{"id":136,"date":"2006-02-12T23:58:40","date_gmt":"2006-02-12T23:58:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brucefinley.com\/counter-terrorism\/northcom-norad-eyes-on-the-future-3\/"},"modified":"2007-12-09T00:02:09","modified_gmt":"2007-12-09T00:02:09","slug":"northcom-norad-eyes-on-the-future-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/counter-terrorism\/northcom-norad-eyes-on-the-future-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Northcom & NORAD: Eyes on the Future"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Second of three parts <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Fate of defense post iffy <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>War on terror could reshape centers’ roles <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>NORAD’s Cheyenne Mountain command post has seen many of its duties duplicated at other bases.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Cheyenne Mountain<\/em> – Thousands of feet under granite in a command<br \/>\npost built to withstand Soviet nuclear blasts, Canadian Maj. Pat<br \/>\nAudet quietly supervised one of the U.S.-Canadian surveillance<br \/>\ncrews that for nearly 50 years have scanned North American skies<br \/>\nguarding against enemy intruders.<\/p>\n<p>But on this recent morning, Audet faced cardboard “top secret”<br \/>\nsigns taped over two of his surveillance screens. For “U.S. eyes<br \/>\nonly,” he said.<\/p>\n<p>Such barriers to sharing information hint at changes reshaping this<br \/>\nCold War-era defense complex just southwest of Colorado Springs as<br \/>\nwell as the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, the<br \/>\nU.S.-Canadian partnership that runs it.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. officials increasingly look to U.S. Northern Command, or<br \/>\nNorthcom, set up in 2002, to pursue broadening homeland-defense<br \/>\ninterests.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Canada – which joined Europe and Mexico in opposing the<br \/>\nU.S.-led invasion of Iraq and objects to the Pentagon’s<br \/>\nmissile-defense project – on Feb. 1 launched Canada Command to<br \/>\ndefend its nation.<\/p>\n<p>Today, the very existence of the NORAD mountain command post is up<br \/>\nin the air.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. Navy Adm. Timothy Keating, commander of Northcom and NORAD,<br \/>\nsays he recently launched “an internal study” of whether to keep<br \/>\nit.<\/p>\n<p>Built in the 1960s for $142 million, the command post inside a 4<br \/>\n1\/2-acre excavated grid of chambers and tunnels consists of 15<br \/>\nmultistory buildings mounted on springs. Personnel at workstations<br \/>\ninside, wired into data networks, were to survive and win a nuclear<br \/>\nwar.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. and Canadian forces here number 200 to 300 on a shift, about<br \/>\n800 overall.<\/p>\n<p>But today, with the emergence of Northern Command, a separate,<br \/>\nnewer command post carries out much of the same surveillance, with<br \/>\naccess to all the same data. That post lies northeast of Cheyenne<br \/>\nMountain at Peterson Air Force Base, where the Central Intelligence<br \/>\nAgency, FBI, National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency<br \/>\nand others have offices.<\/p>\n<p>“It would be logical for you to think: Could there be some<br \/>\neconomies and efficiencies by combining functions? And we are<br \/>\nlooking at that,” Keating said in an interview.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. officials estimated that NORAD operations cost $350 million a<br \/>\nyear.<\/p>\n<p>That money could fund important defense projects, Keating said.<\/p>\n<p>“We would use it to partner with industry and provide … a single<br \/>\nradio” system to link federal, state and local civilian police<br \/>\nwith military forces, he said.<\/p>\n<p>In the future, terrorists may well wield nuclear weapons, “but it<br \/>\nstill may not be worth the money of burrowing in that deeply,”<br \/>\nsaid Michael O’Hanlon, military analyst at the Brookings<br \/>\nInstitution think tank in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n<p>“It actually would be desirable, to be blunt, if terrorists would<br \/>\nattack a military command facility rather than a city, but it’s not<br \/>\nlikely to be a target,” he said, adding that it’s appropriate to<br \/>\nconsider melding two surveillance centers into one.