NDVA Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Tuesday, September 23, 2003

Á

1105

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

Mr. Richard Cohen (President, RSC Strategic Connections, As Individual)

Á

1110

Á

1115

Á

1120

Á

1125

The Chair

Mr. Jay Hill (Prince George—Peace River, Canadian Alliance)

Mr. Richard Cohen

Á

1130

Mr. Jay Hill

Mr. Richard Cohen

Á

1135

The Chair

Mr. Jay Hill

Mr. Richard Cohen

The Chair

Mr. David Price (Compton—Stanstead, Lib.)

Á

1140

Mr. Richard Cohen

The Chair

Mr. David Price

Á

1145

Mr. Richard Cohen

The Chair

Mr. Claude Bachand (Saint-Jean, BQ)

Á

1150

Mr. Richard Cohen

Á

1155

Mr. Claude Bachand

The Chair

Mr. Joe McGuire (Egmont, Lib.)

Mr. Richard Cohen

Mr. Joe McGuire

Mr. Richard Cohen

Mr. Joe McGuire

Mr. Richard Cohen

Â

1200

The Chair

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant (Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, Canadian Alliance)

Mr. Richard Cohen

Â

1205

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant

Mr. Richard Cohen

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant

The Chair

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

Mr. Richard Cohen

Ms. Anita Neville

Mr. Richard Cohen

Â

1210

Ms. Anita Neville

Mr. Richard Cohen

Ms. Anita Neville

The Chair

Mr. Claude Bachand

Mr. Richard Cohen

Mr. Claude Bachand

Mr. Richard Cohen

Mr. Claude Bachand

Mr. Richard Cohen

Â

1215

Mr. Claude Bachand

Mr. Richard Cohen

Mr. Claude Bachand

The Chair

Mr. David Price

Mr. Richard Cohen

Mr. David Price

Mr. Richard Cohen

Â

1220

The Chair

Mr. Richard Cohen

Â

1225

The Chair

Mr. Claude Bachand

Mr. Richard Cohen

Mr. Claude Bachand

Mr. Richard Cohen

Mr. Claude Bachand

Mr. Richard Cohen

Â

1230

Mr. Claude Bachand

The Vice-Chair (Mr. David Price)

Mr. Richard Cohen

Â

1235

The Vice-Chair (Mr. David Price)

Mr. Richard Cohen

The Vice-Chair (Mr. David Price)

Mr. Richard Cohen

The Vice-Chair (Mr. David Price)

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CANADA

Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs

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NUMBER 034

l

2nd SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

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EVIDENCE

Tuesday, September 23, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Á  (1105)  

[English]

    The Chair (Mr. David Pratt (Nepean—Carleton, Lib.)): I would like to call this meeting of the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs to order and welcome, on behalf of committee members, Richard Cohen.

    I presume each of you has had the opportunity to go over Mr. Cohen's background. He has, I think it's safe to say, a significant amount of international experience. I for one am certainly looking forward to hearing his comments today.

    Without any further delay, Mr. Cohen, I'm going to give you the floor, and we'll get underway.

    Mr. Richard Cohen (President, RSC Strategic Connections, As Individual): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

    Thank you very much for your kind invitation to come here, ladies and gentlemen.

[Translation]

    I'm delighted to be here. I hope that this meeting and our discussions will prove extremely fruitful.

[English]

    The title of my small presentation to you, which I hope we will then expand into a good discussion, is “Toward a Canadian National Security Policy”. As you'll see in a moment or two, the term is national security policy, not national defence policy, because I think that national defence policy is only a part.

    I particularly noticed in your rather excellent report from last year that I read, the report of your standing committee, the quotation, “...the notion of 'security' needs to be understood in a broader, or more comprehensive, sense than previously”, and I think that is exactly the kind of theme I would like to follow up on this morning.

    The changed international and strategic environment, I think we'd all agree, must lead to a change in national strategy, and also, following from that, a change in the force structure of the armed forces. Unfortunately, most people who are in a position to look at these things are really sidetracked because of the requirement to deal with daily crises and the management of a very large and complex organization, and they don't really have the time to examine the long term and look at the big picture. At the same time, people in the defence and security area must reckon with the reality of scarce resources. The government obviously has other political priorities, and it's inevitable that defence security has the pressure of scarce resources put on it.

    What I believe is needed is an all-encompassing and possibly radical approach to defence and security issues in Canada. Having said that, I believe this is linked intimately to our relationship with the United States. I think what is needed is not only a foreign policy review, and perhaps flowing from that, a defence policy review, as we've been discussing for some months and years, but a fully comprehensive strategic overview that examines security in its broadest sense. This includes all aspects of security as they affect the national life.

    Just as an example--and not all-inclusively--I'm talking about political security, diplomatic security, economic security, social and cultural security, as well as defence and the security services themselves, which are only a part, I think you'll agree, of the whole security architecture.

    Every element and department in government has a role to play in the nation's security. I don't think one can think of any department or agency, however obscure, that doesn't have some security-related aspect involved in its role. I think a national security review, which I'm going to advocate be undertaken, should start with a basic premise--that is, what are the Canadian national interests? Any such review I think also needs to be looked at with a minimum of assumptions, a minimum of preconditions. Very little should be sacred. It must avoid prior consideration of the vested interests, which we all know about; otherwise I think it will end up being a little bit more of the same, which is not what we're after at this particular point in our history.

    I would like to show you what I have, over the last few years in my work in Europe, primarily in the former communist countries, developed into what I call a security policy model.

Á  (1110)  

    It seems to me the time is now ripe for a country like Canada, an old democracy, one with a long military tradition, very unlike many of the countries I've been dealing with, to also have a fundamental look at what we can do to bring our defence and security thinking and concepts into an overall umbrella of a general security concept.

    I started with some basic assumptions, but only, I think, the bare minimum. The first one is that Canada needs a credible national security and defence capability as part of its persona. The second--and I think this is totally self-evident--is that a close cooperation with the United States is vital to any Canadian security considerations.

    Now, I added a third, which, after having thought about it, I put in small letters. I think perhaps the handout you have has it on an equal basis with the others, but this last one applies really only to defence policy. We're looking at the larger picture of security policy. We'll get back to this in a minute, that there will probably be no large increase in the Canadian defence budget, although you could say that this is a contradiction in terms with the way we're going to look at the model, because we first look at what we need and then what we require to support it.

