 Good afternoon. I know it's a wet day and a holiday week, so I really appreciate everyone joining us today. We want to talk today about the State of U.S.-Canada Bilateral Defense Relations. And let me in particular welcome you to CSIS's new home here at 1616 Rhode Island Avenue. I'm Kathleen Hicks. I'm the Henry A. Kissinger Chair and Director of the International Security Program here at CSIS. And I'm very pleased to have the honor of introducing today's guest speaker. And this is the Chief of Defense Staff of the Canadian Armed Forces, General Tom Lawson. General Lawson has had a long and distinguished career in the Canadian Armed Forces, serving in his current position since October 2012. Prior to his most recent promotion, he served as Deputy Commander at NORAD, which is at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado. So he is no stranger to the importance of U.S.-Canadian Defense Cooperation. He has also held such distinguished positions as Assistant Chief of the Air Staff and Commandant of the Royal Military College in Kingston. He led the stand-up of the strategic joint staff as part of the Canadian Armed Forces Transformation Team and has served as Commanding Officer of 412 Squadron, perhaps, based in Ottawa. General Lawson graduated from the Royal Military College of Canada with a Bachelor of Science degree, as well as a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering. And while attending the U.S. Armed Forces Command and Staff College in Montgomery, Alabama, he completed a Masters of Public Administration at Auburn. So he's thoroughly educated, I think it's fair to say. Drawing on that record of service and expertise, General Lawson has agreed to share his thoughts on the U.S.-Canadian Defense Relationship. Secretary Hagel just last week called this relationship one of the strongest in the world. And indeed, our Canadian friends have fought alongside American troops in the volatile Kandahar Province in Afghanistan at the height of the conflict. And they continue to deploy some 950 troops in a training capacity near Kabul. Just this past Friday, Secretary Hagel and Defense Minister Nicholson signed the Canada-U.S.-Asia-Pacific Cooperation Framework to increase our security cooperation in this important region. This will be done in the framework of the Canada-U.S. Permanent Joint Board on Defense, which has been in existence since 1940. This is the context in which General Lawson will address the state of U.S.-Canada bilateral defense relations. And we all look forward to hearing what he has to say on the subject. Before I bring him up to the podium, I want to ask everyone to please write down on the index cards that we've provided to you any questions that his remarks or this opportunity for dialogue evoke. And if you do not have a card, please raise your hand and we'll distribute them to you now. After General Lawson completes his prepared remarks, I'll ask the staff to collect your index cards. And we have two of our senior fellows, Stephanie Sanicostro and Sam Brannon here, who will combine the questions like groupings and facilitate a follow-on discussion. So with that, I want to thank again General Lawson and please join me in welcoming him today. Thank you very much for that warm welcome, Kathleen. And just absolutely delighted to be here, feeling very affectionate towards Washington, regardless of that atrocious weather, the Washington capitals just came up into Canada and got beaten by both the Montreal Canadians and my beloved Toronto Maple Leafs. So what a wonderful city. It is also with all the extensive traveling my family and I have done across the United States amongst your great states and cities. This is our very favorite here. And all of you who are based here will know exactly why that is. Ladies and gentlemen, I thank CSIS for inviting me here. This afternoon, I thank you for being here and I really am pleased to be here at an institution that's so well known for its forward thinking. And before going here, let me thank the organizers, your hard work behind the scenes is very much appreciated. Over the course of my career, I've had many opportunities, as Kathleen was saying, to work with the great men and women of the US Armed Forces, arranging for my time at Staff College as a puppy and then all the way to just a year and a half ago when I was happily in Colorado Springs doing my NORAD duties when I got called out for another posting. But during this past year, as Canada's newest Chief of Defense staff, I've been able to view our relationship, the Canadian-American relationship from a slightly different perspective. And I must say I have a renewed appreciation for just how close and just how important and just how far-reaching our bilateral relationship is. There's a real spirit of partnership and collaboration that permeates our defense relationship and our governments and militaries are connected through a network of arrangements and joint institutions that really do form a fabric that's very impressive. And I think it's largely because long ago our two countries learned how to leverage each other's strengths and how our mutual prosperity and security depends upon our military being truly connected and interoperable, not just at home, but also abroad. And the Canadian Armed Forces for its size is one of those few with the capabilities that allow us to be engaged anywhere in the world, agile, deployable, and responsive. And being a reliable partner in continental defense is certainly one of our most important priorities. At the same time, we in Canada are also committed to doing our fair share on the international front. And it's my sincere hope that when you leave here today you'll have a better appreciation for what the Canadian Armed Forces do on the world stage and here in North America as well. Let's speak a little bit about the foundation of the Canada-U.S. relationship as we see it. Canada and the U.S. have a long history of cooperation on defense and security issues. The strong ties between our militaries were developed in part by fighting side by side in most of the major conflicts over the past 100 years. We have fought together in both of the World Wars. We were both founding members of NATO in 1949. We fought together as battle buddies in Korea 60 years ago and that battle buddy theme has been found over the last decade throughout the mission