Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Issue 14 - Evidence - Meeting of June 19, 2014
OTTAWA, Thursday, June 19, 2014
The Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade met this day, at 10:30 a.m., to study security conditions and economic developments in the Asia-Pacific region, the implications for Canadian policy and interests in the region, and other related matters.
Senator A. Raynell Andreychuk (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade is continuing its study on security conditions and economic developments in the Asia-Pacific region, the implications for Canadian policy and interests in the region, and other related matters.
I'm very pleased that this morning, representing NATO, we have before us Mr. James Appathurai, Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs and Security Policy and NATO Secretary General's Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia. He is joining us by video conference from Brussels.
There is a biography, but Mr. Appathurai is very well known to those of us who work in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, as he is a regular, updating us on NATO activity; and the secret weapon, as we call him, is that he is Canadian.
Welcome to Canada and welcome to the committee. I think you've been advised that we are studying Asia-Pacific and we're looking at both economic developments and security conditions and issues. NATO has obviously its own region to worry about, but there have been more and more relationships, both with the United Nations and other regional countries and security apparatus. From the NATO perspective, we'd like to know what your activity may be in Asia-Pacific or what your concerns are, and anything in between that you would want to talk about. Then, as usual, we love questions. We'll hear from you and then we have a list of questioners.
James Appathurai, Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs and Security Policy and NATO Secretary General's Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia: Senator and to all of you, thank you very much for the invitation. It's a pleasure to see you again.
You're right that I've had the pleasure of briefing the NATO Parliamentary Assembly when it comes to Brussels. I can say it's even more of a pleasure to see you now because it's always on a Sunday when you ask me to come and brief you in Brussels. So it's very nice to do it over a long distance on a weekday.
Let me see what I can do to nourish your deliberations when it comes to Asia-Pacific and offer a brief introduction about what NATO is doing in the region and what we're not doing, and touch on some of the issues that have been brought to our attention by our partners out there. Then I'll be very happy, of course, to take as many questions as you might have.
The first point I would like to make is that, just as the senator said, NATO is a Euro-Atlantic organization, and our centre of gravity remains the Atlantic and not the Pacific. The United States is pivoting to Asia, and we'd like them to pivot back a little bit to Europe as well. Anyway, they're pivoting to Asia and all the Allies support that. But you should not foresee a NATO pivot to Asia, to cut straight to the point. We have problems in our immediate neighbourhood. You're all very familiar with what's happening to the east and there are very substantial problems to the south, so I think the centre of gravity will remain where it is.
That being said, what happens in Asia matters to the security of the Allies. At the same time, a lot of our Asian partners have contributed to our common security. I'll start with Afghanistan, where they are all making a contribution. That was really the prism through which these relations have developed, in particular with four countries: Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Korea. The trigger was Afghanistan, but what we have come to realize is that we can have a much broader political and practical relationship. So we created relations with what we call "partners across the globe." That's our catchphrase. We institutionalized this "partners across the globe" set of relations in 2011.
These have two elements. There's high-level political dialogue, and that is to help us understand each other, but also — and I'll come to this in a little bit more detail — how they see security in their region. We have stepped up consultations with them in the past year or two to bring them to the NATO table so that all 28 Allies — including the Canadian ambassador, Yves Brodeur, who is a fantastic representative for Canada, a great ambassador, and I'm not paid by Canada, so this is honest testimony — get to hear their points of view, and I'll give you a few ideas of what they've conveyed to us. We do practical cooperation, and I'll touch on that, too.
On the political side, the Secretary-General has recently signed political declarations with the prime ministers of Australia and Japan during visits over the last couple of years, visited Seoul recently, and a few weeks ago, Prime Minister Abe was in Brussels to address the North Atlantic Council.
Now I will move to the practical side. We've also concluded what we call individual partnership and cooperation programs. These are focused programs of cooperation with five Asian countries — the four I mentioned, plus Mongolia. I had the pleasure of visiting Mongolia for my first time to negotiate that.
In these documents we agree on priorities for practical cooperation. We agree on shared values and principles for how we're going to take forward that cooperation. Then, when we've signed it, partners get access to the NATO partnership toolbox. We have about 1,200 different cooperation activities covering 37 areas of cooperation from arms control to crisis management, defence reform, logistics cooperation — I could go on and on — seminars, exercises, courses, NATO teams. We set priorities together and then work together to help them develop their defence capabilities.
