Chinese-Russian air co-operation has Norad's 'full attention'

United States Air Force Gen. Gregory M. Guillot, commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, takes part in an interview with The Canadian Press, in Ottawa, April 17, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

The head of the North American Aerospace Defence Command says Chinese and Russian air co-operation in the Arctic has Norad's "full attention."

Those two countries for the first time staged a joint patrol in the Arctic near the coast of Alaska last July.

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U.S. Gen. Gregory Guillot told The Canadian Press in a year-end interview that it potentially takes decades for two nations' militaries to reach "full integration" at a level like the U.S. and Canada.

"We see it right now as co-ordinated, meaning that they can safely operate in the same area (but) not near the level of integration that the Canadian Forces and the U.S. Forces have," he said. "As they continue to operate up there more, it certainly has our attention and it's something we watched very closely."

 

Norad's strategic competitors -- Russia, China, North Korea and Iran -- have had an "unprecedented level of transactional coordination back and forth between them really for the first time," he noted.

Canada has been on the outs politically over the past year with U.S. officials for falling behind its NATO pledge on defence spending. While that's a conflict that will only ratchet up in 2025 as Donald Trump assumes the presidency, Guillot said this incident highlighted the deep ties between the two militaries.

"2024 has been an outstanding year for Canada to U.S. military-to-military relationships," he said, pointing to how CF-18s and the U.S.'s F-16s and F-35s co-ordinated to deal with the July incident.

"The Canadians just happened to be operating out of Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska, and were able to switch to the Norad role and respond with us. That you can only do if you have years and years of fully integrated training."

He said there was a slight uptick this past year in Russian activity alone, with one notable incident in late September when Russian bombers were spotted off Alaska, though not into American or Canadian sovereign airspace.

When an F-16 fighter moved to intercept one of the bombers, it manoeuvred too close to the U.S. aircraft.

"One of the fighters acted in a very unsafe and unprofessional manner, which to me was surprising because that is not what you would expect from a professional air force," he said.

But he said despite that, the challenge Norad faces with Russia is that the country is increasingly able to threaten America from further and further away, which has Norad focused on building out its ability to detect threats.

Gen. Guillot, who hails from Arizona and assumed his role at the top of Norad this year, said the two nations need to beef up their Arctic presence through more exercising and campaigning.

That's because forces that rotate into the cold north need to become accustomed to the challenging and frigid conditions for times of crisis.

Weeks ago, he travelled to Cold Lake, Alta. -- which he joked "lives up to its name" -- where he flew in a CF-18, an RCAF aircraft being modernized as a bridge for Canada to transition to the F-35.

But he still hasn't been to the high north, and is arranging a trip to Inuvik, N.W.T., likely in February, to better familiarize himself with the operations there.

His arctic trips have consisted of the Alaska-side so far, where he's been surprised by the harsh conditions. The vast space there makes up more than half of Norad's area of responsibility, and the large distance between bases makes it a "challenging environment" for aircrew responding to Russian aircraft.

He said the U.S. and Canadian Forces are eyeing spending more time operating at the far extremes of the Arctic come 2025.

He also noted that the U.S. is hosting Canadian pilots who will eventually fly the F-35s at Eielson Air Force Base outside of Fairbanks, Alaska for training. The plan is to show them that "operating and maintaining a fifth-gen fighter, especially in the Arctic region, is very different from a fourth-gen fighter that we have with the F-15s and F-16s and Canadians have with F-18s," he said.

"We're already starting that now to help speed up the transition."

 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 30, 2024.