in Afghanistan. As a result, we've developed close personal bonds. We've learned from each other and we've seen the importance of making sure our forces are truly interoperable. Even allowing the soldiers of our own nations to be led by general officers from the other armed forces and that's a bond of trust you only find between the very closest of nations. The ultimate foundation of our interoperability is anchored in NATO where we've been working together with our transatlantic partners for over 60 years now. But NATO's about much more than interoperability. It is a political alliance of like-minded democracies united by common values and principles. It has demonstrated the political will to act and it has a capability to do so. It can be a true force for good and we need to ensure that we, the US and Canada uphold that transatlantic commitment with our European friends and allies. Between our two nations, our long and close partnership has allowed and at the same time required the establishment of joint institutions to help us continue to strengthen our defense cooperation. Canada and the US have a forum to discuss defense policies in the form of the permanent joint board on defense effectively known as the PJBD. And the PJBD was founded by US President Roosevelt and Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King in 1940 and this board through those years since that time has examined virtually every important combined defense measure undertaken between our two countries since the Second World War until now, including the construction of distant, early warning line of radars, the creation of the North American Aerospace Defense Command NORAD as well as the response to the attacks of 9-11. The next gathering of the PJBD is gonna be held in Ottawa this December. It will be the 232nd meeting of this group in its 73 years of existence. But our most impressive cooperation is without a doubt something very warm in my heart, North American Aerospace Defense Command NORAD created in 1958. Now many nations have bilateral relationships as for instance Canada and the United States have with our other allies, but the NORAD agreement is truly a unique construct in that it is a binational agreement. NORAD actually brings the monitoring and defense of North American Aerospace under the same roof and for purposes of continental air defense actually does away with the border. Imagine that. When you read about NORAD history, you'll see that our government officials in the late 1950s took great pains to work out and determine just what this could mean, this erasing of the border in the worst case, this potential loss of sovereignty. And the remarkable thing is that in the 55 years since the stand up of NORAD, none of these concerns have come to a mount to anything. In fact, in 2006 in the universal recognition that this agreement has been mutually beneficial, our countries agreed to add maritime warning functions to NORAD allowing us to share sensitive information on activities conducted off the North American coastlines. And I can tell you that the work being done by Canadians and Americans side by side is a very real symbol of our friendship, our commitment to cooperation and our mutual trust. And as our defense relationship grows, these institutions grow as well to meet our new needs. With the NORAD strategic review, for example, Canada and the US are looking at emerging defense and security challenges and how our countries can prepare to meet them. Safeguarding North America is not a simple task. Together, we cover a lot of land. That's why Canadians are proud to be a meaningful contributor to continental defense. And a good example of that is radar SAT 2. This satellite's data provides the Canadian Armed Forces with all day and night surveillance in areas where other equipment is challenged, simply unable to operate in harsh and unpredictable Arctic region, for example. And as 2018 replacement, the radar SAT Constellation mission will enhance our current surveillance capabilities by allowing real time tracking of ships approaching our mutual shorelines. Canada is the only five eyes partner other than the US who is able to contribute to satellite surveillance in such an important way. And this is a capability that's gonna be key to North American security and to our joint missions abroad. That's what leveraging each other's strength is all about. Let's talk a little bit about Canada and US international cooperation in the Americas. Our interoperability and task sharing make us collectively stronger to defend our continent and this translates to a strong partnership on the international front. In the Americas, for example, the Canadian Armed Forces have contributed to the US efforts to address illicit trafficking in the hemisphere since 2006 through Operation Kareed. Recently, Canada enhanced its contribution to this operation by increasing the number of deployments and flights conducting counter drug detection and monitoring the Caribbean region, the Gulf of Mexico, as well as the Central Eastern and Western Pacific Ocean. Canadian Armed Forces are proud to participate in this international effort that intercepts and seizes millions of dollars of illicit drugs every year. Countering the spread of drug trafficking and organized crime in South and Central America is key in keeping our hemisphere safe and in promoting secure waterways and essential part of the Canadian and US economies and the economies of our partners in the South. By sharing our military resources, Canada and the US are more efficient in the fight against transnational criminal organization. Canada's support to Op Kareeb is only one example of Canada's work in the Americas where we're always ready to assist in the case of natural disaster, as we did in Haiti three years ago. And Canada's also involved actively in fostering cooperation with Mexico. Indeed, we hosted the first trilateral meeting of the North America defense ministers in March of last year. This meeting led to the establishment of a framework to develop cooperation between Canada, the US and Mexico on issues of mutual concern, including efforts to address transnational criminal organizations and to respond to disasters in the hemisphere. We're really looking forward to the second trilateral defense ministers meeting which will be hosted by Mexico next year. Let's look at some of this