Defense system of the Cold War era will be upgraded to combat Russia, China

Norad was a central part of the American and Canadian military’s deterrence strategy in the Cold War against the former Soviet Union. Consisting of satellites, land-based radar and air force bases located mainly in Alaska and the Canadian Arctic, the surveillance system was designed to warn military allies of any impending attack from the north.

The system, which was already of the latest generation, is out of date. New missiles being deployed by Russia and China can travel at more than five times the speed of sound and fly much further than their predecessors, which would overwhelm the existing surveillance network, said Michael Dawson, who served as Canadian political adviser to the Norad command in Colorado from 2010 to 2014.

In addition, the melting of the polar cap is leaving the once impassable Arctic Ocean free of ice for long periods, creating new vulnerabilities for the United States and Canada, current and former military officials say.

“The Arctic is no longer a wall and our oceans are no longer protective pits; now they are ways of approaching advanced conventional weapons, ”retired retired general Terrence O’Shaugnessy said during a deposition last March before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

President Biden made a direct reference to Norad in his public comments after Tuesday’s meeting, Biden’s first bilateral meeting with a foreign leader since his election. He said countries had agreed to modernize the system, which is jointly controlled by the two governments.

Biden also said he expected NATO members, including Canada, to spend at least 2% of their economic output on defense, as described in a 2014 pledge made by members of the transatlantic alliance. Canada’s annual spending on defense is about 1.5%, according to the latest NATO figures.

The White House and a Pentagon spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. On Friday, the US Department of State listed the defense system as one of the priorities for the bilateral relationship between the US and Canada, before a meeting between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Trudeau, along with other senior officials.

“We welcome Canada’s strengthened commitment to Norad as we modernize the command to meet new global security challenges,” the department said in a news release published before Friday’s Blinken meeting, by videoconference, with Canadian officials.

Norad also appeared during a call between leaders on January 22, highlighting the importance the United States is attaching to updating a surveillance system that was first developed in the 1950s.

US military and political leaders, such as Senator Jim Inhofe (R., Okla.), A senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, see the Arctic alert system as an important tool for keeping up with the military presence. China and Russia in the Arctic. Russia has been developing ports along the North Sea Route, a shipping route that winds along the Siberian coast. President Vladimir Putin also embarked on a military escalation in the region, adding new airfields, air defense facilities and bases.

China, which sees the Arctic as an important maritime route, according to government documents, and has been trying to invest in northern mines that give the country access to minerals such as zinc, nickel and gold, has partnered with several countries bordering the Arctic . He implanted icebreakers in the region and declared himself a “state close to the Arctic”.

Although Canada pledged in 2017 to increase defense spending by 70% over a decade, the Trudeau government did not set aside any money specifically to update the Arctic alert system, a project that could cost the country $ 6 billion – about 40% of the estimated cost of $ 15 billion, said James Fergusson, deputy director of the Center for Defense and Security Studies at the University of Manitoba.

That money would represent a major commitment for Canada, whose total annual defense budget of $ 19 billion is less than 3% of the $ 700 billion defense budget.

Canadian authorities have publicly recognized the importance of the updates.

“Now is the opportunity to really speed things up,” Canadian Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan said in an interview in late January. Mr. Sajjan also discussed modernization with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin during a call in January.

Sajjan said Canada started some of the work, citing new Arctic and offshore patrol ships that began arriving last year, with five more on the way, and the deployment of new satellite technology to improve surveillance of the Arctic and maritime activity. .

Since coming to power, Mr. Trudeau has focused on the threat of climate change to Arctic indigenous communities. A comprehensive plan for the Arctic, launched by Mr. Trudeau’s government in late 2019, provided for investments in new infrastructure and improvements in health to serve local indigenous communities.

Among the main initiatives mentioned by the Canadian government is an update to the Northern Alert System, or NWS, a chain of almost 50 unmanned radar stations in the Arctic and Alaska. Canadian government documents indicate that the system will reach its end of life in 2025 and the technology will need to be replaced.

Behind the scenes, officials from both countries worked on projects that aim to better update the technology needed to protect the continent’s airspace, said John McKay, Canadian lawmaker and co-chair of the Joint Permanent Defense Committee – a US-Canada group that advises the country’s leaders in US defense. The problem in recent years, McKay said, was Washington’s lack of political guidance.

“The previous government was not as interested as it should be in Norad issues and therefore it was difficult to get Americans’ attention,” said McKay.

However, a former senior national security official from the Trump administration responded that Arctic security was a defense priority for the former president’s team, noting that the Department of Defense published a review of the Arctic strategy in June 2019. , reinstated its second fleet for operations in the North Atlantic and the Arctic, and repeatedly asked for more funding for missile defense.

—Michael R. Gordon contributed to this article.

Write to Vipal Monga at [email protected] and Paul Vieira at [email protected]