I think the Russian Federation would have seen that steep decline in their economy particularly challenging without a lot of the Soviet state's capacity in Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, etc., and that meant they were more relegated to a resource economy. That partially explains recent, expanded United Nations Arctic claims made by Putin and also may be part of his motivation in relation to Ukraine, because that was a significant industrial capacity element of the Soviet Union.
In the last 70 years, Russian Federation actions, generally speaking, have been opportunistic, but they're against a broader strategy and with a strategic intent in mind, with kind of a freeze-thaw mentality, as I've heard other speakers in previous sessions with you speak about. This means that, in recent years, in Georgia in 2008 and Crimea in 2014, they've taken action, allowed the international community to move on, and then looked for other opportunities.
That speaks to their use of information confrontation, what we would refer to as [Technical difficulty—Editor], refined in recent years by Valery Gerasimov as the Gerasimov doctrine, really just combining military, technological, informational, diplomatic, economic, cultural, all kinds of tactics to achieve specific strategic goals.
I would say that only Putin really knows what he wants, but predictably, he wants recognition. He doesn't want a bipolar world; he wants, as a minimum, a tripolar world with the U.S., China and the Russian Federation involved.
Reasonable or not, he wants to stop eastward NATO expansion. Some will say there's no place to go. Well, of course there is. There are Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Finland, Sweden, Austria, Moldova, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. He wants NATO to stop this eastward progression. He wants a sphere of influence; he needs to broaden his economy, and he's a human, so he probably has legacy in mind.
In our sense, what are the types of things...? Sanctions, yes, but consider that he operationally planned this a couple of years ago, so he's planned and accounted for sanctions to a certain extent. If you think about what the Chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz, recently said to the Bundestag, which I think is illustrative, Germany has put €100 billion for armaments, a commitment to exceed 2% of GDP for defence spending. They've adjusted their energy policy intentions to avoid long-term dependence, and made other industry policy decisions, and they've committed to, of course, the reinforcements that one would expect for NATO missions and activities. Most importantly, I would argue, the chancellor marks this as a turning point in German foreign policy in favour of alliance and efforts through the EU and NATO. Our corollary, perhaps, as Canada, would be the Five Eyes and NATO.
With that, Mr. Chair, I'll turn it back to you.
Thank you.
