National Defence Committee on Dec. 12th, 2024

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for attending our meeting today and helping us get informed.

I want to talk a bit about the new administration's posture.

We talked about Ukraine. A lot of people think Trump is going to be equally tough on Putin to get to a peaceful resolution in Ukraine, but there's another calculus here. Trump has also talked very tough on BRICS and their desire to replace the U.S. dollar as the global currency. He's been quite aggressive in his rhetoric towards those countries, and about destroying their economies.

Will that make him even more aggressive when dealing with Vladimir Putin on the issue of Ukraine, as it relates to monetary policies?

[Max Bergmann]

That's a very good question.

I read with interest Trump's statements vis-a-vis the BRICS, and I do not necessarily think he will link the two that closely. He'll probably bifurcate and deal with Russia individually.

My concern when it comes to Russia-Ukraine is that there could be an effort to negotiate over the Ukrainians' heads with Moscow and over the heads of Canada and our European allies as well. I see the effort by the administration to end the war, but not necessarily to end the war on the best terms for Ukraine.

When it comes to the BRICS and the international monetary system, it's a very good question about the dollar as the central reserve currency. In many respects, there's been conflicting information here. On the one hand, we see Russia and China actively working to create an alternative system, and Russia's economic resilience thus far points to an ability to perhaps be somewhat diversified away from the dollar, but on the other hand, when there's an economic crisis, everyone wants to flock to the dollar, and the dollar remains incredibly strong. It still is the central reserve currency that gives the United States great leverage, as people want to be part of the U.S. financial system.

I don't really see Brazil and India siding with China and Russia and perhaps going in that direction, but it is something that many experts in the global financial system are really watching out for to see how that progresses over the next few years.

[Dr. Robert Hamilton]

I agree. I think the Trump administration will divide or bifurcate its responses to BRICS and de-dollarization in Ukraine. BRICS is about economic issues, which I think will lead in a Trump administration. They will lead with the economic instrument.

We shouldn't forget Trump got impeached over Ukraine. Ukraine's personal for him, so I think he will set that in a separate bin.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

I appreciate that.

I just thought that with his tough rhetoric, he might carry that through on Ukraine as well. I was hoping that the meetings he's had with Zelenskyy would strengthen Ukraine's hand in the potential negotiations to bring about the end to the war.

I want to talk about Syria again and the fall of the Assad regime. We talked about the Tartus port that the Russian navy has been using. With Turkeyy's interest in Syria and collapsing the regime, do you think they would be opposed to Russia continuing any operations in Syria?

[Max Bergmann]

I think Turkeyy would most likely want the Russian bases to be removed, because they were on opposite sides of the conflict.

That said, Turkeyy and Russia, in some ways, are sort of “frenemies”, in that they have established really strong and solid working relationships at the same time as they clash in many ways over their historic geographic situation.

Turkeyy could be a useful country in pushing for the expulsion of Russian bases, but we'll see, with Erdogan and Putin, if there is correspondence there. We may not know, but that may be one of Putin's first calls in response to the collapse of Assad.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

I am very surprised we haven't seen the Russian fleet sail through the Mediterranean, up to the Baltics and back to St. Petersburg, and that we haven't seen Russia take all the aircraft that are stationed in Syria home. The long-term impact of Russia's brutal mercenary operations, originally by Wagner, in Africa will be greatly undermined as well, will they not?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I'm sorry, but we'll have to leave it there.

[Max Bergmann]

That would be my presumption.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Okay.

Mr. Powlowski, go ahead.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

You both talked about collaboration between Russia and China, and we've also started to talk about BRICS. I wonder how we should be dealing with BRICS. Obviously, Russia and China are a big part of BRICS, so how much do you think BRICS in itself is contributing to undermining the international legal order, given the central place of Russia and China in that organization? What should be our response to BRICS?

I think BRICS is trying to cater to a lot of lower- and middle-income countries to become part of this global alliance against the west. Certainly, they've been trying to win favour, for example, in Africa.

Are we doing enough to try to counter that and win the favour and allegiance of countries, particularly in Africa?