international cooperation as it applies to Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Ladies and gentlemen, one of the best examples of Canada-US operation internationally is NATO, a central alliance for both of our nations and a place where we work closely with our European allies to advance our shared global security interests. Thanks to NATO, Canada, the US and many of our allies had a practical infrastructure to answer the request of the Arab League and the United Nations to take actions over Libya two years ago. And the NATO structure allowed partners outside of the alliance, particularly our Arab League partners in this case to join us in this important mission. Canadian Armed Forces were proud to assume operational command of the mission in Libya in addition to providing air and maritime support. The Canadian contribution to the US Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestine Authority or USSC is another great example of Canadian and American efforts that are giving real results. Having visited this mission myself, I can tell you that we together, Canadians and Americans are making a difference in the lives of both the Palestinians and the Israelis and indeed contributing to the Middle East peace process. In that mission, Canada and the US are working closely together, leveraging each other's personnel and expertise to achieve success. To me, this is what our defense relationship is really about. We come together and we get things done together. These are high profile examples, but our countries also cooperate in some areas that don't often get much attention. Just last month, for example, the Canadian Armed Forces responded to a request from the United Nations to deploy a Royal Canadian Air Force C-17 globe mastered heavy lift aircraft to transport 10 armored civilian vehicles between the US and Lebanon to assist in the efforts to eliminate the chemical weapons in Syria in line with the mandate of the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons. And nearby in the Arabian Sea, Canada along with US and 28 other nations contributes regularly towards maritime security and counter-terrorism. Just a few weeks ago, our ship in that region, Her Majesty's Canadian ship, Toronto, intercepted and boarded a suspicious vessel and discovered 154 bags of heroin. That's 154 bags of heroin that will never reach the streets of our two great nations, a small victory in the hard fight against drug smuggling. Let's look to Afghanistan and Asia Pacific for more cooperation. Ladies and gentlemen, some of you might remember what the former US Ambassador to Canada, David Jacobson said in the aftermath of 9-11. He said, our shared sense of security and the belief that the oceans on either side of us and the warm relations between us kept us distance and protected from the world's outside dangers came crashing down on that day. And that feeling was heartily felt across Canada. Remember a few days after the horrible events in New York and here in Washington, how over 100,000 people gathered together on Parliament Hill in Ottawa for a national day of mourning. Those Canadians came together not just to honour the thousands of victims who lost their lives, but also to clearly display their solidarity with their friends and neighbours in the wake of such sorrow and loss. And this was only the beginning of Canada's support to the US in the wake of 9-11. Once the initial crisis of September 11th had been dealt with to the best of our shared abilities, we turned our attention to the terrorist network that had inspired and orchestrated the attacks and to the regime that gave that terrorist network sanctuary. As the international community quickly rallied behind the United States in condemning both al-Qaeda and Afghanistan's Taliban government, Canada took a leading role in responding and had boots on ground as early as December of 2001. And from 2006 to 2010, our efforts in Afghanistan brought us to the volatile Kandahar province. Beginning in 2008, the US backed us up with reinforcements and these were US soldiers placed under Canadian command. And as I've said, a powerful demonstration of the degree of interoperability and trust that exists between our armed forces. And from that demanding combat environment in Kandahar, we transitioned two years ago to operation attention to the training mission devoted to supporting NATO's main strategic objective, that of preparing the Afghan national security forces to take responsibility for Afghanistan's security by themselves. Since 2011, Canada has been the second largest contributor to the NATO training mission after the United States. And as Kathleen said, roughly 950 of our troops focused on giving the Afghans the tools they need not only to fight the Taliban and its affiliates, but also to train their own forces in this effect. Indeed, Afghan forces are now not only planning and leading most security operations across the nation, but 90% of all military training in Afghanistan is now being conducted by the Afghans themselves. That's a strategic and operational success, one that will pay dividends over the long term by helping ensure that Afghan forces can sustain their progress and ultimately help prevent Afghanistan from ever again becoming a safe haven for terrorists, terrorists that would pose a threat to us, our citizens and our allies. Another area of the world that has a large impact upon us is the Asia Pacific region. Canada has long recognized the importance of Asia. Its continued peaceful rise depends not only upon economic growth, but fundamentally upon its security and stability. Both Canada and the US share with our Asian partners a vested interest in maintaining this stability. And this drives our effort to maintain and build on our history of joint cooperation. Thus, we have made a commitment to pursue opportunities not only for increased cooperation, but also coordinated and targeted efforts to build capabilities and to bolster confidence among friends and neighbors. As you might be aware, just a few days ago, our nations signed the Canada, US, Asia Pacific Defense Policy Cooperation Framework in order to enhance bilateral cooperation and collaboration in that region. This new framework provides the basis upon which our two countries agree to coordinate defense related activities with our Asian partners in areas of mutual interest while maintaining each other's ability and flexibility to take independent actions or positions. It's the latest example of how Canada and the United States are working together to make our joint efforts complementary and judicious while avoiding duplication. Ladies and gentlemen, as you go forward in your work sharing your thoughts and ideas, I hope you'll remember that you need only look, need to look north of the border to find a reliable committed ally and friend, one that's making a meaningful contribution to our common security, whether here at home in North America as key transatlantic partners in NATO or elsewhere on the world stage. The link between our countries and the friendship between our militaries is truly unique and it's also precious. By working side by side, we accomplish more than by working alone and going forward, we will continue to find more opportunities for cooperation so that together we can make a difference. