{"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 &#038; 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&#8217; roles <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>NORAD&#8217;s Cheyenne Mountain command post has seen many of its duties duplicated at other bases.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Cheyenne Mountain<\/em> &#8211; 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 &#8220;top secret&#8221;<br \/>\nsigns taped over two of his surveillance screens. For &#8220;U.S. eyes<br \/>\nonly,&#8221; 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 &#8211; which joined Europe and Mexico in opposing the<br \/>\nU.S.-led invasion of Iraq and objects to the Pentagon&#8217;s<br \/>\nmissile-defense project &#8211; 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 &#8220;an internal study&#8221; 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>&#8220;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,&#8221; 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>&#8220;We would use it to partner with industry and provide &#8230; a single<br \/>\nradio&#8221; 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, &#8220;but it<br \/>\nstill may not be worth the money of burrowing in that deeply,&#8221;<br \/>\nsaid Michael O&#8217;Hanlon, military analyst at the Brookings<br \/>\nInstitution think tank in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It actually would be desirable, to be blunt, if terrorists would<br \/>\nattack a military command facility rather than a city, but it&#8217;s not<br \/>\nlikely to be a target,&#8221; he said, adding that it&#8217;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>&#8220;I can see Northern Command, Canada Command and NORAD all becoming<br \/>\none,&#8221; 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: &#8220;If it makes people feel any better, I think the<br \/>\nUnited States is part of Canada&#8217;s area of responsibility.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Canada certainly is &#8220;a trusted and valued partner,&#8221; Keating said.<br \/>\n&#8220;The trade and commerce we do with them is staggering. What harms<br \/>\nthem would harm the United States, and vice versa.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But he added: &#8220;I don&#8217;t know that the NORAD of today is going to be<br \/>\nthe same NORAD in 2011, five years from now.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They are standing up their Canada Command, which will be similar<br \/>\nto Northern Command. You&#8217;ll have this combatant command in Canada,<br \/>\nand you&#8217;ll have a combatant command (Northcom) in the United<br \/>\nStates, separated by 7,000 miles of border.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Today, for the 170 or so Canadians posted at Northcom, just<br \/>\nhandling e-mail grows increasingly difficult. Canada&#8217;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&#8217;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>&#8220;We can certainly pass information to the FBI,&#8221; U.S. Army Col.<br \/>\nTom Muir, director of the center, said on a recent shift. &#8220;In<br \/>\nfact, we do that all the time.&#8221;<\/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 &#8211; they regularly hear cabin conversations<br \/>\n&#8211; 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>&#8220;There are things that can happen here that cannot be duplicated<br \/>\ndowntown,&#8221; U.S. Air Force Maj. Charles Thinger said, casting<br \/>\nNorthcom operations as &#8220;complementary&#8221; during a recent shift.<\/p>\n<p>Canadian Cmdr. James Hayes, scanning his surveillance screen for<br \/>\nincoming missiles, said rapidly increasing data from &#8220;all these<br \/>\nsensors&#8221; makes this &#8220;a very valuable place &#8230; a powerful system,&#8221;<br \/>\neven if similar work is done elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In times of trouble,&#8221; he said, &#8220;this will be very useful.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Second of three parts Fate of defense post iffy War on terror could reshape centers&#8217; roles NORAD&#8217;s Cheyenne Mountain command post has seen many of its duties duplicated at other bases. Cheyenne Mountain &#8211; Thousands of feet under granite in a command post built to withstand Soviet nuclear blasts, Canadian Maj. Pat Audet quietly supervised [&hellip;]<\/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}]}}