    So what I'm going to show you now is this model I've developed, modified to what I think might be appropriate to look at in the Canadian context. The first thing I think we need to look at is what the Canadian national interests are, and I'll go a little bit into more detail about that in a second. This should be an all-encompassing, very wide consultation with Canadians of every walk of life--not only government, but the public, academia, think tanks, the media, and so on.

    From a decision or some kind of consensus on the national interest, we then take the next step and say: What concrete steps do we need to achieve these interests? We next have to look at what the threats are to these interests and to achieving our national objectives. Also, what are the opportunities, what advantages do we have--and there are many. All of this will produce what we might call a national security policy.

    Now, as I mentioned a minute ago, in my opinion, a national security policy should be all-encompassing and look at all elements of security--political, diplomatic, social, economic, as well as defence and security services. So once this policy is developed--and I think this again needs to be an open and public debate, certainly an open document that achieves a wide degree of consensus across Canada--only then can we develop a sensible defence policy.

    The defence policy flows naturally from the national security policy, because defence is, of course, part of that national security policy, although, as we've mentioned, it is not by any means the whole thing. From the defence policy, which we'll look at in a minute, we can evolve the appropriate force structure for the armed forces to fulfil the tasks and the roles that we see as necessary on the defence side of providing our own security. Finally, from that we then can come to the point where we decide what we need in terms of a defence budget to support that force structure.

    Of course, the realities of life mean--and you can see an arrow that goes from defence budget upwards--that resources dictate a modification of all these steps once you get to the bottom and say, “What do we actually have to spend on defence?” That may require going back and saying, “Well, the force structure we've come up with is too ambitious. We have to tailor it to our resources.”

    So that is, if you like, a kind of cycle.

Á  (1115)  

    I had a rough go at a matrix, which I'll explain, in putting together the national interests. This is based on a matrix drawn up some years ago by a professor at the University of Virginia, Don Nuechterlein, who came up with a kind of categorization for national interests. You can see on the left—survival, vital, major, and secondary interests.

    We can argue as to what category these particular interests should go into, which ones are left out, which ones should be included. But you can see on the left-hand side that I've included in terms of survival interests the actual core of what Canada is all about, namely, national unity, values, because I believe that values are part of the national interest—and this really goes back to some of the excellent work you've done in this committee on human security, which is certainly a value—physical and other kinds of security of the citizens, and security of national territory.

    You can see the other categories. Under vital, there is economic prosperity, good neighbourly relations, which in this case means primarily good relations with the United States, freedom of security of our allies, and so on.

    Don Nuechterlein, the chap who produced this matrix, generally postulated that survival and vital interests were interests over which a nation would go to war, would actually sacrifice treasure and blood. The other interests, major, perhaps not, and secondary, almost certainly not. That would have to be resolved by other means or protected by other means.

    From the national interests, we then go to the next step, and that is drawing up national objectives. You can't quite see there on the left-hand side under national unity, which was the first survival interest, but I have divided it arbitrarily into four categories—political diplomatic, economic, social, and defence and security. You can read there, and we can perhaps go over, if you like, some of the ideas I had for objectives to achieve this particular survival interest. They would include things like federal-provincial relations, regional equality, sensible devolution of governance, and so on, under political. Under the economic one would be regional programs for development. Under the social, under national unity, would be promotion and strengthening of bilingualism, development of a resilient Canadian identity, and so on. Under the defence side there is strong, capable, regionally and ethnically balanced armed forces and then trusted and transparent security services.

    You can look at these on your handout at your leisure. I'll just skip through the next one, which we can come back to, the security of citizens and the security of national territory under each of these categories.

    If we were doing this seriously, we would of course break down the four categories across the top further to correspond perhaps to responsibilities of various departments of government and other bodies like Parliament—the roles and tasks and objectives that would have to be achieved by particular governmental departments.

    Just to reiterate, the national security policy would be a combination of political, diplomatic, economic security, social security, and defence and security services, among others. That would be the overall encompassing document, broken down into those and other categories. The next step from that, once that had been achieved, would be to draw from this a national defence policy.

Á  (1120)  

    It seems to me that there are several steps that need to be taken. Firstly, we need a detailed review of the security and military threats and risks, in much more detail than would have been gone into for the national security policy, because we're dealing here with military defence threats and security threats. We need to know what advantages we have in terms of allies and alliances that will help us to modify and to mitigate some of these threats and risks.

    Then after having done these studies, we look at the roles of the various components of the armed forces. What is a general role in the fulfilling of the national security policy of Canada, as decided in the first step? We could include.... Although in this case we probably wouldn't include it, this would be under another review of security services.

    Just as an example, after we've defined the role of the land forces, which would be a fairly general statement, we then look in detail at the tasks of the land forces. I modelled this to a large extent on the approach of the strategic defence review that was carried out in Britain in 1998—I'm sure many of you are familiar with this—where they listed roles and tasks for the various components of the armed forces.

    You can see here that some of them are pretty specific—an effective role in multinational combat operations, undertake effective peace support, support the police and security services in reacting and disrupting terrorist attacks, be prepared to act in support or in aid of the civil power, internal security, disaster relief operations in Canada and abroad, and maintain and practise interoperability with the U.S. and other allies.

    These are only a few of the tasks that came to mind, but I think it will give you an idea of the kinds of fairly specific tasks that should, in my mind, be laid down for each of the services. The same would apply to the air force and the maritime services, the forces of the navy.

    I'd really see this as a kind of framework for a logical defence policy. Then having got our defence policy, we look at the structure of the armed forces, which must support the defence policy. It must be designed to carry out the military tasks on which we've agreed. In my mind, it must be focused. We have to pick and choose the tasks and the capabilities that we can actually provide for effective multinational operations.

    We can't do everything, in my mind. I may be prejudging the outcome of this particular operation, but remembering that small third assumption that we started with, there are, of course, and likely to be, limited resources. We can discuss this.

    This means that some forces will have to be double-hatted, because we're going to give them more than one task. It means of course that we must accept some risk. Of course we can balance this risk against the help we expect to get from allies and so on. This will all be shaped by cooperation through bilateral and multilateral treaties.

