NDVA Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Tuesday, May 27, 2003

¿

0920

The Chair (Mr. David Pratt (Nepean—Carleton, Lib.))

Dr. James Fergusson (Deputy Director, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba)

¿

0925

¿

0930

The Chair

Mr. Rob Anders (Calgary West, Canadian Alliance)

The Chair

Mr. Rob Anders

Dr. James Fergusson

¿

0935

Mr. Rob Anders

The Chair

Dr. James Fergusson

Mr. Rob Anders

Dr. James Fergusson

¿

0940

The Chair

Ms. Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre, Lib.)

Dr. James Fergusson

¿

0945

Ms. Anita Neville

The Chair

Mrs. Elsie Wayne (Saint John, PC)

Dr. James Fergusson

¿

0950

Mrs. Elsie Wayne

The Chair

Dr. James Fergusson

¿

0955

The Chair

Mr. Robert Bertrand (Pontiac—Gatineau—Labelle, Lib.)

The Chair

Dr. James Fergusson

À

1000

À

1005

The Chair

Mr. Rob Anders

À

1010

Dr. James Fergusson

À

1015

À

1020

The Chair

Mr. Robert Bertrand

Dr. James Fergusson

The Chair

À

1025

Mr. Rob Anders

The Chair

Mr. Rob Anders

Dr. James Fergusson

Mr. Rob Anders

Dr. James Fergusson

Mr. Rob Anders

Dr. James Fergusson

À

1030

The Chair

Dr. James Fergusson

À

1035

À

1040

The Chair

Mr. Rob Anders

À

1045

Dr. James Fergusson

The Chair

Mr. Rob Anders

Dr. James Fergusson

The Chair

Mr. Rob Anders

The Chair

À

1050

Dr. James Fergusson

À

1055

Á

1100

The Chair

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CANADA

Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs

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NUMBER 028

l

2nd SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

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EVIDENCE

Tuesday, May 27, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¿  (0920)  

[English]

    The Chair (Mr. David Pratt (Nepean—Carleton, Lib.)): I'd like to call this meeting of the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs to order.

    First of all, my apologies to our witness, Dr. Jim Fergusson, for our late start. As I explained earlier to Dr. Fergusson, a number of our colleagues are part of a delegation to the NATO parliamentary association's spring session in Prague, so we're a little light as far as the number of committee members go.

    But having said that, on behalf of the committee members who are here, Dr. Fergusson, I'd like to extend a very, very warm welcome to you. You're well known by this committee for the work you've done over the last number of years. Of course, your role as deputy director of the Centre for Defence and Security Studies has put you in the forefront of a number of issues being discussed in this country today, not the least of which is national missile defence.

    Without any further delay, let's get started with your presentation. We certainly look forward to hearing your thoughts and perhaps having the opportunity to ask you a few questions as well.

    Dr. James Fergusson (Deputy Director, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba): Thank you very much, and good morning.

    It's a pleasure and a privilege to be here today to address any of the questions the committee may have concerning the Canada-U.S. defence relationship in general and the issue of ballistic missile defence and outer space in particular. The decision of the committee to examine Canada's most important defence and overall external political relationship is both timely and pressing, not least of all because of the recent highly charged, polemical, and at times hysterical portrayal by both sides of the debate of the relationship concerning the government's decision not to participate in the U.S.-led coalition against the Hussein regime in Iraq. It is also timely given that attention is once again focused on the issue of Canadian involvement in the U.S. missile defence effort for North America.

    This latter issue is especially important, as Canada faces a decision within months, if not weeks, on missile defence. Regardless of the outcome, it is essential that this decision — or non-decision, which would be tantamount to a “no” to the United States — be a well-informed one, shed of hyperbole, innuendo, and misinformation, and made on the basis of Canadian national interests. In this regard, the problems with the current rhetoric are clearly evident, for example, in the mischaracterization of the relationship between missile defence and the weaponization of outer space.

    As the committee knows, the bilateral defence relationship between Canada and the U.S. consists of a large number of treaties, memoranda of understanding, and forums, alongside the immense number of daily, weekly, and monthly ad hoc meetings and person-to-person contacts. Probably 95% to 98% of the relationship operates beneath the surface of public and political attention and knowledge. It has evolved on the basis of two simple verbal commitments, the first extended by President Roosevelt guaranteeing Canadian security and the second in Prime Minister King's response pledging that Canada would not become a security liability. Interestingly, these set the pattern for the evolution of the relationship over time — a U.S. decision or action, followed by a Canadian reaction. Perhaps as a side note, it would be useful for this committee to contemplate why this pattern has withstood all the changes that have occurred over the past 60-odd years.

    Nonetheless, from its beginnings, the relationship became deeper and broader, as a function of geography, the strategic environment of the Cold War, shared values and interests, and emerging technologies. The two core institutions developed to manage the relationship, the Permanent Joint Board on Defence and the Military Cooperation Committee, were joined by new institutions, arrangements, and agreements designed to meet the functional demands of defence cooperation as they arose. In turn, the growing complexity of the relationship resulted in its fragmentation and compartmentalization, and the increasing inability of the core institutions, especially the PJBD, to manage, if not in fact fully grasp, the full scope of the relationship.

    The net result has been a level of defence interdependence and integration unparalleled between two sovereign states and an expectation on the part of all the participants directly and indirectly involved in the defence relationship that not only would each new functional demand be met in a cooperative way, but also that the relationship would remain relatively immune to the ups and downs of formal, high-level political relations. This is not to suggest that each and every U.S. defence initiative met with Canadian approval. On the contrary, Canada and the United States have disagreed on many occasions on defence issues inside and outside of North America, but there has been, and still is, an expectation that the two parties will find a means to accommodate each other without significantly damaging the mutually beneficial relationship.

    In this regard, two significant issues emerge that I believe are of central importance to this committee's deliberations. The first is whether the way in which the relationship is structured needs to be changed or perhaps modernized. The existing structure or structures were developed for the exigencies of the Cold War. Even before the end of the Cold War, significant change in the structure of U.S. defence began with the creation of the U.S. Space Command, for example, and the passing of the Goldwater-Nichols Act, which led to the establishment of the regional command system in the United States, among other things. In addition, other examples include the United States recently assigning an ambassador-level official to NORAD and of course creating Northern Command and the Department of Homeland Security.

    Yet, to my knowledge, no new formal structures have emerged in the bilateral relationship in response to the exchanges — with the exception, of course, of the recent binational planning group last December — nor have any significant changes occurred in Canada's defence/military/security structure since the 1970s. While the emergence of a cabinet security committee in the wake of 9/11 was an important addition, and the idea of a cabinet committee chaired by the Prime Minister and devoted strictly to the Canada-U.S. relationship is a useful one to consider, neither represents a significant structural overhaul of the defence relationship or the way in which Canada structures its own defence and security establishment to meet the demands of the new era we live in and the structural changes that have occurred in the United States.

¿  (0925)  

    Of course, it is not necessarily the case that all or any of the bilateral or our national structures, institutions, or instruments need to be reformed or modernized. Problematic, however, is that there has been no major public examination of the structures of the bilateral relationship. Certainly, a thorough review is a major task for this committee's current agenda, especially with the number of other pressing issues under consideration, and it could be argued such a review should be left to the future foreign and defence or security policy review.

    Regardless, it is essential that the committee open the door to this issue, not least of all because of the experience surrounding the establishment of the binational planning group last December to coordinate defence efforts against new threats to North American security. It is shocking and disconcerting that it took over a year to establish this new planning group and nearly a year for the government to agree to negotiate its creation and go beyond informal information exchanges.

    One would have expected Canada would have responded quickly after 9/11 to plan for a coordinated defence and security response with the United States, not least of all in light of the immediately successful actions of NORAD and other relevant agencies on both sides of the border to clear U.S. air space immediately following the attacks. Unfortunately, this did not appear to happen, and it raises several questions about the state of thinking in this country about the bilateral relationship, especially within the Canadian foreign and defence establishments. Above all else, this delay stands in stark contrast to normal expectations about the relationship that follow when one considers its evolution since the end of World War II.

    This observation produces a second major issue for overall consideration, which is the extent to which decisions over time have changed or begun to change expectations about the relationship, especially south of the border. In this, the Iraq issue does not stand alone one way or the other, but is one in a series that can be dated back several years, if in fact not as far back as the 1960s and the Cuban missile crisis, the Bomarc nuclear weapons debate, and the war in Vietnam.