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for the invitation. I'd be happy to entertain your questions. It's a moment here to mic up. So if you have your cards, we'll have folks coming around to collect those now. If you can just raise them up, we'll continue with our conversation and collect those for the follow on Q and A. Thank you very much, General Lawson. That was a wonderful speech and a great overview and reminder of how much Canada, first of all, is engaged in the world, Canadian forces and certainly how close we are in our own goals and objectives the United States and Canada with regard to engaging the world. I wonder if we could talk first maybe about the end of combat operations in Afghanistan. You spoke about Afghanistan, you spoke about all the other priorities that there are in the world but also how Afghanistan and Libya provided real world opportunities for the United States and Canada to work very closely together to be interoperable. Following operations in Afghanistan, what are your thoughts about the best ways we can continue to ensure without that living laboratory, if you will, how we can continue to ensure our forces remain interoperable? Well, that's a great question. It's a challenge that faces Chairman Dempsey and I as we go forward. We leave Afghanistan probably as interoperable as an air force and army, especially as we ever have been. And right back to my earliest days in NATO, in Germany, flying with the Americans and watching our troops in Bodin and Laar working with the Americans still, it doesn't come close to where we are as we depart Afghanistan now. So the challenge is to capture that doctrine and hear back on the continent exercise. It's easy for us. From the time winter sets in in Canada, Canadian troops are looking to come down across the border into your great training areas and Americans can often be enticed north anytime after April as well. But I think bigger than that, we have been engaged. Tactically I think that that will come easily but we've been engaged at the very highest levels operationally and strategically as well and that will come through some larger exercises. The Americans hold the RIMPAC of course off the West Coast and Canada seeks to be a very, and expects to be a very large part of RIMPAC and the senior leadership there and also in our large exercise, Joint Exes that's held every two years. We seek and I'm sure we'll find a willing group of American leaders who will come up to help us with that. So it's an entire range of skills that we've come very good at that we'll want to continue to hone in coming years. You also mentioned, as I think I did in my remarks, the new Canada US Asia Pacific cooperation framework and you've just mentioned now RIMPAC and other exercise opportunities. What do you think this new framework provides from a perspective of US and Canadian forces but also maybe more on the political geo-strategic level, what does it mean and how does Canada think about Asia as a priority area in its defense strategy? Yeah, the cooperation framework itself is not unique. We've got a couple of them already between Canada and the US, ones that speak to Central America and the Caribbean and they've been useful to us because what they do is they lay out a framework by which we can overlap efforts in operations where that's required or best divide our capabilities so that if one area or one issue is being well looked after with or without the support of the other nation that can free up certain capabilities for the other nation to focus on a different area. So I think certainly from an operational point of view it will be very helpful. For example, right now Canadians and Americans are both employed in the Philippines helping the desperate survivors of that terrible typhoon high end. And I think the framework likely would be very helpful in the planning phases and would have been very helpful in the planning phases as we both set forward our forces to help there. I think when you get onto the political strategic level it does say just another area where Canadians and Americans seek to leverage each other in another arena. You will know that the American government signaled a bit of a shift towards the Asia-Pacific. Canada is while remaining tremendously interested in our NATO alliance as well seeks to strengthen our various alliances and connections in the Asia-Pacific. So just recently for instance we placed a general officer on the staff of Pacific Command staff which is a first for us and allows us not only to work more closely with the Americans in engaging the Asia-Pacific arena but also provides us a little bit more awareness of those things that are strategically relevant as we go forward. In the United States, I'm sure you're very aware that we're in the midst of significant budget battles, dysfunction some might say, even in polite society when we call it dysfunction. And for those of us who watch defense we are particularly focused on the implications of that for U.S. defense strategy and planning and I'm wondering if how you would describe the cuts in defense. In Canada I don't think you have quite the political environment we do right now but surely you must have the same sense of general interest in how Canada plans to go forward and again strategically where Canada wants to be in terms of its role in the world and how to underwrite that with military capability. I'd love to hear a little bit