Let me go into a little more detail about each country. First, with regard to the Republic of Korea, this all kicked off with then Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon who you all know in his current job. He came to the council and he kicked off relations. We then began annual policy consultations and we've now moved to cooperation in a number of areas. That includes non-proliferation — obviously an issue of real concern if you're in Korea — cyberdefence, which is an issue of concern for all of us; civil emergency planning, dealing with disasters; and counter-piracy. As a major shipping nation, you can imagine Korea is very interested in this. Finally, since 2010 Korea has been a major contributor to the ISAF mission in Afghanistan.
Japan is also a major contributor to our operation in Afghanistan. By the way, as I mentioned, it has been a catalyst for our relationship. Tokyo has contributed millions and millions to international efforts in Afghanistan when it comes to development assistance and supporting the Afghan police and security reform. That's how it started, but we're now expanding our cooperation with Japan on issues like disaster relief, maritime security, cyberdefence and something that Prime Minister Abe is very interested in, and that is what's called UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security. They want to engage much more closely with NATO on that, and we are doing that.
With New Zealand and Australia we've agreed on these individual cooperation programs and joint political declaration. As I mentioned, both countries contribute in Afghanistan and both are looking at ways to continue cooperation beyond Afghanistan. Of interest to them is counter-piracy, maritime security and emerging security challenges that include things that are cyber-related. Smart Defence is a code word we have for cooperative capability development, contributing to and developing with NATO capabilities that we more and more need to do together because it's hard to pay for them on our own. Those are the countries with which we have very structured relations.
But obviously there's one big dragon in the room, and that's China. We cannot ignore China, and China doesn't want to ignore us either, and that's for a number of reasons.
One, China is a permanent member of the Security Council. Everything NATO is doing today is under Security Council mandate. We need to have trust and understanding on the part of China when it comes to NATO.
Second, and this is what I hinted at before, China's activities in its region are of real concern to some of the parties with which NATO has now structured cooperation programs and political declarations, and with which we have political consultations.
So we do want, and have worked for years, to try and build better relations with China. I've been part of that process. What's quite clear is that China really doesn't understand NATO very well, but that doesn't put them in the minority because most of the world doesn't understand NATO very well. What they want from NATO is to understand each other better, to move slowly, step by step, as they say. A Chinese step can sometimes take quite a while, and we respect that.
What has happened recently over Libya has cast a certain chill over the relationship. They gave, through the Security Council, a mandate for the NATO operation to protect civilians in Libya. I'm not sure they were happy with the way it ended, just like the way the Russians were not happy with the way it ended. So we need to move again to build trust with them. The Kosovo experience, where their embassy was hit, also set us back. Things move slowly with China, but they do want to dialogue. We just had the Chinese ambassador here to meet the Secretary-General. Step by step, it's happening.
We don't have a regional policy. Canada has a policy towards Asia; the EU does and the U.S. does, but NATO doesn't. We deal with countries bilaterally. That being said, we attend all the regional conferences: Shangri-La, Jakarta International Defense Dialogue, the Seoul Defense Dialogue. We try to participate in the regional discussions.
What can we offer? First and foremost, most Asian countries would like more experience in multinational operations, and NATO is still the gold standard for that. They come to us to learn how to work with other countries in complex operations. That means training, radios that can talk to each other, computers they can plug into each other, units that can work together. Of course, for them it's very important that there's a UN Security Council platform; it's important to us, too. We can offer that. We can offer experience in education and training.
Another area I mentioned to you already is what we call Smart Defence, investing in mutually beneficial capability development. A couple of those countries are already participating with NATO countries in capability development.
I will just mention, so you're not concerned, that when we develop capabilities in NATO cooperatively, the philosophy is that we can pay for it and run it ourselves. If a non-NATO country wants to add on, that's fine, and they do, but we don't depend on any partner for our capability development projects.