    There are several dimensions to this issue and time does not permit me to detail them in my opening comments. Instead, let me conclude by clarifying the relationship between Canadian participation in missile defence and the weaponization of outer space in terms of U.S. expectations meeting current Canadian policy parameters.

    Above all else, U.S. policy-makers do not expect Canada to become involved in the weaponization of outer space, and they fully realize that Canadian missile defence participation must be separated from space weaponization developments and decisions. They are fully aware of Canadian policy set in the early 1960s and reinforced by successive governments and policy debates and decisions, or the lack thereof, in the area of missile defence.

    I cannot tell you with any certainty that the U.S. decision to restructure its command system by divorcing space command from NORAD and merging it with strategic command was done solely to accommodate Canada. Nor can I tell you the restructuring of their missile defence program was done to ensure segregated space for Canadian participation in only one segment — the North American ground-based, mid-course phase intercept component of a layered intercept system. I can tell you that in doing both, the U.S. effectively placed Canada outside of the weaponization equation. As a result, it has rendered the missile defence weaponization of space link, as far as it concerns Canada and Canadian participation, moot or irrelevant. The U.S. expects Canada may wish to participate in the command and control of the North American ground-based interceptor component only, nothing more.

    As far as it goes then, the space dimension for Canada entails continued participation in only the ballistic missile early warning function, which in turn keeps the door slightly open for Canada into the U.S. space surveillance network. Here, Canada does possess a clear national interest in knowing what is going on far above its air space. Even though weaponization from a technology cost, strategic demand equation is at least a decade into the future, that door is closed and will remain closed unless Canada gets beyond its policy set in a different time and a different world.

    While I strongly believe Canada needs to look very closely at its current policy, investment strategy, and overall approach to outer space in terms of Canadian security, commercial, and scientific values and interests, these are strictly independent of the issue of Canadian participation in North American ground-based ballistic missile defence. At best, one could suggest saying yes to participation keeps the outer space door open a bit more, thereby keeping Canada's future options open. Saying no basically closes it entirely, simply because Canada will have indicated by its decision that it neither wants nor needs to know about outer space security developments. It will in this sense have reinforced the current expectation in the U.S. in this regard, and that choice, I should emphasize, is Canada's alone.

¿  (0930)  

    Naturally, there are many other issues to consider in evaluating the case of Canadian participation, and one that most Canadians are reluctant to consider is the territorial contribution to make the ground-based system more effective in defending North America and Canada. Of course, that expectation in the American eyes died in 1967 with the ABM decision.

    Regardless, I look forward to clarifying my thoughts as outlined in this brief presentation and to responding to any questions you may have.

    Thank you very much.

    The Chair: Thank you, Dr. Fergusson. After hearing your comments, it certainly reinforces, in my mind, the committee's wisdom in terms of having you in front of it. You've provided us with some very good information.

    Let's start the questioning with Mr. Anders.

    Mr. Rob Anders (Calgary West, Canadian Alliance): Thank you very much, Mr. Pratt.

    I had a chance to chat with you briefly, Mr. Fergusson, before we started. I guess I'm going to run off on a few different tangents.

    You mentioned the deal that was struck between Canada and the United States. You even alluded to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's saying that Canada would be protected, and that the flip side of a later bargain was we would not be a security liability. My first question to you is — and I'll probably do a series of questions, because I don't know how much time I have — 

    The Chair: I'm sure we'll be able to accommodate you today.

    Mr. Rob Anders: Okay. I'll go ahead and give you a few. I'll be able to repeat them, but if you can take them down, that would be great.

    The first is whether or not we've actually held up our side of the bargain with regard to being a security liability. I'd like to get your thoughts in terms of whether or not we're doing our part of the bargain, and if we're not, what we should be doing differently.

    Number two, I recognize you've done a lot of work on missile proliferation. I realize you didn't touch on that directly in your comments today, but I'm wondering if you might be able to give some thoughts to us with regard to what Canada could and should be doing differently to prevent missile proliferation to, for example, Arab terrorists in the aftermath of September 11. Then, if you wish, you could speculate on others that you think could be a problem with regard to that issue.

    I'll leave those two questions for now, and we'll see where we go.

    Dr. James Fergusson: Thank you.

    The first question is very difficult, because many would suggest that given the lack of investment by Canada over the past decade, if not more, we've increasingly given more and more of our defence responsibility to our neighbour to the south. In so doing, we have become a liability to some degree to the United States.

    Without prejudicing the debate or historical argument one way or another — because I think you can make a case one way or another — I would suggest to you that if we look at where we stand today and we project into the future the likely threats to North American security and where Canada fits into those threats relative to developing American technologies, particularly new technologies, for North American security, I think that increasingly the question of a liability becomes almost irrelevant, because the United States has the capacity and the capability to ensure we never become a liability, whether we like it or not. So I would tend to turn around the issue and ask to what extent does Canada want to maintain responsibility for and knowledge of its own defence and security within the context of North America? In this sense, I would suggest we have become a security liability to ourselves rather than to the United States.

    This is not simply a function of investment. We always tend to look very closely at the fact that if we had only invested more money, or will invest more money, in defence and security, it will solve all our problems. It won't solve all our problems; it will never solve our problems. I think we have to be careful about putting too much of our concerns and criticisms in the basket of money. Money is important, of course. The problem is also the tendency over time whereby Canada, in terms of its national security, meaning in terms of our location in North America, has largely transferred money, if you will, or investment and responsibility to the United States. So we transferred responsibility to the United States, but we transferred money overseas. It was the defence relationship with the United States that enabled us to invest, or to put the bulk of our money into acquiring equipment, capabilities, and training, and then deploy them operationally overseas, whether it was the forward deployment of forces in Europe, the peacekeeping operations during the Cold War, or, subsequently, the large number of commitments we've made in the post-Cold War era.

    We directed the way we invested our resources because we simply began to rely more and more on the United States to do North America for us. I'm not sure if that was ever a conscious decision on the part of political decision-makers over the many decades, but that's where we've rolled out.

    If I could link this to the current issue of the future of our relationship in North America and the way it has evolved, I think one of the expectations of the United States is that they will become more and more responsible for Canadian security. Unless the government takes a very close, hard look at what we want to really contribute to our security in the context of the cooperative relationship with the United States — which may not necessarily mean more money, but rediverting our resources from our overarching or overwhelming commitments overseas back into Canada, and transforming Canada's forces into a force designed and equipped to deal with the specifics of Canadian national security as its primary task — then I think the relationship will continue.

    So to answer that question, we are a liability, but I think we've become more a liability to ourselves than we are to the United States.

¿  (0935)  

    Mr. Rob Anders: If you don't mind, I just want to interject at this point.

    I appreciate your mention of the lack of investment. I think there are probably several people around the committee who wish there was more money in national defence in Canada, and I'll leave it at that.

    In terms of our being a problem for ourselves because of our lack of investment in the military, I want to follow up on that. I know that a statement was made before, and I can't remember exactly who made it, so forgive me for its roughness as a metaphor, but basically it was that Canada in some respects serves as an aircraft carrier for terrorists off the coast of the United States. I realize it's a harsh metaphor, but Montreal, for example, has been a staging ground for the Mujahedin-e-Khalq to carry out some of their things down the eastern seaboard of the United States.

    I think the statements I've heard by some Americans have some validity to them. They worry me, as we're not just a threat to ourselves in terms of our own lack of military funding, but we're also a threat to our largest ally and neighbour. You can give me your thoughts on that, and then maybe we'll move on to the second question as well.

    The Chair: You're over your time at this point, Mr. Anders. I'm sure we're going to have lots of opportunity for questions, given the number of members we have around the committee here, but just in fairness to the other members sitting around the table, if we can get a quick answer to that, Dr. Fergusson, and move on to our next question....

    Dr. James Fergusson: Do you want an answer to the follow-up question or to the proliferation question?

    Mr. Rob Anders: You choose, I guess.

    Dr. James Fergusson: Well, I'll give a brief answer to both, the way you phrased them.

