Thank you. It's an excellent point.
I think it needs to start with the premise that, as I mentioned in my remarks, any contingency over Taiwan.... This is not a luxury. This is not one that we insulate ourselves from. This is not Iraq in 2003. This is not a potential conflict of choice. If the United States is involved in kinetic action and hot conflict in East Asia versus China, it's only a peer competitor. We are intimately involved. Often, I tell people to look at a map. The idea that we could opt out of this one, I think, is not feasible.
Before that, though, how do we prepare for it? How do we plan contingencies? I think we need to work much more closely with a lot of our minilateral engagements. The Five Eyes, for example, is traditionally a signals intelligence arrangement. We need to start thinking much more closely with the Five Eyes partnerships on broader terms, in foreign policy terms and in defence terms. I think we need to be thinking about and preparing for these contingencies and finding ways to avoid them.
Lastly, I also think that when it comes to our boots on the ground.... I don't often put this all on the backs of the Royal Canadian Navy. I think we need to start thinking diplomatically and in terms of our security officials overseas. We need to have a much bigger presence to understand the intelligence on the ground. The Five Eyes were a net recipient of that. We need to start having our own intelligence in a robust sense there in really understanding what's happening in that part of the world.