Wings Over Kansas

NORAD seal

North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) is a joint organization of the United States and Canada which provides aerospace warning and control for North America. It was founded on May 12, 1958, as the North American Air Defense Command. Since 1963, NORAD’s main technical facility the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center in Colorado, and for this reason NORAD is sometimes unofficially referred to as Cheyenne Mountain.

NORAD’s main facility in Colorado are administered by the U.S. Air Force under the command of the 721st Mission Support Group, part of the 21st Space Wing, headquartered at Peterson Air Force Base.

Organization and leadership

NORAD consists of two main parts corresponding to its mission:

Aerospace warning or integrated tactical warning and attack assessment (ITW/AA) includes the monitoring of manmade objects in space, and the detection, validation, and warning of attack against North America by aircraft, missiles, or space vehicles.
Aerospace control includes providing surveillance and control of Canadian and United States airspace.

The organization is headed by a commander appointed by both the U.S. president and the Canadian prime minister. The commander is based at Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center, the central collection and coordination facility for the sensor systems around the world,. Three subordinate headquarters exist:

Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska-headquarters for the Alaskan NORAD Region (ANR);
Canadian Forces Base Winnipeg, Manitoba-dual headquarters for 1 Canadian Air Division (1CAD) and the Canadian NORAD Region (CANR); and
Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida-headquarters for First Air Force, the Continental NORAD Region (CONR), and the Southeast Air Defense Sector (SEADS).

The present commanding officer of NORAD is U.S. Navy Admiral Timothy J. Keating who is also the commander of the United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM). The deputy commander of NORAD is Canadian Forces Air Command Lieutenant-General Eric “Rick” Findley. Traditionally, the commanding officer of NORAD is American and the deputy commander Canadian. Both Canadian and U.S. forces have a commander for their contingents at Cheyenne Mountain. NORAD and USNORTHCOM have no direct command and control links with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, but both organizations coordinate training and planning USNORTHCOM missions.

History

Formation

Background

Cold War
Canada-United States relations
Soviet-Canadian relations
Soviet-Canadian relations
Canada in the Cold War

The growing perception of the threat of long-range Soviet strategic bombers armed with nuclear weapons brought the U.S. and Canada into closer cooperation for air defense. While attacks from the Pacific or Atlantic would have been detected by Airborne Early Warning aircraft, Navy ships, or offshore radar platforms, the Arctic was underprotected. In the early 1950s the U.S. and Canada agreed to construct a series of radar stations across North America to detect a Soviet attack over the Arctic. The first series of radars was the Pinetree Line, completed in 1954 and consisting of 33 stations across southern Canada. However, technical defects in the system led to more radar networks being built. In 1957, the McGill Fence was completed; it consisted of Doppler radar for the detection of low-flying craft. This system was roughly 300 miles north of the Pinetree Line along the 55th parallel. The third joint system was the Distant Early Warning Line (DEW Line), also completed in 1957. This was a network of 57 stations along the 70th parallel. The systems gave around three hours warning of bomber attack before they could reach any major population center.

The command and control of the massive system then became a significant challenge. Discussions and studies of joint systems had been ongoing since the early 1950s and culminated on August 1, 1957, with the announcement by the U.S. and Canada to establish an integrated command, the North American Air Defense Command. On September 12, operations commenced in Colorado. A formal NORAD agreement between the two governments was signed on May 12, 1958.

Cold War and false alarms

By the early 1960s, about 250,000 were involved in the operation of NORAD. The emergence of the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) threat in the early 1960s was something of a blow. In response, a space surveillance and missile warning system was constructed to provide worldwide space detection, tracking and identification. The extension of NORAD’s mission into space led to a name change to the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

From 1963 the size of the U.S. Air Force was reduced and obsolete sections of the radar system were shut down. However, there was increased effort to protect against an ICBM attack; two underground operations centers were set up, the main one inside Cheyenne Mountain and an alternate at North Bay, Ontario. By the early 1970s, the acceptance of mutual assured destruction doctine led to a cut in the air defense budget and the repositioning of NORAD’s mission to ensuring the integrity of airspace during peacetime. There followed significant reductions in the air defense system until the 1980s, when, following the 1979 Joint US-Canada Air Defense Study (JUSCADS) the need for the modernization of air defenses was accepted