    To the terrorist question, I think we need to differentiate between the political football of political rhetoric and the reality of the senior officials who operate that relationship and that cooperation, specifically between the RCMP and the FBI, and between other security agencies. I think they know very well that, yes, there are problems in Canada, but there are also problems in the United States. We need to come to a cooperative solution on them. I think we are no more a liability in American eyes than the Americans see their own internal structures and systems in this regard as a liability to themselves. But we do need to cooperate more, and I think that was the message.

    To the missile proliferation question and what Canada could do more to prevent it, by and large, we can't do anything to prevent it. We have fairly stringent export controls ensuring that the technologies we possess that could facilitate missile proliferation don't get into the wrong people's hands. Our emphasis on a multilateral, negotiated regime for missile proliferation has generally always been overstated in this country, given the reality of what drives the international political forces of non-proliferation — which is not to degrade certain positive elements of our support for the regime. On the other hand, I think the basic answer is that the only thing we could do is to recognize, as we have always done in some places, that missile proliferation requires a multidimensional response. International agreement is only one component of it, and many times it is not a component that is overly successful in preventing proliferation.

¿  (0940)  

    The Chair: Dr. Fergusson, thank you.

    Thank you, Mr. Anders.

    Ms. Neville.

    Ms. Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre, Lib.): Thank you.

    Thank you for being here today.

    I was struck by your comments on the Americans having no expectations of Canada being involved in the weaponization of outer space. You spoke about the structural changes or the committee structures put in place, but I would be interested if you could expand on what you know about U.S. expectations, or lack thereof, of Canada and outer space and the missile defence system, because that, for many, is a major concern.

    Dr. James Fergusson: First of all, it's important to recognize that the issue of weaponization of outer space or active space control — which is the more accurate term, rather than passive space control — is an issue that has not been decided yet in the United States.

    The United States is clearly seeking to maintain its options as space is further developed and exploited out of two fundamental considerations. These two fundamental considerations are another element of why we have to keep the missile defence issue and the weaponization of outer space issues in separate baskets, although they're interrelated, naturally, because the threats to outer space are basically missile threats, the same threats that missile defence is designed to deal with, but not entirely. That is the recognition in the United States, which we've just seen in the war against Iraq, that the U.S. military is fundamentally dependent upon space-based assets. It is thereby recognized that it is extremely vulnerable to attempts to intercept or disrupt its capacity to use military force, either in a deterrent sense or in actual use of force, by the possibility of hostile states developing long-range ballistic missiles, states developing space launch capabilities that could threaten those vital interests. It could paralyze American militaries. I can give you lots of examples of how.

    The second element, of course, is the U.S. recognition that space is becoming more and more a vital commercial interest to North America, to western advanced industrial societies, to globalization. I would suggest to you that you can't have globalization without outer space. It's that important, and it's a thing we don't see.

    If we start to look at the numbers, the hundreds of billions of dollars invested in outer space, if we look at simple aspects of how space touches our daily lives, which we don't see and we don't understand.... A best example I always like to give is banking machines. We don't understand that banking machines are dependent on outer space assets. Imagine what would happen if those things all went down. The public would not be very happy.

    So you have this set of interests driving the United States to keep the options open. In this regard, the United States then, when it comes to the outer space dimension, is basically moving on a slow but steady path to develop technologies, to look at research, to look at exactly what could and could not be done, and what should and should not be done with regard to outer space.

    It's important to remember this as well: the United States is not necessarily interested in weaponization. Because of its own dependence, it makes itself very concerned about what would happen if outer space was weaponized. So they're not sure which way to go on this issue yet.

    In terms of Canadian policy, the extent to which anyone can influence the United States with regard to anything, we have to be realistic. There is a limit to which any state or society can influence another state or society. We know that as a function of domestic politics, at a minimum.

    If Canada wants to make a serious attempt to influence, we cannot do that from the outside. But that's exactly what we've done, because we've closed that door to any rational discussion and evaluation of the outer space dimension.

    That leads into the question, what then does the United States expect of us? In this regard, I think it's very clear that the senior officials in the various agencies involved in the United States have recognized that Canadian policy-makers, the Canadian public, if we can use that term, remain wedded to the policy of non-weaponization.

    If they do that, then one would expect that in their desire to have North American defence cooperation on missile defence, out of our mutual interest to do it together, they are not going to put in place any roadblock to Canadian participation that would involve us or implicate us in weaponization.

¿  (0945)  

    We can — and they have in fact, as I suggested in the structural changes — easily draw a barrier here. That isn't the most important consideration we have to recognize. Yes, we may not like weaponization; we may wish to fight against it. I don't think we've had a reasoned, logical argument in this country yet about the whole issue, but don't confuse that question with the idea that somehow saying yes to missile defence puts us inevitably in bed with the United States. There is little doubt in my mind that if we said yes and began negotiations on the limits of where Canada would participate, and if Canada asked that a clear clause be added that this agreement does not entail Canadian participation in weaponization of outer space, I'm sure without a doubt that the United States would agree in a minute.

    In a strange way, we are almost free to write our ticket — depending on what we're willing to invest, of course, which is another issue.

    Ms. Anita Neville: Thank you.

    The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Neville.

    Mrs. Wayne.

    Mrs. Elsie Wayne (Saint John, PC): Thank you.

    Dr. Fergusson, I think our defence committee really should be down in the U.S.A. to meet with representatives of their defence committee. I think we can build stronger relationships. I'm worried about what's going to happen with our involvement with NORAD if we're not involved with the ballistic missile defence that the U.S. is bringing forward.

    I know our chairman would have liked to have been down meeting with our people in the U.S.A. just recently, but we weren't able to go. I believe we're going to look at it in the fall, but I think it's important that we go more than once. It's important that we continue to go, to talk, to dialogue, so that they know we see them as our partners. Yes, we'd be a small partner; nevertheless we are neighbours and we're partners.

    I wonder what you think of that, what role we, as the defence committee, could play.

    Dr. James Fergusson: I would tend to agree. If I go back to my comments about expectations, I think one of the key issues can be understood in a simple question that many Canadians ask themselves about the issue of missile defence.

    The U.S. can do it without us. The U.S. does not need us. Yes, if Canada was to contribute something — territory — it would make the system more effective, and certainly certain aspects of defending Canada would be dealt with in a different way if we simply ceded all to the United States.

    The question always becomes, why does the U.S. want us then? I think the answer to that question is that they have for decades simply seen North American defence as a cooperative arrangement. When they think North America, they think of Canada as part of it. They don't think the United States, in many ways; they think North America, which is separate from the way they think about the relationship when we go beyond North America. I think the United States compartmentalizes those two things very nicely. One of the questions over the past several years is if they're starting to wonder whether we think North America any more and exactly what we are thinking.

    So I would agree with you. I think it is important that this committee make an effort to establish better links, establish some links with the House and Senate armed services committees — particularly those two committees.

    As I think the committee is well aware, the role of these committees is much different in the United States from the role of the committees and committee structure in Canada, for a variety of historical, social, and political reasons.

    We have tended to put too much of our effort — when we do put an effort — into the relationship at the executive level, not realizing or not paying enough attention to the importance of the Senate and the House down in the United States and their committee structures and how powerful they are — particularly the armed services committees, how powerful those two committees are. They're probably ranked second or third in power of the committee structure in the United States.

    So I would agree entirely with you that better contacts and more contacts are very important to develop to enhance the role of this committee in this country, the role that this committee can and should play. With that is also the need for more resources to these committees.

¿  (0950)  

    Mrs. Elsie Wayne: I say this with respect, but just before you took over, when Pat O'Brien was there, we went down — I don't know if you were with us then, Robert, or not — and we met with the representatives there. They had asked Pat and me to sit on a joint committee between the U.S. and Canada with regard to defence. We had agreed to that, but then Pat was gone and we never went back down. We should have gone down, Mr. Chairman, because I think, Dr. Fergusson, when we sat down and talked about our role here as the defence committee and so on, they saw us as brothers and sisters. That's how they saw us — not as their neighbours, but as brothers and sisters.

    They wanted that relationship to grow and be really solid. I think it's so very important, because I have to tell you, having a nuclear power plant in my riding, having Canada's largest privately owned oil refinery there, and being right next door to the U.S., I have major concerns about the safety and security of our people. If there is a missile that comes and doesn't happen to make it to the U.S. but happens to make it to Canada, it would probably be right there. You can rest assured they're looking at all the nuclear power plants we have in this country.

    The Chair: Do you have any comments on Mrs. Wayne's comments, Mr. Fergusson?

