 There we go. I'm a believer in the statement that power corrupts and powerpoint corrupts absolutely. So I'm not going to give you very many of these points, but this is sort of an encapsulation in four bullets of the contents of the book. In the 1970s Ken Booth wrote a book called Navies and Foreign Policy in which he said that only the greatest navies have important foreign policy implications. Well my point is that that's not true, that the importance it depends on the scale of your interaction and the circumstances. It can be very important and you're always talking about the margin. So he was mistaken in that. That's my thesis. The Royal Canadian Navy over a hundred years has employed naval forces in what James Cable, I should call him Sir James Cable, labeled as definitive roles in order to achieve purposeful objectives. Now I'll be going on more telling you more about or explaining that in the course of my lecture. Now the area in which Canada had most need for purposeful achievements in the Ken Booth terminology was in the management of the relationship with the United States. There's been the central concern which has led to the creation of the Canadian Navy and the Canadian Navy has been involved in that relationship ever since but in the last half century the relationship has been more one of partnership than anything else. The means, the definitive means has changed over the hundred years. The purposeful objective stays remarkably similar. So in the context of managing that relationship Canada's naval strategy has of alliancemanship which is a term that was used by a Sutherland Canadian defense scientist in the 1960s alliancemanship. The management of a relationship has characters which are shared by other lesser naval powers. By lesser I include Britain, France, all these nations which are somehow using their facilities and their their relationships to manage what might be a problem if they didn't do it. Okay now let me get my last page up. I haven't managed to get there yet. The computer is wonderful. There we go. This is this book that I'm talking about today is the final capstone product of work that I began in the in the 1960s actually largely dealing with aspects of the way in which Navy's influence are used to influence foreign relations. The first book which was my doctoral thesis, Navy's deterrence and American independence was a study of British defense policy in the 1760s and 1770s and described a system of deterrence by which Britain attempted to ensure that the victories they had achieved in the seven years war were not reversed during the period of peace. And this worked very well until you Americans missed everything up and the Battle of Bunker Hill had such a psychologically impact in London that they dropped the ball. They forgot that their main job was to keep the French honest and they began to focus on the minor issue which was unhappiness of the colonies and this mix up gave the American Civil War which it was a distinct shift. So that's where I started and although that was in the context Britain was a great power and using its forces in a way which Canada doesn't, nonetheless there is commonality in the way of all nations use their resources particularly in peacetime to manage their circumstances. I then moved on to focus for a decade on the strategy of attack on maritime trade and wrote a book on that. The strategy, I'm not going to go into it, but it shifted from the mercantilist period where the objective was to get rich to the post American Civil War period when the objective was to make your enemy poor and the earlier form actually worked rather better than the second form as was found out by the Germans in two world wars. Further work on the Canadian defense history, publication of two monographs, proactive sanctions that was focusing derivative from the attack on maritime trade. It was focusing on the nonviolent use of trade controls but it was is one of a particular importance considering the extent to which the Canadian Navy has been involved in sanctions enforcement as part of its way of managing its security environment. And the second monograph is a precursor of the present book Canada's naval strategy rooted in experience and that was a monograph length effort. There are a couple of document collections for the Navy Record Society, the first of being most important, the collective naval defense of the Empire about essentially the development of a context, a concept of cooperative naval effort by sovereign states. The Empire was of course not initially fully sovereign, it was autonomous states but Canada and Australia both felt they had need for navies and to do so they had to develop sort of constitutional fix that would allow for an entity, the Empire, which had a common foreign policy to nonetheless allow autonomous sections of the Empire to operate independently on the high seas and it was it was a naughty issue because clearly as one of the first Lords of the Admiralty put it wars occur because of things that happen in peacetime and if you let an autonomous section of the Empire parade around the seas doing things that cause trouble then everybody's going to be in trouble. However the response by the colonies eventually was like we're grown-ups we're not going to be stupid and that's essentially the decision that was made and that's all the first decade of Canadian naval history involved in working on that issue and that's all these precursors have contributed to the present book so if I can make, I hate these things, if I can make us get back to, well that's nice we'll just go back to the cover and then we'll be then we'll be able to get underway. Right now I'm entitling this book launch lecture as Canada's naval strategy the strategy of a client state. The journalist is expected to answer for his or her readers the five questions who, where, how, why and when. Canadian naval scholarship has exhaustively answered three of those questions but the question of why Canada needs a navy and how it uses it to protect Canadian interests have not been so easy to settle. At the time of the formation in 1910 of the Royal Canadian Navy Frederick Monk, a Conservative Member of Parliament and former Minister of Fisheries condemned the idea of, in his words, a navy which would be Canadian