I suggest that one of the chief problems we have is trying to be all things to all people—and we try to do that on a very small budget.

As I've said in many other fora, we like to think of ourselves as the Australia of North America, when in reality we are the New Zealand of North America. That's simply to say that it's better to recognize that if we are only willing to spend 1.5% of GDP on defence—which has historically been the case—perhaps we should focus on specific areas and contributions we can make and do them the best we can. It may be the Arctic, which the United States has increasingly been asking us to do. It may be other specific types of roles. I simply don't know how we can keep going, spending less than what we say we're going to spend and trying to have a 2.5% of GDP defence policy on a 1.5% of GDP spend.

I would argue that we need to pick specific roles and contributions and do them the best we can, as opposed to trying to do all things.