    Dr. James Fergusson: I'd just like to go back to one of your original comments. You mentioned the question of NORAD and its future being of concern. I think it is of concern, but I think we have to be careful to understand it, particularly in terms — at least in my view — of how the United States sees the relationship. By and large — let me put it this way — despite the rhetoric of the United States pressing us, the reality is entirely the opposite.

    The United States, because of their attitude toward the way they see us and because of the North American mentality in the United States, is very sensitive to Canadian concerns. In that regard they are also very open about almost setting a table before us, from which Canada is allowed in many ways to pick and choose where it wants to be involved. By and large, the United States is very open to agreeing to wherever we want to be involved. If we don't want to be involved, the United States will say fine.

    Take missile defence and the future of NORAD. If Canada says no to missile defence, NORAD is not going to die. NORAD will have to change. The United States will remain interested, as we are, to cooperate on air space, not aerospace. They will say we need to cooperate on air space. There are lots of reasons to continue close cooperation. And NORAD is an important vehicle. It works in cooperating...as we saw in the wake of 9/11. NORAD will continue. But of course NORAD will be less important in the U.S. scheme of things because it simply will have a smaller role to play.

    Certain roles that NORAD plays, of course, with regard to the space component — that important door, I mentioned — will close on us. If we want it to close, that's fine. We can make that decision and say we don't want to be involved in that any more, or we want to do it ourselves. But let's recognize that's what will close. Or we'll have less of a role. We'll still cooperate in air space. We'll still cooperate on certain maritime and land sides. Those things will continue as we want to cooperate and as the United States thinks it valuable — and it tends to always think it's valuable.

    As I said, there will be significant changes made in the next NORAD agreement. I think the issue for this committee, for this government, is what price Canada is willing to pay, relative to the United States basically saying the door is open for Canada to decide one way or another on how we want to do this issue, rather than arguing — and I think it's long gone on the missile defence and many of these equations — on esoteric, academic grounds. I mean, those are wonderful, and I love to discuss issues about strategic stability and arms race theories and all these things everyone loves to talk about — will the system work, will it not work — all those wonderful contradictions. That is sort of beside the point here for Canada.

    The point for Canada is a very simple one. Do we want in or don't we? The door is open. If we do, what does Canada obtain? If we don't, what does Canada get and what does Canada lose? What do we lose by being involved as well? That's where I think this debate needs to be focused.

    It's not that NORAD will die. I don't think NORAD will die. If we don't go in, NORAD will become smaller. It will become less relevant. It will be an air space-only cooperative arrangement. If we're happy with that, then fine. I don't think it's a good decision, but....

¿  (0955)  

    The Chair: Thank you, Mrs. Wayne.

    Thank you, Dr. Fergusson.

    Mr. Bertrand, have you any questions at this point?

    Mr. Robert Bertrand (Pontiac—Gatineau—Labelle, Lib.): No, Mr. Chair.

    The Chair: Okay. Maybe I could take this opportunity then to get a few questions on the record myself.

    I sense from what you're saying, Dr. Fergusson — and I don't want to put words in your mouth — that in connection with Canada's existing position concerning non-weaponization of space, you feel the approach or position we've adopted was formed during a very different strategic environment, that we've moved off that old strategic environment from the Cold War and are in a new situation where we have lots of assets in space, and without the weaponization of space, we have no means of protecting assets that are vital to the functioning of the global economy.

    Would that be a safe observation to make in terms of the comments you've made thus far? And could you speak to the committee to the extent that you're familiar with the whole outer space treaty and what the rationale was behind that treaty when it was signed and ratified back about 1967 or so, and what direction you think we should be moving in on that whole issue of protecting assets in space?

    Dr. James Fergusson: You've certainly characterized my views correctly. I strongly believe, as I think I've said in my opening comments, that the missile defence debate should be separate from the issue of the weaponization-of-outer-space debate, which is one that is going to be needed — is needed now, before this thing gets rolling — whichever way it goes, because it will start to gain momentum in the United States as technology is developed.

    With regard to the origins, I agree entirely that the outer space treaty, which was ratified and came into operation in 1967, provides the limited basis there is for international law governing the use of outer space. It by and large embeds outer space in the terms of the law of the high seas. It treats space in the same conceptual basket, although this law has not been further developed in the sense that the law of the sea has been developed with regard, for example, to belligerent rights.

    The outer space treaty only prohibits, as you know, the deployment of weapons of mass destruction in outer space and is only supported by the nuclear test ban treaty — the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963 — by which the United States and the Soviet Union agreed not to test nuclear weapons outside the atmosphere, among other things, and of course, depending on your particular interpretations, by the international status of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. That's all it prohibits. Anyone who suggests that any other activities involving outer space violate international law is simply incorrect.

    The treaty itself was driven by the Cold War exigencies. You're completely correct that in that strategic environment, particularly driven by the United States for its security interests and initially resisted by the Soviet Union, which then eventually came on board, it was by and large a function of recognizing the importance in a nuclear relationship of trying to ensure that certain space-based assets at the time would remain relatively invulnerable. I'll use the word “sanctuary” — but I don't want to use the word, because it's not a sanctuary.

    In particular, as both sides recognized the value of the high ground in being able to observe military development and military buildups of both parties, and in an environment where the only ability at the time to strike at assets in outer space would have been nuclear weapons, and recognizing, as important developments slowly began.... Remember that in the early and mid-1960s, most of space was entirely military. There were commercial elements. We were up there with Anik, and others were starting to get commercially up there, but overwhelmingly investment was military — for surveillance, reconnaissance, early warning missions, all of which became vital to promote strategic stability in that particular relationship.

    The outer space treaty basically was a bilateral agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union to which, like many of those types of agreements of the day, everyone else could easily or readily sign on. It met our particular interests as well, in terms of our own preferences for disarmament and arms control, and the United States used the same rhetoric at the time also.

    If we track forward to today, we're living of course in a different world. Space, as I mentioned, has become much more important to North America and to the western and the global economy. It's become militarily essential for U.S. forces. It is of course very important for Canada, both in terms of its military applications, which we don't use well but we use a bit of, but also our civil applications, our scientific applications on ice flow — all of those aspects. We are therefore increasingly but unknowingly dependent upon it.

    What is the case of weaponization, as distinct from militarization? Space is already militarized; we already use it for military purposes. What's the difference between putting a weapon up there that strikes a target on the ground versus using GPS to guide JDAMs to a target? We're splitting hairs, I guess.

    How are we going to deal with the issues surrounding the vulnerability of those assets to future developments? What are those developments going to look like: the ground-based interceptors, ground-based lasers, back to the — 1998, I think it was — miracle test by the United States, which wanted to see what a low-powered laser could do to a satellite that was de-orbiting?

À  (1000)  

    They were quite surprised, by the way, by the results of that, which again fed concerns that we're very vulnerable: commercially we're vulnerable; militarily we're vulnerable. It created that thinking in the United States that partially supported the missile defence idea and has gained momentum with the asymmetric threat argument, which asks: if you're a weak state in a conflict or confrontation with the west, which will be led by the United States, how are you going to deal with the reality that you're facing the most modern, advanced military in the world? You have to think of other ways to deal with it. One of the asymmetric ways to respond is to strike at a vulnerability. Where are western vulnerabilities?

    That's the case state of American thinking.

    All those things play for Canada as well, it seems to me, even though we don't invest a great deal in outer space and we don't conceive of those issues in the same direct terms as the United States. But they all lead us to a consideration that, yes, it would be nice to leave space as the only non-weaponized environment. So the argument goes.

    It's a nice sentiment. But it won't get us to deal with the fundamental realities of the world we live in and the world that's evolving if, as I see it, we are on the verge of entering what I would call the third space age.

    You hear talk of tourism in outer space and all these major developments that are going to occur: the over-estimation of several years ago of what was going to happen in commercial exploitation, which didn't happen for a variety of reasons — Iridium and other constellations just didn't seem to work out cost effectively. But these things, it looks like, will eventually happen. We're just a little ahead of this sphere.

    It raises the question: given all these developments, as with the high seas in a way, do we have to now start seriously thinking about how we're going to regulate that environment? What is the case for and against weaponization?