when it has to be paid for in order to be imperial when it is required for use. This Canadian concern about the paradox of constructing a national force to serve national purposes by participating in multilateral strategies is enduring. In September of 1963 the Chief of Operational Research for the Royal Canadian, for the Canadian Armed Forces Dr. Robert Sutherland wrote in a confidential report. It would be highly advantageous to discover a strategic rationale which would impart to Canadian defence programs a holy Canadian character. Unfortunately, he continued, such a rationale does not exist and one cannot be invented. This is sometimes taken to mean that Canada has no strategic objectives beyond recognition that Canada's place in the world is fundamentally tied to our international partnerships. But when Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau asked the rhetorical question in 1969 where the Canada's defence policy was more to impress our friends than frighten our enemies, he was posing a false dichotomy. The Canadian diplomat John Holmes was certainly correct when he wrote in 1981 that alliancemanship is not enough. Alliancemanship, however, is part of the equation which constitute what might be thought of as Canada's way of defence. We shall, he continued, have to develop muscles, our bargaining power, our capacities to use prudently what we have to offer and to increase where we can American dependence on us. The art of alliancemanship is what we shall need most. Sutherland himself had employed the word, writing that no nation is so much dependent upon the art and science of alliancemanship. Prime Minister Sir Wilfred Laurier's decision in 1910 that Canada should establish its own navy, followed in the wake of Kaiser Wilhelm II's 1897 commission to Grand Admiral Terpitz to construct a high seas fleet of 41 battleships. Terpitz's declared strategic objective was to create a risk fleet that Britain could only defeat with losses to its own battle fleet that would inevitably leave it vulnerable to a coalition of France and Russia. Canadians had such close family and business ties with the Imperial mother country that any threat to its security was of immediate consequence to Canadians. And Canadian maritime interests would be at risk where the Imperial Navy to be defeated. But the German threat was only the last straw that led to Laurier's decision. It was not the fundamental reason. The main reason Laurier decided to establish a national navy, despite the practical advantages of contributing to the Royal Navy, which had supported Canadian independence for 200 years, was the growth of the United States Navy and the truckulent attitude of the American government to Canadian autonomy within the British Empire. The 1895 Venezuelan boundary dispute in which British interests had been opposed by the United States had raised a specter in Ontario of the United States invading Canada to punish Britain and had forced Laurier to consider the need for a local naval defense on the lakes. At the 1897 Colonial Conference Laurier echoing an earlier statement by Sir John A. MacDonald asserting that any differences with the United States were family troubles, which mean nothing very serious. And reportedly he told General Douglas Cochran, Earl of Dunn-Donald arriving in Canada in 1902 to take charge of the militia. The Canada was quite comfortable relying upon the Monroe Doctrine for her defense, but the reality was somewhat different. The United States demonstrated its new naval power in the Spanish-American War. The spoils of war included the American establishment, acquisition of the Philippines and Guam, the establishment of naval bases on Puerto Rico, Cuba, Guam and at Subic Bay and the annexation of independent Hawaii. Vancouver wondered whether it might be the next to experience American naval power. In 1902 President Theodore Roosevelt made it clear that Canadian interests in the outcome of the Alaska boundary dispute were hostages to British good behavior in the Venezuelan debt crisis. And the 1903 Alaska boundary arbitration largely ignored Canadian claims. The following year Roosevelt issued a corollary to the Monroe Doctrine proclaiming that the United States as a civilized nation would serve as the international police force in the Americas. The world crews of the U.S. Navy's Great White Fleet in 1907 heightened concern about the undefended nature of the Canadian Pacific Coast. Laurier's deputy minister of labor William Lyon Mackenzie King, the future prime minister, noted in his diary that he was opposed to Roosevelt's suggestion that the American Fleet should visit Vancouver. He did not think it, he wrote, desirable that we should encourage a sentiment of dependence on the United States or to strengthen the annexationist feeling in the West. If there is to be any fleet in our waters we would prefer to have the British fleet. The situation he added reveals to me the necessity of our doing something in the way of having a Navy of our own. And I should remind you that Mackenzie King initially was closely involved in the American, in American commerce. He was very comfortable with the American relationship but he was also a Canadian statesman. This perception was shared by the conservative former minister of marine and fisheries, Georgie Foster. When in 1909 he started the parliamentary process that led to the formation of the Royal Canadian Navy, Foster made it clear that the Canadian, that Canadian relations with the United States was central to his line of thought. Mr. Speaker, the Monroe Doctrine and the United States of America might guarantee our safety from foreign invasion but the price you would have to pay would be continual demand, continual concession, until at last absorption finished the Craven course. Only with the advantage of a century of hindsight is there anything surprising about a nation creating an armed force to meet a threat from a neighbor. But the disparity between Canadian and American economic resources even in 1910 was such that it was and is puzzling to answer the question of how a Canadian Navy could ever serve its intended purpose. Boldly stated, Canada needed to have its own Navy simply because it was this distinct national force that could act in local matters without involving