[Max Bergmann]

My short answer would be no, I don't think we are doing enough.

I think part of what the formation and expansion of BRICS highlights is that there has not been enough effort to really engage the global south or other countries as part of the global international architecture, as we would call it.

We saw the Biden administration really double down on the G7—the G7 is an incredibly important format—but not really create something that was inclusive of many of our democratic partners or countries that we want to engage more with in the developing world or the global south, or whatever name you want to use. That's in particular Brazil, India and South Africa, as well as other countries like Senegal.

I think that is sort of a blind spot, and that's where China and Russia have sort of seized the initiative to try to rebalance the global international architecture and expand BRICS. It's a diverse group, and I think it's something that we need to be very mindful of going forward, because it's an alternative way of setting norms and rules of the road for the international system.

[Dr. Robert Hamilton]

I agree. I would only add two short things.

First of all, the more BRICS expands—now, as of this year, it includes Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the UAE—the harder it will be to gain consensus.

The second thing is that between China and Russia, which are the two largest countries in BRICS, I think there's a fundamental difference in what the purpose of the organization is. Russia is trying to turn it explicitly into an anti-western organization. China and many of the other founding members, I think, are not on board with that vision, so there's some daylight between their positions there.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Powlowski.

We still have a couple of minutes left, so I'll finish off.

Our most famous political hockey-playing philosopher is a guy named Wayne Gretzky. He's famous for saying that you go to where the puck is going, rather than where the puck is.

I'd be interested in hearing from both of you on where the puck is going with respect to the Kurdish involvement in Syria, and particularly if you think there's going to be a drawdown of American resources there.

Second, what might Erdogan be expected to do, particularly with the administration in Syria?

Third, you've spoken about the Russians extensively, so I think you've answered that.

Fourth, I think the big unknown here is Israel and what it could be anticipated to do.

On three out of those four, where is the puck going in the short term, in 25 words or less?

[Dr. Robert Hamilton]

Turkeyy's biggest concern, I think, is the SDF, or the Syrian Democratic Forces, which is the U.S.-backed political-military organization that essentially controls a third of Syria. Everything north and east of the Euphrates is de facto under the control of the SDF.

Turkeyy has already been attacking SDF units since the HTS takeover and since the unfreezing of the military situation there. I think it remains to be seen. The U.S. is there with the SDF, legally, to destroy and then prevent the re-emergence of ISIS. There will have to be some serious discussions, I guess behind the scenes, between the U.S. and Turkeyy about what the future of eastern Syria is. Right now it's not under the control of anybody in Damascus; it's under the local control of the SDF.

Israel has already mounted sort of a limited incursion into Syria.

I was in Israel in 2018, standing on the Golan Heights. At the time, a Sunni opposition group was in control of Daraa province in Syria. The Israeli army officer with us said that they were more comfortable with them than the Assad regime across their border because where the Assad regime comes, the Iranians come with. I think Israel is probably happy about the fall of the Assad regime and the collapse of Iranian influence in Syria, but is watching very closely to see what happens across the border.

I think I'll leave it there because I don't have a lot of expertise in the other two.

[Max Bergmann]

I think I'll just stay on Israel.

Israel has tremendous military tools and in some ways has now put the Middle East into a place where it needs more political tools. With the situation in Lebanon, for instance, you would hope to see the Lebanese armed forces be able to assert more control vis-à-vis Hezbollah and see an actual state-building process occur there. It would be similar in Syria.

That brings us to Iran. Where does Iran go from here? Right now, it's very much down. There's a real concern that Iran may see its weakness as necessitating a move toward a nuclear weapon or necessitating a potential opening for renewed talks with a Trump administration. I don't know if there'll be that appetite on the Trump administration's part. I think there is probably an opening where the Iranians are weak and would be willing to talk.

We'll see where Israel goes from there, because Israel will have a lot of influence, I think, over the course of direction of the Middle East and in U.S. policy toward Iran and the region.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you both for your very thoughtful responses. This has been a rich discussion, and I know my colleagues appreciate it. Thank you for making yourselves available.

With that, the meeting is adjourned.