    I will admit honestly there's a case for and against it on practical military and security and commercial grounds. Standing on the sidelines and saying, “Weaponization is evil; we're not going to talk about it, because it's bad”, isn't going to get Canada very far and is going to have no resonance anywhere else in this world. Despite what the Chinese and the Russians and the Europeans may say publicly about these things, what they're actually thinking and developing is different from that.

    In this regard, let me emphasize that Canadian outer space policy has not been looked at by this country since the Chapman report of the 1960s. It has evolved on an ad hoc basis. There's been no coordinated, systematic examination of where Canada wants to go with regard to outer space, what type of investment should be made, what type of strategy should be undertaken by Canada. It's all been done extremely ad hoc.

    I would suggest to you not only does the weaponization-of-outer-space issue have to be seriously looked at in this country, but the entire issue of outer space — scientifically, commercially, and militarily, or in security terms — needs to be seriously examined. I would impress upon the committee the importance of taking a look, some time in the future, strictly at this issue.

À  (1005)  

    The Chair: Thank you very much for that.

    In fairness to Mr. Anders, perhaps we could allow him to continue with his questioning; then we'll go to Mr. Bertrand.

    Mr. Anders.

    Mr. Rob Anders: Thank you very much, Mr. Pratt.

    First off, I would like to say with regard to your comments about space that we are at a place in history where although at one time it was very important to have mastery of the land and mastery of the seas to be able to affect affairs, all of a sudden along came the airplane — and some would argue hot air balloons during the American Civil War, but certainly the airplane in the First World War — and shortly thereafter mastery of the air became fairly important. I think we are just standing on the cusp of recognizing and understanding that mastery of space will be incredibly important for the advancement of values and all sorts of things, in terms of what happens. Those are my thoughts on that.

    You responded previously that we can't do much to prevent missile proliferation. I found that interesting. I realize we are not a huge player in those things. As a matter of fact, I think a former member of Parliament for Calgary West, Doug Harkness, many years ago resigned over an issue of Canada not getting involved in the nuclear scenario; however, we have sold CANDU nuclear reactors. I think of Israel's development of its supposed nuclear capability because they used their weapons facility, built right underneath their commercial power facility — hence a satellite passing over couldn't tell, because of the radiation and concentration. Of course, Canada has sold CANDU reactors to Pakistan and China and India, and I really wonder about the long-term smarts of some of those decisions.

    I am just touching on this in terms of our not being able to do much to prevent it. I think we actually could have done some prevention regarding the sale of those things: we only aid them to upgrade some of their commercial stuff to weapons grade. But anyway....

    I'll ask you another question. I'll go back a little bit to the main focus of things here, ballistic missile defence.

    In one of your articles you stated that Washington may decide to go it alone and you said that would seriously damage the bilateral relationship. When I took our tour of NORAD, my sense was that we were less integrated in the U.S. Space Command than we were in all the other aspects of the operation down in Colorado Springs. Can you give us some thoughts about our not participating and what that may mean in terms of further restrictions of Canadians' ability to participate in that program, and what things — or what more things — we'll be left out of as a result of our fence-sitting on ballistic missile defence?

À  (1010)  

    Dr. James Fergusson: I have a comment about the CANDU reactor and India, as it was the celebrated case in the early seventies when the Indians detonated a nuclear device for peaceful purposes. Particularly in Canada, there was a great gnashing of teeth about the fact that we sold them the CANDU device, and look what happened.

    It's important to remember we are legally bound by our signatory to the non-proliferation treaty, which we worked very hard to indefinitely extend. Through the treaty, in return for nations giving up the nuclear option, they have the right to acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, as long as they meet the safeguards of the IAEA.

    Unless Canada wishes to decide to withdraw or have that treaty amended, we don't have a very good case to suggest that we cannot give nuclear technology for peaceful purposes to nations that are a member of the non-proliferation treaty.

    Some people suggest it's an inherent flaw in the NPT, and they're probably correct. On the issue of the CANDU reactor, as far as I understand it — I'm not a nuclear physicist — the only role the CANDU reactor would play in proliferation would be the spent fuel that would have to be reprocessed into weapons-grade material. The CANDU, in and of itself, doesn't produce weapons-grade material.

    So on the question of what happens if Washington goes it alone relative to NORAD, as far as I understand them, Canadian Forces billets in U.S. Space Command, or basically in the Space Control Center and Cheyenne Mountain, have been a function of the common missions. It's a functional decision in which the United States is not required, in any way with regard to the NORAD agreement, to allow Canadians to participate in...but there is a functional overlap between the space control operations that are undertaken, specifically the Space Surveillance Network, and of course NORAD's role, the ballistic missile early warning network.

    So it makes logical sense.

    Until the early nineties, Canada, of course, as you may know, had contributed directly to the Space Surveillance Network with the deployment of two what were known as Baker-Nunn cameras, one in St. Margarets, New Brunswick, and the other at Cold Lake, Alberta. These, by and large, are designed to track what's going on in outer space.

    In addition, to give you another example, Canadian officials, Canadian personnel with NORAD, still work on shifts, for example, in Cavalier, North Dakota, in the phased-array radar capacity, just south of Winnipeg. They track outer space objects for part of the entire outer space catalogue process. That fell logically from, of course, NORAD's mission.

    Our entrée, in many ways, into the space side, independent of where we've also contributed in a very small way, but we have contributed, is largely because of the overlap in the NORAD mission with the Space Command mission. These then spilled over into broader aspects of the actual operation of American space assets, where Canadians would become involved, because it was useful in the cooperative function of a relationship.

    Those things have already started to change, and they have been changing for the past several years, as Canada refused, from the mid-nineties, at least, to make a decision on missile defence.

    We weren't invited, of course, but we didn't make a decision. Increasingly, as missile defence began to develop and these other space aspects were involved, senior officials and others in the United States began to shut the doors to Canadians. They had opened these doors, but now they felt Canada had not indicated its interest to be involved, therefore Canada didn't need to know about these things, and therefore Canada was outside the door.

    So there have been significant changes, and that speaks partially to many of the concerns about the future of NORAD you hear. Doors are shutting, Canadians are being isolated out, and in effect, this is what's going to happen. At the end of the day, if Canada is not in missile defence, and NORAD effectively no longer is a functional aerospace defence arrangement but in fact becomes an air space defence arrangement, what is Canada going to do? Why would Canada be involved in the ballistic missile early warning network?

    Certainly the United States could set up a terminal here and give us the information like it gives NATO right now. NORAD gives information to NATO through Molesworth, so they could send us the information and say, “By the way, we'd like to tell you there are ballistic missiles coming. Sorry, that's all we're going to tell you.”

À  (1015)  

    So there's no functional role for Canada in ballistic missile early warning. There is no need for us to be involved in the space aspect at all, particularly now that it's been ripped away, which I think is a major strategic loss to Canada. That will have an impact, independent of missile defence, yes or no? What happens then for Canada? What happens to the various senior levels, where Canadian officers...the command director, for example, in Cheyenne Mountain. That position is dysfunctional? What will NORAD become in Cheyenne Mountain if it stays in Cheyenne Mountain? The air space elements will all stay, I think, but again, everything will be dinged around it. What will Cheyenne Mountain become?

    I don't know if you have been there, but when you go there you will see a big table like this with screens, and there is one desk, which is the south desk — I can't remember the exact name — which basically is for the Cuban side of the equation. Canadians don't sit in that. For political reasons, we are not involved in that desk. There's always an American sitting at that desk. The rest of the desks are all mixed, Canadians, Americans, the command director, and then who's above him, perhaps a Canadian or an American.

    Well, if we are not in, there will be one desk where a Canadian will sit and it'll be the air defence desk. That's it, because we can't.... And the other reason we can't is because the command director will be in charge not only of assessment of a ballistic missile attack, but also he will acquire the decisions, the authority to release interceptors, because they'll need to be released fairly quickly.

    One would suggest this then: what impact would Canada then have? The Prime Minister is not going to be notified to make a decision on the release or not to release. Depending, that's probably true.... We'll be notified, but there will have to be a granting of release authority to the officials in the joint command, because you want to be able to take multiple shots at warheads coming over, if that were to happen.

    But that's not problematic because they'll be shooting kinetic energy vehicles. They are not shooting warheads, and there will be notification. So the idea is of an error that is different from the nuclear question when you're launching nuclear warheads. An error of launching a kinetic-kill intercept vehicle is not a major...it's significant per se. I mean, it is significant, but I think you understand what I mean.

