George Macdonald joined CFN Consultants in January 2005 after serving 38 years in the Canadian Forces, culminating in the position of Vice Chief of the Defence Staff from 2001 to 2004, following three years as the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of NORAD. Throughout his career, he held many leadership positions in Ottawa, and has served with NATO forces in Germany and Norway, and with North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) in both Winnipeg and Colorado Springs, Colorado. He also held the position of Director of Operations in the Foreign and Defence Policy Secretariat in the Privy Council Office and is currently a Fellow with CDFAI.

NORAD: As Relevant as Ever

Thank you David, it is a pleasure to be here today. I am going to take a rather straight forward approach and talk about the past, present, and future.

When we reflect on NORAD it has clearly evolved significantly over time in response to the Cold War threat of bombers to ICBM’s to post Cold War involvement in drug interdiction. NORAD has reflected a responsibility and responsiveness but not a lot of people are aware of NORAD’s role and operations. This applies to regular people on the street but also to senior military personnel. This lack of awareness is often because there is no contact between personnel or NORAD operations. NORAD, thus far, has been taken for granted, some think that it is simply a post Cold War relic and is not relevant to the threat. Ultimately it is a defencive alliance with few occasions where public interest has been peaked. After the year following 9/11 NORAD has faded into relative obscurity. Although the role of NORAD in the subsequent months after 9/11 was accepted as important, it has generally reverted back to being taken for granted. People often think of threats to North America as pandemics or global warming rather than a terrorist attack which shows a divergence of views from the Americans.  The direct funding to NORAD has been generally kept intact, even through periods of restraint. Pressure to reduce funding or resources has not been as acute as elsewhere, often because the resources are double-handed, and probably due to the binational sense of obligation.

Presently, the Canadian commitment to NORAD has been reaffirmed in the Canada First Defence Strategy. This is a three tier approach to deal with North American domestic and international issues. It refers to the security of the continent and not just external or domestic threats. The lines between security and defence has become blurred and there is recognition in a post 9/11 world that NORAD has a role in defending from internally-generated threats. There is also an acceptance of the need for greater bilateral cooperation and that the NORAD construct is helpful in this regard as defence is part of a greater security construct. Operation Noble Eagle (ONE) provides monitoring and interception of flights of interest within the continental U.S. and Canadian territory; flying air defence missions for our nations leaders, such as National Special Security Events like the G8 Summit; assuming responsibility for integrated air defense over the U.S. National Capital Region; providing interior radar and radio coverage developed through enhanced cooperation; and employing improved rules of engagement.

Recognition of the value of NORAD by informed stakeholders expresses a shared statement of the two nations interdependencies and vulnerabilities. The general effort has been to do no harm with NORAD but there are many different interactions with state and foreign affairs, but overall the NORAD relationship is considered helpful. The military will agree that the mission is important and enduring. Militarily NORAD enjoys a number of advantages: provides a unity of effort to strengthen our protection from direct military attack, provides expanded surveillance and control over North American airspace, and warning in the maritime domain; interoperability and common training can be applied to situations beyond NORAD, such as the mission in Afghanistan; and we maintain a common situational awareness of threats to North America and issues of binational interest.

In the post 9/11 period we are seeing a paradigm shift from the need to know to the need to share. Inclusion of the maritime domain awareness is important as it allows NORAD to process, assess, and disseminate intelligence information and inform each other appropriately. NORAD doesn’t have any resources to respond though, so this is an HQ mission only, but the result has led to good progress in this area and it is considered viable and useful.

When looking to the future of NORAD the question is, is there an expanded role for NORAD, and can we build on a 50 year relationship? Before the 2006 renewal agreement I argued that Canada should seize the initiative to broaden the NORAD role to include maritime functions not unlike those done in North American airspace. I also argued for considering a binational role on land and in cyberspace. Derek Burney says that we should be looking at a Canada-U.S. perimeter approach on security, making more intelligent use of technology on our external border, while relieving congestion on our internal border. Colin Robertson said creating a shield for our shared North American perimeter was the argument for air defence cooperation in the creation of NORAD in the late-fifties, but there is still a compelling case to expand and integrate naval and army commands as well. There are clearly, as the philosophy on North American security continues to mature, opportunities to further exploit the relationship by expanding the role NORAD.

It is possible to reconsider Canada’s role in BMD as the U.S. approach is changing to limited land-based systems in favour of ship borne defences. Canada is a niche partner in NORAD as we do not engage in BMD, and when this happened the U.S. started thinking of the defence of North America without Canada. This should be reconsidered but it will probably not be renegotiated soon. We should also think of evolving Northern Command and Canada Command Relationships. NORTHCOM remains separate or integrated within NORAD when needed and it is working well. Coordination of efforts among the three commands is also going well. Coordination for the 2010 Olympics is a good example of everyone doing their part for the overall mission to be performed. What is needed is better information sharing, employment of liaison officers,  development of compatible processes and checklists for execution of operations, and determine how to better accomplish interagency coordination. As these concepts mature, there will continue to be opportunities to apply the protocols and processes employed by NORAD to the bilateral commands to everyone’s benefit.

NORAD continues to be relevant to the needs of both partners, but there is room for improvement in fulfilling its defence and security role. In making these improvements we should not be caught up in the name, but rather in the concept that has served Canada and the U.S. well for over 50 years. That is, we should exploit the idea of an integrated command, with a high degree of interoperability in personnel and equipment, focused on a common mission that is essential to both.

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