about the efforts underway in Canada including your own defense reform initiative if I've got the title right. That looks to cut inefficiencies to free up some funds. Well good for you, yes. You've got the name right. The defense renewal team has worked a year. One of the first tasks that I got from the prime minister upon taking on this position was a direction to maintain everyone in the numbers that I have in the regular force and the reserve forces, all of the capacities and capabilities that we've got right now but find a billion dollars so about five to seven percent of our entire budget to take out of the back rooms and the administrative processes to reinvest in the operational part of the forces. That was a very difficult task in the past. Those with as many years in as I have will have seen that we've had ups and downs over the last 35 years and usually in the down period we decrease in size and or capabilities. This was a very heartening task given to me by the prime minister in one sense because those very difficult things were not the center of the task and we think we've actually put our finger on 26 initiatives and under seven headings that will allow us to find several hundred million within a couple of years and going on to a billion as required in five years and going ahead. But we like all departments like all Western countries I think are suffering from many of the same fiscal challenges that your country is and we went through a strategic review several years ago and a deficit reduction action plan all of which has decreased our budget by 10 to 15 percent and this has required all kinds of tradeoffs along the way too. So going forward and recently we just had the speech from the throne which indicates that the government is looking to refurbish their Canada first defense strategy and in that way allows us to look at where we can invest in new areas. So there will be tradeoffs to come certainly within a stable envelope of tight resources. And then the last question I wanted to ask is on NORAD. And you mentioned in your comments the expansion if you will into the maritime domain. I think there's a lot of interest too in cyber domain and you did reference the NORAD strategic review that's now underway. Can you give us some insights into the areas that you're exploring, the U.S. and Canada exploring through that strategic review and what types of changes we might expect to see come out of that? Well I know that the commander of NORAD who is not only the U.S. commander of NORAD but the Canadian commander of NORAD and that's General Chuck Jacoby together with his deputy, Lieutenant General Alain Perrante Canadian are going through a systematic review of the threats that NORAD expects to potentially face them in coming decades and what kind of intelligence surveillance reconnaissance is required and not only for the aerospace threat but also off shores all the way to how do you harden the very core of NORAD capabilities from cyber threats? And as you may well know much of NORAD's current early warning system is based on a distant early warning set of radars that were put up in the 1950s and refurbished in the late 1980s. That's coming around again and I know that one of the things that NORAD's looking very carefully at is how do you move that forward to provide more warning time and does it need to be ground based? Are there other ways to do that? And these are fundamental questions that speak to the most strategic threats facing our two nations. Great, thank you. Okay I'm gonna turn it over now. Looks like to Stephanie Castro who will relay some questions from the audience. Sir, it's amazing always to get these questions from the audience and the first line is almost always thank you so much for your candor and for being here and agreeing to talk to us. So thank you on behalf of the audience members. The way Sam and I have divided these are sort of topically and I am the lucky person to draw the short straw on the budget questions. And so the first two questions are very discreet and they're about, one is about the auditor general's report that was reported in the news earlier this week about the planned procurement strategy for ships and given the auditor general's somewhat candid and skating remarks on the inflexibility and budgeting, can you give us a little bit of your insight into how do you think about the longer term 30 year strategy for ship procurement when it comes to rising labor and material costs? The second specific question was about the close combat vehicle and the F-18 follow on. So those are sort of the more difficult and a programmatic questions. And then the sticky question, maybe not a difficult question, but a sticky question is, looking forward in the next 10 to 15 to 20 years, you've talked a lot about today the importance of working together as a team, but in light of, as you mentioned, the fiscal difficulties here in the US and also in Canada, how do you think about being a coalition partner and what are you looking to the US to provide as well as a coalition partner? Thanks. Well, thank you very much. And I think what I'll do is take the second one first and the series of first ones second. What we will seek from United States certainly at home is to be a great partner as the US Armed Forces have been over, as I say, a hundred years in the security of the continent. But I think that like most other nations, we will be seeking good, strong, cogent leadership from Americans internationally. It's unfair, certainly, how we all seek the American point of view, but what wonderful things it says about the people of this nation, the leaders of this nation that so often that desire from coalition partners is met time and again. Americans, I think, largely get, maybe feeling some fatigue from having had that leadership position for so long. And yet it comes with having been a leader so greatly respected for so many years. On those first questions, the very heartening thing is that as we go forward with a rewrite of the Canada First defense strategy, the government makes very clear to me that the commitment is there for the equipment that was listed in Canada First defense strategy based on the right of 2008. So this includes a replacement for fighter aircraft. It includes a replacement of several vehicle fleets for the Army and includes a series of ships, including Arctic offshore