À  (1020)  

    The Chair: We will have to end this particular segment of questions at this point, Mr. Anders, and go to Mr. Bertrand.

    Mr. Robert Bertrand: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

    In the biography handed to us it says you are deputy director of the Centre for Defence and Security Studies. You probably went over it at the beginning, but unfortunately I wasn't here. Could you basically tell me what that organization does, number one?

    Number two, if we decide to participate in NMD, you mention that we should ask ourselves, what's in it for Canada? I hope I'm paraphrasing what you're saying. What do we win? What do we lose? And we should be starting a dialogue.

    I would like to ask you, who should be leading in this dialogue? Do you think our committee should do it, or perhaps a committee like foreign affairs? I'd like your opinion on that.

    Dr. James Fergusson: The Centre for Defence and Security Studies is basically a research centre at the University of Manitoba. Its primary task is to undertake research on defence and security issues. It has four or five members with various research interests in the realm of security, of which I would probably be the most focused on strictly defence and strategic studies issues. We've been in existence since the mid-1980s, and we obtained formal status in the university in 1993, I think it was. We're associated with the Department of Political Studies in the university.

    I'm not sure if that's the type of information you want.

    Who should be leading this dialogue? I think this committee has a role to play in this dialogue, and I think the foreign affairs committee has a role to play in this dialogue as well. But by and large, I think the most important role is more for this committee than foreign affairs, because this is a defence relationship issue and should be looked at it in those terms. From the way the rhetoric has unfolded, I think too much of the debate on this issue to date has been looked at in international terms.

    If you look at the way this debate has occurred as it's gone up and down the media, and in policy pronouncements — as much as they are — and even in the academic community, it has been an American debate. I find it very ironic that we debate American things in this country, but very rarely do we ever sit down and ask, “Well, what about Canada in all of this?” What have we debated? Let me give you an example. The Clinton administration set four criteria to evaluate national missile defence. This would have been five, six, seven, or eight years ago, but if I can remember them correctly, they were: Did the threat warrant it? Was it affordable? Was the technology there? International security?

    If you look at the Canadian debate, which strangely enough is still going on, what are we talking about? We're talking about the threat, or is there a threat? Is it affordable — though we're not paying for it? Is the technology feasible? Yes, it is, or no, it isn't. We're talking about the technology, which is not really our technology. And we're talking about international security. I don't see many people standing there saying, “Well, wait a minute here, let's look at this in the context of Canada”. Who can look at this in the context of Canada and Canada's defence relations? This committee? National Defence? I'm not suggesting Foreign Affairs doesn't have a role to play, or that other officials don't have roles to play, or that academia doesn't have a role to play, but the media doesn't have a role to play. But we don't seem to want to talk about Canadian interests in this regard.

    Moreover, let me add one last comment. We don't want to talk about a Canadian contribution to this. I will admit this is a very low probability, but missiles will fly over us in North America. These become direct defence issues, which I think we as Canadians need to consider, but we haven't wanted to consider these because we don't think that way.

    The Chair: Thank you, Dr. Fergusson.

    Mr. Anders.

À  (1025)  

    Mr. Rob Anders: This is fun. I like the way the committee is structured today.

    The Chair: It's like having a breakaway on the St. Lawrence.

    Mr. Rob Anders: That's right. It's just that good.

    I have two questions. I know you've done some work with national security courses in various colleges and whatnot. I'm going to ask you a question about reading lists, if I may. I'm picking your brain, which is what we're doing here today — though I'm doing it on a slightly different note.

    Aside from Mahan and Sun Tzu, I know we talked a little bit about Huntington before we started today. There's another similar work, Jihad vs. McWorld, and I've also had a chance to look at Halford Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality, which the U.S. National Defense University provided me.

    Are there other works you think are worth perusing in terms of geopolitics? Do you have any favourites?

    Dr. James Fergusson: Favourites I have? Gee.

    At one time or another I think all of us read Clausewitz, On War. You've read Mahan, so I would suggest you read Julian Corbett and work about him, because he provides an alternative view of the naval side of the equation.

    I'm trying to think of a long list of sources on nuclear weapons and air power theory, which all of my students would read, or I'd force them to read. Usually, titles aren't easily recalled. But I guess a very good overview of strategic developments and their evolution is a book edited by Peter Paret, Makers of Modern Strategy, the second volume. When it was written about a decade ago it included some of the leading writers in the field, and it provides a really good background to the debates and arguments at the various stages in the evolution of strategic thought. That's something I recommend; I always recommend that my students read it.

    Mr. Rob Anders: Thank you. I appreciate that.

    For my second question, I'm referring back to an article you wrote, “Time for a decision on North American Missile Defence”. I think it was in Options politiques.

    Does that make sense?

    Dr. James Fergusson: It was in Policy Options.

    Mr. Rob Anders: Fair enough.

    You referred to Russia and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Before the committee started, I was talking with you about world views, and I'm wondering if there are ways you can see us bringing the Russians alongside. By “us” I mean the western world, for example, or the British empire, or whatever people choose to call it. I would love it if the Russians could come to see themselves as the eastern half of Christendom, or if people have issues regarding the moral implications of that, the eastern half of the old Roman world, if you will, or that type of thing.

    Are there ways we could achieve that with them? Do you think there are prospects in that regard?

    Dr. James Fergusson: I really don't know how to answer that question. I'm thinking immediately to the extent to which we understand the Russian position on missile defence and differentiating between Russian rhetoric, which changed dramatically, for example, from very positive signals from Boris Yeltsin in the early nineties with then President Bush on, for example, a global protection system and a global early warning system, through the evolution of what appeared rhetorically to be a large degree of Russian hostility to the whole national missile defence effort. Yet while elements and levels of cooperation continued in various ways between the United States and the Russians, not least of all, for example, in the development and the initial agreements surrounding providing or repairing or facilitating by the United States the gaps in the Russian early warning coverage, which had become very problematic with the collapse of the Soviet Union by virtue of ground stations and by virtue of lack of resources to replenish satellites and a host of other problems....

    Russia was involved, and I believe we were involved at the margin also, for example, in the Y2K handover. The United States was very concerned, and the Russians were very concerned, about the Y2K issue, and there was a large degree of cooperation, and that's continued. There is continued cooperation on issues about missile defence cooperation that are under way between the United States and Russia and the Russian interests with regard to NATO programs, which we never talk about in this country, and other sets of issues on theatre missile defences and tactical missile defences.

    So I think we need to be careful about the rhetoric we hear from the Russians now and again and the practical levels of cooperation that are opened for Russia, and opened by Russia, with regard to the west. Russia, like any nation, has a domestic population with different views about the world and its place in the world, and Canada, the United States, and others have to be very sensitive about the appearances of how Moscow is treated in these relationships. But again, I think there is a basis of common interest with Moscow, as there is with Beijing, for further cooperation and good relations between the parties.

    What role can Canada play? We don't invest in resources the way others do. We don't have the resources, nor are we willing to invest the resources, in trying to have a significant impact in Moscow or Beijing, besides what we say.

    By and large, the key issue is what goes on south of the border in Washington on these issues and the way they deal with the Russians. It won't be a smooth path. There will be ups and downs in the relationship, but it seems to me there is a set of common interests that all the parties have, and I think for all intents and purposes those will continue for at least the foreseeable future.

    I'm not sure if that answers your question, because that's a tough one to answer.

À  (1030)  

    The Chair: I'd like to get a few questions in myself as well again here, Mr. Anders.

    I would like, Dr. Fergusson, if you would, to go back to some of the basics in this debate. In some respects the debate has been framed by some of the opponents, and I'm thinking of Lloyd Axworthy and Michael Byers here, on a number of issues. They have talked about the fact that the threat doesn't exist in terms of ballistic missile defence, that there really is no threat, and they go back to the issue that it's the people with box cutters we have to worry about and not intercontinental or short-range missiles. And I believe it's part of their argument that the technology will probably never work as well and that by getting involved in this we give up our sovereignty. They believe that somehow or other this results in a loss of sovereignty, and that missile defence leads directly to more proliferation.

    I know you have addressed the proliferation issue to a certain extent, but I wonder if you could draw a firmer line between missile defence and proliferation in terms of how their arguments are framed, plus talk a little bit about the threat in the technology aspect, the feasibility aspect of the technology. Could you share a few comments with us on those points?