the Royal Navy in a confrontation with the United States. That national Navy was so small however it could only do its task if it were closely partnered with the Royal Navy and at first a close partnership was also inevitable for constitutional reasons. Strategic reasons also required a close partnership because in the lingo of the time the sea is one. Naval strategy was framed around the conviction that wars are won or lost according to the success which dispersed resources could be concentrated for a decisive battle. Now no one in Canada was entirely happy with this reality. The conservative Frederick Monk was joined by the ultra-nationalist Henri Borassa in objecting that the Liberals were in fact creating a rod for their own backs whatever their intentions. Borassa who had left the Liberal Party at the time of the South African War and was now the leader of the Nationalist Party objected that if Canada constructed a Navy of value to the Empire it would be impossible for Canadians to resist the request for military assistance even if they disagreed with Britain's policy at the time. On that platform the Nationalists defeated the Liberals in Quebec and the argument has resonated in Canadians just to debate over the rest of the 20th century and into the 21st. In looking for answers to the question of how a Canadian Navy could address the paradox it is useful to look at the seminal study of gunboat diplomacy by Sir James Cable published in 1971. Cable created a taxonomy of the mechanism by which naval force may be applied to national objectives. His focus is on circumstances short of war but the same concepts are no less applicable in all military action. Canada labeled the direct application of sort of cable labeled the direct application of force as definitive force and gave the name purpose of purposeful force to military action that persuades the foreign government to change its policies. To quote him in its purposeful application force does not itself do anything it induces somebody else to take a decision which would not otherwise have been taken but labels can be procrastin. The creation and employment of the Canadian Navy has served and still serves a purposeful role vis-à-vis Canada's American neighbor but it has done so by undertaking definitive roles of collective defense. In two world wars the Royal Canadian Navy undertook definitive force to support the ability of the Empire and Commonwealth with its allies to protect the shipping upon which depended every aspect of defense and ultimately counterattack. This operational purpose rolled together the primary and secondary functions of seapower defense against assault and defensive trade and the definitive actions of the Canadian Navy also served the secondary and purpose of function of supporting recognition of Canada's autonomous character. The part Canada played in the first world war mostly on land and in France but also at sea was indeed to establish Canada's full sovereignty within the Commonwealth made explicit by the Bollford Declaration of 1926 Imperial Conference but it was one thing to persuade London and another to persuade Washington. Washington only reluctantly recognized Canada's right to send a delegation to the Geneva Disarmament Conference in 1927. In the interwar period the need to reassure Washington that Canada could defend its neutrality in the event of a war between Japan and the United States was the primary operational task of the Royal Canadian Navy one that required both an independent ability and partnership with Imperial forces. The transformation of the United States into a champion of democracy during the Second World War and guarantor of Canadian security was a vital importance but it was also recognized even before the United States became a belligerent that American support came at a price which can only be managed if Canada were able to provide a significant defense of our own territory and seas. The role of the Canadian armed forces in this relationship had been restated by the Canadian military historian Colonel CP Stacey in an academic paper in November of 1938. Canada he wrote no longer arms against the United States but the proximity of that great republic still profoundly affects her military position. If in a crisis Canada is obliged to beg help from the United States she must also accept whatever policies the United States may choose to dictate. The conclusion of an influential group of 20 Canadians who met at the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa in July of 1940 when Canada was at war but the United States was still neutral was that cooperation with Washington is going to be either voluntary on Canada's part or else compulsory. In any event it is inevitable as the US would have to provide the heavy naval support in the event of British defeat Canada they believed needed to put in place local and harbor defenses and coastal forces. The Canadian government of McKenzie King saw continental defense as inevitable subordination to a new Imperium but did what it could to leverage that support provided by the United States into effective support for Britain. Canada having moved from autonomy to sovereignty nonetheless continued to regard the strategic support of Britain as essential and did what she could to ensure that it survived. During the war Canadians gave to Britain five times as much per capita as Americans lent Britain under Len Lease and Washington only commenced Len Lease after Britain had exhausted all its financial reserves and sold all its American holdings. A Canadian objective was somewhat different. Now the Canadian Navy during the Second World War did more in fact than local defense carrying the war to the enemy across the Atlantic. It participated in the direct defense of the British Isles against invasion and supported the return of Allied forces to European soil through a massive effort to escort merchant ships across the Atlantic in the face of German submarine attacks. The Canadian fleet expanded from a force in 1939 of six destroyers with a seventh joining to a peak of over 365 ships by the spring of 1945. More Canadian warships took part in Operation Neptune bringing the forces ashore in France than did Americans that's in numbers not in sizes with some 10,000 Canadian sailors. Canadian