Another area is political consultation. They want to come and use the platform of the 28 nations to share their concerns. Recently, Japan sent its National Security Advisor here, because as you're following Asian politics you know that Japan is in the process of reinterpreting its constitution to allow it to contribute to multinational operations and to defend not just itself but also troops from another country that might be next to them. It's no secret to anyone that they have concerns about China's behaviour in their neighbourhood. So they came to NATO to express their views, to explain their new interpretation of the constitution, and also to explain that they don't consider that anyone should be worried about this. Others have a different view.
Another area where we have something to do together is addressing global security challenges. Piracy and maritime security are obvious examples, and we have a NATO operation off the coast of Somalia. Many of these countries are also sending ships off the Somalia coast and there's a lot of cooperation going on there. As this problem spreads, right now to the Gulf of Guinea and elsewhere, it will be the case that we will be cooperating with them again. I believe that maritime security is going to be ever more prominent on our agenda. I can tell you that NATO, just today, has come to an agreement on implementing maritime security initiatives.
Another area is proliferation. Asia is very concerned about it. We have been not only providing a forum for discussion of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, but we also have some expertise in promoting and implementing arms control. Why? Because right across Europe, NATO has been at the centre of measures to promote transparency and confidence between former adversaries. We've done that through a number of mechanisms, and we still do it. It's not that easy right now with the Russians, but for the rest of us, we still do it. That includes having inspections, setting limits on movement of treaty-limited equipment. So there's a lot we can offer in terms of mechanisms and procedures that we have that might be very relevant in Asia. Korea in particular is interested in exploring the NATO experience.
I've spoken a little longer than I intended to, but this is an overview of how we're engaging with our Asia-Pacific partners and how they're engaging with us.
The Chair: You've certainly touched the areas that we were interested in. I do have a list of senators who want to ask questions.
Senator Downe: That's all very interesting, but I'm concerned. It sounds like bureaucratic empire building, that NATO has a mandate and now are they trying to replace the UN? Why are they not focused on their mandate and why this massive expansion?
Mr. Appathurai: Thank you, senator. I keep a little list of expressions in a book of things that mean the opposite of what the actual words say. Whenever I hear, "That was very interesting," I know I should add it.
Senator Downe: We say in politics that everything before "but" is questionable.
Mr. Appathurai: When I used to be the spokesman, the Secretary-General instructed me never to answer a question that began with "if," which was also very useful.
Senator, you ask a very good question. I can tell you the Allies themselves are, first, very attached to the UN and its leading role in international peace security and, second, not letting NATO, let's say, get too big for its britches. We have real resource constraints, so we have to prioritize what we do. We can't do everything and be everywhere. This is within NATO's mandate.
I'll draw your attention to what we call the strategic concept. It's five years old now, but it's basically the capstone mandate-defining document, which of course Canada signed up to. It has three core tasks for NATO. One is collective defence. As you can imagine, that's getting a little more prominence these days than it did even six months ago.
Second is crisis management, basically Afghanistan and our other operations. The third was cooperative security. That was very explicitly a recognition that NATO's security challenges and the challenges that Allies face as individuals don't just begin and end at our borders. We have to reach out to understand problems and try to deal with them in a community. But here I come back to where I started at the very beginning: Our centre of gravity is still here. Reaching out to these countries is important, but it's not equally active compared to collective defence or crisis management. These activities take up more of our time.
Senator Downe: I could understand this interest in other parts of world if NATO was working as well as it should. I know many Canadians were disappointed in Afghanistan, where if one member was attacked, all were attacked; and we agreed to assist. Then we turned around and in the eyes of many Canadians there was a host of countries who, and I'm being flippant here, wouldn't go out after dark or go into certain areas. Take away Canada, the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and the United Kingdom. It was very disturbing to see other NATO members put conditions on their involvement. Given the internal problems in NATO, why are resources being expended around the world when we have other international agencies to do that? I'm just not clear about that.
Mr. Appathurai: We all share the concern about the efficiency of the Afghanistan operation. We worked very hard to reduce these caveats, as we call them, these restrictions. To a large extent, that was successful. It wasn't fully successful, but overall — and we can discuss the details of it if you want — I think the sense in this headquarters anyway is that pretty much all the Allies pulled their weight. Sometimes their weight was small, but they are small. We would have asked more, and we did. The list of restrictions over the years of the International Security Assistance Force mission went down and down and down because we kept pushing and pushing and pushing them down. So we made progress there.
