Eric Findley clearly enjoys a good movie and likes to pepper his presentations with Hollywood references, but the deputy commander of NORAD found it preposterous while watching last summer’s remake of ‘King Kong’ that within minutes of the great ape’s escape and ascent of the Empire State Building, the military had at its disposal the full breadth of ground and air resources to remove the ‘Eighth Wonder of the World’. As he and other military commanders were reminded all too well on 9/11, “getting the right information at the right time to make decisions” is never that easy.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) was signed by Canada and the United States in 1958 to detect, validate and warn against bomber threats, and later inter-continental ballistic missiles and space-based threats. The unique bi-national air defence agreement was renewed for only the fourth time on May 12, 2006, (see note) and now includes a maritime warning codicil. While it may be one of the most stable international agreements, NORAD underwent significant changes in the wake of 9/11, incorporating many lessons learned from that day. But as Lieutenant-General Findley told TechNet North in September, there are still barriers to hurdle.
On the morning of 9/11, our friends in Russia were moving bombers into their arctic operating bases, preparing to conduct an exercise. The only armed fighters were those in Alaska, Inuvik and those based along the north eastern United States, because the Russians still have a propensity to fly down along the coast from time to time.
Everybody assumed that we had tremendous situational awareness. We did. I knew exactly where the Russian bombers were, when they were taxing and when they were taking off. With our radars, we could see if they left those arctic operating bases and came anywhere near our territory.
We were not ready for something inside the US or Canada. We did not have the situational awareness we truly needed. The FAA took a long time to determine if those aircraft were even hijacked, simply because there had not been a hijacking of consequence for the better part of 30 years. We had procedures in place – to ask Ottawa and Washington for permission to use fighters for an escort of a hijacked aircraft. But on the morning of 9/11, we did not understand that the captains of those planes were no longer in charge. We did not have the flight numbers of those aircraft. We were taking the appropriate action based on the information we had, but we soon knew we had something much broader and more sinister than just a hijacking.
By the next day, we had about 400 aircraft, double the number from the previous day. We also had a carrier battle group off of each coast. We didn’t know at the time if we were dealing with an isolated event or a series of attacks. We understand now that perhaps it was just those four aircraft, but by grounding all aircraft we may have prevented any other activity that was planned. We don’t know.
However, we put in place measures over the next few months that I think have stopped that particular threat.
RAPID CHANGES
We have remarkably improved our hand-eye coordination – knowing, seeing and hearing what’s going on, communicating it in a timely manner to the right people and then having the ability to take the appropriate action.
Today, we have more fighters on alert, and they are armed. Our radio coverage is extensive. We could not see into the interior of Canada and the US, and now we can. We could not communicate with air traffic control in Kansas or Saskatchewan, and now we can. We have integrated air defence artillery and a number of other sensors in the National Capital Region and in Washington, DC, as part of our air defence system. We have Coast Guard helicopters working with us under the same rules of engagement so that they can go after low and slow aircraft.
We’ve learned that information sharing is key. Had we had timely queuing from the FAA and total information of what was going on, we might have been able to react faster. Now, if we have an anomaly on an aircraft anywhere in Canada or the US, we have it in real time. If we hear air traffic controllers becoming excited about the most casual of events – telling a pilot to turn right after take off and the pilot turns left – we hear it in real time. And our air defence sectors do not have to wait for us to ask Ottawa and Washington to take tactical action. We can also hold a conference call with all those who have a role to play, and they can provide any pertinent information.
I have often been asked, if I were authorized, would I have engaged a passenger aircraft on that day? I’ve said I hoped I never got into that situation because there’s no question in my mind that you’d be interviewing me from a jail cell. We did not have the rules of engagement that we have today. Now we have very clear rules as to who is allowed to do what, who’s allowed to authorize what, and who takes action. We had that on 9/11, but it was for a different threat.
We learned that we’re now in a marathon. NORAD was designed for a sprint – we would fight whoever was threatening North America, fight furiously and well, but do it for a very short and finite period of time. We’ve been in this fight for five years – 43,000 sorties as part of Operation Noble Eagle – and we’re learning how to make NORAD more effective and more efficient.
Three years ago, homeland defence and homeland security were in two different boxes. You can’t separate them. There are overlaps, information on both sides that has to be shared. You have to collaborate and work together. Today on the Permanent Joint Board of Defence we have representatives from DHS and PSEPC.
