National Defence committee  I feel that I did flag in my opening statement the cyber security area. This is an emerging realm. It's one that has not yet been weaponized, but it could very soon become so, and I think it's incumbent on the diplomacy here that has lagged way behind military developments. Here, NATO has begun to look after its own cyber defence, and that's helpful.

National Defence committee  I think there has to be greater responsibility, and to be fair, I think the African Union in particular has moved along that route. But one also has to acknowledge the limited capabilities of many of those states. A good example of this NATO force multiplication, if you will, that I would advocate was that NATO agreed to provide strategic airlift to African Union forces in connection with the mission in Somalia, an African Union/UN-blessed mission, but the reality is that without the help of a sophisticated military-heavy airlift, those troops couldn't readily get in and be supplied, etc.

National Defence committee  Yes. I think NATO consultations on how to safeguard the current benign environment of outer space are very much an appropriate political task for the alliance.

National Defence committee  What I'm saying is that the objective of the smart defence, as I understand that kind of terminology, is that you're looking to get benefits and cost efficiencies. One way of doing that is instead of having each member state attempt to acquire really expensive kits or capabilities, they could do it in a collective way, and that would benefit the collective defence purposes of the alliance.

National Defence committee  Clearly, it's a key capability. It was used in the Libyan operation, for example. When you're part of the program, you have access to that. There were 17 countries in the program, I believe, and I'm not sure how we, as a country that has dropped out, can benefit. Maybe there's a pay-for-use option.

National Defence committee  In short, I think it's very important that those partnerships be developed. In the absence of the Arab League call for active military engagement in Libya, I don't think the operation would have happened. NATO would have been ill-advised to have attempted that without the political cover, if you will, that came from having an Arab association of states in that region, and afterwards the African Union also, I recall, had a political endorsement.

National Defence committee  Obviously those are two difficult cases. If you take North Korea, it's probably the most bizarre regime that currently exists in the world, the most Stalinistic in the worst sense of that. It is a very hard nut to crack in terms of expecting the usual sorts of international behaviour.

National Defence committee  Russia, like all NPT state parties, has an obligation to effect nuclear disarmament, and clearly, as a nuclear weapon state, it has the requirement to take a leading role in that regard, and there has been some progress. Unfortunately, the pace of that reduction, on both the U.S. and Russian sides, I think is far from satisfactory.

National Defence committee  I think it would be if it were unilateral, and that's not what I would be advocating. There is some scope for initial action. For instance, the repatriation of the remaining U.S. nuclear gravity bombs in Europe is a step that would be helpful for overall relations and would facilitate a further move to getting transparency and controls relating to the Russian so-called substrategic or tactical nuclear weapons that remain in the European area.

National Defence committee  Exactly. There is irony for those who have historical perspectives. NATO for many years insisted it needed a nuclear deterrent policy because it was conventionally weaker than the Soviet Union of the day and the Warsaw Pact. Now the same logic is being reversed, and Moscow says it feels it has to hold on to its nuclear forces because it is conventionally weaker than NATO, and objectively, that's the case.

National Defence committee  Mr. Chair, members of the committee, good afternoon. First, may I thank you for giving me this opportunity to attend your meeting to discuss this important matter as part of your study. Many years ago I served with the Canadian delegation at NATO during the end of the Cold War, and I have a deep appreciation for the capacity of the alliance to adapt to new circumstances while maintaining a crucial traditional solidarity among its members.