I would say, just to close on Afghanistan, that it's important to look at the big picture: We sustained this operation and have continued to sustain it for so many years in such a difficult environment. Look at the results. These recent elections have been secured by the Afghan forces. Because of all the training and investment we've put into them and despite all the attempts by the Taliban to disrupt them, and there were many attempts in the second round, they're doing okay. I think we can be satisfied with that overall, despite all the very legitimate concerns that you raised.
I come to the second part of what you raised. If we want to be in this circus, we need to be able to ride more than one horse at one time. Afghanistan showed us exactly that we can't just ensure our security here by sticking to the 28. We needed those partners that I mentioned: Australia, a hard fighting nation; New Zealand, a hard fighting nation; Japan with billions of dollars in support of our reconstruction teams and the police; Korea as well sent smaller numbers of troops; and now Mongolia has sent personnel as well to Afghanistan. In fact, Afghanistan was the proof of the value of reaching out to these countries because they made a direct contribution to what we wanted them to do.
Senator Downe: Those four you mentioned, with the exception of Mongolia, are traditional allies. If a war broke out today, we would count on Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea, as they would count on us, because of their history and they are pro-Western.
The question I have is that we seem to have significant problems in NATO. We have a two-tiered NATO. We have the A team of NATO and the B team. If there is another conflict somewhere in the world and NATO decides collectively that one member was attacked, therefore we're all attacked and we're all going in, and Canada, the U.K., the Americans and a few other countries turn around and there's almost nobody behind us, that calls into question the NATO organization. In my mind this leaves the question of why NATO is not concentrating on internal NATO problems. Again, back to my original comment, it appears that you're doing things other international organizations are doing and I question why, other than the four traditional allies.
Mr. Appathurai: Just two sentences. First, you're right that these countries are basically traditional allies for Canada and for a number of nations, but I would say that for many of the NATO allies they haven't been. So the NATO platform allows them to also engage with those countries. We have to think about all 28.
Second, these countries are looking for cooperation with NATO. We're not going out to seek them; they have come to us. We are answering their legitimate concerns as well.
If you want to talk internal NATO problems and how to fix them, I'm your man, but I think there are more questions.
[Translation]
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Mr. Appathurai, we are very fortunate to have you as a witness today. Since the Berlin Wall came down, the Atlantic Alliance has undergone a transformation, admitting new members and adopting new strategic concepts, while conducting out-of-area operations.
In 2013, NATO signed an individual partnership and cooperation program with Australia. You talked about it. Can you elaborate on the scope of that program? What are the main differences between it and NATO's other cooperation programs, like Partnership for Peace?
Mr. Appathurai: As far as my appearing before the committee is concerned, I want you to know that the good fortune is all mine. Thank you.
You have clearly done your homework and are quite knowledgeable. Partnership for Peace is a framework of cooperation with all European countries, as well as countries in the Caucasus region and Central Asia. The framework extends to some 50 nations, both within and out of Europe, with which we maintain bilateral and political relationships.
Our cooperation programs with those countries, Australia and others are individual programs but are more or less similar. The channels of cooperation Australia is interested in pursuing, for instance, are quite different from those of Austria, which is not surrounded by ocean, situated close to China or have a need to work with us on long-distance force projection. Those challenges are specific to Australia.
In addition, we have quite an advanced level of cooperation with Australia. Its military forces are highly sophisticated and they work closely with Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. The country is quite integrated, from an intelligence perspective and otherwise.
Conversely, through Partnership for Peace, we have cooperation programs with Armenia, for one. It receives a lot more from NATO given that it is less advanced and less integrated. It is not interested in targeting as great of a distance.
It is different for every country. The same tools are available to everyone, but each one chooses the tools suited to their circumstances.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Is NATO considering signing other agreements with countries in the Asia-Pacific region, in addition to Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea? Are you interested in the other countries in the region? Are you aware of any possibilities that we are not, as far as Asia-Pacific goes? Do you have your sights on any other countries?
Mr. Appathurai: To be frank with you, no. We are not keeping any secrets from you or any of our member countries. In reference to what the senator before you said, it is a matter of resources, frankly speaking.
