Thank you, Mr. Motz.
With all due respect, I don't think Canada is punching above its weight. Its defence spending is between 1.3% and 1.4% and there is a Wales commitment to do 2%.
I go around and I hear that people in Ottawa, Düsseldorf or Lyon don't feel that threatened. People in Ohio don't feel threatened either, and there is an increasing trend in the United States towards skepticism about our international commitments. There's a real test going forward about whether this alliance architecture can be sustained.
Moreover, to the point I made earlier and relating to the second point, we don't have the military capacity to deal with all the potential threats in the world. There's obviously China, but there's Russia, North Korea, Iran, terrorism, etc. We don't live in the unipolar moment anymore and we have to focus on Asia, which, by the way, is also a Canadian interest.
All the arguments I make for America's interest are essentially one to one with Canada, because if China has a dominant economic position, you'd better bet it's going to apply it against Canada. In fact, it already has, and it's applying it against Australia.
We're much more powerful. We have a plausible route to autarky, but forget it for a smaller country, so everybody should want us to be playing that role in the Pacific. It's a collective good, but it's going to leave a vacuum in Europe, and Europe is very important. I'm not saying we should ignore Europe.
I served in the Pentagon. I was the lead official for America's defence strategy in 2018. I know the situation. We have essentially what's called a one-war military. What that means is we are not building a military to fight two simultaneous wars, because we are going to lose the primary war if we don't focus on that, and it's going to create vacuums. We're going to need the French and, above all, the Germans—the Germans are the primary problem—but Canada, the United Kingdom and others can really help.
I hear Canada talking a lot about the commitment to a peaceful world and stuff. The most concrete commitment I can see is spending more to help, to be frank.