1/ Ok, some hullaballo about the fact that an F-22 from the USAF shot down a balloon over Canadian territory. Generally, the criticisms come in two forms:

A-  🇨🇦 ought to have this capability

B -🇺🇸 imperialism, &c

There are serious technical problems with both. Let's begin.

(1.5) - I will include recommended reading throughout in the form of book covers.

[Photo descriptions in square brackets]

2/ NORAD stood up in 1957  - operationally - followed by an official 🇨🇦-🇺🇸 exchange of notes in 1958. At the time leaders from the two countries had a mix of military and political concerns, but they agreed on the main threat:

A surprise Soviet strike against 🇺🇸 bombers [Tu-4s]

3/ At the time, the Western allies in NATO relied on 🇺🇸 security guarantees, and 🇺🇸 guarantees rested on the deterrent provided by the bombers of the USAF's Strategic Air Command (SAC).

If the Soviets could take out SAC in a first strike they would have Europe at their mercy.

4/ Ok, so you have to do two things:

I- Provide warning of a Soviet attack to give SAC time to get off the ground (relatively easy)

II - Put up air defences that make such a first strike unlikely to be successful (relatively hard)



5/ From a 🇺🇸 point of view, it made sense to just do I as far north as possible, then do II as far south as possible. The Pinetree radar line, active in 1951, incorporated earlier radar lines to provide detection and ground control intercept over southern 🇨🇦

6/ 🇨🇦 scientists  / mil officers / political leaders were not keen on this idea since the easiest way to destroy nuclear bombers is with nuclear air to air missiles, and that's a lot of "canned sunshine" getting opened over major 🇨🇦 cities
[AIR-2 Genie nuclear-tipped A-A rocket]

7/ Problem is that it is very expensive to build radar lines, and 🇨🇦 simply didn't have the coin. The🇨🇦 solution was to build semi-automated radar fences - less capable but cheap to build - and pair them with a heavy fighter carrying its own radar

8/ Voila. The 🇨🇦-built McGill Fence (1956) and CF-100, and, less successfully, the CF-105.

After 1954, the Eisenhower administration put a lot of funds into air defence over USAF objections and expanded air defence networks northwards.

9/ The beauty of the NORAD agreement was that it allowed the Canadians and Americans to cooperate on technical matters (something the Canadians wanted) while keeping other allies out of decisions about the American national deterrent (something the Americans wanted)

10/ NORAD was established in 1957, with official diplomatic recognition in 1958.

The CF-105 is another thread for another time, but one important part of the Arrow cancellation story was the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) - but probably not how you think

11/ Military planners knew that Soviet ICBMs were coming by the mid-1950s. Sputnik may have surprised the public, but not the generals.

What the Soviets did build - rockets - was just as important as what they didn't build - a big fleet of supersonic bombers [Soviet R-7 ICBM]

12/ Early ICBMs could skip over air defences. But they were also very inaccurate, making them bad first-strike weapons. Supersonic bombers, however, are great first strike weapons. They can put a big bomb on a precise target - like, say, a SAC airbase.

11/ But this is where it becomes a numbers game. ICBMs are not accurate, but they're easy to protect by putting them in silos. The USAF starting doing just that in with the Titan II and Minuteman I ICBMs in 1962 [Titan II in silo]

12/ So really the question became - could the Soviets build supersonic bombers faster than the Americans could build hardened ICBMs, and later ballistic missile submarines SSBNs carrying SLBMs?

No. they couldn't [Royal Navy Trident II SLBM launch]



13/ Ok, so what?

By the late 60s, most military planners dismissed the idea that the Soviets or the Americans would make a go of a "limited" nuclear strike with limited objectives. Any nuclear war was going to be all-in.

(tactical nuclear weapons excepted...another time.)

14/ This means that any bomber strike would be accompanied by a missile strike. Missiles that could not be defeated. Ballistic missile defence (BMD) proved to be too expensive to operationalise, so by the late 60s / early 70s, NORAD's main role went from interception to detection

15/ This doesn't mean NATO manned fighters were redundant. It just meant that it didn't make sense to have more fighters than necessary to deal with limited incursions, or to have something "warm" to heat up in the event the Soviets went on a bomber building spree [CF-101 Voodoo]

16/ When the Canadian government replaced the CF-101 interceptor in the 1980s, for example, they selected the cheaper, multi-role F-18 over the more expensive, air-superiority F-15. It made sense, since the CF-18s could serve in NATO roles as well.

17/ Ok, so on the balloon. The first balloon was destroyed by an F-22 Raptor, the sort-of replacement for the F-15, because the F-22 can fly *really high*, just like the balloon.

The RCAF doesn't have F-22s because they are too specialised for 🇨🇦 requirements and are 🇺🇸-only

17.5/ Notably, there aren't that many F-22s around anyways since the USAF/DoD/Congress determined that spending a lot of money on a large fleet of pure air-superiority fighter isn't worth it. They've since changed their minds (new F-15s, NGAD), but that's neither here nor there.

18/ In theory, the RCAF could have a large fleet of sir-superiority fighters based far to the north, as was planned for the CF-105. Let's say we wanted to do what the "A" people want and decide to "defend our own airspace" against any reasonable threat on our own [LAC - #4988516]

19/ First, wish the navy good-bye. Can't afford it anymore. Second, ask what exactly we'd be defending.

Sorry fellow Canadians, but we are not target #1 in a major global conflict. We are often most useful to an enemy as a route to attack the US. So we'd spend a lot of $...

20/ ....guarding the *🇺🇸* nuclear deterrent. And there wouldn't be a lot of money left over for a broad-based defence policy supporting other national objectives.

*and we would still be reliant on American tech / data....even the CF-105 used 🇺🇸 avioncs, wpns, and engines*

21/ Spending untold sums on superfluous, expensive air defence to destroy balloons and cutting back on commitments to allies in the process, thus weakening NATO, would be a major strategic win for an adversary

22/ As for the Bs - NORAD is the opposite of 🇺🇸 imperialism. It's a binational joint command with a Canadian deputy who regularly orders American assets around. There are specific diplomatic protocols in place to ensure dual-chain political consultation.

23/ To put this in perspective, the RCAF has ~80 active fighters in service. The USAF has ~2,500, plus a many other supporting assets. If they wanted to, the  🇺🇸 could extend what one 🇨🇦 strategist called "an involuntary American guarantee" of North American security...

24/ But they don't, and they haven't. Canada and the US are each others' oldest continuous, standing alliance partners, and have been since 1940. The two great, messy, democracies have disagreed on a lot, but that's the point, no?

25/ Let me sum up:

a - The air defence of NA is largely about securing the 🇺🇸 nuclear deterrent, which underpins the alliances 🇨🇦 depend on

b - Geographically this requires secure 🇨🇦 airspace

26/ c- 🇨🇦 do not have the resources to do this on their own

d- even if 🇨🇦 did, it's a poor strategic ROI

27/ Ok, so what? If we are a junior partner, should we abandon NA AD entirely?

Obviously not. Strat questions aren't on/off switches. Participating in the AD of NA buys 🇨🇦 a seat at the table. As a country with a small pop and massive resources, 🇨🇦 will always need allies

28/ But if NA AD is not an on/off switch, how much is enough?

ah-ha - you've hit the question that expert planners, ministers, & generals have been working on for decades. And maybe that's a discussion too big for a tweet

(More recommended reading to follow some other time)

You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: https://typefully.com/jhkeess/5gvgMMR