Within the organization, proposals have been made with respect to taking things further and establishing more formal ties with Indonesia and others in the region. Make no mistake, we have nothing against Indonesia, but I would say we have stretched our resources as far as they will go.
In my view, we have more or less pushed our resources to the limit. We would need additional resources to pursue proposals for further ties with other countries in the region. NATO, like the public service, for that matter, has faced cutbacks. We are doing everything we can with the resources we have; we cannot stretch them any further. We have priorities here, in Europe and North America. I do not see any new partnerships in the region on the horizon.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Thank you kindly, Mr. Appathurai.
[English]
Senator Jaffer: Thank you for your presentation. I found it very interesting. I was particularly pleased that you mentioned Resolution 1325. I would like you to expand on what you see the role of NATO to be not just with Resolution 1325 but also to include women in the work you do, women that are part of your force and decision making. For example, when you were in Afghanistan, what did NATO do to empower women? I don't want you to go through all programs you did in Afghanistan. I just mean the policies.
Mr. Appathurai: This is a real priority for NATO because this resolution — women, peace and security — is not abstract for us because we do security and we do peace. We are convinced that there is a practical benefit to this, not simply because it's the right thing to do but because it actually helps to deliver peace and security, so we have mainstreamed this throughout the organization.
What does that mean? It means there is a policy for training NATO personnel to be conscious of this issue when they deploy into the field. We deploy gender advisers throughout our operation in Afghanistan. We deploy female military personnel trained to be able to work with female Afghans because, of course, for cultural reasons, it's difficult for them to engage directly with males. This has been mainstreamed throughout training.
We offer the same training to our partners. When they come to NATO, we make valuable to them all the programs that I mentioned. We have set up a centre of excellence. Norway has set up a centre of excellence now, NATO's centre of excellence, where this training and advice can be provided. They are taking a lead role on this.
We, by which I mean the Secretary-General, have achieved agreement by the allies that we will now set up a special representative on a full-time basis at a high level for Resolution 1325 within NATO. This will be a permanent member of the structure at a senior level to not just represent NATO but promote this.
The final point I would make is that the Secretary-General and all of us work hard to make the point that women should be also part of the political process and the political solution, so when he participates or when we participate at a lower level in the conferences that are designed to lead to solutions to ongoing crises, we make the point and try to insist that women should be brought to the table for the solution as well. I can tell you I did that with regard to Libya, where I had engagement at my own level, but he does it at his level as well.
You can be, or at least I can be, confident that not only is this really part of our daily life but it's at all levels. You'll see at the NATO summit that we will nominate and bring in front of the media our new permanent special representative on this issue.
Senator Jaffer: I'm actually very happy to hear what you said. We've certainly made progress. You and I both know that when we talk about Resolution 1325, we're not talking about just Resolution 1325 but we're talking about all the other resolutions that are part of the package. But we will just do the shortcut by saying Resolution 1325.
How many hours of training do you do? As Canada is part of NATO, it's very important that we do not forget women. I'm pleased with what you said.
The other thing is that we all talk the talk, but my greatest frustration is that in the Syrian peace process the women are not included. We have a long way to go.
Mr. Appathurai: I have to be honest with you. I don't know the number of hours that are provided; excuse me for that. I know that it is integrated into all pre-deployment training, so I could certainly get you the answer.
Yes, the Syrian peace process, that's already three words that, unfortunately, don't go that well together. There isn't much of one. It is the case, if we speak frankly, that in many parts of the world it's difficult to convince those who have been combatants to include women in a decision-making grouping when the peace conference comes. The guys with the guns are the ones who show up at the table, and it's guys with guns. It's a real uphill battle. I don't mean it was any different in Bosnia than in Syria. It was the same thing in Bosnia. It is the people with the guns that end up doing the deal.
Senator Jaffer: I hear you very clearly about the guys with the guns, but when I was involved in the Sri Lankan peace process, I found with the LTTE that the women were combatants as well, so I want you to expand. These days, women are also combatants and you need to push the guys who are holding power to bring the women combatants to the table as well.
