Norad pays “full attention” to Chinese-Russian air cooperation – National

The head of the North American Aerospace Defense Command says that Chinese and Russian air cooperation in the Arctic has of Norad “full attention”.

Those two countries for the first time carried out a joint patrol in the Arctic near the coast of Alaska last July.

US General Gregory Guillot told The Canadian Press in an annual interview that it will potentially take decades for the two nations’ militaries to reach “full integration” on a level like the US and Canada.

“We see it now as coordinated, meaning they can operate safely in the same area (but) not near the level of integration that the Canadian Forces and the US Forces have,” he said. “As they continue to operate up there more, it certainly has our attention and it’s something we’re looking at very closely.”

Norad’s strategic competitors — Russia, China, North Korea and Iran — had an “unprecedented level of back-and-forth transactional coordination between them really for the first time,” he noted.

Last year, Canada fell out politically with US officials for falling behind on its NATO defense spending pledge. Although this is a conflict that will only intensify in 2025 when Donald Trump assumes the presidency, Guillot said this incident highlighted the deep ties between the two militaries.

“2024 has been an exceptional year for Canada to the United States military relations,” he said, pointing to how the United States’ CF-18s and F-16s and F-35s coordinated to deal with the July incident.

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“The Canadians happened to be operating out of Elmendorf Air Base in Alaska, and they were able to step into the role of Norad and respond with us. That you can only do if you have years and years of fully integrated training.”

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He said there had been a slight increase last year alone in Russian activity, with one notable incident in late September when Russian bombers were spotted off Alaska, though not in sovereign airspace. American or Canadian.

When an F-16 fighter moved in 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 for me was surprising because it is not what you expect from a professional air force,” he said.

But he said, despite this, the challenge that Norad faces with Russia is that the country is increasingly able to threaten America from further afield, which Norad has focused on building its ability to detect threats.

General Guillot, who comes from Arizona and assumes his role at the top of Norad this year, said that the two nations need to strengthen their presence in the Arctic through more exercises and campaigns.

It is because the forces that run in the cold north need to get used to the challenging and frigid conditions for times of crisis.

Weeks ago, he traveled to Cold Lake, Alta. — which he joked “and lives up to his name” — where he flew in a CF-18, an RCAF jet being modernized as a bridge for Canada to transition to the F-35.

But he has not yet been to the high north, and has arranged a trip to Inuvik, NWT, probably in February, to better familiarize himself with operations there.

His journeys to the Arctic were made up to the side of Alaska, where he was surprised by the harsh conditions. The vast space makes up more than half of Norad’s area of ​​responsibility, and the great distance between the bases makes it a “challenging environment” for the crew responding to the Russian aircraft.

He said that the US and Canadian forces plan to spend more time operating in the extremes of the Arctic in 2025.

He also noted that the United States hosts Canadian pilots who will eventually fly the F-35s at Eielson Air Force Base outside Fairbanks, Alaska for training. The plan is to show 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 the Canadians have with F- 18 years,” he said.

“We are already starting now to help speed up the transition.”

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