Let me use a different term, which is “human geography”. People who understand the human geography are far more effective in communicating and establishing relationships. To give an example of human geography, in Afghanistan we were using the wrong maps, because we were using maps written and done up by people back in the 1800s. I asked my staff to go and get me a tribal map. When we understood the human geography, the complexity just exploded off the page. We started to have different relationships, and we started building those relationships and having a better understanding of the cultural sensitivities of the groups that we were dealing with and an understanding of what their grievances were with each other and what their grievances were with us, because we didn't understand them—wrong culture, wrong race, wrong religion, blah, blah, blah.
The more we sat down and talked to them, the better we could understand it. You put a big bowl around that whole thing and that's called intelligence, intelligence and understanding the situation that you have to deal with. The better intelligence you have, the better informed decisions you can make and you can actually deliver the right effect at the right time with the right results. It's not about killing. It's about engaging in relationship building, and we need significant capability.
One of the greatest assets that Canada has provided on operations throughout our history.... I used “us” in Afghanistan. I said, “We're multicultural, multi-ethnic.” I used to show up in meetings. I had my political adviser, who was a woman, and my development adviser, who was a woman. I was a guy. I had an imam with me, and I had a guy you might know. His name is Harjit Sajjan and he is a Sikh. I said, “Welcome to Canada. This is Team Canada. This is what we come with. This is just us.”
The one thing about Canadians is that we'll talk the crap out of you, because all we want to do is talk to you and we want to understand what's going on. Then the imam would say a prayer, and they'd be really confused because he was wearing a uniform and he was speaking in their language and he was praying with them. After we had the prayer, we sat down and had a talk. You want to talk about a multiplying effect? Canada was a superstar over there. We found out stuff that the Americans and other international agencies did not because we are just unique because we are multicultural and multi-ethnic. That's intelligence. Understanding that, Canada just being Canadians going over there and doing what Canadians do best.... I don't think there's another country in the world that can do it as well as we can. We just don't give ourselves enough credit.