coastal forces and minesweepers helped the Royal Navy clear paths to the beaches. Canadian Corvettes hunted submarines and Canadian destroyers engaged German destroyers and bombarded gun placements. Britain's financial exhaustion at the end of the war and America's wealth made inevitable a reorientation of Canadian interests when it became apparent that the Soviet Union was determined to expand its control in Eastern Europe and threaten a Third World War. Canada's partnership with the United States came to replicate the degree of integration that had existed within the British Empire and Commonwealth. Although unlike the situation that prevailed in that family of nations, the Commonwealth, the United States showed no interest in Canadian participation in the formation of a common foreign policy. Paradoxically, the need to meet the threat posed by the Soviet Union served to address Canadian concerns about American intentions. Canada had been an early and consistent supporter of the formation of the United Nations. The United Nations organization first envisaged when church shall met Roosevelt at Argentia, Newfoundland in 1941. But the Soviet Union rendered it all but powerless by its use of the veto. To compensate for the weakness of the U.N., the provision of its charter, Article 51, which permitted states to the right of self-defense, was used to create a multilateral alliance of Western European democracies with Canada and the United States. The best hope for Canada was to help create a strategic environment that would permit the United States to draw its defensive perimeter well beyond Canadian border and which would minimize the risk of war. Two objectives, let the Americans find their security well beyond Canada and help them to do so, and also at the same time, dam the prospects of any sort of conflict. Let me see now where we got to. Oh yes. In the words of Hugh Wrong, Canadian ambassador in Washington from 1946 to 1953, if the North Atlantic is bridged by a new defensive alliance, the problems of North American defense would become a small part of the larger plan, the purpose of which would be the means of defeating the larger enemy. In an August 1947 memorandum, Escott Reed, Lester Pearson, second in command at the Department of External Affairs, expresses fear that war on any scale would lead to the free world developing into an American Empire. He bluntly declared that in the event of war we shall have no freedom of action in any matter which the United States considers essential. In peacetime, our freedom of action will be limited but will not be non-existent. For the next three decades, the task of the Canadian Navy and for the Army and Air Force was to help to ensure that NATO continues to make possible the strategic linkage of Western Europe and North America. Employing cable taxonomy, Canada's military contribution to the alliance throughout the Cold War served a definitive purpose vis-a-vis the Soviet Union and a purposeless one with respect to Canada's relationship with the United States. In Ottawa, there was concern that Washington's new look, strategic policy of massive retaliation announced by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in 1952 amounted to a lurch back to isolationism with the obvious implication for Canadian independence and which might, it was feared, lead to irresponsible unilateralism. In February of 1954, Dana Wilgris, who has exceeded Heaney as Canadian Ambassador to NATO, predicted that Canada must inevitably be part of the Fortress America and is not difficult to foresee that a greater part of our military effort than hitherto will have to be devoted to the integrated defense systems of the American continent. This prospect was anathema to external affairs. Lester Pearson argued in a radio address that nuclear weapons were such a game changer that they should never be employed without extensive consultation and when that was ignored, he warned the Washington Press Club in March 1954 that an important factor in determining the attitude of Canadians to things American is the feeling that our destiny, so soon after we have achieved national dependence from colonial status, may be decided not by ourselves but across our border by means and at places not of our choosing. It is essential here, continued, that we work together in any new defense planning and policy if the great coalition which we have formed for peace is not to be replaced by an entrenched continentalism, which I can assure you makes no great appeal to our northern, your northern neighbor as the best way to prevent war or defeat aggression and which is not likely to provide a solid basis for good United States-Canadian relations. In a briefing note three weeks later to Prime Minister Saint Laurent, Pearson was more explicit. The new strategy may result therefore in greater rigidity rather than greater flexibility of policy. If it becomes a question of the atomic bomb and all out war or nothing, it may be all too often nothing. He warned that the United States would be heading towards a maritime strategy abandoning most of its Western Europe as it was not providing adequately for its own defense. Now Pearson's role in developing the concept of the United Nations peacekeeping force at the time of the Suez Crisis in 1956 was an important effort for Canada as a middle power to mitigate the limitations of its situation. First and foremost, it diffused an Anglo-American crisis that could have broken the strategic linkage between Canada's two allies and left Canada on the glaces of Fortress America. In the context of the Cold War, peacekeeping proved to be a valuable tool of international stability and addressed the efforts, addressed the effects of proxy wars. But peacekeeping operations could do little to modify the actions of the superpowers. The degree of Canadian success in managing its defense relations with the United States and NATO in general is open to discussion. David Berkeson has argued that a factor in the decline of Canadian defense spending from 1952 was the discovery that it generally did little direct influence in Allied capitals. However much was spent, he said, it was always too little. For Canada, NATO membership always had an important symbolic meaning. But being a key player, really making