Senator D. Smith: With regard to NATO overall, I would invite your thoughts on the current crisis situation in Iraq and the prospect of dialogue between the U.S. and other NATO countries with Iran. Is there any opportunity to build a little bridge? I emphasize it would be pretty little, but maybe a little bridge between the U.S. and other NATO countries with Iran, and then contrast that with Tony Blair's recent comments that the current crisis in Iraq was caused because Western countries, including NATO members, didn't go into Syria. Does the current Iraq crisis represent a door opener of any type for NATO countries on any front?
Mr. Appathurai: Let me take a step back away from what is clearly thin ice for a civil servant.
I went to Iraq many times because NATO has had, until recently, a training mission there. I set it up and then I closed it down when it had come to the end of its time. I met frequently with the Iraqi foreign minister. He told me, and then he came here and told the whole NATO council, that the war in Syria — this was a couple of years ago — had every risk of putting unbearable pressure on his country, and that we as an international community needed to do everything possible to stop this before it risked breaking up Iraq. He was, obviously, not wrong.
I don't know about the possible dialogue with Iran, and you can understand that this is a highly sensitive issue for the Americans and the American public. I might add it goes well beyond the NATO mandate, but I do share — leaving aside all other discussions of the origins of this problem and the criticism of Tony Blair, with which you are very familiar in the British media these days for that comment — it is absolutely clear that what has happened in Syria is creating massive security problems across the region, directly affecting Iraq now but also Turkey and Jordan. Jordan has, I think, 1.3 million refugees that it is trying to take care of, only 15 per cent of whom are in refugee camps and all the rest of whom are living in the houses of Jordanians who opened their doors to them. This is a country that is very poor and therefore could face its own pressures. There is also Lebanon, and I could go on and on.
The Syria conflict is a ticking time bomb, but it's already going off, creating problems throughout the region. NATO has shipped Patriot missile batteries to Turkey when it looked like Syria was going to try to push the problem into Turkey. We stopped that. Now at the Turkish border they take refugees, but they don't fear any spillover. But NATO's border stops there. We have no mandate and no interest amongst the allies, to be very frank, in going into Iraq; and no mandate, no regional support and no consensus about going into Syria. Nor, for that matter, could I personally see a clear military solution from the outside to what's going on in Syria.
I didn't give you any good answers but I don't know that there are really any.
Senator D. Smith: I think you gave us a good analysis and I am simpatico with your thoughts.
Senator Beyak: Thank you very much for an excellent presentation. This is a different topic and I wonder if you could elaborate for me.
You mentioned that your focus will stay on Europe and the problems to the east and to the south, but you also touched on Somalia and maritime piracy. Have you contemplated going into the Asia-Pacific region or, if you're already there, could you tell us more about what you're doing?
Mr. Appathurai: Do you mean going into the Asia-Pacific region militarily?
Senator Beyak: Combatting piracy there with your partners in the region.
Mr. Appathurai: I think the short answer to that right now is no. I don't see any desire to use NATO as a framework for addressing piracy, for example, in the Malacca Strait or any areas like that, so it's a problem, undeniably.
The maritime strategy that I mentioned to you earlier is in the process of being approved and defined, so I can't exclude that something might happen in the future. Right now, I think Somalia is about the extent of what we can do — or be asked to do. That's the second point: There's no request from our Asian partners to send any NATO ships out there. This is done bilaterally. I know many NATO countries do it on an individual basis, but the NATO platform has not been requested.
Senator Ataullahjan: I want to move away from the current questions and ask about what you do in regards to cybercrime, cyberattacks and espionage amongst other things. What are the biggest threats you are facing? Are you adequately prepared?
Mr. Appathurai: I can answer the last question first. No, we are not adequately prepared — but you expected that. There was panic today amongst the younger staff when Facebook went off-line for 15 minutes. This was the main topic of discussion in this headquarters. It was like the sky was falling, but they seem to have recovered now from this slight power outage.
This has been a complicated discussion in NATO. Everything is complicated here, but this one is complicated because cyberdefence is something which crosses many lines. One line it crosses is between private companies and governments and militaries. Effective cyberdefence requires very close public-private collaboration. That's complicated for NATO to do because we haven't really done that sort of thing.
Second, it is very much something in the hands of national governments. They guard that jealously; they want to defend themselves.
