Events Detail

At its creation in 1957, NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) was given operational control over the vast U.S. and Canadian continental air defense forces. Canada in NORAD, 1957-2007 (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007) by Joseph T. Jockel follows Canadian involvement in the binational command as the threat shifted from Soviet bombers to ballistic missiles to terrorist-hijacked aircraft. It focuses particularly on what continental air defense has meant for the Canadian air force and for Canadian airspace and territory. It also looks at the differing Canadian and U.S. conceptions of NORAD's role in warning of nuclear attack, and the implications of Ottawa's decisions not to participate in missile defense. It examines the place of Canadians within NORAD as it exercised operational control over Canadian and U.S. forces, which were equipped for years with nuclear air defense weapons, as well as the command's impact on Canadian sovereignty. Finally, it outlines what Ottawa sought to achieve in the NORAD agreements with Washington, from the first one in 1958 to the most recent.

Joseph T. Jockel is professor and director of Canadian studies at St Lawrence University, Canton, New York, and the author of several books, including No Boundaries Upstairs: Canada, the United States, and the Origins of North American Air Defense, 1945-1958.

The panel was moderated by Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Christopher Sands.