example, that the efforts that resulted in the nuclear agreement with Iran took more than a decade of painstaking diplomatic negotiation to try to change the threat perception that Iran from the west and make it understand that it could achieve its goals through a diplomatic solution and not through armament.

I think we're engaged in a similar process with the DPRK. We have not yet seen the players return to the negotiating table. We hope that comes sometime soon.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Other than sanctions, then, no other diplomatic pressures have worked or have produced results that are tangible in terms of being productive?

[Mark Gwozdecky]

I think history is going to tell us whether we're having some effect. It's pretty hard to discern where we're at right now. I think we're in a pre-negotiating phase where both sides are trying to improve their leverage by the time they reach the negotiating table. But I think North Korea is not immune to the fact that those in the international community, including major western powers, are consistently advocating that it abandon its aggressive posture and engage in a diplomatic solution. One day we hope to see the results from that.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

What do you see Canada's role being in terms of that diplomacy? Is there an opportunity for Canada to bring perhaps the U.S. and China closer together, to genuinely play a diplomatic role in order to help alleviate or to improve the situation?

[Mark Gwozdecky]

I think Minister Freeland feels that Canada has a role because we are a trusted partner to many of the principal players, whether South Korea, the United States, or Japan, and we have, I believe, credibility in the eyes of the others, such as China. Recently our contacts with North Korea, including her discussion with her North Korean counterpart, suggest that we are seen as a serious player, that we don't have a particular agenda, and that we are listened to.

I think also we are seen, in particular Minister Freeland, as someone who has the ear of the United States, and therefore is in a role or in a position to potentially have an influence not only in Washington but elsewhere.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

I'll now yield the floor to Mr. O'Toole.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Thank you.

It's good to join my colleagues. We're getting a head start on the parliamentary session.

Thank you to our witnesses who are here with us today.

Your first sentence, Mr. Gwozdecky, was startling, because it contradicted what Mr. Burt said last year at committee, which was that there was no state actor with the capability or intent to pose a threat to Canada. Your first sentence was that North Korea clearly has that capability. Leaving intent aside, the capability for an ICBM strike on North America is a clear risk.

[Stephen Burt]

I think I can probably take that one.

You're absolutely correct that my testimony last year was different from this year's. The explanation for this is that a number of things have occurred over that intervening time in terms of ballistic and nuclear weapons capability—

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

So when the threat environment changes, perhaps Canada's stance to that threat should change as well. Would that be fair to say?

[Stephen Burt]

Look, the role of defence intelligence is to tell people what's going on in the world with as much detail and specificity as I can. What is done with it is up to others.