patrol ships, joint supply ships, joint support ships, and a new combat surface combatant. I think what has surprised Canadians, certainly auditors, general recently, and maybe even members of the military and the government ourselves over recent years is when we talk only about the price tag and then expand to take a look at what it will cost to run the equipment. When you buy your Ford Cortina, you come up with one price. When you add everything in for running it for the 23 years that you'll run your Ford Cortina, it's entirely a different price. The nice thing about that different price, that long price, the one that includes operation management for many years is we hold a lever on that. So in fact, we can throttle back or throttle forward as required to meet strategic and operational needs. The part, of course, I am most interested in as the chief of defense staff and the individual who will be providing options for our government to be not only in defense of Canadian interest but also as good coalition partners is having the equipment there. So I very much am heartened by the fact that the government remains committed to these things and I look very much forward to the delivery of the first of these vehicles. How many come, the numbers remain in our Canada First Defense Strategy and I have every hope that those numbers will remain the same. Thank you. Great, thank you. And I have a number of questions here on the Arctic. So beginning with the framing that Secretary Hagel last week released the US Department of Defense Arctic Strategy in Halifax along with the fact that Canada currently leads the Arctic Council and will be followed by the US. Some of the questions are about what the potential is for US Canada cooperation to advance the North American agenda when it comes to the Arctic over the next several years. And under that there are actually a couple of questions on capabilities. You had mentioned the investments that will be made in the offshore cutter and satellite capabilities for monitoring. What other capabilities does Canada have in mind and what capabilities does Canada think the US should contribute? Somebody asked, is the US free writing off of Canada when it comes to Arctic defense issues? I'll answer that last bit right off the bat. No, the population in Alaska itself far outnumbers the northern populations across all of the Arctic in Canada. Therefore in fact when we had a terrible accident aircraft landing short of alert in the early 1990s in fact it took us days by ground to get to that site and we just arrived there as our friends from the United States Air Force arrived having started from Alaska. But this does speak to, it was a very interesting presentation that Secretary of Defense Hegel gave at the Halifax International Security Forum on the weekend in which he presented the framework for the United States going forward. And it spoke not only to the importance of the Arctic but also a concern towards environment and climate change. All of these things really are very heartening in that it confirms the fact that United States is like minded with Canada and in fact all the eight Arctic nations in seeing the Arctic as free of military competition. That's a very important point because it frees the military chiefs of defense like myself to focus on providing military support to civil authorities. And all of those things appeal to all of our better angels. Couple of years ago I was the head of mission for the Canadian delegation that came together with delegations from each of the Arctic nations to discuss the Arctic Search and Rescue Treaty which did end up with a legally binding treaty which really was a tremendous step forward in listing all of the capabilities meager as they may be. I tell you if you're thinking of being an adventure in the far north a better wear a wetsuit or if you fall in better be prepared to survive for a few hours while we determine how best to get to you. The fact is that anything that happens in the north on a small scale or a large scale is going to require the efforts of one, two or several of the Arctic nations up there. So these other issues like the military input to support an environmental disaster these are the kinds of things that we're working on. Not the basing of troops up there with the idea of providing military might or capability for that purpose. And another question from the audience on your views on the US use of lethal unmanned aerial systems drones by the United States in Afghanistan and elsewhere and the second part of that question does Canada have any plans to purchase this capability going forward? So views on the United States use since 2002 when the first one was fielded and views on whether Canada needs this capability. I think it's fair to say that military leaders of any kind will have very few intrinsic concerns about the use of kinetic force in support of a valid operational campaign. So if a kinetic round is propelled towards an enemy a confirmed enemy for strategic purposes by a rifle, by an artillery piece, by an aircraft manned or by an aircraft unmanned any of those that end up with a desired end state is a supportable point of view. To answer the first part sorry I think the second part of the question the Canada first defense strategy back in 2008 signaled that Canada would be finally buying its own capability of unmanned aerial vehicles. It's yet to be determined whether ours will carry lethal capabilities on board or just simply be for electronic, optical and IR surveillance. But having said that Canada has been effectively using unmanned aerial vehicles themselves rented least through the Afghanistan war and on board our ships that are right now in the Arabian Gulf to great effect. So we're in the game along with many NATO allies and delighted by the capabilities it gives us to use the high ground in reconnaissance and surveillance. Can I just ask a question linking the last two questions unarmed ISR capable unmanned systems would seem to be a great way forward in the Arctic for maritime domain awareness? Is there any effort underway to build any kind of architecture there that uses unmanned systems? Well that's a great question isn't it? Because even as we go back to one of our earlier points that distant early warning radar line only really provides a warning short of the Arctic archipelago. So the back a few