The third aspect of this, which is related to the second, is they are concerned that when they plug into somebody else's system, even for defensive purposes, you might get more defence but you might get more vulnerability, too, because if the other guy's wall isn't good, then the bad guy gets in through their wall. You just plugged into their electricity system and now you're connected too. We're working through all those issues.
What have we done? We have agreed to a cyberpolicy and taken steps to implement it. It has a couple of elements. One is the intellectual element. That is, we have finally come to the agreement that cyberdefence is a part of collective defence. That's a big intellectual move for us. It's because people really understand now that a cyberattack can reach a level that poses fundamental security challenges to a country. Estonia saw that a little bit a few years ago when its banking system went down and all the government functioning went down because it came under attack from a source, which many think was the Russians. They have made their systems more robust. It can reach that level, and now we understand that cyberdefence can be part of collective defence.
The thing we have done is to make much more robust NATO systems. At least the first thing we did was make sure the NATO systems are secure. Second, we set up a centre of excellence, again now on cyber, which offers the latest techniques to all allies and partners. We're working on setting up support to allies, if they wish it, so if they come under a cyberattack that surpasses their ability to defend themselves, we'll be able to send support. We did that for Estonia; we send experts in. It turned out the Estonians were as good as our experts, but we're now enhancing that capacity as well.
The last issue I would mention, because it's the newest, is this conception of what many people are calling hybrid warfare. It's basically what you are seeing the Russians do to the Ukrainians; that is, a full spectrum attack with lots of ambiguity, some use of conventional forces, information operations, energy cut-offs but also a cyberattack, and many other elements, all used in a sort of ambiguous and just-below-the-threshold way. The use of cyberattack in this hybrid model — and it's not the first time it has been used but it's the most obvious sign — is something that we're looking at very closely. It is being examined by our military authorities as well, and it will be examined by our political authorities as part of our overall analysis in response to this hybrid model.
[Translation]
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: I am inclined to ask you about what you are most knowledgeable about since it is your area of responsibility. You are well aware of the situation in the Balkans. NATO is currently carrying out military exercises in Poland and the Baltic States. There is no question that our allies in the region troubled by Russia's actions in the Ukraine find those exercises reassuring. They also make an excellent deterrent.
My first question is this. Do you not think the exercises should have begun sooner? And second, does NATO plan to keep units in the country once the exercises are done?
Mr. Appathurai: Those are some excellent political questions. It is clear you are a politician. Should those actions have started earlier? We have always carried out exercises in those countries, but they may not have been as sizeable or as frequent. What you are going to see now is the frequency and scope of those exercises being ramped up on a fairly regular basis. In other words, they will continue as long as necessary. That is the line the Secretary General uses over and over again, so as not to call them temporary or permanent. Everyone agrees with that principle. We have implemented an exercise program called the Connected Forces Initiative. It is a program that will be put in place in every NATO country, including the Baltic States and the countries in Central and Eastern Europe. We are disturbed by the events in the Ukraine and those that occurred in Georgia. Russia is also exerting military pressure on Moldavia. We are talking about a Russian presence in countries who do not want those troops on their soil.
I should also point out that Russia is carrying out what we call snap exercises along the NATO border — although they are within Russia's borders, they are along NATO's border. And those are quite worrisome. We are in the midst of developing something called a Readiness Action Plan. We are currently defining what the plan will entail, but essentially what you will see is a larger rotating presence by NATO, in addition to more exercises and more infrastructure, minimal though it may be, so that NATO can strengthen its presence in those countries, as necessary.
We do not foresee an imminent attack from the Russians. NATO has the capacity to deal with one, but we need to bolster confidence, ramp up exercises and, if necessary, get our equipment in position ahead of time to make sure we can strengthen our presence if we need to.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Thank you very much, Mr. Appathurai.
[English]
The Chair: I just have one question, back to Asia-Pacific, because that's what we're studying. If I understand you, and you've made it quite clear, NATO is not expanding in any way other than through cooperation that is requested into Asia-Pacific. Before your testimony I understood that to be the case.