    Finally, as I just want to take it through to its logical conclusion, the last point, which is at the bottom of that model, is the defence budget. We must consider, firstly, how much is enough. Do we look at our total defence spending in terms of percentage of GDP, or do we look at it in absolute terms? This was the way I think one of the responses to your recommendations of last year from the government seemed to indicate—that percentage of GDP perhaps wasn't, in their mind anyway, a fair way of looking at it. I think we'd have to discuss this.

    We have to look at the division of the defence budget—you mentioned this quite prominently, I know, in the past—between force structure and personnel, readiness, and finally equipment. An ever smaller link or part of the budget is being devoted to long-term investment in equipment.

Á  (1125)  

    Then of course because of the realities of resources we have to look at trade-offs. Where is the priority in terms of structure readiness and investment? How does this affect national defence policy? How does it in turn affect security policy and our national interests and objectives? All of those will be affected ultimately by the resources that we can afford to devote to defence.

    Finally, this whole debate will be influenced by the public, the media, other departments of government, and of course you as members of Parliament.

    Mr. Chairman, that's really all I would like to say to start with, and I look forward to having a discussion about it.

    The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Cohen, for that presentation. As someone said at a conference that the two of us attended recently, I think you gave us the view from 60,000 feet. I think it's a view this committee needed to hear, and I think there will be some good questions.

    Let me begin with Mr. Hill, who I would like to welcome formally to the committee. I believe this is your first formal committee meeting, Mr. Hill. We look forward to your participation on the committee. You have the floor for seven minutes.

    Mr. Jay Hill (Prince George—Peace River, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    Mr. Cohen, for my benefit because I'm new to the committee, I wonder if you could just quickly tell me who you're representing. All I see is RSC Strategic Connections. What does that mean?

    Mr. Richard Cohen: That's a consulting company that I've founded since I got back to Canada. I arrived back in Canada in late March after 30 years away. I thought that in view of the experiences I've had, I would like to be able to use this in the Canadian context, and today is an ideal opportunity to actually do this. So that's what it is. I'm representing no one but myself, the ideas and experiences I've picked up over the years as a soldier both in the Canadian and British armies and also latterly as a professor of European security studies in the Marshall center in Germany.

Á  (1130)  

    Mr. Jay Hill: I'll obviously review your extensive, I'm sure, c.v. at some future time so that I can become more familiar with your background.

    At any rate, I found it to be a very interesting presentation. My concern is when you use terms such as “all-encompassing” and “very wide consultation”. I'm not opposed to those things. But one of the things that I hear out in the real world away from Ottawa in connection with the capability of our military and defence policy stems from previous white papers, which take years to compile and cost millions of dollars, and ultimately very few of the recommendations are acted upon. They end up collecting dust on some obscure shelf in Ottawa. That's a concern that I hear expressed not only from within the military but by the general public as well.

    So while I agree with you that ideally we should have as broad a consultation as possible, I wonder if you have any suggestions of how we as a country could balance the obvious needs that all of us are very well apprised of in connection with our military, including the overextended personnel, obviously.... Something is being done about that with the recruiting, but then we have a problem with training, because all our trained people are abroad. So we have new recruits who are sitting idle for want of people to adequately train them. Obviously, we have some very pressing replacement equipment needs, some of us would argue long overdue, in the Canadian military.

    How are we going to balance what I see as something that could quite easily become quite a lengthy process to develop this new defence policy with some of the pressing needs that should have been addressed long before today?

    Mr. Richard Cohen: I think that is a very valid concern. You know more about this in the Canadian context certainly than I do. My experience has been, as I said a minute ago, mainly with the new democracies of the former communist world. Many of these countries, I suppose, started with an advantage, in that they started from zero. Certainly countries like the Baltic states and the other states of the former Soviet Union didn't have anything, so they had the advantage of starting from a blank sheet of paper. A lot of them have used this particular model, or something very close to it, to come up with a sensible way of asking, what do we really need in terms of defence, what is sufficient for us, what does military sufficiency mean, how can we fulfil our defence requirements within the context of a broad security envelope? They were able to do that in a relatively short time because they needed to, so there was that motivation.

    In Canada, of course, it's a different story: we have a functioning armed forces. It may not be perfect, and we would obviously like to see it improve, but nevertheless there is no perceived rush. It seems to me that we've arrived at an ideal opportunity now with a change of government coming up. We have an opportunity to look at the transformed situation in the last few years, the last two years in particular. We have been trying to patch things up by saying we need another $100 million here, we need $500 million there, we need a billion here. But it seems to me that we're doing this without looking at it and justifying it by an overall agreed security concept in which defence is an integral part.

    If we were to--and it will take time, although we can limit the time, we could always say it's going to take 12 months or something like that--undertake a well-planned national consensus-building exercise that would address the issues of what we need as a national security policy, and then derive from that the defence policy, which would be the next step, and probably much easier in fact once you have achieved this overall national security concept, then I think it's doable. Obviously it would require quite a lot of political push; it would require a will to do it, and it would require cooperation and coordination from not only the public, but also within government and within Parliament.

    It is a difficult thing, I agree with you, but I also think that it is needed. If we can convince the people who make the decisions on whether this kind of thing should be done or not that it would be ultimately an extremely valuable exercise, then I think it has a chance of success.

Á  (1135)  

    The Chair: We'll give you one more quick question, Mr. Hill.

    So as not to interrupt your time, I had presumed that Mr. Cohen's biography had been circulated to members of the committee, but in fact it had not because it was received only in English. You were right to ask the question, and thank you for providing that answer, Mr. Cohen.

    Mr. Jay Hill: I have one final question.

    You made some reference to a 12-month period. My concern, as I said, is that there are pressing needs of today's military. All of us recognize it in this room, regardless of partisan political stripe. My fear is that we will start down this process and it will become an excuse for whichever government to basically do nothing for another year or two, and we know the status of our military today.

    So I would ask if you couldn't quickly address how you see this. I recognize that it's a different situation from what you're familiar with in Europe, but I foresee some need for some sort of a two-tracked approach, whereby some of our more pressing needs are addressed at the same time we conduct this consultative process you're talking about, which I agree is needed, but we can't use it as an excuse to put everything else on hold.

