National Defence committee  In that kind of capacity, doing things like providing funding, I think absolutely.

National Defence committee  I think those are examples of us leading from the front.

National Defence committee  Oh, okay. Yes; I mean, if you did things like provided the airlift, provided the refuelling.... I think we may have actually been the second-largest refuelling contributor to Libya, for instance. That's an example of where you can provide enabling capacities that allow other pe

National Defence committee  I certainly think some of them have been addressed by the lift that we've acquired, which all comes down to how you prioritize what you want to do. Depending on the policy direction, there can be gaps or not. I think acquiring lift made a lot of sense, and bolstering our refuelli

National Defence committee  I think it's a critical one. I think most of NATO relies to a greater or lesser extent on private support. Certainly we do. We did very extensively throughout the contribution in Afghanistan. So it's something that.... Depending on what types of services you're talking about, it

National Defence committee  I think the focus shouldn't be on the companies per se but rather on what they're doing. You need to have pretty stringent oversight and make sure that the contracts are being managed effectively, and that's more important than what the country may have done eight or nine years a

National Defence committee  Potentially, yes.

National Defence committee  The plan to acquire UAV, I believe medium-altitude UAV, through the JUSTAS program might be one, for instance. That's the kind of surveillance capability that Libya showed was, one, in very short supply, and two, essentially a necessity now in any potential operational scenario.

National Defence committee  That's a good question. I'm not sure about that. I think overall it was largely a political decision in Washington that they didn't want to be seen to be out front, ahead of everyone else, on another intervention in that part of the world. There are also issues with President O

National Defence committee  It's my understanding, at least certainly with the air component, that it was done through NATO.

National Defence committee  I would have to check on that, but I believe it was also NATO-directed.

National Defence committee  Yes, certainly. I think the types of support that the United States provides to all the people who show up but can't essentially feed and sustain themselves, for instance, is an example of that kind of thing. Even if you look at the countries that make very small contributions, t

National Defence committee  I think that's fair. It's certainly nothing that's a bolt from the blue under this administration after the new year. These are fairly long-developing trends, having greater emphasis on the Pacific. There have been a number of statements over the past several years, I think to a

National Defence committee  I'm not sure there are as many good examples as the one that you just raised where that kind of specialization can work. For instance, patrolling and keeping safe the airspace of a member that we're obligated to defend is in our interest as the rest of the alliance. I'm not sure

National Defence committee  With respect to the first part, I'm not saying that the strategic concept overall is moot; it's just that smart defence, which is one component of the NATO program going forward, will be very challenging to implement, because I don't think.... I mean, the concept of an alliance