Canada in NORAD 1957–2007: A History (review)

Joseph Jockel, professor of Canadian studies at St. Lawrence University, is the leading U.S. academic authority on U.S.-Canadian defense relations since World War II and, in particular, North American continental air defense.

This book is the second volume of his study of the origins and history of the North American Air (now Aerospace) Defense Agreement and the organization created by that agreement now known as the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). His first volume on this subject, No Boundaries Upstairs: Canada, the United States and the Origins of North American Air Defense 1945–1958, was published by the same press in 1987. This will likely be the final volume because, as Jockel notes in his final chapter, NORAD may have reached the end of its useful life.

The book focuses on three aspects of NORAD: the history of U.S. Canadian cooperation in continental air defense as the threat changed from Soviet bombers to Soviet intercontinental-range ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and in the post–Cold War world to international terrorism; NORAD as a U.S.-Canadian binational command, with particular emphasis on the concept of operational control; and the evolution of the agreement itself as circumstances changed.

NORAD was created to manage the threat posed to North America by Soviet bombers. National security officials believed that the speed at which the bombers could arrive combined with the lethality of their nuclear payloads necessitated a rapid and coordinated response—one that did not require a separate negotiation as each incident developed. As Jockel points out, what made NORAD politically possible was the concept of “operational control.” This concept has never been well understood in either the United States or Canada. Jockel’s description is excellent: The commander of NORAD (always a U.S. officer with a Canadian deputy commander) would “have the power to direct, coordinate and control the operational activities of forces assigned” to it even though command in peacetime—including administration, discipline, training, pay, promotion and the right to assign or remove forces—would remain in national hands (p. 35). The resulting NORAD “command” was an integrated (binational) organization of U.S. and Canadian personnel who shared operational decision-making and financial responsibilities. For example, the director of operations was traditionally a Canadian officer (including on 11 September 2001). One result was that the Canadian deputy commander was often the acting commander because the U.S. commander was also the commander of at least one other U.S. command and was frequently away from NORAD headquarters. It is interesting to read about the trouble the U.S. commander took to ensure that his Canadian deputy would be able to deploy NORAD’s nuclear weapons should it be necessary (pp. 27–29).

Support for NORAD has been strong, especially within the U.S. military (or, more precisely, the U.S. Air Force). Until very recently, the U.S. position was generally that NORAD should be the primary vehicle for North American air defense with other commands supporting it. As an example, of this attitude, Jockel cites a statement by the U.S. commander of NORAD in 1967: “[A]ir and missile defense must be directed by a single individual and this individual must be CINCNORAD.” The commander also cited the basic principle then almost a decade old that “NORAD should be the primary command” (p. 75). U.S. officials had expected that NORAD would have operational control of the National Missile Defense (NMD) system (p. 149) proposed in the post–Cold War era. In 1999 the two sides discussed giving NORAD an expanded homeland defense function (p. 161), a notion that gained impetus after September 2001 (p. 178). However, Canada hesitated, and the United States moved ahead on a different track (p. 178).

This was not the first time that Canada had hesitated at a critical moment in U.S.-Canadian defense relations. As far back as 1958, when President Eisenhower was prepared to transfer to Canada the nuclear weapons needed...