<\/p>\n<p>As for U.S.-Canadian military teamwork, nobody expects this will<br \/>\nend, despite recent political differences. Diplomats are<br \/>\nrenegotiating terms of the NORAD partnership agreement, which is<br \/>\nscheduled to expire in May.<\/p>\n<p>After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, military officials<br \/>\nfrom both countries formed a planning group to explore common<br \/>\ninterests.<\/p>\n<p>“I can see Northern Command, Canada Command and NORAD all becoming<br \/>\none,” said Canadian Lt. Gen. Eric Findley, deputy commander of<br \/>\nNORAD.<\/p>\n<p>Yet effective cooperation against terrorism requires mutual<br \/>\nrecognition of a need to share information as smoothly as possible,<br \/>\nFindley said.<\/p>\n<p>A few Canadian academics have questioned U.S. assertions that<br \/>\nNorthcom now defends all of North America.<\/p>\n<p>Findley shrugged: “If it makes people feel any better, I think the<br \/>\nUnited States is part of Canada’s area of responsibility.”<\/p>\n<p>Canada certainly is “a trusted and valued partner,” Keating said.<br \/>\n“The trade and commerce we do with them is staggering. What harms<br \/>\nthem would harm the United States, and vice versa.”<\/p>\n<p>But he added: “I don’t know that the NORAD of today is going to be<br \/>\nthe same NORAD in 2011, five years from now.<\/p>\n<p>“They are standing up their Canada Command, which will be similar<br \/>\nto Northern Command. You’ll have this combatant command in Canada,<br \/>\nand you’ll have a combatant command (Northcom) in the United<br \/>\nStates, separated by 7,000 miles of border.”<\/p>\n<p>Today, for the 170 or so Canadians posted at Northcom, just<br \/>\nhandling e-mail grows increasingly difficult. Canada’s Capt.<br \/>\nRichard Bergeron, co-director of the joint planning group, pointed<br \/>\nat separate U.S. and Canadian computer systems on his desk.<\/p>\n<p>Inside Northcom’s newer command center, predominantly American<br \/>\nsurveillance crews, surrounded by wall-sized flat screens, focus<br \/>\nincreasingly on potential threats inside the United States.<\/p>\n<p>“We can certainly pass information to the FBI,” U.S. Army Col.<br \/>\nTom Muir, director of the center, said on a recent shift. “In<br \/>\nfact, we do that all the time.”<\/p>\n<p>A Canada Command liaison officer sits in the room.<\/p>\n<p>Inside the Cheyenne Mountain post, commanders described how<br \/>\nsurveillance crews today have access to Federal Aviation<br \/>\nAdministration radar data for tracking about 11,000 flights at a<br \/>\ntime inside U.S. airspace – they regularly hear cabin conversations<br \/>\n– in addition to scanning airspace outside the U.S.<\/p>\n<p>Word is out that an internal study has begun into whether to keep<br \/>\nthe NORAD mountain command post. And practically everyone bristles.<br \/>\nThe mountain post is steeped in tradition after decades of<br \/>\nclose-quarters cooperation.<\/p>\n<p>“There are things that can happen here that cannot be duplicated<br \/>\ndowntown,” U.S. Air Force Maj. Charles Thinger said, casting<br \/>\nNorthcom operations as “complementary” during a recent shift.<\/p>\n<p>Canadian Cmdr. James Hayes, scanning his surveillance screen for<br \/>\nincoming missiles, said rapidly increasing data from “all these<br \/>\nsensors” makes this “a very valuable place … a powerful system,”<br \/>\neven if similar work is done elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p>“In times of trouble,” he said, “this will be very useful.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Second of three parts Fate of defense post iffy War on terror could reshape centers’ roles NORAD’s Cheyenne Mountain command post has seen many of its duties duplicated at other bases. Cheyenne Mountain – Thousands of feet under granite in a command post built to withstand Soviet nuclear blasts, Canadian Maj. Pat Audet quietly supervised […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-counter-terrorism","category-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}