The head of the North American Aerospace Defense Command says Chinese and Russian air cooperation in the Arctic has Norad's “full attention.”
Those two countries first conducted a joint patrol in the Arctic near the coast of Alaska last July.
U.S. Gen. Gregory Guillot told The Canadian Press in a year-long interview that it potentially takes decades for the militaries of two nations to reach “full integration” at a level like that of the United States and Canada.
“We see it now as coordinated, meaning they can safely operate in the same area (but) not close to the level of integration that the Canadian Forces and the American Forces have,” he said. “As they continue to operate more there, it certainly gets our attention and is something we watch very closely.”
Norad's strategic competitors (Russia, China, North Korea and Iran) have had an “unprecedented level of transactional coordination among themselves for the first time,” he noted.
Canada has been politically on the sidelines for the past year with U.S. officials for failing to meet its NATO commitment on defense spending. While it is a conflict that will only increase in 2025, when Donald Trump takes office, Guillot said this incident highlighted the deep ties between the two militaries.
“2024 has been an exceptional year for Canada-US military relations,” he said, noting how CF-18s and US F-16s and F-35s coordinated to address the July incident.
Get daily national news
Get the day's top news, political, economic and current affairs headlines delivered to your inbox once a day.
“It turns out that the Canadians were operating out of Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska and were able to switch to the Norad role and respond with us. You can only do that if you have years and years of fully integrated training.”
He said there was a slight uptick last year in Russian activity alone, with one notable incident in late September when Russian bombers were sighted off Alaska, although not in sovereign U.S. or Canadian airspace.
When an F-16 fighter moved to intercept one of the bombers, it maneuvered too close to the American plane.
“One of the fighters acted in a very unsafe and unprofessional manner, which to me was surprising because that is not what you would expect from a professional air force,” he said.
But he said that despite that, the challenge Norad faces with Russia is that the country is increasingly capable of threatening the United States from further and further away, which has caused Norad to focus on developing its ability to detect threats. .
Gen. Guillot, a native of Arizona who took over as head of Norad this year, said the two nations need to strengthen their presence in the Arctic through more exercises and campaigns.
This is because forces turning to the cold north need to become accustomed to the challenging and frigid conditions of times of crisis.
Weeks ago he traveled to Cold Lake, Alta. – which, jokingly, “lives up to its name,” where he flew in a CF-18, an RCAF aircraft being modernized as a bridge for Canada to transition to the F-35.
But he hasn't been to the high north yet and is planning a trip to Inuvik, NWT, probably in February, to better familiarize himself with operations there.
So far his trips to the Arctic have consisted of the Alaska side, where he has been surprised by the harsh conditions. The vast space there makes up more than half of Norad's area of responsibility, and the vast distance between the bases makes it a “challenging environment” for aircrews responding to Russian aircraft.
He said U.S. and Canadian forces are considering spending more time operating in the extremes of the Arctic in 2025.
He also noted that the United States is hosting Canadian pilots who will eventually fly the F-35s at Eielson Air Force Base outside Fairbanks, Alaska, for training. The plan is to show them that “operating and maintaining a fifth-generation fighter, especially in the Arctic region, is very different from a fourth-generation fighter that we have with the F-15 and F-16 and that the Canadians have with the F-16. 18,” he said.
“We're already starting that to help speed up the transition.”
© 2024 The Canadian Press