This inquiry into the social and economic challenges facing the members of Canada's armed forces' represents a perhaps belated recognition that strong and public linkages between soldiers and the citizens they are accountable to, must exist in peace as well as war. The system must be better attuned to the human needs of the Canadian Forces and their families to avoid the impression that no one notices or cares about them. Our resources are not limitless, but we cannot afford to be ungenerous. As much as we must pay careful attention to the conditions of service, the nature of military justice, or the demands of a complex domestic social order, we must always keep in mind that the traditions of the Canadian Forces were forged at Vimy Ridge, in the Battle of the Atlantic, and in the skies over Europe, in the heat of battle against skilled and dedicated foes. The 1994 Defence White Paper pointed out that the new international order was not really very different from most of the old regimes that preceded it.
International life is dangerous.
Vigilance, even in the presence of cautious optimism, will be rewarded. Lethargy will just as surely be punished. Again to cite the Minister, human nature and geopolitics suggest that someone will always be trying to take the advantage. Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in the summer of 1990 was a stark reminder that, in a world without rival superpower blocs, major conflict is still a very real, and very dangerous, reality. The collapse of Yugoslavia and the war in Chechnya taught the same lesson.