a difference militarily, was too costly for too little return. Writing in 1965, before his appointment as Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger observed that in an alliance of sovereign states, a country's influence requires that its effort be considered essential and that its partners do not take it for granted. In determining an ally's real as opposed to its formal role, he said, one can do worse than inquire what his choices are in case of disagreement. This dictum sets a rather high bar for Canada. The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, during which the Canadian Navy and Air Force undertook important roles despite the lack of leadership in Ottawa, revealed just how correctly, as Scott Reed had judged, the minimal influence Ottawa would be able to exert in a near war situation. Sutherland's assertion that no rationale could be found for a Canadian defense program outside of the context of alliance was made in the aftershock from the Cuban Missile Crisis. And a month later, in October of 1963, when testifying before the House of Commons special committee on defense, the Canadian academic John Gelner asserted that Canada had, so far, not developed a national defense policy. Canadian forces, he asserted, have gone to war in accordance with foreign patterns, plans, and strategic and tactical concerns. Both of these observations, although they differ in emphasis, are true. TrueDo's rhetorical question in 1969, whether Canada's defense policy was more to impress our friends and frighten our enemies, was a false dichotomy. And with nearly 40 years of hindsight, it's possible to qualify to a degree Sutherland's assertion. But the leverage participation in collective defense has given to Canada, Canadian strategic perceptions, has never been great. In the decades that followed the Cuban Missile Crisis, the dangers of nuclear war continued to be high. And the situation became increasingly unstable as Soviet leadership became increasingly geriatric and Soviet forces increased in power. The most consistent characteristic of TrueDo's defense policy was a commitment to détente, which became the driver of Canadian defense policy. His global priorities had an early and strong impact on the Canadian Navy. Experience has shown that exemplary a contribution to NATO forces generated little or no influence. It was logical, therefore, to try other means of bringing his voice to the attention of allies and opponents alike. The widening disconnect between national purpose as defined at the senior level of government and the transnational perspective of Canadian Armed Forces officers could be measured in following defense budgets and its sole procurement. The rust out of the Navy during the TrueDo early years should not be considered simply as drift, but also as a policy option. It could be seen as a concomitant to the ostentatious refocusing of Canadian defense effort on constabulary tasks, including Arctic surveillance. TrueDo apparently discounted the importance of the Navy's alliance rules as indirect means of supporting local defense. But the more subtle explanation is that he was, in effect, if not necessarily in intention, putting the alliance on notice that Canadian support was conditional on its active pursuit of détente. In 1977 he launched at the United Nations a campaign against the structural terror of mutual nuclear deterrence, but he was unsuccessful in bringing about a corresponding test ban in a comprehensive test ban on nuclear weapons. For several years the Department of National Defense struggled to change TrueDo's perception and eventually was successful. An element in TrueDo's changing attitude to the Navy appears to have been reconsideration of the implications of strategic ASW, anti-submarine warfare. His concern expressed as early as his 12th of April 1969 speech that strategic ASW could accidentally trigger nuclear war was probably or possibly a result of a misperception fostered by the American administration's exaggeration when seeking funds for anti-ballistic missile defenses. Having dismissed the idea that strategic ASW could push the Soviets to use their ballistic missile submarines rather than lose them, the Department of National Defense returned to an argument made by Dr. Sutherland in 1963 that an ability to track and occasionally localize hostile submarines was an important support for arms control agreements. On 10th of February 1982, despite terrific public opposition, the Canadian government signed an agreement to permit testing of American cruise missiles over northern Canadian terrain that resembled the conditions that air-launched missiles would have to navigate in Arctic Russia. Even before Canada's Oberon-class submarines were fully refurbished for the purpose, they began to undertake operational surveillance patrols that might be conceived as at least consistent with the developing and aggressive US Navy maritime strategy. The return by TrueDo at this point to more traditional participation in alliance defenses was a change of tactics, but TrueDo's strategic objective remained unchanged. The cruise missile tests, the new procurement for the Canadian Navy of patrol frigates, and the more aggressive employment of Canada's submarines were measures of purpose of force that needed effective diplomacy to realize their purpose. TrueDo was never content to leave the serious diplomacy to others, and in his last years of office he took his diplomacy back to the world stage. He subjected terrific pressure from Washington due as much to his left leading national energy program as there was open dialogue with the communist nations. What was impressive is that although TrueDo bowed to the pressure and recognized the need to match force with force, he continued to pursue détente when others seemed to have abandoned hope. TrueDo's successors took less active parts in world affairs, but Brian Mulroney embarked on initiative of hubristic proportions which may have been intended to enhance Ottawa's influence, the construction of a fleet of a dozen nuclear submarines. At least superficially, his objective was to strengthen Canada's control of its Arctic territories, but the choice of submarines for the purpose may have been intended to increase Canadian participation in the U.S. maritime