    Mr. Richard Cohen: I totally agree. It would have to be agreed that there would be no excuse in an ongoing security policy review for not supporting the armed forces in its day-to-day activities in any crises that might arise.

    Quite clearly, these changes we're talking about in the armed forces are long term. Even once the documents are agreed on and the consensus is achieved, it's going to take a long time, and therefore it could be five or ten years before the ultimate goal is achieved--of course, the ultimate goal will never be achieved, but before something much better than we have at the moment and much more rational, in my mind, would be in place. In the meantime, there would have to be agreement by all levels of government that the day-to-day functioning of the armed forces could not be put on hold because of this.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Hill.

    Mr. Price.

    Mr. David Price (Compton—Stanstead, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Thank you, Mr. Cohen, for your presentation.

    It's certainly a nice model plan that we'd all like to see...to have the time and everything. And I follow right along with what Jay was talking about in terms of the time problem we always have to deal with. We just have to look back at the 1994 white paper we did and the time it took. The implementation actually hasn't even taken effect yet.

    It's nice that you're looking at long term and the big picture. I agree with you that we have to look at that, because there are so many things coming up that we can see coming ahead. One little example is what's going to happen in the far north at the Northwest Passage. Within ten years that's going to be open with global warming, and it brings in a whole other issue as far as what we're going to have to deal with as Canadians on the security part of it with our American partners and with our European partners, because it definitely concerns them too, and particularly Greenland or Denmark.

    As Jay said, we need to have two paths really, but how do we go about this? You mentioned our national security policy as the major path you're looking at here, but we have to look at our general foreign policy first, to see just what we're going to do in this world. That's the starting point for the big picture.

    We already have, let's say, a set foreign policy out there right now that we have to try to follow along with the defence issues we're dealing with at this point. It's rather large right now. Do you think we should be looking at narrowing our general foreign policy in order to match what we can do militarily, or should we be looking at handling it the other way?

    It's a rather wide question I've given you.

Á  (1140)  

    Mr. Richard Cohen: No. These are extremely valid observations, and they really need to be discussed.

    Firstly, on the question of the pressing requirements, and we can say pressing could be up to five or ten years' time, they are decisions we have to make now in order to really be ready.

    As you indicate, Mr. Price, I think this thing needs to go in parallel. This particular long-term study, which could be compressed if there was the will, but the implementation of which nevertheless would be a long-term business, needs to move in parallel with the realities of today and the realities of the next five, six, or eight years.

    I think the best one can do is perhaps to initially lay down some general guidelines, best guesses if you like, as to what the possible outcome of this could be and then try to make decisions within that kind of framework on requirements for the next five to eight or ten years, because there's no easy transition, as you imply, between this. On the other hand, if we don't do it, then it seems to me that we're not going to be any further ahead in ten years' time. After all, ten years is not a long time in the history of a nation.

    It just seems to me that there are several things that have come together. There's this new realization that security, or the lack of it, is something that could affect the daily lives of Canadians. There's also the whole business of the transition out of the Cold War era--which has not yet passed--and there's the chance that we have of a new political outlook in government.

    So there are these things, and there is our relationship with the United States, which needs a fundamental review and of which security is certainly from their view a very big part. We need to do this; we need to start somewhere. But at the same time, as you quite rightly point out, we can't forget the short-term and the medium-term projects that have to go on.

    In terms of the foreign policy, I see foreign policy as part of this national security policy. Foreign policy is one element. We didn't follow the chain down through the foreign policy link. Obviously foreign policy needs to support our security in the various areas we talked about--national unity, values, territorial defence, and so on. Foreign policy has a role to play in that. Foreign policy should be just as affected by a national security policy study or review as defence policy.

    It seems to me that if we put these together, and also economic security, which is very much part of our existence and coexistence with the United States, among others, all these things really need to come together under this consensus policy concept. Foreign policy could be as wide or as narrow as our national interests and our national objectives dictate.

    The Chair: One minute left.

    Mr. David Price: I found it quite interesting that on one of your slides--I think it was on the land forces--you had quite a bit in there as far as the role for civil power, disaster relief and so on, was concerned. Would you say you'd be advocating a larger role for reserves, for local community forces?

Á  (1145)  

    Mr. Richard Cohen: Yes, I think that is one of the things that really need to come out of the study of the policy. Clearly, Canada's regular forces will not be big enough to cope with all of the tasks we've listed here—and with others.

    Reserve forces are obviously the first thing one looks to as the next line of defence, as it were. Canada has done this reasonably or very effectively, and has probably relied more on reserve forces than almost any other country, except perhaps the United States in the recent case of Iraq. To me, reserve forces are a very, very integral part of this. But it depends on how we see our force structure developing from this national defence policy, and on how much we have in the way of resources to devote to regular forces. Clearly, we won't have enough, so reserve forces are a requirement.

    The question, of course, is how big? What role do they have? Are they assigned, as they now more or less are in Britain—and in Canada to a large extent as well—as individuals to fill out units? Do we want to train whole units in certain specialties, like the United States does in CIMIC, for instance, or civil affairs? The British do it in certain engineering skills, such as port management and that kind of thing. They have special squadrons and field hospitals. Those are in the combat service support area, so they have whole reserve units in combat support.

    Of course, this is an area that will have to flow from looking at the tasks, looking at the resources, and then deciding what the mix should be.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Price.

    Monsieur Bachand.

[Translation]

    Mr. Claude Bachand (Saint-Jean, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I too would like to thank Mr. Cohen for his slide presentation. I also enjoy this type of presentation because in my view, a few slides can convey a message as effectively as a 100-page document. I also enjoy presentations like this because Members have little time at their disposal.

    Like my colleagues, I'll continue on the same theme, namely national defence policy. If I understood correctly, you stated that you took a close look at the Standing Committee's last report on the state of readiness of Canadian Forces. Surely then you also noted the Bloc Québécois' dissenting position, namely that in the absence of any new national defence policy, the party would oppose any large-scale investment in national defence until such time as the 1994 defence policy was updated.

    As some of my colleagues noted earlier, it's important for us to continue supporting our armed forces during the policy review process. We've observed that some people want to put everything on hold while a new policy is being formulated. However, others want to do exactly the opposite.

