Going to NATO these days, especially after four years of continual investment into multilateralism, we look at investment in NATO in three ways: cash, capabilities, and contributions. We need to be able to have the money there to invest in the right capabilities, which we are doing, but then we also need to contribute as well.
As you very well know, we are leading a battle group in Latvia. We have a persistent presence with our frigate in the Mediterranean. We have conducted air policing. We are back in the AWACS program. We are working on a number of other initiatives as well, which allow us to be seen as a credible partner that can be relied upon.
That also translates into having our voice and influence matter, something that plays a very critical role when we are dealing with the mission in Iraq, the one that we actually command right now with General Carignan. It allows us to look at using our own experience and offering our advice on the way forward.
We were directly involved with a lot of our international partners and with the secretary general to make sure that the mission was going to move in the right direction. I am happy to say that the great leadership team we have there did tremendous work on that.