strategy forward deployment planning. Through increased participation, Ottawa might have acquired some influence over the strategic plans. Certainly the resistance shown by the United States Navy to the prospect of Canadian acquisition of nuclear submarines suggests that it feared that consequence. However, in the end Mulroney abandoned the submarine acquisition project. What Mulroney's period of administration should be more noted for is the beginning of the employment of the Canadian Navy in distant water policing roles in partnership with the United States Navy. Whereas during the Cold War, the Canadian Navy protected Canadian autonomy by cementing the strategic partnership with Europe. In the wake of President Bush, Senior and Michael Gorbachev's peacemaking in 1989, the Canadian government expanded the horizon for the Canadian Navy. The prominent role the Canadian Navy took in the enforcement of U.N. sanctions against Iraq following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, introduced a new era consistent with Mulroney's negotiation of the North American free trade. But it also raises serious questions about Ottawa's understanding of the consequences of military action. Dangerous strategies, such as those that create wholesale starvation and disease in Iraq, can never make Canada safer. In 1983, Trudeau had warned Parliament that the starving refugee lying in the hot desert of the Sahel can scarcely summon the strength to help himself, let alone strike out at us. If his children survive, he then added, they'll remember us and with fury in their hearts, you can be sure. Only 10 years later, the spiritual leader of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, made it clear that Iraq's sanctions had aroused just such fury. Participation by Canadian forces in such strategies is an act of folly. The lighthearted way in which Ottawa embarked on enforcement of sanctions against Iraq undermines any confidence that Canadian governments could have used to good effect the leverage of Mulroney administration's projected fleet of nuclear submarines. After the 9-11 attacks on the United States, Canada's naval effort in the Persian Gulf morphed into naval support for military operations against Al Qaeda that led to the unofficial and coerced participation of the Canadian Navy in the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. We are indebted to WikiLeaks for the paper trail that shows how American pressure on the Canadian government made Ottawa weak at the knees. Despite Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's public statements following a meeting in 17th of March 2003, which Deputy Foreign Minister Chrétien Leverthu formally advised American and British diplomats that Canada would not participate in the Iraq war. Political director Jim Wright indicated that Canada would provide unofficial military support. Despite public statements that Canadian assets in the Straits of Hormuz would remain in the region exclusively to support enduring freedom, they will also be available to provide escort and otherwise be discreetly useful to the military effort. The two ships in the straits now are being augmented by two moron route and there are patrol and supply aircraft in the United Arab Emirates, which are also prepared to be useful. This message commented the United States Deputy Chief of Mission in Ottawa, Stephen R. Kelly, tracks with others we have heard. While for domestic political reasons, deep-seated Canadian commitment to multilateralism, the Government of Canada has decided not to join in the US coalition of the willing. They will refrain from criticizing our actions and express understanding and focus their public commitment on the real culprit Iraq. They are also prepared to be helpful as possible in the military margins. During the shock and awe bombardment of Iraq, US Ambassador Paul Salucci admitted in a speech in Toronto that ironically Canadian naval vessels, aircraft and personnel will supply more support to this war in Iraq indirectly than most of those 46 nations which have fully supported our efforts. Until the archives are opened in 2033, it cannot be known for certain that the Canadian cabinet approved these measures. John McLaughlin, the Minister of National Defence at the time, later insisted on the CBC that he and his officials had an extremely long and detailed meeting to make sure that we were not in fact committing to help in the war in Iraq. But he conceded that what happens on the high seas is not something I could prove or disprove. The most positive aspect of this episode is that it has further cemented a strong working relationship between the Canadian Navy and the United States Navy. Naval operations in the Gulf also involved the navies of other countries and could be regarded as the foundation for a global maritime partnership or the thousands ship Navy first called for by the American Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Mullen in September of 2005. That partnership is still a work in progress and the US Navy has recognized that a single partnership that meets all nations needs is impracticable. But in effect, there already exists a working structure of naval cooperation that has been engaged in collective action, most notably to control the problems of piracy in the Horn of Africa. Participation in global policy, global police work is the latest manifestation of the employment of the Canadian Navy in definitive measures that which serve a purpose of objective in terms of Canadian American relations. But Frederick Monk's concern in 1910 that the Navy might be only, might only be Canadian when it has to be paid for in order to be imperial when it's required for use. It's as valid in the 21st century as it was at the beginning of the 20th. Canadian forces supplied a respectable portion of those employed under NATO auspices in stabilizing the revolution in Libya, including providing a chief of staff Lieutenant General Charles Bouchard, 560 personnel, a frigate with a CH-124 seeking helicopter, seven CF-18 fighters, three transport aircraft configured as an in-flight refuelers and two CP-140 Aurora long-range patrol aircraft. I'm not in position to judge whether Canadian statesmen were able to exert any influence over NATO's strategic goals in