A threatened future

But it is not a circumstance that should lessen the importance of the instruments of security either to the preservation of the welfare of Canadians directly or to the effective prosecution of their government’s diplomacy in security-related fields. [...] Earlier, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the United States, the Chrétien government took a number of steps to respond to the problem of transnational terrorism, not least of all because of the importance of convincing the Americans that Canada was doing everything it could to ensure that the security of the United States would not be threatened from Canadian soil. [...] One of the more obvious and immediate of the practical consequences for Canada was that the Canadian Forces were involved in more overseas deployments (of greater magnitude and at more robust levels of military engagement) in the 1990s than at any time during the preceding four decades, that is, in the period following the 1953 end of the Korean War. [...] Still others, while uncertain, can nonetheless be identified as clear possibilities in the light of longer-term transformations in global conditions: changes in the international distribution of power as a result of the arrival of new actors at the upper end of the hierarchy, for example, or the intensification of major environmental stresses, or dramatic declines in the supply of non-renewable re [...] But this is not a treatise on the infinite details of the available procurement options, or on force structure, or on the many other technical and professional issues with which the professionals who staff the armed forces and the Department of National Defence, or any of the other organizational components of Canada’s security apparatus, have to deal.