    The Bloc Québécois is of the opinion that the government can pretty much do whatever it pleases right now, arguing in their defence that the 1994 policy is no longer current. And that's in fact true. If we look at everything that has happened over the past few years, we realize that new geographical data and new military doctrines have ben embraced. As a member of the military, you know that in the past, it was very clear who and where our adversaries or enemies were. Today, the issue isn't quite as black and white. Our enemies blend into the landscape. There may even be dormant al-Qaida cells in Canada. We've often heard such reports. It's impossible for us to identify these cells.

    We need a new security and defence policy framework. This is important primarily for the taxpayer, the person who takes home a paycheque every week and sees more and more of his income eaten up by taxes when he goes to the store. The taxpayer should also have a say in a new defence and foreign affairs policy.

    Of course it's important to lend each other support during the review process, but without a review, the government is free to do whatever it likes. By government, I don't mean my colleagues seated here in this room, but Cabinet.

    Consider, for example, the war in Afghanistan. When Canada decided to commit troops, the ships had already set sail by the time the issue was debated in the House. The Minister will argue that Cabinet holds decision-making authority, but our defence policy dates back to 1994. Circumstances have changed and decisions are required. The House engages in so-called take-note debates, and meanwhile the ships have already lifted anchor. It's unlikely the House would decide to order the ships back to port. Wouldn't you agree?

    It's no different in the case of Iraq. Contrary to what General Jeffery had recommended, we discovered that our troops were being sent to Iraq on a one-year mission, that RCR personnel were already in place and that the Royal 22nd Regiment would also be deployed. All of this begs the question: is this the kind of national defence operation in which we want to be involved?

    Do you not think that we need to move immediately to review and adopt a new national defence policy? Action on this front is urgently required. So, while it's important to support our troops right now, it's equally important to turn our attention to formulating a new national defence and security policy.

Á  (1150)  

    Mr. Richard Cohen: I fully agree with you. Let me just say two things.

    First of all, you mentioned the taxpayer, a key part of the equation. I'm not at all certain that once the review is completed, we will not be satisfied that our defence spending is adequate. Once we undertake this exercise, we'll see that we need to reduce the number of areas in which Canadian forces are involved and concentrate our efforts on sectors where we can make a genuine contribution. Once we stop spreading ourselves too thin, we might in fact actually end up believing that what the current government and the public are prepared to spend on defence is adequate.

    If that's the case, we can contribute in a very worthwhile, effective way to certain operations, whereas other countries like the United States, will not be able to act without help from other nations. For instance, we could deploy special forces or be involved in combat engineering. We need to identify, working in concert with our allies, and particularly with the United States, areas in which we can contribute most effectively. It may well be that no additional defence funding is necessary.

    You talked about Parliament's role in this debate. I worked extensively with former East Bloc parliaments that have considerably less clout than we do. In my opinion, Parliament in general and the National Defence and Veterans Affairs Committee in particular could play a leading role in this debate and could work very closely with the main participants in these studies.

    However, I may not have answered your question yet...

Á  (1155)  

    Mr. Claude Bachand: Do I have any time remaining?

[English]

    The Chair: Your time has expired, Monsieur Bachand, but I'm sure there will be more opportunities for questions.

    Mr. McGuire.

    Mr. Joe McGuire (Egmont, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    Welcome, Mr. Cohen.

    In your organizational set-up that you described to us you've left out an awful lot of things that have already happened, some fifty years ago, with our organization at the UN, with NATO, with NORAD, with our free trade agreements with the United States and with various other states, with South America. It almost looks like you're starting from scratch here rather than building on what we already have. We have dozens of bilateral military agreements with the U.S., and it appears to me that we don't really have that far to go to bring together all these various elements to have a new, stronger security policy with the U.S. Perhaps we can build on what we have.

    What do we have to do with the UN to make the world more safe, with NATO to make the organization a stronger security organization? Or on economic policy, what do we do with our free trade agreements to make food security a more realistic goal?

    I don't really think we have to start from scratch here. I think there are an awful lot of things we've built up over the years and over the decades that we somehow have to coordinate. And to renew itself, to renew NATO, or to renew the UN, the U.S. is looking at their air defence initiatives basically as a security measure that would eliminate threats before they get near the perimeter of the U.S.

    How do you feel about this? Am I off base here? Do we have to destroy everything we have to start to build anew? Where are we at now?

    Mr. Richard Cohen: I don't know. I think again that's a very valid observation, because obviously unlike some of the countries that we've been discussing in the former Soviet bloc we're not starting from a blank sheet of paper. We have a huge complicated and complex network of structures and treaties and we have a whole history of working together with various countries and so on, not the least NATO and the UN, and bilaterally with the United States and so on.

    And it seems to me that these are certainly part and parcel of it, because they will have material influence on the kinds of policies we come up with, and they will certainly be integrated into and taken account of. Now, it may be that in the end we decide that we need stronger ties with one organization or one institution or another, or indeed we need to perhaps look at creating new institutions in the longer term.

    No, I certainly wasn't advocating that we scrub everything and start from zero. I think all these things could easily be and must be taken into account in the consideration of the various steps of this particular process.

    Mr. Joe McGuire: In the way the Europeans are heading now with their new expanded European Union and much more power outside of the national capitals, devolving into Brussels or whatever, do you see something like that developing in North America, or in North and South America?

    Mr. Richard Cohen: Do you mean in the framework of Canada-U.S...or perhaps NAFTA?

    Mr. Joe McGuire: I mean just to make the hemisphere more secure, integrating our defence policies with the rest of the hemisphere.

    Mr. Richard Cohen: It seems to me--I'm sure you've had long discussions about this, and I know you've used some excellent papers on it--that our security relationship with the United States certainly needs to be looked at. There are probably areas where we need to move in closer cooperation with the United States. So to some extent you could look upon it as the European Union, the European Union as a surrender of sovereignty. But then one has to look at the big picture, as most of the countries in Europe do. They realize that some of these sacrifices in sovereignty are made for the general public good, not only in the security field, but in the economic and other, legal and so on, fields.