bedrooms of our house really are unalarmed by the alarm system we've got in place right now. And the sense is that unmanned aerial vehicles could go into a spot which is really very difficult for human beings to operate in for a good portion of the year and provide a set. The unfortunate thing about it of course is you quickly run into communication problems as soon as you get above 60 degrees north, 65 degrees north and you can no longer see the satellites that are in geostationary orbit over the equator. Therefore what you need really when you talk about infrastructure is less about towers on the ground or buildings on the ground and more about a constellation of satellites that provide you this communication link. And then once you've got that link what's the endurance of these machines that allows you safely to send them out and bring them back. So there's also an interest in aerostats and the technology that that could bring each of these for anyone who's been in the Arctic you know we speak about that and certainly we're opening up a new set of beachfront properties up there at a much greater rate than we expected but anybody who has been up in the Arctic and actually worked or flown or the Arctic will know for a good portion of the year it really is a terribly inhospitable place and a very very difficult set of challenges whenever you want to operate anything up there. So it's of great interest to us and I think likely we will find a mixture of manned aircraft and unmanned vehicles and tethered vehicles to provide us that capability. Sir I have one question about the NORAD strategic review if I could ask you to put your prior hat back on. With NORAD in charge of aerospace warning and control for 50 years and then adding an additional mission of maritime warning can you talk a little bit about what the future may hold for NORAD and what kind of additional mission sets that from a Canadian perspective you might like to see come on down the pike. Well that's very interesting isn't it? Because back in 1958 it truly was only aerospace defense bombers and we pretty much knew where they would come from if they were going to come and it would be up over the North Pole so it was pretty much unidirectionally focused and you knew what you needed to defend yourself of course I think it's probably our parents or our grandparents who were even trained in getting underneath their desks for that threat and there were over a couple of hundred thousand people who daily wore a NORAD patch to work. When people say that things have gotten tougher and more complex in the strategic arena I think they're right it is more complex but my goodness we certainly stepped back from a potential set of threats that was so apparent and existential at that time. Today we count approximately five to seven thousand people Canadian and American who wear a NORAD patch to work. There are others who support NORAD but really that number has come down with a decrease of that existential threat but we no longer look directly north. Now we talk in terms of intercontinental ballistic missiles and those won't specifically come over the north they can come over the west they can come over the northeast to hit downtown North America. So really that unidirectional look that we looked to defend against is now omnidirectional and inward ever since 9-11 inward. So I think and a recognition that threats can approach from offshore as well so this linkage of the maritime warning not maritime defense but maritime warning that came in in 2006 really did expand NORAD's warning duties. So the question naturally comes along now that you've got this very efficient and effective warning capability that goes directly into our most senior decision makers what else could it be used for? Could NORAD aid cyber command for instance in getting the message out to these senior decision makers when the time comes rather than have cyber command itself stand something like that up? Are there other inputs that can be coalesced brought together in kind of an all sensor integration center at NORAD to provide these sorts of warnings? And I think what we'll find is the answer will be yes it'll be interesting to see just exactly which capabilities NORAD will be given to respond. Right now truly is only within the aerospace defense line that NORAD has any duty to respond. This is a another Arctic question. This is specifically asking do you see the Arctic Council as ever having a budget for acquisition of military hardware i.e. surveillance reconnaissance or search and rescue capability? So should there be an operational role for the Arctic Council and is that a possibility going forward or will it just be bilaterally and multilaterally that there'll be Arctic cooperation? That's a very interesting question. I have to in full disclosure say that of course Canada's partnership in the Arctic Council is led from the foreign affairs department and anything that we do in support of the Arctic Council is done in support of de-fates efforts. What we call foreign affairs and international trade development. I think what I would say is what the military can do in support of the Arctic Council and maybe there's some implications that would shed some light on that question is exactly what we've done over the last couple of years and as chiefs of defense of the Arctic nations we group together at least once a year to discuss capabilities that are in support of our mutual civilian authorities. It's a wonderful pressure release point between Russia and the other seven Arctic nations because again most of these things appeal to everyone's better angels. So I don't think likely most of those things that the civilian authorities will require in terms of operations in the North will be supplied by the militaries of those eight nations. I think unlikely the Arctic Council itself will become an operational function. I think it will continue to look at the militaries. So then the question comes to will the militaries band together to buy pieces of equipment? I think that's probably less likely as developing individual national capabilities and then throwing them for certain operations into a bin as we would to support an Arctic search and rescue operation. I have a question from the audience that talks about a little bit more border focus than what you've been talking about in terms of interaction