Libya, nor indeed whether any Canadians had anything to offer the North Atlantic Council in this respect. But the account of the Libyan operation written by Christopher S. Chivis for survival, the Journal of the International Institute for Strategic Studies noted only that the majority of the missions were carried out by France and Britain with the support of a few smaller allies, including Belgium, Denmark, and Norway. How was it that so little attention was given by the American author to Canadian efforts? There was the same reluctance to admit Canada's role by British information officers during the Second World War. Is it any wonder public opinion in Canada is jaded by requests for assistance? In the final analysis, it appears that little or no leverage is supplied by the two Canadian diplomats, by Canada's contribution to collective defence. But that its value was nevertheless not insignificant for Canada. Participation in collective action in defence of Atlantic sea lions or in support of the Libyan Revolution may serve Canadian interests by making possible or reinforcing strategic relationships of importance to Canada. By the same measure, participation in ill-conceived strategies, such as the Iraq sanctions regime and the war in Iraq, undermines Canadian interests and autonomy. But on occasion is an unavoidable blood sacrifice. This paper is specifically about Canadian strategy during the last 100 years and is an introduction to my book, A Two-Edged Sword. But the experience of other smaller states is not dissimilar. All client state strategies have similar threads. In the post-Second World War period, Britain's defence strategy has inquired elements of alliancemanship that differs little from Canadian policy. And it's on that basis that I am looking at pursuing work on the global maritime partnership as an element of interest to the smaller client states as opposed to the major focus of major states. So that's really all I have to say on the subject at this point, except that every aspect of this is reflected in greater detail in the book, the Iraq sanctions in perhaps in particular, because that's an area in which I've spent a great deal of time in studying the utility of seapower and the counter-effectiveness of ill-applied strategies. Well, read the book. It's a whole chapter on the subject. I'd be happy to feel any questions anybody might have managed to conceive during my presentation. Yes? Is a Northwest passage under the control of the British or the Canadian Navy? Is what? The Northwest passage. Oh, I'm glad you brought that up. This is just the context for discussing this. What do I know? Ottawa has claimed it is for 30 years. And the United States Navy has taken a leadership position and saying, no, it isn't. And the Ottawa's position is verbal position is in some contrast to its practical activity. It speaks in terms of sovereignty and firm action to keep them foreigners in control. In practice, it's very cooperative, particularly with the American Coast Guard. So, you know, there's a difference. And I think the bottom line is that the, and Obama has gone to some extent to make more explicit the American objection to the Canadian position. But my understanding of it is that essentially the United States isn't any more concerned about the Canadian rhetoric and Canadian action in the Northwest passage. But it doesn't want a precedent to be established that will have impact on, so to say, Indonesian waterways or Philippines waterways. It wants to maintain its interpretation of the freedom of navigation, which does not recognize archipelagic rights. Now, Canada isn't claiming archipelagic rights. It's claiming that the Northwest passage is half the year is solid ground, it's ice. So it's not really, but to some extent that's just a gloss, I think. It's a political issue. And it might be useful. In fact, it might be useful to the United States to have Canada being touchy about the Northwest passage because, in fact, we don't stop the Americans using it. But we might be asked sometime to stop somebody else from using it. And that could be useful. Who knows? I think it's, I would say the substances cooperative and the rhetoric is aggressive. Yes. In terms of ships, well, it's about three, I think, because they're almost all in extended refit. We got two, two maritime support oilers, one of which had a major fire and there's probably never going to go back to sea again. Three guided missiles destroyers, one of which has just had hull cracks, which may make it impossible to restore it for service. So is that three or two? And then a dozen frigates, most of which are in midlife refit and four for conventional submarines, which were acquired from the British and were allowed to rot in mothballs too long before Canadian government finally said, yes, we'll take them. And so they've been a bit of a nightmare in terms of service life. The problem, I think, is probably more the Canadian Navy's engineering skills than any problem they inherited from the British, but I'm just, that's my impression. So those are the bigger forces. There's, on the drawing boards are the construction of probably five Arctic patrol vessels, but they have, but no contracts have been let. The Irving shipyards and Halifax is building or is expected to build. Now I'm groping for numbers here, but I think we're talking about 12 hulls, some of which will be formatted as destroyers, some as frigates. But again, no actual contracts have been let. The prices for Canadian ship construction are so out of hand that it's really uncertain how it's going to go. For example, Canada has this plan to build two new ocean supply ships. And they've agreed to use the German-designed Berlin class as their model, but they're going to be built in Canada in order to ensure that the shipyards get the work. The British, on the other hand, are building two and they're building twice the size of the ship and they're being built in Korea and each one of those double-sized ships is going to cost 20 percent of what the Canadian anticipated costs are and that's only anticipated costs. By the time you actually get them off out of the shipyard it may be even more than that. It's a difficult business to determine what is the effective use of natural resources. Do you expand your