    So in terms of the Canadian-U.S. relationship, which is really what we're talking about here, there is scope for closer cooperation. There's scope for more interoperability with U.S. forces, particularly the land forces. I think that's one of the more difficult and complicated areas, because we're not so badly off in terms of the sea and air.

    We then get into questions like continental missile defence. That is, of course, a totally different argument. Unfortunately, although it obviously needs to be discussed, it is probably too late, in terms of this particular review, to make a decision on this. This is one of the things we will have to decide on in the medium term or the short term, perhaps with a view to the future of the results of this policy. But certainly missile defence will be part and parcel of the outcome of a national security policy and a national defence policy in the future: How do we see ourselves, in terms of defending our continent? Can we operate independently of the United States in some instances, or do we really need to integrate even more in continental defence?

  (1200)  

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Cohen.

    Mrs. Gallant, for five minutes.

    Mrs. Cheryl Gallant (Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, Canadian Alliance): Who do you envision conducting this review of military and foreign affairs? It would have to be a joint review, because they are so closely tied. You mentioned that Parliament, or this committee perhaps, would play a major role, but others would have a more important role to play.

    Also, would whatever entity was reviewing the situation meet in conjunction with our U.S. counterparts as well? Because some of our vital national objectives are so closely tied to the U.S.--our economy and our security.

    Mr. Richard Cohen: Yes, exactly. Who would do it? In the United States they have a similar kind of process, although you may not agree with the results. It is supposed to come out every year--the national security strategy document. It's the one that talks about pre-emption, among other things. But nevertheless, the process is there in theory, and it's coordinated by the National Security Council, which, as you know, operates essentially as part of the White House apparatus.

    We don't have that here, and I'm not sure we really need to have one, but I think it's an open question. There are certainly good arguments for creating this kind of body. We would probably not call it a national security council, but we'd find another name for it that would more or less do the same kind of thing.

    At the moment we have the Privy Council Office, which should probably direct, coordinate, and lead this kind of thing. The Privy Council Office would probably need to be bolstered by all kinds of experts, and so on, to undertake this kind of thing. But if we didn't want to create a new body, that's probably where it could be.

    On the role of committees like this committee, I would see a very active role at the stage of formulating a national security policy at its broadest level. But the real work of the committee, of course, would be to take the national security policy, after it had given its input and so on over a period of, let's postulate, 12 months, and then be one of the leading developers from that, in conjunction with DND and possibly others, of the national defence policy. So the real kind of nuts and bolts role of this committee would be to take that national security strategy or policy and develop from that a national defence policy.

  (1205)  

    Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: You mentioned you're looking at a broad national security policy, and it would involve probably every department that we have in government. What agency or entity do you have in mind to coordinate the implementation of the broad national security policy—OCIPEP or something new?

    Mr. Richard Cohen: No, I would say the Privy Council Office should do it because they are really ultimately responsible for pulling together all the strands of security. OCIPEP of course is part of the Department of National Defence. But we want to get out of that. We want to say it's a very broad review. We want to look at all aspects of security, all government departments. You may have a better suggestion. It's just my concept at the moment that probably the best place where this kind of review would be led and driven from would be the Privy Council Office.

    Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: Thank you.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mrs. Gallant.

    Mrs. Neville.

    Ms. Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre, Lib.): I have a brief question, Mr. Chair.

    Thank you for your presentation, Mr. Cohen.

    You speak about the broadness of the policy and that all departments are to be part of it. In your opening comments you spoke about culture and economic aspects being integrated into it. I'm particularly interested in your reference to culture as being integrated into a defence and foreign policy review, and I'm wondering if you could expand on that a bit.

    Mr. Richard Cohen: Let me just try to find my little slide.

    We talk about national objectives flowing from the national interests that we've developed by a hard and long battle. We've come to some consensus on this. Let's look at the two that I have up here on the screen—national unity and national values—which we postulate that we agree are very important national interests. Under national unity, I've put a column here on social. That could be perhaps also called cultural or certainly a spin-off from that. Under national unity, I've postulated that perhaps the promotion and the strengthening of the bilingual nature of the country would be one way in which culture would contribute to that national interest of national unity. I think that's a pretty clear example.

    I talk here about the development of a resilient Canadian identity. Obviously there are many aspects to this, but one of them is culture. Without a Canadian identity I think in the longer term we will inevitably be lost and perhaps no longer exist in 100 years' time. So if national unity and indeed the one below it, national values, is something we want to protect, then we need to develop—I say we, the whole of the country in various aspects—and to strengthen what we might call Canadian identity. That would be certainly a function of the cultural aspects of security in its broadest sense.

    Does that answer the question at all?

    Ms. Anita Neville: Well, sort of.

    How long do you anticipate a study of this sort taking?

    Mr. Richard Cohen: The general opinion that I hear around the table is this kind of thing could go on forever.

  (1210)  

    Ms. Anita Neville: So this could be a lifetime project.

    Mr. Richard Cohen: Exactly. But it seems to me that if one were to undertake this kind of thing, it would have to be artificially constrained in terms of time. I can't see, for instance, the first part, the national security policy, happening in, let's say, less than 12 months. It would take maybe 18 months or two years. But you'd have to come to some kind of agreement on how long it was going to take.

    This doesn't mean that the documents and the agreements would be set in stone, because there's no reason why they shouldn't be continually updated and modified and so on. So even though one would set boundaries on the time, there would still be a mechanism in this to modify it, to change it, and so on.

    Ms. Anita Neville: Thank you.

    The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Neville.

    Monsieur Bachand.

[Translation]

    Mr. Claude Bachand: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to pause for a moment to consider this particular slide.

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you mentioned the name Nuechterlein earlier. Is he the professor responsible for developing this model?

    Mr. Richard Cohen: He designed a formula for identifying priorities on the basis of national interests. I came up with the idea of using these particular national interests to develop a similar matrix.

    Mr. Claude Bachand: Is he associated with the University of Virginia?

    Mr. Richard Cohen: Yes, he is.

    Mr. Claude Bachand: This particular slide caught my attention because of the national unity issue. If we applied a similar grid to the United States, the concept of national unity would certainly not have the same meaning as in Canada. To my knowledge, the only US state with some sovereigntist leanings is Texas. In Canada and Quebec, on the other hand, the sovereigntist movement is quite strong. It's important to respect that reality.