But there are two messages you've given. One is that some of these countries have reached out to NATO for cooperation on their issues or on international issues. You've also made the point that the shift seems to be to issues that are no longer just regional, and you've mentioned cyberspace, so that it's going to take a response beyond our normal regional geographic base. I say this because I know my colleague questioned NATO moving out too far. Is the response that we have new international threats, and they're not necessarily United Nations' responses but the United Nations using regional defence mechanisms? For example, I'm aware of the African Union building up its resources for Africa. I know ECOWAS is talking about a regional military base for their countries, but all of these are looking for international cooperation on more international issues. So is that the trend for NATO into any involvement, whether it be Asia-Pacific or beyond its borders into Africa or Latin America?
Mr. Appathurai: Thank you for that. I would say a couple of things in response. One is you're quite right that they reach out to us.
I can tell you, speaking openly, that a country like Australia is now telling us, "Look, we had good cooperation with you and regular political consultation with you around Afghanistan, and now the ISAF mission is going to go away and we don't want to lose that." So they are pressing us very hard for regular political consultations, for practical cooperation, and they don't want it to wither away when the ISAF mission comes to an end. This is very much individualized but demand driven. We're not going to them; they're coming to us, but I have to say we're very open to cooperation with them. That is very much our analysis
My second point is that NATO is about defending Allies and Allied security. We firmly believe that in the 21st century sometimes you can only defend Allied security, and even Allied borders, by going beyond those borders and dealing with the problems where they are or dealing with them with others who can add to dealing with these transnational security threats.
We don't think it goes away from our core business to look more widely than we had to in the Cold War. Those were the old days. Now we have multinational threats and we need multinational responses, but always with the focus of the security of Allies. That's our business, and it's absolutely not in competition with the UN.
Again, senator, you know NATO very well, so I have nothing to tell you really, but the UN does look to us for very close cooperation, and that's getting closer. For example, on Somalia, we are training their personnel before they go out to Somalia to deal with improvised explosive devices. They've asked us for airlift; we provided it. They asked us for sealift; we provided it to the African Union on request of the UN. We have personnel in the African Union headquarters helping them to do their work to provide the classic African solutions to African problems, but that's how you do it. You provide seed money or seed expertise to help them provide for their own security.
We think this is in our interest because, if we don't do it, we get, here in Europe or over in North America, all the problems that blow out of those regions. Even in a resource-constrained environment we do believe that what we are doing with our Asia-Pacific partners contributes to Allied security, and that includes, of course, the Canadian security.
The Chair: I have a final question. You talked about opportunities and threats. I know that in the internal discussions at NATO there is a concern about the downsizing of military capability. Budgets are being deflected because of the European crisis and other reasons. Military defence budgets are going down but for two countries, I think. Yet in Asia-Pacific we see an acceleration of budget increases by various countries and notably one large country. Is that something you track and are concerned about?
Mr. Appathurai: You can be sure we track it. To be very open with you, I think the number that concerns us most is probably the Russian number. That probably focuses the minds best. Russia has increased its defence budget by 50 per cent in the last six years and, to give you another number, is investing $700 billion in military modernization in the next six years, which is a different trend line than the one you mentioned, which is quite accurate.
Yes, Asia's increase in defence spending, we track it. Frankly, it's a concern, not necessarily directly to our territory, but it is an indicator in the context of the increasingly difficult relations between, in particular, China, Japan, Korea, but you could add the Philippines and others. When you see defence budgets going up and rhetoric going up and facts on the grounds getting more complicated, it is of real concern to everybody, including our Asian partners who watch this with some concern.
All of this, but principally what I mentioned first, the European security situation, is what is driving a very strong push to stop the fall in defence budgets. We thought we had that luxury over the last 15 years. It looks like we didn't, so the Secretary-General is pushing very hard on all Allies to stop the fall and to get them back up.
The good news is European economies are recovering, like the United States economy is recovering, and Canada has a strong economy. So actually there is hope for these budgets to go back up. I can tell you that two or three countries just in the last two or three months have announced that they are going back to the 2 per cent GDP number, which they had abandoned. We expect that number to grow, so I think there will be good news on that front.
The Chair: I think we'll leave it at that. Thank you very much. You've covered much more ground than we had asked you to cover. As you can see, the interest was not only in any new activity by NATO and understanding that activity in Asia-Pacific but also questions about NATO itself and its other operations. You've been an excellent representative for NATO and Canada. Thank you for being with us long distance.
(The committee adjourned.)