Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.
I agree, really, with everything that Dick Fadden has just said, but I'll look at these issues from the perspective of eight years altogether at NATO headquarters.
I was there as the deputy permanent representative from 1998 to 2002, which was during the Kosovo air campaign, but 9/11, of course, also occurred in that time, and article 5 was declared in consequence. Then I was there from 2007 to 2011, and of course Afghanistan loomed large during that time. I was also present for the Libya air campaign. Also during that time, in 2008, Russia invaded Georgia. There were significant concerns with regard to shipping lanes off the east coast of Africa.
There's no question, in my experience at NATO, that the uncertainty with regard to the nature of threats that the alliance is facing has increased since the end of the Cold War. That's for a variety of reasons. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union, NATO, and alliance structures were fairly static. The standoff was fairly clear, and there was an array of client states, in a sense, in support of each of these two power structures. After the Cold War, all of that changed, as you well know. The client states disappeared. Some states prospered and did well. Others became failing states where governance was an issue.
Technology has changed a lot of that threat perception, whether it be through cyberspace issues or what has come to be called “standoff war fighting”, war fighting at a distance where you don't have to put troops on the front line. You can achieve your military objectives in effect by staying at home and sending high-tech weapons abroad.
For me at NATO, the Canadian interest was always very clear. NATO is the classic transatlantic organization. There's no other like it in any field, whether in economic development, diplomacy, or the military. Canada has a particular stake, I would argue, unlike any other country, unlike the United States or even our European allies, in maintaining that transatlantic bond.
We do well as a country when there is a rules-based system to govern the behaviour of other states. We're not necessarily small, but we're clearly not one of the great powers. Rules-based international relations is the environment in which we will prosper and do best. NATO provides exactly that kind of a structure across the Atlantic.
My time coincided with a very high operational tempo, both with regard to the Balkans, and then with Afghanistan and Libya. One thing became absolutely clear to me as a consequence of that; NATO and its chain of command is a very effective means of achieving your political and military ends. The way in which the organization operates, the way in which it plans operations and assigns resources is effective and efficient. The chain of command is pre-existing. We don't have to reinvent the wheel for every operation overseas, so for Canada, it's a ready-made vehicle to achieve our international security objectives.
The fact that it works on the basis of consensus, which means that even Luxembourg can block an operation if it doesn't agree, is a good thing. The United States may not always be happy when the smaller countries step in, but I think even they would recognize that sometimes the United States' immediate instincts on a particular issue are better to be blocked, maybe for a day or two, or a week or two, while further thinking is made.
The consensus rule enables countries like Canada to influence decisions and influence the policies that govern those decisions and the execution. Coalitions of the willing, which we've also done as a country, don't give you that. In my experience, coalitions of the willing, usually led by the U.S., will listen to what we have to say, but at the end of the day, the big decisions are made in U.S. rooms in Washington, and we're not always present. That's the problem with coalitions of the willing, so NATO gives us a voice unlike other options in terms of action abroad.
One lesson that became clear—and I would just remind the committee of the wisdom of the Manley panel. I testified to the panel as others did, and many of the conclusions it arrived at are conclusions that are as relevant today as they were then in dealing with the Afghan mission. One of them is that if you commit to a combat role, bring the full spectrum of capability with you. Do not rely on others, including allies, to provide for the gaps in your capability including helicopters or UAV surveillance. It was a hard lesson to learn, but it's an important lesson going forward. For me, that was a turning point in the way in which we looked at these operations.
Again, with regard to Afghanistan but it's a broader point, there is the importance of training local forces as your exit strategy. We did it in Kosovo. We did it in Macedonia. We did it, of course, in Afghanistan. We would have done it in Libya if there had been an interlocutor on the other side with which to deal. There wasn't. There was effectively no government in Libya. Training is key to every foreign military involvement. This is how, at the end of the day, you ensure that the people you have gone to defend and protect can provide for their own defence. Of course, training is part of that broader comprehensive approach of diplomatic development and defence capabilities that is required.
I want to touch on something that Dick touched on, which is modernization and adaptation. NATO in my experience, better than many international organizations, has adapted extremely well to the changing international security context. It has not stood still. It has changed the way in which it perceives threats, and the way in which it responds to them.
Part of that response is on the collective defence side. NATO agreed, while I was there, to provide missile defence for our 26 or 27 European allies. Canada, along with all of the other allies, so 28 countries, is paying for that missile defence to protect our European allies. The United States has its own ballistic missile defence program. There is only one country that has decided it does not need missile defence despite the proliferation of missile technology and nuclear weapons, and that's Canada. I can tell you even today that the Canadian ambassador at NATO has to explain to the 27 other allies why we do not believe in missile defence even though we're paying for it for our European allies.
This is a policy issue that needs debate, in my view. I'm not going to take a side one way or the other—that's more for the political masters to do—but I do think there is a debate to be had, and I would highly commend the committee to look into this issue. I think it would serve us well.
I want to touch on a couple of issues to close, which are contemporary issues. The NATO meeting of defence ministers has wound up today in Brussels. General Mattis, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, is there, and the NATO Secretary General has given a press conference, as he always does at the end of the meeting of defence ministers, today. A couple of things came out of that, and they are worth pausing on.
The NATO command structure was traditionally sort of bipartite. You had the Europe command and then you had a command for transformation, based in Norfolk. The command structure has now been adapted and that transformation command has disappeared and there's now an Atlantic command. I suspect it will be in Norfolk, which historically has been responsible for Atlantic issues. This is good news for Canada because the Atlantic command is going to focus on transatlantic issues and the security that I mentioned of that, so one outcome I think very much supports our interests in NATO.
There's a focus on creating a more important cyber-command at NATO headquarters. That's clearly the right direction in which to go. It's a military issue, and our military command structure and the deployments need to be protected from cyber-attack.
Finally, there's a new subcommand on logistics, as you'll see, but particularly on mobility, and mobility is key. This leads me into the 2% issue. We can discuss this at greater length. I would have quite a bit to say on this.
2% is fine, but it doesn't guarantee quality defence, nor does it guarantee the commitment on the part of every ally to a collective defence. You need to be able to leave your own territory to assist another ally who has been attacked. Many countries that meet 2% would have a hard time leaving their own home territory to provide that assistance to another country. We can go into the details, but the 2% is a pretty rough and not very useful measure of capability and quality, I would argue.
However, what we've been hearing from President Trump about 2% should worry us all, because it's not just about 2%. It's not just about browbeating allies into spending more money. As a candidate, as president, he's made it clear repeatedly, and most recently in December of last year, that in his mind, there's a quid pro quo approach to collective defence. If you don't spend 2%, the U.S. may or may not come to your support if you are attacked. You may think that's an abrogation of the Washington treaty. If you read the Washington treaty, you'll find it's not. Article 5 says that nations will assist an ally attacked, on the basis of their own determination. I have the language here, but that's basically it: allies decide themselves how they will come to the defence of an ally that's attacked. There's a loophole; it is not as automatic as you might think. This is not all for one and one for all. When one hears the President of the United States saying that article 5 is conditional on the record of an ally's contribution to its defence budget, we should be worried.
This clearly, if anything, underscores the importance of Canada ensuring that it has a plan to increase its defence budget in a reasonable way. I wouldn't be concerned about the 2% business, but it should be in a way that demonstrates to all of our allies that we will be capable of fulfilling our commitments to NATO under the Washington treaty. I think we can do that. This is of paramount interest to Canada in terms of its role within NATO.
With that, I'll stop there.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