    In my view, this type of grid is a departure of sorts from a national defence policy because it contains references to cultural values, economic prosperity and so forth.

    As I understand it, you ranked various interests, with the column on the left marked “survival”. You mentioned those interests over which a nation might go to war. Could you elaborate on that point for me?

    If Quebec decided to become a country, would this be cause for armed intervention? Or am I merely being paranoid by reading something like this into your remarks?

    Mr. Richard Cohen: Thank you for that very delicate and difficult question. That's a very astute observation.

    I used the model originally developed by Don Nuechterlein. The options listed represent Canadian national interests, not US interests. The essence of this matrix is not American. Perhaps you're right in believing that national unity should not be included in the category of survival interests. The issue warrants some discussion.

    The dividing line between interests over which we would be prepared to go to war or other interests is very artificial. I say that because as a rule, we can distinguish between survival interests, vital interests and others. You're correct in saying that in the course of discussions on Canada's national interests, we could decide that national unity is not a survival interest, but rather a major national interest.

  (1215)  

    Mr. Claude Bachand: If I understand correctly, you've placed national unity in the category of survival interests. You feel that this is so important that if Quebec were to become a sovereign nation one day, Canada would, in your opinion, be threatened. Therefore, in your opinion, yes or no, is national unity an interest over which the nation might go to war?

    Mr. Richard Cohen: In my opinion, no.

    Mr. Claude Bachand: Very well then. Thank you.

[English]

    The Chair: Mr. Price.

    Mr. David Price: Now that we have that cleared up, one of the issues we do hear about is sovereignty. As soon as we start looking at anything particularly bilateral with the U.S., we hear right back, “You're getting into Canadian sovereignty”.

    Would you like to comment on that? Obviously, we're talking about trying to get closer to the States, and yet on the other hand we keep getting that thrown back at us from the general public.

    Mr. Richard Cohen: My own view is that by being able to contribute more effectively to our own security and defence—using “security” in its broadest terms—we will in fact be enhancing our sovereignty, even if that means closer cooperation with the United States, which I think it will mean in some instances.

    At the moment, the Americans tend to look at us as not full contributors to security and military defence. The better we become at it, whether it's through closer cooperation or indeed independent capabilities, countries like the United States—which is our most important neighbour and ally, after all—will in fact look upon Canada as a real contributor. There's no question that if Canada is looked upon as a real contributor to security and defence, not only in North America but also worldwide in certain instances, certainly our international reputation and our reputation with the United States will be enhanced. That can only mean that Canadians themselves will feel more independent and sovereign and that they're actually contributing something of value to the international community.

    So, to me, it's not a dilemma, but something we need to do. We can achieve both categories. We can achieve both more sovereignty and perhaps closer cooperation in certain areas with the United States. I don't see any dichotomy between the two.

    Mr. David Price: I agree with you, for sure, but there's no question that we hear a lot of that out there. In particular, when we start talking about having closer ties, we quite often talk about having Americans on the ground somewhere in Canada. What I brought up about the Northwest Passage is probably one of the best examples of that, because there's no question that somewhere along the line we don't have the capabilities to do that, nor do I expect we will have the capabilities to do it all alone in the long term—well, maybe in the long term, but surely not in the short term. So how are we going to handle that? Is it a PR thing we should be dealing with?

    We tend to get the message all the time from Canadians out there: “Well, we don't want the Americans on our territory”, and that type of thing. Missile defence is probably a good example.

    Mr. Richard Cohen: Yes. It seems to me that the process we would go through in having a national security review could be something that would perk the interest of Canandians and draw them to the issue. It might be an ideal vehicle for demonstrating the kinds of things we've just been talking about, that closer integration in some areas may in fact mean, in the longer term, a more sovereign and certainly a more respected status for Canada, not only internationally but also vis-à-vis the United States. So the actual process itself, if it's handled properly, could be very useful in that respect. I think it can be handled properly because the Brits have to a large extent done it successfully—although they tended to concentrate on defence. They went through the same kind of process that I envisage.

    Once we come to the logical conclusions of that process, we may find that areas like the protection and surveillance of the Northwest Passage become one of our defence tasks receiving a very high priority—at the expense, perhaps, of others. Therefore, in the longer term, as you suggest, it may be that Canada is ultimately able to exercise surveillance and protection and defence of that area. So that's an example of going through the process and coming up with the kinds of priorities that we see for ourselves, which may hopefully enhance our feeling of sovereignty in the end.

  (1220)  

    The Chair: I'd like to get a short question in myself, Mr. Cohen, in connection with where we may be going from a budget standpoint, or where you would like to see us go from a budget standpoint, understanding, of course, that you're talking about roles, responsibilities, and going through a study of national security policy, foreign policy, defence policy. We're going to end up with a series of roles and responsibilities that may not look much different, though there may be some little changes, nuances here and there. Maybe there will, as Mr. Price says, be other responsibilities that we tack on.

    But perhaps I can get you to go out on a limb here. The defence committee has made a recommendation of between 1.5% and 1.6% of GDP, moving up to that level as quickly as possible as a budget objective. Understanding that it takes roughly $1 billion to put another 10,000 people in uniform, and understanding the pressures that we face from our allies for increasing our contribution within NATO, the UN, etc., have you got any ball park idea as to where you think we should be as a percentage of GDP, what sort of figure we should work towards as being a reasonable contribution to not only our own security, but international peace and security as well?

    Mr. Richard Cohen: I tried to indicate that I'm not totally convinced that percentage of GDP is something we should be focusing on. I think we need to decide what we need and how we can best contribute. It may be that we need 1.5% or 1.6% of GDP to focus on the areas I think are our strengths and where we can contribute most to our allies and at the same time fulfil our own national defence and security obligations.

    Having worked for almost four years at NATO headquarters, albeit as a British army officer, although with close ties to the Canadians there, I always felt a little embarrassed about the continual slippage of Canada in defence spending. The early to mid-1990s was the time we were really slipping down the table, faster than most other countries. So from the point of view of international respectability, if you like, I think a percentage of GDP is important, but for a real capabilities requirement, I'm not sure we want to tie ourselves to a percentage of GDP. We want to go through this exercise to see what we really need, how we can best contribute, and then we say, how much is it going to cost? We may find that it's going to cost 1% of GDP, or we may find that it's going to cost 2%. Then, of course, there'd have to be some hard political decisions as to how much is going to be put into the results we come up with.