navy to the maximum size or do you ensure that your shipyards have business to do? So it's not a, at this point I would say the navy is in a very small state, but it's a bit like, I mean I think the timing is such, I haven't talked to anybody in Ottawa about this in particular, but I think it's like the British decision that they, in order to meet current financial problems, they would get rid of all their aircraft carriers and jump jets in order to be able to build a big carrier or a pair of big carriers which won't be available for probably another eight, nine years. Now they're just saying there's no, there's no immediate problem. We don't need a navy right now, but we might need one in ten years time and I think that's why the Canadian navy is going into refit in a big way right now. There just isn't much of an issue. Yes. In contrast, let's say with your Coast Guard. Coast Guard. Well, of course it's not armed. Our Coast Guard is not an enforcement agency. So you do not play any part in the role of drug enforcement? Well, yes, they serve as transport, but it will be a police will be drafted on board to or customs officers to carry out that aspect of it. And the fisheries enforcement, which is now part of the Coast Guard, also provide ships which can be used for the same thing. Now the Coast Guard is another naughty financial problem. There's been a program to build a class one icebreaker since and you and I will both remember John Diefenbaker who had that idea back in the 60s. Well, it was never built and it's come back on the books with the present Harper administration with much the same budget allowance. So it means that the ships are going to be half the size of what it was to have been. And there's still, I mean, they haven't let contracts there are saying they're going to do this, but this there's nothing's happened and I don't think anything probably will before. Well, Harper's going to I'm sure he'll he'll be turf to the next election. And then we'll go through the whole process over again. So I can't say it doesn't look very positive. The main job of the Coast Guard is to keep the St. Lawrence River open in the winter. That's its main job and the ships that are not required for that get other other jobs to do up in the Arctic and things like that. Yes. Oh, sorry, I better not take you for a second time yet. Can I ask you to get your question? Well, to go back to the Northwest Passage. Yeah. I remember when they opened this up and they thought that it was going to be a viable passage throughout the year. There was a lot of concern about who would have what rights in five or six countries that face on it. And there was some significant concern about Russia. That they had the potential to open up four or five seaports with significant infrastructure so that they could almost wind up with a dominating influence on the economy and transport through the passage. Yeah. Any information on that? Well, first of all, I don't think we're talking about the Northwest Passage in that case. We're talking about for the Russians, it's the northern sea route north of Siberia. The Northwest Passage is much less open channel and it doesn't as directly lead from anywhere to anywhere else. The Arctic, the northern sea route north of Siberia, is an existing shipping route and it is being expanded. But I'm just reading very recently that one shouldn't take it as certain that it's going to develop very much because of the next development in container ships are going to be of such a size that they will actually have greater beam than the largest icebreakers. And so the chance of being able to keep a channel open north of Siberia is that these ships can use is small. And even if the icebreakers were built bigger, which could only be done in a huge investment over time, there's also the problem of the channel south of Divaya Zemlia, which is rather narrow for the new class of ships. But even if all those were solved, Arctic navigation is still sufficiently problematic that it's impossible to maintain a certain schedule. And if your containers are arriving in Hamburg from Shanghai, you want to know when they're going to get there. And if they're arriving three days late, you've got an awful trouble. You've got to reorganize your entire transport network in Europe to deal with the arriving three days late. And so this author was arguing that the Suez is likely to continue to be the main route between Asia and Europe. Now, in the longer term, what people are saying is that the Northwest Passage north of Canada is pretty well irrelevant. What's interesting to the Chinese and to the Japanese and the Koreans is the puller route right over the pole down to Europe. And interesting that Henry Hudson was one of the first explorers to try and pioneer a passage over the North Pole, but it didn't work for him. He didn't have global warming. He didn't have global warming yet. No. You had another question. Yes. The way warfare is developing, it'll be over in 24 hours. And your politicians and ours seem to think that we can, like we did in World War II, gather together ships, planes and all that sort of thing. I wonder if they're making a big mistake in you people too by not having an adequate navy to throw into the trade. Well, I confess in that respect that I'm an optimist. I think that the model is not of massive retaliation and destruction, but rather the sort of messy business we're having in Ukraine right now as being the pattern of action. And one does need assets, but these assets are sometimes not military ones. It's certainly a complicated issue, though. I don't see, there's a lot of... This will wind things up nicely. I mean, I have responded in the past to such arguments that what the world needs is a bigger and more powerful American navy, but the argument that Lord North discovered in the 18th century that you can't solve problems with armed force necessarily, that American independence came anyway. And it wasn't because Britain didn't try to stop it, you know. And in fact, this Canadian use of the navy as a way of demonstrating a national autonomy through partnership, I think is a much more likely scenario for our future. Not just in Canada, of course. Yes, John, shall I shut up now? Do we have any more questions? Well, thank you very much.