NORAD pays ‘full attention’ to Sino-Russian air cooperation – National

The head of the North American Aerospace Defense Command says Chinese and Russian aerospace cooperation in the Arctic has occurred NORAD “Full attention.”

These two countries conducted a joint patrol in the Arctic near the coast of Alaska for the first time last July.

US General Gregory Guillot told the Canadian Press in a year-long interview that it would likely take decades for the two countries’ militaries to reach “full integration” at a level like that of the United States and Canada.

“We see it as coordinated now, which means they can safely operate in the same area (but) not near the level of integration between Canadian forces and U.S. forces,” he said. “As they continue to work there more, this certainly has our attention and is something we have monitored closely.”

He noted that NORAD’s strategic rivals — Russia, China, North Korea and Iran — have an “unprecedented level of back-and-forth transaction coordination among themselves for truly the first time.”

Canada has been in a political feud over the past year with U.S. officials over their default on a NATO pledge on defense spending. While this conflict will only escalate in 2025 with Donald Trump assuming the presidency, Gilo said this incident highlighted the deep ties between the two militaries.

“2024 has been a great year for Canada for military-to-military relations between the Canadian and US militaries,” he said, noting how US CF-18s, F-16s and F-35s coordinated to handle the July incident.

“The Canadians happened to be operating out of Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska, and they were able to transition into 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 has been an uptick in Russian activity over the past year alone, with a notable incident in late September when Russian bombers were spotted off Alaska, but not in US or Canadian sovereign airspace.

When an F-16 fighter moved to intercept one of the bombers, it maneuvered close to the American plane.

He said: “One of the fighters behaved in a completely unsafe and unprofessional manner, which was surprising to me because this is not what you would expect from a professional air force.”

Despite this, the challenge NORAD faces with Russia is that the country is increasingly capable of threatening America from farther and farther away, he said, which has prompted NORAD to focus on building its threat detection capability.

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Gen. Guillot, who hails from Arizona and took up his role at the helm of NORAD this year, said the two countries need to bolster their presence in the Arctic through more training and campaigns.

This is because the powers that be in the cold north need to become accustomed to the difficult and harsh conditions in times of crisis.

Weeks ago, he traveled to Cold Lake, Alta. — which he joked “lives up to its name” — as he flew a CF-18, an RCAF aircraft being retrofitted to serve as a bridge for Canada to transition to the F-35.

But he has not yet been that far north, and is arranging a trip to Inuvik, in the northwest of the country, probably in February, to get better acquainted with operations there.

His Arctic travels have so far included Alaska, where he has been surprised by the harsh conditions. The vast area there makes up more than half of NORAD’s area of ​​responsibility, and the large distance between bases makes it a “challenging environment” for air crews responding to Russian aircraft.

He said US and Canadian forces look forward to spending more time operating in the far reaches of the Arctic by 2025.

He also noted that the United States is hosting Canadian pilots who will eventually fly 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, is very different from a fourth-generation fighter that we have with the F-15s and F-16s and that the Canadians have with the F-16s.” He said 18 years old.

“We’ve actually started that now to help speed up the transition.”

& Edition 2024 The Canadian Press