    As I tried to indicate earlier, the problem is that we don't know yet how much these things are going to cost, and we don't even know, before we do this logical study, what areas we really want to prioritize and where we, as Canadians, can contribute, both nationally and internationally, to defence and security. Until we do that, we don't know how much it's going to cost.

  (1225)  

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Monsieur Bachand.

[Translation]

    Mr. Claude Bachand: I'll be brief, Mr. Chairman.

    I'm wondering if Mr. Cohen is flashing us a subliminal message on the screen with the words Ich liebe dich. Is it because you quite love the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs? The words Ich liebe dich mean “I love you”. Are you saying that you're very fond of the members of the National Defence and Veterans Affairs committee?

    Mr. Richard Cohen: I'm sorry, but I didn't quite understand you.

[English]

    Mr. Claude Bachand: Okay, you're sending a message there: Ich liebe dich, which means “I love you”. Are you loving the members of the Standing Committee on National Defence? That's my first question.

    Mr. Richard Cohen: Does that fall under values or national unity?

[Translation]

    Mr. Claude Bachand: Seriously this time, I have a question for you about your report entitled Cooperative Security: New Horizons for International Order It's taken from the Marshall Center Papers. In this report, which I've read, you draw a distinction between co-operative security and collective security. I realize that this is the type of question that you could mull over for several hours, but could you explain to us briefly the difference between the two and how this approach might apply to the work we have undertaken?

    Mr. Richard Cohen: Yes. Unfortunately, I forget to bring my little book on co-operative security with me. I developed a new model when I was at NATO with the help of several friends who teach at a training facility in Germany. I can give you a web address to consult, if you're interested.

    As I see it, co-operative security includes collective security. My model consists of four security circles: in the centre, there's human security; then we have collective security, as we now see in the United States, for example, the League of Nations during the 1920s and 1930s; the third circle is foreign security, collective defence such as NATO; and finally, the fourth circle is the kind of cooperation that promotes stabilization. Members of the co-operative security community are responsible for restoring stability to their region, both diplomatically and economically, and through peacekeeping or crisis management operations such as the ones in Bosnia, Kosovo and elsewhere.

    If you like, I can send you this article which would give you a more detailed explanation.

  (1230)  

    Mr. Claude Bachand: Thank you.

[English]

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. David Price): Merci, monsieur Bachand.

    I just have one more question. You mentioned the work you did in the former east bloc countries, and I'm fairly familiar with them from dealing with the NATO parliamentary level. I look at the preparations they did. In order to just get the ball rolling to get into NATO, they had to prepare a plan of their military, and as you say, they started with a blank sheet basically. They still had some remnants of their Russian equipment and so on, but it was barely usable in most cases, and in some really not usable. They all came up with a plan that was basically accepted by NATO, and up to probably about a year and a half ago they were going ahead with that plan, but even though the plans had been accepted by NATO, most couldn't realize them. Most of them were not practical when it came to actually putting them on the ground. And they were able to turn around very quickly.

    I was surprised. Bulgaria and Slovakia turned very quickly, and within a year had another new plan on the floor, which was much more practical. Romania was really specializing in what they should have been; their mountain brigade was one of their main things, and they kept right at that and have done really well with it. You've probably looked at this. I was surprised at how fast they were able to turn around and put another plan on the ground, particularly with the parliamentarians they had to deal with, who were much more varied than those we have to deal with here.

    So I'd like your comments on how you feel they were able to do it that quickly.

    Mr. Richard Cohen: I actually know Bulgaria and Romania reasonably well. In fact, the Romanian defence minister's quite a good friend of mine, Ioan Pascu, and I know state secretaries and the former defence minister of Bulgaria quite well. I've worked with them on these issues. I wouldn't exactly characterize it by saying a year and a half ago or so they scrapped plan A and went on to plan B. They certainly pulled up their socks in a lot of areas. I think I would characterize what they did in the mid-1990s, late-1990s as a lot of good window-dressing. They put forward these plans, as you imply, which looked great on paper, but didn't actually have a lot of substance. It didn't take too long, especially when people from NATO and, bilaterally, national governments and militaries and officials got into what was really going on, to discover that what they were presenting was a very nice-looking shell, but only a shell. So they got, as you imply, a good kick in the pants. It was perhaps a bit more than a year and a half ago. Lord Robertson, the Secretary General, was, I think, quite instrumental in exposing some of the bluff these countries were hiding behind.

    So NATO said to them, look, if you really want to become members, you've got to do real things, not just show us things on paper that you stand no chance of actually achieving. Ioan Pascu in Romania and others said, okay, well, we really need to do something about this, we really need to modify our plans and make them more realistic. That was encouraged by Lord Robertson, who said, don't tell us you plan to field 15 brigades, when we know damn well you can only field four, put down four; at least you'll have credibility. That's essentially what they did. They downsized a lot of the ambitious plans they had on paper, and then worked towards those much less ambitious, but realistic goals. I think that's what turned them around. That's how I would characterize the evolution there.

  (1235)  

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. David Price): It's just surprising how quickly they did do it in the end, particularly because of the changes they had in their different governments at the same time and the differences they have in the members of parliament and ministers who were dealing with this.

    Mr. Richard Cohen: It was very largely externally influenced in their case by the pressure from the membership action plan of NATO, which they all joined, nine countries I think. This membership action plan involved some pretty intrusive inspections of what was actually going on behind the scenes, and it pretty quickly became clear that what they'd presented didn't have any substance, or a lot of it didn't. The spectre of failing to get into NATO, which as you know is a very high priority, especially for the Romanians, but also for the Bulgarians and others, really forced everyone to come together. As you indicate, even though they had very diverse views on things, practically all of them wanted to become members of NATO, members of the EU. So these external pressures have really forced that kind of turnaround.

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. David Price): I guess that's what we need, external pressure.

    I want to thank you very much, Mr. Cohen, for coming and giving us this presentation and the discussion. It probably won't be the last time.

    Mr. Richard Cohen: I look forward to it.

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. David Price): Thank you.

    The meeting is adjourned.