    Dr. James Fergusson: Let me link the proliferation, the threat, and the technology arguments initially together. If the system is deployed, it will lead to proliferation, because the system, I suppose, will be effective. If the system is ineffective and doesn't work, then the need for anyone to invest resources to respond to it doesn't exist. So that argument has never made much sense to me.

    In terms of the question of the threat, and particularly the threat-proliferation linkage, there is no threat out there and in effect there will be no long-range ballistic missile threat, independent of the existing ones, of course, and they're not threats to us any more because the political arrangements relationship has changed, except for those with existing long-range ballistic missiles, the Russians and the Chinese. We don't even think about the French and the British.

    In effect, if you develop the missile defence technology, the logic seems to be then that that will lead people to acquire intercontinental ballistic missiles.

    The idea that missile defence will generate a response, a buildup, was strictly based on the arguments surrounding the debate in the 1980s and a statement by senior Soviet officials at the time that if the United States proceeded with the strategic defence initiative, what they would do is build more and more weapons to overwhelm the system.

    There's a whole strategic logic set of issues that are involved in whether that's the necessary response, or would have been the response, to missile defence. Part of that was based upon what was one of, at the time, the Nitze criteria, and that was cost-effectiveness at the margin. The question was whether the cost of one unit of offence is greater than or less than a unit of defence to deal with it. I think this is important, because no one ever talks about this, but this is the heart of their logic in this argument about technology, proliferation, and threat.

    As long as a unit of offence is cheaper than the unit of defence, then it makes no sense to invest in defence because your opponent will always be able to invest cheaper in offence. Hence the logic was that SDI made no sense because it was just going to be too costly. That's how the cost game gets plugged into this.

    This ignored, of course, the whole question of start-up costs, investment costs in developing ICBMs, and no one talks about how much the U.S. and the Soviets invest in developing long-range missiles. Those become important when you start to look at the threat.

    Missile developments are an expensive proposition. We know, despite best efforts of the non-proliferation community, the missile technology control regime, that certainly there's been leakage, and via reverse engineering of single-stage rockets — short-range missiles such as the SCUDs, which is what the Iraqis did and which is the way of the North Koreans — you could reverse-engineer developed technologies and slowly build yourself long-range missiles, investing a lot of resources to do so.

    We know that the North Koreans tested in 1998 a three-stage rocket, which of course raises the possibility of striking at North America, and that was very much a watershed in American thinking, and it really ended the debate on the threat in the United States when the North Koreans did that. Since then, the North Koreans have stopped testing, but nonetheless, that doesn't allay fears.

    We know about the paranoia of the North Korean regime. We know that the Indians are developing. They have a space launch capability. They are basically on the path if they want to develop ICBMs. The Iranians are developing and testing an indigenous intermediate-range ballistic missile. So you have all these investments occurring in ballistic missiles.

    Remember, the notion of the threat was always the case that down the road they would naturally continue the slow developmental path and acquire long-range ballistic missiles that were able to threaten North America. No one has ever said the threat exists today. It's just, this is what will happen. This is where the indicators are heading.

À  (1035)  

    In this regard, U.S. thinking, I think it's fair enough to say, and my thinking on this as well, is that in light of these nations and questions about the nature of that leadership, there is potential value for them to develop these weapons in order to threaten the west, in order to deter us from intervening when we think it's necessary to intervene, and alter the balance of power in the political equation.

    It makes sense. In a way, it's the logic that if you were a weak state looking at the world in which you were an adversary of the dominant states, where would you invest your resources? Again, it's like the weaponization-of-space argument. There's a vulnerability. There is great political, military, and strategic value to invest here.

    Missile defence is designed to shut that door. It's designed to indicate that if you continue to invest limited resources in missiles, they're not going to have any effect on you. They're not going to get you any value because we will eliminate their political value.

    So it's not worthwhile. It doesn't mean it will stop proliferation, but it becomes a disincentive for proliferation. If you add it onto the other elements of the non-proliferation regime, missile defence in effect, in my view, is a non-proliferation effort.

    There is more I would add, and this goes back to the cost equation. Once the U.S. has invested, as it's pretty well undertaken, the sum costs to develop the capability, defence relative to these proliferators will become cheaper than offence.

    The second message being sent is that if you want to invest, go ahead, but you're not going to be able to beat us. And there are other considerations involved here as well. So is there a threat? No, there isn't necessarily a threat from developing world states today, but certainly there is the potential, and we've seen all indications of step-wise developments of ballistic missile proliferation.

    The Americans are thinking — and I think there's logic to it — that if you look at the timelines of the deployment of the missile defence, the investments, research, development, test, and evaluation, at the timelines in which they think proliferation will occur, they're trying to get ahead of the curve. That's notwithstanding the fact, of course, of concerns about the ability to deter the Saddam Husseins, the Kim Il Sungs, of the world.

    I don't think there's a necessary case that this is going to cause proliferation, and certainly it's not going to cause I think any significant response in the Chinese or the Russians to this. As to the technology arguments, that's always been a puzzle to me. If the technology doesn't work, and will never work, why is there a concern here? Maybe we're concerned for the American taxpayer. I suppose we could be empathetic, but the reality is that the technology is developing much quicker than everyone thinks it is.

    I can't give you, off the top of my head, the numbers of recent successful tests, but in terms of the ground-based former national missile defence, where we were involved, the testing envelope has been successful, I believe, in the past two years, and in five of the last six. Each test is getting more complicated and difficult. The theatre systems...all the systems are developing. Will the defence be perfect? Will the technology provide 100% leakproof defence? Of course not. No defence ever does.

    If it was the case that we would only accept a perfect defence, then we would never invest a dollar in defence, because it makes no sense to do so. But we take probabilities, we take calculated risks of what is acceptable. That's what's being done here.

    There's one last question about the issue of the missile defence against ballistic missile proliferation versus the threat of terrorism. Missile defence is not designed to deal with the threat of terrorism. The probability of there being terrorists who will acquire ballistic missiles is near zero. The probability that they will acquire cruise missiles is slightly higher, but like anything, there are lots of different threats here, and one doesn't put all one's apples in one basket.

    You have to invest in different areas of defence. If one suggests to me that, well, it's all terrorism, then we might as well dismantle most of the military forces we have for defence because they're not of any use for dealing with the terrorist problem; let's invest elsewhere. That doesn't make much sense to me at all.

À  (1040)  

    The Chair: Thank you, Dr. Fergusson.

    Mr. Rob Anders: Touching on that last point, if I could boil it down in my simple analogy, one tribe has arrows and another tribe comes up with a wooden shield. That seems to work fairly well. The tribe that wants to overcome the shield builds more arrows — I'm talking about your units of defence versus your units of offence. But when a tribe comes along and invests money — and I'm sure it was a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to develop a metal shield that the arrows couldn't pierce — that's pretty good stuff. That's the way I boil that down anyhow.

    I also want to touch on something you said previously about what would happen with Russia and that the United States largely was the determiner of how that relationship would go in the future. I offer to the members of the committee and to you that I think Canada is missing some opportunities on this. I think in many ways we are a cultural go-between, between England and the United States, the British Empire, the Commonwealth, and maybe Europe in a broader sense. I think we could be a wonderful addition to that. While we are not many in numbers and economic strength, we could certainly be a fulcrum in terms of being able to assist some of those things. I think we're not doing as much as we could on those matters. Anyhow, that's what I offer on that in terms of response.

    I'd like to ask you — and this is kind of a tangential thing once again — for your thoughts on the relinquishing of the Panama Canal. What are your thoughts on a loss of some of the U.S. sphere of influence with regard to the Panama Canal?

À  (1045)  

    Dr. James Fergusson: The Panama Canal is a--

    The Chair: I think we're wandering a little.

    Mr. Rob Anders: I understand that, Mr. Pratt, but I know he deals with these various issues and I think I've exhausted most of the questions I have on ballistic missile defence. I think I know where he stands.

    Dr. James Fergusson: Let me make one comment, to go back to part of what you said, Mr. Anders, and to go back to Mr. Pratt as well.

    If one is serious about eliminating the ability to deliver weapons of mass destruction by ballistic missiles, if that's a serious objective, and in so doing, as I've argued elsewhere, break out of the security environment that worked successfully during the Cold War in which our defence was based upon the inability to defend ourselves, the threat of massive retaliation was the way we essentially enhanced or created our security.

