If I Were in Charge of Canadian Defence Policy (Part III) - NORAD

After an election break, I’ve decided to resume my series on Canadian defence—particularly what I would do if the Prime Minister drank too much wine one night and made me defence minister.

This time, we’ll delve into NORAD—the North American Aerospace Defence Command—the Canada/US organization created to defend the continent from air attack. Most people have heard of NORAD, usually from American movies, where US Air Force officers breathlessly watch the “big board” awaiting the fateful order to launch America’s nuclear arsenal at a perceived threat. The reality, of course, is quite different: Canadians are never depicted and NORAD doesn’t actually launch missiles.

With this in mind, we should likely begin with a brief overview of NORAD and what it does.

What is NORAD?

NORAD was founded in 1958 as a means of coordinating continental air defence. While it was a binational (Canada/US) organization, its purpose was quite clear: to defend the US and its strategic nuclear capabilities from Soviet attack. That Canada was also defended was obviously a secondary consideration. In my opinion, NORAD’s true role hasn’t really changed and, in fact, was reiterated by the American NORAD commander just last month: to protect America’s northern flank. This singular fact weighs across the entire discussion of continental air defence and, indeed, much of the rationale for the training, equipping, and basing of Canada’s air force.

So what is NORAD today?

We’ll skip all the history and describe briefly what NORAD is now. NORAD is a true binational command with its headquarters at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Nearby is the fabled NORAD underground command centre in Cheyenne Mountain, although most of NORAD’s functions are actually now located above ground on the base. NORAD is always—by treaty—commanded by a US Air Force officer who also doubles as commander of US Northern Command, the American military organization charged with operations on the North American continent. The Deputy Commander is always a Canadian general officer, also based in Colorado Springs along with Canadian military personnel who are integrated into the Headquarters and into all the command and control systems in Colorado.

From Colorado Springs, NORAD controls a wide variety of sensors and surveillance systems designed to monitor North American airspace and to defend against any intrusions—with lethal force if necessary. To manage such a huge responsibility, NORAD is divided into the Canadian NORAD Region (CANR), with its headquarters alongside 1 Canadian Air Division in Winnipeg; the Continental US Region (CONR), headquartered in Florida; and the Alaskan NORAD Region (ANR). All of these are divided into sectors and all, including the units in the US, have a combined US/Canadian staff.

The Canadian sectors fall under CANR and are controlled out of a single command centre at 22 Wing in North Bay, Ontario (CFB North Bay). There is also a Canadian counterpart to the more famous underground complex in Colorado, but its functions have been removed to more modern above-ground facilities.

What powers NORAD’s eyes and ears?

All of these organizations receive information from a wide variety of systems. These include:

• The North Warning System—a string of short- and long-range radar systems extending across the northern coast of Alaska and across the Canadian Arctic.

• The Joint Surveillance System—FAA radars based in the US that provide data on traffic over the United States to NORAD.

• A very similar but ad hoc system with NAV Canada for Canadian airspace operations.

• American E-3 Sentry airborne early warning and control (AWACS) aircraft.

• Space-based satellite surveillance systems, including Canada’s Sapphire satellite (which just ceased operations) and RADARSAT.

All of these funnel information into sector control centres, to the regional control centres and, ultimately, to NORAD HQ itself. If a threat is detected, fighter aircraft from either Canada or the US can be dispatched to investigate and, if necessary, destroy an intruder. These include aircraft based in Alaska, F-15 and F-16 fighters based in the US itself, and Canadian CF-18 aircraft based in Cold Lake, Alberta and in Bagotville, Quebec. Canadian aircraft also have access to four forward operating bases in the Arctic and may deploy to bases on either coast if necessary.

What about missile defence?

While missile defence isn’t formally part of NORAD’s mandate, and while the entire missile defence system (such as it is) is American-controlled, NORAD does feed information to US strategic forces to enable their decision-making. This could include missile attack or air attack warning that could result in a nuclear response as part of the "Integrated Tactical Warning and Attack Assessment" system.

Thus, NORAD doesn’t order nuclear retaliatory strikes or anything of that sort, although it is involved tangentially in shaping the American strategic nuclear force posture. DEFCON conditions, so beloved by American movies, aren’t a NORAD thing.

