National Defence Committee on Feb. 15th, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

We're going to have to leave that one there.

Mr. Spengemann is next, for seven minutes please.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank each of you for your highly distinguished record of service to our nation, and for being with us today and bringing your cumulative expertise to bear on the work of this committee.

Mr. Fadden, I'd like to start with you. You mentioned in your opening remarks the multiplicity of terrorist organizations with considerable reach—I think those were your words. I'd like to take you into Baghdad for my first question.

I had the privilege of serving in Baghdad as a civilian UN official from 2005 to 2012, and during that time NATO had a training mission in Baghdad, in the green zone. Ambassador McRae, you mentioned the value of training. This particular training mission was staffed to the complement of about 140 officers. Its function was to train the Iraqi officer core. It wasn't combat training. It was to train the nascent or renascent Iraqi army.

Could you circle back and tell us the value, as concretely as you can, of those kinds of missions, and whether you feel NATO should be doing more of this work?

[Richard Fadden]

I certainly think NATO should be doing more of that. If we're not doing it with NATO, we should do it bilaterally in some circumstances.

There are two issues in dealing with militaries like the Iraqis. The first is helping the government of the day to ensure their loyalty, which is easier said than done. It's been an ongoing problem with the Iraqis. The second is to provide them with what I call the staff capacity to function as a modern military. It's one thing to provide them with new guns and whatnot, and teach them how to shoot them, but I remember that when I was still working, there were constant requests to Canada for staff officers, because we have very, very able staff officers. If you don't have good staff officers, you're not very effective on the battlefield in most cases. Providing countries like Iraq with staff training that supports the military capacity behind the scenes is very important.

The other area where it's very important for us to provide training missions is in helping those countries integrate their military. You'll know as well or better than I that one of the characteristics of the Iraqi military was that there was the military, there were some people from Iran, there were some people from Kurdistan, there were some people from here, there, and everywhere, so their military was a bit of a hodgepodge, in stark contrast to the militaries of the west. To the extent that NATO countries, or Canada as a stand-alone, can go in there and teach them some modern operational principles, it's worth its weight in gold.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Just to close off that question, is it fair to say, then, that this is also about relationships, like small-p political operational relationships, that may endure for even years?

[Richard Fadden]

Absolutely.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you.

My second question is about post-conflict reconstruction. The UN just came out, literally 48 hours ago, with an announcement that the Iraqi post-Daesh reconstruction agenda is in the magnitude of $88 billion or more. That was their initial assessment, and the fear is that unless reconstruction happens progressively, there is a risk of backsliding on the gains against Daesh.

I want to ask you for your views on this particular issue but also more broadly on the role of the intersection of NATO's work with progressive post-conflict reconstruction work to avoid conflicts 2.0 or 3.0 later down the road.

[Richard Fadden]

I don't have a view on the amount that the United Nations is focused on, but I was in Iraq a couple of times, and that country, quite honestly, is falling to pieces. The conflict over the course of the last little while has left it devastated.

I think it was the Iraqi Prime Minister who declared victory not too long ago. I think that is a significant mistake. This is not a conflict like World War II where you can declare from one day to the next that you've won. I think large parts of the Iraqi territory if they are not still under the control of Daesh have elements there that are going underground, and they're going to revert from more or less traditional warfare to insurgency or terrorist activity.

While we work on development of one sort or another, we have to maintain a basic level of security. I don't think they have that yet. I think the UN's probably right that they need a massive investment of money, but to use the vernacular, it ain't going to work if we—NATO, Canada, the U.S., the coalition of the willing that Rob was talking about—don't somehow continue to help Iraq maintain some basic level, to use our expression, of peace, order, and good government, because they do not have that now.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Are the connections between NATO and the UN in a general sense strong enough and functional enough to incorporate or to conceptualize the work on post-conflict reconstruction from a NATO military perspective to enhance its value to ensure integration across the military-civilian line?

[Richard Fadden]

Go ahead.

[Robert McRae]

They're not strong enough. I'll just go right to the point.

NATO has a liaison office in New York, for instance. It's staffed at a very junior level. It's very modest. Certainly Afghanistan demonstrated that although NATO and the UN can work together effectively, those relationships are difficult.