between the two militaries and given that Canada Command has been now merged into I think it's Canadian Joint Operations Command. That's right. I would like to know the interaction between the Canadian Joint Forces Command Joint Operations Command and Northern Command and operations along the border. What springs immediately to mind is always consequence management because if something happens in Vancouver and there's a southerly blowing wind, Seattle's at risk and opposite is obviously true. So could you talk a little bit about border cooperation between the two militaries? Right. You may be aware that there's a combined defense plan that speaks almost directly to that. And I think the combining of our expeditionary command and our Canada Command and Operation Support Command into what you just named the Canadian Joint Operations Center has been a really, has had a coalescing effect for discussions with Northern Command as well. Whereas they would have to discuss with one portion of our operational commands. Now the entire command is focused in a very coalescing way. So I think what we're very careful with the border of course, we don't approach the border from disaster response purposes the way we do for aerospace defense purposes. I think some people would say that if NORAD were not stood up as a bi-national command as it is now back in 1958 for existential reasons, we likely would not have ceded to each other the sovereignty that goes along with it. But having done so and having had no problems, the idea of not having to get any authority to fly our jets south across the border to prosecute requirements for NORAD is really a very useful thing and exactly the same for American jets going north. Not so regarding a disaster management and consequence management. We're very respectful to each other's borders. We're very respectful to the requirement to ask permission to carry weapons in the other's territory. But it's also quite an easy process because it's based on one of unbroken trust. So even though it's a bilateral relationship as opposed to a bi-national relationship for these things, I think we've seen it having great effect not only with Gustav and various other disasters that have befallen our states and provinces. We've been of great help to each other. But also as you said during the Olympics, so much nuclear biological chemical capability that was resident in the states just under Canada was put on offer to the Canadians as required should it be required during the Olympics. It wasn't, but there was a perfect example of how our combined defense plan could support potential operations together. This will probably be the last question from the audience. The Quadrennial Defense Review is going on at the Pentagon now and you're gonna see Chairman Dempsey later today. What advice might you offer him on an issue that you would like to see taken up in this QDR from an allied perspective? I hesitate because it's a very presumptuous thing that I would counsel. Assuming he asks you. Yeah, assuming he asks me. General Dempsey as he deals with potential sequestration 2.0. I think I probably would fall back to that very thing I said a little bit earlier and that is that I'm only one chief of defense representing one military amongst dozens of others who will look to the United States Armed Forces, the leadership of the United States Armed Forces for leadership in the problems that will face groups of us, all of us alliances within alliances going forward. And I think there really is, I haven't noticed it with the chairman himself, but I think there really is a sense occasionally of fatigue amongst those nations, that nation, yours that so often needs to take on that role. So if the chairman asks for my advice, I'd say keep on doing those tremendous things that you do, which is including capabilities of international leadership. And we have very much learned from our American brethren how best to do that. Love to take on that role ourselves, but I can tell you that to most of the nations of the world or they'll look for Canadian involvement in these things, they'll be seeking US leadership in years going forward as they have in the past. Well, I can't let you go without talking about NATO. I'm amazed that it hasn't come up yet. So let me just, since it's the last question, I'll ask it very open-endedly and you can take it where you like. You mentioned in your remarks the importance, the continuing importance for the US and Canada, the transatlantic link. NATO is approaching another summit. It is coming to a different phase of its operations in Afghanistan. There have been smart defense suggestions. There have been framework partner suggestions. What's your sense of where NATO as an alliance needs to go to best capture and defend common interests? Thank you. I think that when we look ahead and see in NATO five years from now that supports the most likely of challenges and issues that will face us, we'll see one that has more interdependence and reliance. You speak about connected force initiatives and smart defense. That all speaks to training together smartly, lower cost, perhaps fewer ready forces and yet forces ready within nations to join in as required operationally. When we talk about smart defense as Canada and the United States, we talk about our European partners training with us over here in North America as well, which hasn't been usually what we've seen with our training Canada and US have either historically been posted forward to Europe or moving there for exercising. That is not absolutely necessary. There are NATO nations that train regularly in the United States and others that train regularly in Canada. We can coalesce for a connected force that allows us to be interdependent for training here too. So I think we'll see us working smarter, more interdependently and using fewer dollars to provide the capabilities that we've seen in use in recent years. Very good. I'll let you off the stage with that. General Lawson, thank you so much for spending time with us here today. I know you have a busy schedule. I also know this weather is extremely mild from your perspective and I have no doubt that you will have no trouble getting back to Canada from the US while all the US airlines shut down. So greatly appreciate your time here today and please join me in a round of applause. Thank you. Thanks, Kathleen.