Thank you very much. It's indeed a pleasure to again be invited to testify before this very important committee that's examining a very important issue.
I would also like to say thanks to both Alex and Robert for their initiative, because our students at the University of Calgary have participated at one point or another in various such undertakings, and we very much appreciate it.
I have three major comments I wish to share with the committee that ultimately lead to the core issue of my talk, which of a course is Canada, NATO, and pax Atlantic. The fact that we have been going through one of the most successful, peaceful eras that we've seen, along with countries of like-minded institutions, from an international perspective, is a thought that is both mind-boggling in its understanding and also mind-boggling in the fact that so few people seem to fully appreciate and understand it.
The three points that I want to address within my time are, first and foremost, why NATO is of central importance to Canadian security, not sort of a byline, not sort of a third issue on our defence policy, but why it is probably one of the central elements of our defence and international security.
The second point I wish to address is the evolving nature of NATO in the Arctic, and why this is going to become one of the most critical elements that Canada is going to be facing very soon, rather than in the medium or long term.
The third point I wish to address and conclude on is the very significant dangers we now face because of changes within Russian policy and why in fact that is probably a much more dangerous international system than I think is properly appreciated.
Let's begin with what I see as the major importance of NATO.
First and foremost, of course, NATO acts as a deterrent. We see the manner in which collective security has been very successfully utilized, and I think to a very large degree our understanding of the ultimate successful outcome and completion of the Cold War in fact was of course at the very heart of the success of NATO.
There's a second element that has also been completely missed by many Canadians. NATO has also been a major success story in the Canadian efforts to ensure that when the alliance was being formed it was also creating a new security community. We often forget that it was Canadian insistence and Canadian diplomats and policy leaders who insisted that NATO not only be formed as a military alliance against the rising threat of the Soviet Union, but it also be created as a means to ensure that only liberal democracies were welcomed into its auspices. I think this is a thought that is often forgotten; many of these states, which had been former enemies for so long, now in fact have their institutions protected by the fact that they are members of NATO.
I think the fact that we're seeing in many parts of southeastern Europe former belligerents, former locations where Canadian troops had to be deployed,now reforming their entire governance system along with their defensive system is a major testament to how successful NATO is about resolving the various conflicts that had existed within Europe.
The third element, and this is part of our own narrative, which I think is widely misunderstood in Canada, is Canada's role within NATO has also been a major part of ensuring that our allies, through NATO, actually keep good relations. We've used the peacekeeping mythology that is one of the core narratives of Canadian international relations to say that it's all about peacekeeping, but if we're being honest with ourselves when we look back to our really significant efforts in peacekeeping—the Suez Crisis, Cyprus—often these are much more. They have a humanitarian element, but they are much more about keeping the alliance members functioning on a co-operative basis. In many ways it's much more about keeping the Americans, French, and British together, keeping the Turks and the Greeks together, and focused on the common challenge and adversary.
Let me turn to NATO in the Arctic.
One of the things that has often made many observers of NATO in the Arctic quite curious is the way that Canada, for the longest time, has had opposition to any involvement or expansion of NATO duties into the Arctic region.
Often these reasons are not understood. However, whatever they have happened to be in the past, one of the clear indications that has emerged from the current Liberal defence policy—recently announced—is that we are now ready to start talking to NATO about precisely the point that Alex touched upon in his third point. That is, of course, the protection of the Arctic approaches and the North Atlantic approaches. I think this is entirely something that we need to be looking at very seriously.
Canada and Norway should be working as closely as possible to ensure that this somewhat open flank is in fact closed. Canada, for its core security interests, has to be a major participant. It can't simply be, “Yes, Norway, whatever you do, we think is great.” Canada must be actively working within the NATO alliance to ensure, first and foremost, that this increasingly dangerous theatre is covered and that Canada is at the forefront.
Within the context of NATO in the Arctic, though, Canadian officials also have to be aware that we are heading into an increasingly complex, and I would argue, dangerous environment. Open literature and open discussions within Sweden and Finland suggest that both countries are seriously looking at whether they should continue their association with NATO through the partnership for peace program, or seek full membership. We should be prepared, should one or both countries opt for joining NATO, to accept these countries as quickly as possible, but we need to recognize that this will have obvious push-back from the Russians, and it will have obvious impacts on some of our other multilateral efforts in regard to the Arctic.
I seriously doubt that should either country decide to try to pursue membership within NATO that the current success rate within the Arctic Council can be sustained. This may be an unfortunate casualty. I would very much regret seeing the many successes scaled back, but we need to be preparing for this eventuality.
The third and final point, which I want to conclude on, is the great danger that we now face with a very changing international system. At the heart is the classic security dilemma. The Russians, even prior to the arrival of Putin, have always said a major security requirement was their fear of the expansion of NATO. However, by the same token, the reason NATO has expanded, as Alex very eloquently brought forward, is that the former Warsaw Pact members, the other former parts of the Soviet Union, and the southern European states, all see joining NATO as intrinsic to their own security.
We can see and understand as academics, of course, the security dilemma. As partners in the pursuit of international peace and security, from a liberal institutional perspective, we can also understand why so many countries, such as Poland, Bulgaria, and others, saw in the long term that NATO was their security. Where the true security dilemma has arisen, and now faces Canada, is that starting in 2008, Russia was able to make the policy decision that it was going to begin to use military force to stop NATO expansion. Remember that in the Russian intervention in Georgia in 2008, to a very large degree, we can time it to the Bush administration's suggestion that perhaps Georgia should join NATO. Remember that in 2014, prior to the Crimean intervention, one of the few public statements that Putin made was that the Crimea would never be a NATO military base.
I think we've moved into a very dangerous environment, in which following 2008, the Russians have discovered that they will in fact use military force as a push-back for those countries that wish to join NATO. To make this even more complicated, we have the election of an American president who, quite frankly, does not seem to understand the long-term impacts and benefits that NATO has provided for pax Atlantic. The fact that there are suggestions that there might be obvious Russian intervention in terms of the election and that we have seen him musing whether or not NATO should subsume are very troubling, when we take into consideration what the Russians have started doing vis-à-vis NATO.
In conclusion, I would argue that we are indeed in a very dangerous environment. The Russian change of policy in 2008 to meet NATO expansion with military force, combined with the fact that we have an American president who does not seem to fully understand and appreciate the true linchpin that NATO has been for our peace and security, is very troubling.
I think Canadians need to understand that we must maintain this security, and NATO is at the heart of it.
Thank you.