Is the North Warning System obsolete?

The American commander of Norad claims that today’s security environment is “more competitive and dangerous” than any in recent generations, and that makes the case for modernizing the North Warning System. But upgrades to this northern transcontinental line of surveillance radars—deployed in support of sovereignty, air defence and frontier controls—are necessary regardless of threat levels.

The NWS joins Pacific and Atlantic coastal radars in monitoring air approaches to Canadian territory. Norad and the Canadian Armed Forces track and identify some 200,000 civilian aircraft that approach or enter Canadian airspace annually. The mission is to sort out which of those represent challenges to Canadian security, law enforcement or public safety.

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“The point of the NWS, is and will remain, domain awareness—awareness of events within and in the approaches to Canadian territory—and modernization of the system should be driven less by the return of “great power politics” and more by an acknowledgement that domain awareness is as important in peacetime as in crisis.”

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See the  debate  at “Face to Face” in Legion Magazine…