Furthermore, Canada decided not to be part of the American missile defence system in 2005. We have no role in America’s half-hearted defence system and almost certainly will have nothing to do with Trump’s hare-brained “Golden Dome” idea. We help provide warning, but that’s it.

The reality of integration

It has to be stressed how integrated the entire organization is. Canadian aircraft could be used to intercept threats in the US and vice versa. Canadians and Americans operate together at every level and are essentially indistinguishable during actual operations. This has led to some handwringing when the public discovers that US aircraft have been used for interceptions over Canada or that Canadian aircraft were “unavailable.” Such incidents merely reflect how NORAD operates.

But the thing is that we shouldn’t be under any illusions. NORAD is primarily a US organization—the US provides approximately 85% of the resources (for instance, the Americans own all the radars used in the North Warning System)—and its original purpose, to defend the United States, hasn’t changed. Of course, Canadian air force personnel would likely argue the latter point, but I would challenge them to find a threat that would appear if Canada wasn’t geographically fused to the United States. If Canada is an American client state, it is most evident in NORAD.

Why this matters

This means that many of Canada’s air force procurements are driven in large part by NORAD requirements, including the requirement to operate over the Arctic. It explains the RCAF’s preference for American equipment. Let’s take the current elephant in the room—the F-35. The F-35 is an advanced American aircraft that is network-enabled and comes with all the datalinks necessary to plug into the US (and hence NORAD) command and control systems. It is serviced by an integrated Lockheed Martin supply system and is meant to operate in an environment where massive logistical support is guaranteed. It’s like it was tailor-made for NORAD and explains why it was almost automatically selected to replace Canada’s increasingly decrepit CF-18s. After all, the benefits provided by the Gripen, the obvious rival in a Canadian context, don’t apply to NORAD. Within NORAD, there’s no need for rough-field performance, austere maintenance and, if we’re honest, dogfighting ability. The Gripen doesn’t “plug into” NORAD so it wasn’t selected. Pure and simple.

It’s this loss of sovereignty that, in the face of Trumpism and an aggressive US, calls our current relationship with NORAD into question. It was fine—with Canada as a client state—as long as the US regarded Canada benignly. It’s better to be part of the organization, with a voice at the table, than to have decisions imposed by Washington. The Americans would never tolerate having a “black hole” on their northern flank and will always demand some control over the defence of Canadian airspace—one way or another. But the system never anticipated an antagonistic United States or such severe tensions between the two countries; maintaining Canadian sovereignty is now a real rather than theoretical issue.

What can we do about it?

I think this reality is starting to sink in. Canada will have to be part of NORAD, but we can decide what that participation looks like in practice. For instance, Canada has been developing satellite surveillance capabilities that, while useful for NORAD, are under Canadian control. The most recent example of a shift in thinking is the selection of Australia to assist with the upgrade of the North Warning System and the procurement of over-the-horizon radars. These will be Canadian-owned, rather than American.

If I were defence minister, I would continue this trend, fully realizing that withdrawing from NORAD isn’t an option. What would this look like in practice? Well, I’d:

• Reduce the F-35 buy to the minimum needed for NORAD service, purchasing another aircraft for service with NATO and contingency operations. Take delivery of the first sixteen as contracted and amend the second tranche to procure enough for NORAD service. The RCAF won’t like it, but sometimes that doesn’t matter.

• Continue to develop, with some urgency, a Canadian military surveillance satellite system under national control that could provide data to NORAD.

• Purchase Canadian AWACS aircraft that could be tasked to NORAD as needed.

• Begin to move to a Canadian-only communications system that could be “plugged in” to the US system on an as-required basis.

• Further develop the current austere Forward Operating Locations to enable a semi-permanent fighter presence (not “bases”).

• Alert task a portion of the new aerial refuelling aircraft to NORAD.

Admittedly, some of these measures were already in the government’s defence plan. However, as with most of the plan, the timelines remain far, far too long, and some of this needs to be done with urgency if we’re to start disentangling from the United States. We might start with a quick decision on the F-35.