NORAD was formed in 1958 because we had a threat. We understood the Soviet Union had bombers, ballistic missiles – real capability and verifiable intent. Now we face an enemy with lots of intent but we don’t understand the full capability. We now think in terms of vulnerability, and that’s a tough one. Is a port or an airport a vulnerability? Yes, but how much money, effort and resources do you want to expend to reduce that vulnerability?
US Northern Command came out of the ashes of 9/11 to provide homeland defence for the US. It’s mission statement looks like that of any other combatant commander, with one unique difference: to provide support to any civil agency. In Canada, we stood up Canada Command with a similar mission statement. NORAD has integrated exercises with both.
If you had asked me on Sept 11 who runs air defence, I would have said NORAD. Now we work with the FAA, Secret Service, FBI, RCMP, customs and border agencies in both countries, a long list of new partners. There is a lot of information sharing today.
REMAINING CHALLENGES
Events in one domain may not be unique to that domain – that has been the hardest one for people to get their heads around. Simultaneous derailments in Canada and the US could be isolated events or the front end of a coordinated series of things. If a sheriff in Texas pulls over a car because of a broken taillight and finds a stinger missile or a portable air defence system, and it happens in Alberta a day later, and then in Maine or New Brunswick, all of these incidents would be treated as isolated, criminal investigations. If that information is not shared, you can’t build a puzzle.
Situational awareness is crucial. We need a common operating picture. We’re trying to build a collaborative tool system that will allow key partners to populate the same display.
We’re now dealing with very compressed timelines, so actionable intelligence is vital. On the morning of 9/11, even if we had got the F-15s where we wanted them, we would have had to sort through about 3,300 air borne threats just in the northeastern US. If I took a big net and scooped up everything within 100 miles of our coast, I would probably get about 6000 vessels – there is a lot of clutter out there. Just telling someone there is a vessel of interest off the coast of Nova Scotia or an aircraft of interest near Atlanta, the busiest airport in the world, doesn’t cut it.
We have to minimize the collateral effects. We will be second-guessed if we engage too early or too late in populated areas, and we are desperate for non-lethal means of dealing with hijacked aircraft. Those technologies are being explored but I think we’re a long way from the day when we can have a non-lethal means of disabling an aircraft.
We still relay information in chunks, and under our new paradigm we must be able to tell everyone who has a ‘need to know’. NORAD has existed for 48 years and I still don’t always get the information I need in a timely manner. We need to work on our international sharing agreements. We have moved to a ‘need to share’ and, in my opinion, we’re slowly slipping back to ‘need to know’. How do we get people to share? Do we have the right systems to do that? How can we communicate back and forth with secret systems others can’t access?
The US and Canadian militaries over-classify information. It can be as simple as a map of the sewer system of Moose Jaw. We’ll say that’s important information if it ever got into the wrong hands and classify it. But that information is critical if you have a natural or man-made disaster. We’ve got to find a better way.
We did not have a plan for 9/11. I could not reach back and say, here’s what we’re going to do. We did have operational architecture, good communications, and we were able to get fighters organized, but we just didn’t have the plan to execute. The military is very skilled at deliberate planning, and we’ll do it in great detail. But we cannot rely on that anymore – plans must be adaptable on the fly. Plans force people to think, to collaborate and determine who is doing what, who has authority and responsibilities. They also help determine requirements and capabilities. Planning comes naturally on the military side, less so on the civilian side. So it has been hard to get the right people involved. However, we’ve seen marked improvement.
NORAD transformed on 9/11. We knew we had a new world mission. We have a new plan, and we measure its effectiveness by exercising. We run two major exercises a year now, and I run at least one exercise a week to ensure our understanding of these complex scenarios, to find the gaps and holes.
I was a force-on-force guy. My training was designed to counter the enemy force. But homeland security is different. It requires a different kind of training, different responsibilities; it means understanding provincial and municipal laws.
We can’t ignore the threat. Five years later we still have folks who are sticking their heads in the sand. We need to understand our vulnerabilities and determine how much we want to dedicate to protecting them. That is not easy to answer.
- · NORAD was first renewed in March 1968. The Agreement has been reviewed, revised, renewed or extended several times since: May 1973, May 1975, May 1980, March 1981 (when the name was changed to ‘North American Aerospace Defense Command’), March 1986, April 1991, March 1996, June 2000 and May 2006. For more on NORAD’s history, see http://www.norad.mil/about_us/history.htm.