U.S. set to unveil its plan to defend continent

April 17, 2002
By PAUL KORING

WASHINGTON -- Northern Command, a new U.S. military zone stretching from the Canadian Arctic to Mexico, is to be unveiled today as part of a sweeping global reorganization of the United States' power projection.

For the first time, a U.S. four-star general charged with North American operations will have tanks, troops, warships and combat aircraft reporting to a single headquarters for homeland and continental defence.

Details of the new command structure's mandate and possible impact on Canada were not clear last night. But plans for Northcom already were sparking concern in Ottawa that they could infringe on Canadian sovereignty. At the very least, the organizational change will mean that Canada will be included for the first time in territory assigned to a U.S. proconsul, as the handful of powerful regional commanders-in-chief are known, in deference to their formidable military and political reach.
No Canadian military forces will be assigned to Northcom, but military sources said Ottawa may seek to turn the new command into a binational structure, adding land and sea defence to the existing North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD).

U.S. President George W. Bush is widely expected to name Air Force General Ralph Eberhart, the current NORAD commander, as Northcom's first head. He will retain command of NORAD, but also command U.S. warships and army divisions assigned to defence and operations for the entire continent.

NORAD's deputy commander is Canadian Lieutenant-General Ken Pennie; this role is not expected to change.

But Mr. Bush's decision to locate Northcom alongside NORAD at Cheyenne Mountain, Colo., and put the same U.S. general in charge of both will be seen as a harbinger of even closer Canadian-U.S. military ties. Reflecting a new U.S. military posture after the Sept. 11 attacks, North American defence will now have the same high profile as other major U.S. commands, including Pacific, European, Central and Southern.

Senior Canadian officials have been in talks with their U.S. counterparts for months, trying to discern Northcom's scope and assess whether Ottawa should opt in.
Canada's top military brass are keen, especially if Northcom would evolve into a naval and land counterpart to NORAD with a Canadian general as deputy commander.
But others, especially in the Department of Foreign Affairs, fear that closer military integration will be seen as a further erosion of sovereignty.

The creation of Northcom is one element of a sweeping U.S. military reorganization, the impact of which may take years to ripple through the Pentagon's worldwide reach.
"It will be a plan which will restructure and streamline a number of aspects of the military command which we believe will better fit it for the challenges of the 21st century," Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said this week. "The kinds of consultations that are appropriate and necessary have been, or in one or two cases, are still being made," he added.
Canada is apparently in the latter group.

Despite decades of increasing co-operation, U.S. military activities can still cause consternation in Canada. The use of Canadian-claimed waters by missile-laden U.S. submarines was an irritant throughout the Cold War. More recently, some Canadian officials were upset that NORAD ordered Canadian warplanes on high alert immediately after suicide hijackers crashed jetliners into the World Trade Center in New York on Sept. 11 -- without first consulting top political and military leaders in Ottawa.

But that, of course, is exactly how NORAD was supposed to work when the bilateral air-defence command was created by treaty 44 years ago next month. From its joint headquarters bunkered deep in missile-hardened Cheyenne Mountain, U.S. and Canadian military personnel watch the skies and space, looking for threats that they are prepared to send warplanes aloft to meet.

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