    If one wants to break out of that, the few examples of success tell us that it occurs under two conditions: one, where nations come to an agreement that for political reasons it is no longer worthwhile, valuable, or useful to invest in those resources per se; and two, where there are developments that basically negate the political-military utility of these weapons. Canada has emphasized greatly the importance of arms control, non-proliferation, the multilateral negotiated political side of that equation. What we haven't done is invest in the defence side of that equation.

    I bring to your attention the relative success of the Chemical Weapons Convention. The reason chemical weapons have been negated, by and large — even though people keep knowledge about it in the laboratory just in case — is because we've developed an international set of agreements, a set of rules and principles among states in international society about these things. Secondly, they have very little, almost zero, political-military value; you can defend against them.

    I would suggest to you that same logic will hold for the ballistic missile defence. We can negotiate agreements governing them, and they will be much more effective when we can also negate the political and strategic value of them.

    Now, to your question on the Panama Canal, I think the decision to give the Panama Canal back to the Panamanians has had no significant strategic effect whatsoever. I'm not an expert on the region at all, nor on the specific relationship between how Panama manages the canal, but my view is that in terms of U.S. strategic interests and western strategic interests, access to and through the Panama Canal is not an issue. I think it really won't be an issue in the future either, because we're in a different world, a changing world.

    That's my answer on the Panama Canal. That's all I know about the Panama Canal.

    The Chair: Do you have anything further?

    Mr. Rob Anders: No, I think I have a private question for him afterwards.

    The Chair: I would venture just a couple more questions, Dr. Fergusson.

    I go back to a piece I read in The New York Times about three months ago, by Thomas Friedman. He talked about the world of order and the world of disorder, with countries such as the United States, and by implication, Canada and North America, Europe, Russia, and China being part of the world of order — that is, part of a group of nations that have an interest in global stability and have rules in place to try to enforce that, and defence organizations, security organizations, aimed at enforcing that world of order so that we can get on with the whole business of improving people's lives from the standpoint of trade and development and economic prosperity.

    On the other hand, he talked about a world of disorder. He talked about messy states, which he characterized as states like India, Pakistan, Colombia, and Egypt; failed states like Liberia; and rogue states like North Korea, Iran, and this was before the fall of Saddam Hussein, so he lumped Iraq in there as well.

    He said the future really boils down to dealing with the world of disorder, that for the international community, for the world of order, the challenge is that world of disorder that is going to be looking at or perhaps employing asymmetrical means to achieve some of its objectives.

    How do you feel about that characterization yourself? What's your assessment of that in terms of where the U.S. is going with ballistic missile defence in particular, but in terms of some of its other approaches to defence in the 21st century?

À  (1050)  

    Dr. James Fergusson: I would have qualms about some of the countries listed in the world of disorder, and we can debate those at length. This is basically a variant of the north-south argument, the north developed world versus the underdeveloped and developing world and all the problems of that relationship.

    I don't think the issues of the world of disorder or the developing world, the southern tier, are really of a nature that represent significant threats to global stability. We live in a very stable world by virtue of the fact that relatively good relations exist between all the major and great dominant powers. I think it's time we stopped talking about the instability of the current world we live in. It's a very stable world.

    That's not to say there's not a lot of problems out there, a lot of violence, a lot of failed states, rogue states, etc. But these, by and large, are in areas and regions and deal with issues that are more or less peripheral to western security interests. They touch certain moral sensitivities, and that is understandable.

    When we think in terms of these various countries of the world — and I certainly put India outside here because India and the Indian question is a different issue entirely. By all indications, India is emerging as a great power that we need to deal with, but I think the system will naturally respond itself as great powers arise.

    A lot of these countries are in areas, with regard to the west, where we have elements of choice, particularly with regard to when you ask about the United States, the United States by virtue of its dominance. I think it's important that we all recognize that. We don't recognize it enough, despite what we say in Canada and others say about the world we live in.

    We live in a world dominated by one single political actor who is the only global actor. By virtue of the type of world we live in right now, by and large it has the freedom to make decisions about what it will and will not do. The central issue for all the actors, including Canada — and ours is a little different from other actors — is the extent to which U.S. decisions and choices reflect the interests of others, either in terms of trying to affect when they decide to act on the world stage, by managing it or influencing it or what have you, or by trying to get the United States to act on the world stage when the United States is reluctant to act.

    I like to use the good example of the Middle East. When I think of the position of American policy on the Palestinian issue, on Israel and Palestine, when the Bush administration came into office, they backed away from it. The response of everyone, including Canada, was “You can't do this, you've got to stay actively engaged.” The administration's response was, “Until the parties are ready to negotiate seriously, until they stop the violence etc., there's nothing for us to do.” Of course, the world demanded, we all demanded, the Americans had to be engaged. They're engaged again.

    It is a question of recognizing U.S. leadership in this regard — not only in the Palestinian but in the global sense — and the extent to which the United States will remain engaged internationally. I think that's the key issue. The United States, despite the rhetoric, is in my view pulling backwards, although I think it will increasingly start to wonder about its international engagements and what political price it is paying internationally.

À  (1055)  

    In this regard, missile defence is very important because missile defence for the United States — and I think in our interests as well — is about ensuring that the United States will remain engaged internationally.

    In this sense as well I think there is an unsettling sentiment among many Americans. I can't speak for Americans, but I get an impression from what we read about that that there is a degree of unsettling sentiment in the United States that the threats to U.S. security are by and large a product of the U.S. being overseas, and that many of these threats are a product of questionable American interests.

    The questions that arise are, why are we here and why are we there? Why are we engaging with a group of rogue states? I think missile defence in this provides an important psychological blanket that decision-makers in the U.S. need, and that we want, for a forward-engaged U.S., because the world needs U.S. leadership. We have to recognize that. We've seen the recent example in the Congo.

    The inability of the international community to react to the Congo is a function, by and large, of one thing: the U.S. has not decided to take leadership for it. I think that's something we have to recognize. That is the political dynamic that I think all the actors face.

    To conclude, let me go back to look at missile defence. Does missile defence, developments, allied cooperation, the entire layered system that the Americans are developing, with the command structure overall going to Space Command, with Canada being involved in only one component, the ground-based North American component and none of the rest — unless for some reason we decide to get in on the naval side. I don't think we will because of resources, but we might down the road, depending on whether we want to acquire new destroyers. But does missile defence promote a forward-engaged U.S., supporting global stability, actively engaging where it can, or supporting those, like us, when we want to engage, or does it bring the United States back home? My answer is, if you take missile defence away, the U.S. is going to be pulled back more and more. Missile defence provides security to them and enhances their willingness to be involved, to the extent that when we go overseas for missions in which the United States is not directly involved, I would strongly suggest to you — because we lack resources to do a lot of different things and our allies lack resources to do a lot of different things — that behind the scenes we have reliance on the United States.

    I can give you one example that when we were in...and why it's important for Canada to work for a forward-engaged United States. For all the...and there will be problems. We've seen the problems with the Iraq case. But I'll give you one example.

    When Canada deployed forces to the safe havens during the Bosnian conflict, I believe it was Srebrenica — in my memory, I think it was Srebrenica — there was quite a small number of troops. If things had gone bad, how were we going to get our troops out of there? The answer, as I understand it, was that the Americans were going to extract us.

    I think if we look more deeply than on the surface.... This is that aspect of Canada-U.S. defence relations no one is paying attention to, that is important for us to consider when we talk about things, even like missile defence. It is a bigger picture. It's a different set of pictures than threat proliferation.

    It's about whether this means the U.S. will be engaged more likely overseas. And do we want a forward-engaged United States? The answer to both questions, I think, is yes. There are limits, of course, but by and large, yes.

Á  (1100)  

    The Chair: Okay.

    With that, Dr. Fergusson, we have to end this session. It's been very useful for members of committee who were present, I think, and I'm sure some of our other members will want to read the transcript of your comments to get the full benefit of your remarks today. You did touch on a lot of very, very interesting areas, very fascinating areas, and we certainly appreciate your presence here today.

    On behalf of the committee members, I say thank you. We certainly look forward to your next appearance before the committee at some point in the future.

    Thank you for being here today.

    The meeting is adjourned.