National Defence committee  Let me start. I absolutely respect the type of work that you were doing prior to your entry into politics, and I have to commend you for that. I absolutely, secondly, hope you are right in that particular context. My hope is that what you have said is exactly that we will see the Afghanistan central government extending its reach into the provincial regions, that in fact we will see the moderate individuals that we tend to broad-brush as Taliban—and you know better than anyone else that to say there is one Taliban is just simply wrong—can then be brought in, that we can see development of a type of regime or society that will respect rule of law, that we can wean away from the extremism of the Taliban regime.

National Defence committee  It's going to be the economics and the fact that we have the continuing resumption of strategic balances between them. But we know that resources lead to conflict. The example I would cite is the Spratly Islands, the east Paracel, and the ongoing conflict between the Chinese, Japanese, and Taiwanese—everyone in Asia—about its resources.

National Defence committee  There are two gaps we have that we need to recognize. The first one is, of course, for the continuing defence of North American airspace. The biggest challenge we're facing is that if you do not have a fast air capability, be it a future UAV or an F-18 and its successor.... We've already seen, since 2007, that the Russians resumed long-range strategic bomber patrols armed with active armaments.

National Defence committee  In my view, absolutely, yes. Russia has a huge aerospace capability over its own land territory and over its Arctic waters. The only reason you would actually sail or fly your aircraft with live bomb loads right up to the international border is to make a political statement. You make a political statement by doing it once or twice, saying, “We're back.

National Defence committee  Absolutely. On your point about Dieppe, I couldn't agree more strongly. We've never had a grand strategy. Our strategy has always been to be a helpful ally. So when Mountbatten and the Brits needed to do a test landing in Europe, they said, “We'll send Canadians.” You could add to the list, of course: “We have to deter the Japanese, so let's send a whole bunch of untrained Winnipeggers to Hong Kong.”

National Defence committee  The issue with the Chinese is an interesting one because it's not going to be just China and Canada in the Arctic; it's going to be Canada in the new relationship with the new China. We're seeing this in terms of a very well thought out Chinese strategy of buying into our resource industry.

National Defence committee  Yes, absolutely.

National Defence committee  Security, I'd say more than sovereignty. Sovereignty is an international term that my legal colleagues like. Call it whatever you want, but make sure those coming in are following our rules to support our interests. That's the critical point, in my mind.

National Defence committee  Look at the amount that allied air forces were there. We were told that F-18s weren't required because the Europeans and the Americans had a surplus of fighter capability. You and I both know that we will always be down the list when calling on those forces when our personnel need them at certain times.

National Defence committee  Yes, that's the question. The problem we're facing with the submarines is that we let them stay in dock too long. We should have bought them at the time they were offered. Anybody who's ever left a car over winter knows what happens when it's parked and not moving. Well, salt water environments are even worse.

National Defence committee  The flip answer is no, there's not. If you do not have the subs, increasingly you're not going to have the deterrence capability. You're not going to have that psychological factor over subs coming into our waters. They're saying, “Okay, we don't know where the Canadian subs are.”

National Defence committee  It's a little bit of both. I'll give you an example. The navy, very much on its own—and once again, the full story hasn't been told—back in the 1990s started saying that they had to have a reassessment of what Canadian sea power meant. Through a series of the CMS at the time, they had the vision statement, and then they had the subsequent strategy known as Leadmark.

National Defence committee  That's easy. We do what the Russians are doing. The Russians are basically saying they will follow international law and they will participate in every multilateral improvement of environmental standards. They're a major player in what's referred to as the polar code, which is going to be strengthening the creations of the environmental standards for new ships.

National Defence committee  Absolutely, there is no question, because the future is coming, and it will be there. Are we prepared for the Europeans or not?

National Defence committee  Yes, we are.