VIDEO .
with transcript well we turn now to madrid where nato
allies are holding one of the most important summits in the alliance's history russia's invasion of ukraine is shaking european security and leaders are mapping out a new nato posture on we are ready to face the threats of because quite frankly there's no choice it's been a the most significant abuse retired lieutenant general ben hodges is the former commanding general of the u.s army europe he is in frankfurt germany general hodges we know that this expansion of the high readiness force to is certainly being heralded by nato secretary general as a big deal just how significant do you view this as well it's significant for three different reasons number one this would not be happening if you did not have all 30 nations of nato agreeing that it was necessary and all the work that's gone into achieving that level of unity uh demonstrates what makes the alliance so successful despite all the challenges and problems and the warts number two it's important because it we're not talking about two percent we're talking about making sure that capable women and men properly trained and equipped units ships aircraft that are ready to do their mission and then of course number three this is a such an important part of deterrence sending a clear message to the kremlin that we we could in fact crush them if they ever made the terrible mistake of attacking the nato country well let's talk about that for a minute help people understand i mean what would your expectation be if russia were to step over the line what would we expect this rapid reaction force to do everybody from my president every commander at every level constantly talks about we will defend every square inch of nato and in fact even today i was at the change of command ceremony for u.s army europe and the presiding officer was general sac supreme allied commander but also the commander of u.s forces in europe and he said we will defend every square it could not be more clear and that means that if russia ever made that terrible miscalculation you know they they literally would would be crushed because of the massive advantage in the level of readiness it would still be ugly but the outcome would be um no question well we know the troops would remain stationed in their home country do you have enough information yet to say how quickly you would expect allies to get those forces ready how quickly they could be in theater yeah this is a really good question because we're talking about increasing the number of troops that are on a higher level of readiness but that will include troops from the u.s and canada for example that still would have to get to uh into the european theater so in addition to actually designating a a larger set of capabilities at a higher we have to do what's called enablement of the sakura's area of responsibility uh mobility improving infrastructure improving ammunition and fuel as well as increasing the numbers of troops that actually for example with the canadian battle group that's in latvia i imagine we'll see more troops in on top of that that are in latvia on a full-time basis i do want to talk about the baltic situation in a moment but i just want to stay with the question that we're asking there do you expect that we would be talking about um you know having troops like rapid response means what 48 hours two um so inside that 300 000 you're talking about um almost all of them being able to arrive inside 30 days okay so think of i mean that that will be quite a feat um when you talk about all the equipment the ammunition moving by rail uh stem fast those who would have to come from canada or from the united states to get so i think there will there will be uh higher requirements for european countries to do more uh already the united states has grown from about sixty thousand to over a hundred thousand troops that are here including rotational forces so i think we'll see a variety of things but inside that 300 000 you've got you know inside seven days inside two weeks inside 30 days vis-a-vis the commitment from canada we know secretary general stoltenberg we spoke to him yesterday on this program said you know there's going to be a role for canada canada's prime minister um has suggested yes we are certainly part of these conversations but we don't have any specifics yet at the same time we know the canadian forces are struggling with recruitment i i know you are not inside those conversations in in nato but what would you say to canadians about how significant the contribution at a time where where readiness is a concern for the canadian forces well um you know the canadian forces are having the same challenge that american when the uh economy is good or there's lots you've got lots of job opportunities the military always has a challenge for recruiting and certainly has that as do most of the european militaries as well i think candidly this will be very attractive for soldiers or young women and men from north america to see that they're gonna have the opportunity to go serve in europe for six months nine months a year to to do something like that i think plus it's a sense of purpose you know you're doing something that has such a strategic importance i think this will very attractive canada has always and i would i would say this to you if you were italian or portuguese canada has always provided exceptionally talented i spent a year with them in kandahar and afghanistan i've worked with them in the so the quality of people that canada sends over in the quality of equipment is so good that's why nato is counting step up as well i want to touch quickly on the situation with the baltic states they of course have russia on their insisted that what they need is actually more troops in the country we know this is something that's going to be discussed at this madrid summit do you expect nato to follow through on what the baltic states are asking for i i listened to the president of estonia just a few weeks ago who's such an person and leader and she said look don't don't talk to us about uh liberation campaign or uh rapid response or help restore our sovereignty we see what happens when russian troops uh cross the border and they occupy villages and towns we see from bucha what happens so so our allies in the too keen on the idea of trading space for time they don't have much space to trade in hopes that we will all arrive and get there to push the russians back the experiences of what we observed in are uh causing our baltic allies to understandably say we need to be talking about more forward defense more air missile defense because now we also have to worry about protecting civilians not just airports and seaports we only have a minute left and i would be remiss if i didn't ask you about canada's defense spending we heard secretary general stoltenberg talking about this two percent of gdp saying increasingly it is a floor not a ceiling canada is planning to increase its defense spending but they're still lying one and a half percent there's no real meaningful discussion about hitting two percent here in canada do you think that that is uh satisfactory amongst canada's allies right now when we see so many other countries increasing their defense no it's absolutely not satisfactory and um i i think that canada has the uh the and and you risk becoming a second tier if you will you lose a voice you lose influence inside the alliance uh on policy decisions uh beyond other than the fact that every nation can veto something i mean uh germany even germany is gonna go blow past uh two percent and and i think um of course not just in the nato context but as our such an essential partner with norad uh there's so many other ways that uh you've got your pacific uh responsibilities as well as atlantic responsibilities there's a lot to do i don't know how you do that without uh i mean i think that's often the response from canadian officials as they point to for instance canada's contribution in latvia right now uh as as saying you know this can't be measured purely in numbers but i hear you saying those numbers matter a lot too yeah well you can't do all the stuff modernization uh the amount of money it costs to to train i mean the reason half the reason the russians are doing so poorly is because they're not trained i mean they have a lot of nice new kit but they're not trained they haven't spent the money to be able to employ uh it correctly uh the maintenance the fuel the ammunition the troops out in the field doing all that so um maintaining a level of readiness the ability to do the job is very expensive and i don't i don't know how canada can meet all its requirements and that level of readiness investing that much okay we're going to leave the conversation there for today but thank you so much for your insight sir catherine thank you for the hi i'm vashi capello's host of power in politics see more of our show by subscribing to the cbc 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