There is, in UN headquarters—and I know because I've been there and I heard it when I was in office—a great suspicion of NATO in many of the corridors in the UN, and when the Security Council has turned to NATO to implement some of the UN Security Council mandates, there's been a degree of unhappiness about that at UN headquarters. So the UN is not instinctively turning to NATO, I would say, and therefore, although NATO has offered partnership with the UN in the past, it's not been taken up by the UN.

If I might just add one thing on training, NATO could do more in terms of setting up some kind of a subcommand on training. We've reinvented the wheel with every operation to do training in the Balkans and in Afghanistan. Why not institutionalize this, have institutional memory, and commit to training on a regular basis? That applies to Iraq. There's no reason that there could not be a special partnership arrangement between NATO and Iraq that would include security sector reform on the civilian side and training on the military side. This is within the realm of the doable if countries like Canada promote this around the table.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Chair, I don't think I have enough time for my last question, but maybe I'll ask it in the next round.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

We'll have enough time to go around the track given the time available in the formal questions.

I'm going to turn the floor over to Mr. Fisher.

Go ahead for five minutes, please.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here. It's an incredible panel.

I want to go back to burden sharing for a little bit and the most recent comments by the United States actually calling out some member countries in the burden-sharing conversation. We heard in past testimony that there have been conversations about burden sharing amongst members for years, decades even.

Have the conversations changed? Is there a new discussion on burden sharing now since the most recent calling-out by the United States?

Mr. McRae.

[Robert McRae]

Well, the conversation has changed over the last year, because there is now an edge to it. As I said, there is a kind of quid pro quo: if you don't pay, you don't get the U.S. In a public statement in Pensacola in December, President Trump said, “I told the people of NATO standing right behind me while they were standing right behind me—they've been delinquent. They haven't been paying. I said, 'You gotta pay. You gotta pay. You gotta pay'—and now they've taken that in—because of that. And I guess I implied you don't pay we're out of there; right?”

That's pretty clear.

[Richard Fadden]

May I add a thought?

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Absolutely.

[Richard Fadden]

I agree with what Rob has said, but I think the other edge that's been added to this debate is the fact that most of the Nordic and Baltic countries are scared beyond description. We've sent some troops to the Baltic countries. Sweden has just reinstituted some form of draft, and they want us to do more—never mind Mr. Trump—which I agree with entirely. The dynamic in terms of the fear and the concern level has also, I think, focused the minds of a good number of countries more than was the case, say, five or 10 years ago.

[Robert McRae]

The consequence of this public discussion about payment and collective defence is that it completely undermines deterrence. In the past, it was always assumed that there was a political commitment, let alone article 5, that if an ally was attacked, they would have the support of all the other allies combined. The fact that the U.S. has now opened up a loophole or wiggle room on this undermines deterrence. It undermines deterring a potential adversary from taking a run at the Baltics, for instance, in this case by Russia. We've undermined deterrence at a time when Mr. Putin has become a greater risk-taker than ever. Nobody thought he would take a run at Crimea—I have to say that on the intelligence side—prior to the event.

At a very time when Russia is more unpredictable, and Putin is going to be there for a long time, NATO has on its own, to Putin's delight, undermined its own deterrence. The combination of an adversary in Moscow and this kind of shooting-yourself-in-the-foot policy is extremely unhelpful and has led to exactly what Dick has said in terms of what those countries are facing.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Is there any sense that the United States is willing to look at the things we've talked about, the contribution and effectiveness of member countries, instead of just the dollar sign?

[Robert McRae]

Our best friend right now in Washington is General Mattis. He was the strategic commander in Norfolk when I was at NATO. I spent years on—

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

He sees contribution effectiveness and efficiency.

[Robert McRae]

He understands Canada, and he understands the quality of the Canadian contribution.

You'll notice that the sharp criticism which has gone to Germany has not necessarily come our way, and I would say this is in large part because of, as Denis has talked about, the quality of the Canadian contribution and General Mattis' understanding of Canada. We have a friend in court with whom we should be speaking regularly about our contribution, our defence spending, and so on, because he will listen and he understands us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

There's a little bit of time, but not much time for a question and an answer.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Will you be circling back?

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

I will be circling back.

Mr. Bezan.