Vanguard Magazine

NORAD www.vanguardcanada.com APRIL/MAY 2021 21 systems at the full ranges from which they are employed," as well as "detect and track the platforms - aircraft, ships, and subma- rines - that carry those weapons." Howev- er, he goes on to state that "the Homeland is not a sanctuary" and thus "we require new defeat mechanisms for advance threat systems - to include the advanced cruise missiles capable of striking the homeland from launch boxes in the Arctic." Although O'Shaughnessy's narrative conflates threats that would pass through the Arctic to strike at targets in the North American heartland with threats that would target the Arctic specifically, his overall message indicates that the chang- ing nature of threats requires national lead- ers and practitioners to reconsider the way forward in dealing with both legacy and emerging adversarial capabilities – both conventional and otherwise. The cur- rent North American defence enterprise is facing a paradigmatic challenge from newer technological threats that envelopes modernization efforts in considerable un- certainty. For example, upgrading sensor arrays throughout the North encounters fundamental difficulties involving commu- nications, especially when considering the information-intensive bandwidth require- ments of today's technology in areas where persistent and stable communications are lacking or significantly diminished. Nev- ertheless, US Northern Command (US- NORTHCOM) and NORAD have made concerted efforts over the last few years to refine their appreciation of changing mili- tary considerations that affect the Arctic, and General O'Shaughnessy in particular elevated awareness and understanding about the role of the region in North American defence. Initiatives to renew and modernize NORAD are essential to keep up with re- quirements to anticipate and respond to threats, and also to revise the continental defence architecture in response to new offensive capabilities – such as hyperson- ic glide vehicles, advanced longer-range cruise missiles, and unmanned aerial sys- tems – deployed by strategic peer competi- tors for which no defence currently exists. The US Strategic Homeland Integrated Ecosystem for Layer Defense (SHIELD) reflects a new defence and deterrence pos- ture that integrates sensors for domain awareness, defeat mechanisms, and next generation data fusion capabilities and predictive analytics that facilitate Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2). General O'Shaughnessy describes "pre- dictive analysis" as a key capability for an- ticipating and responding to approaches to the homeland, which indicates a pivot towards a "deterrence by denial" doctrine that emphasizes offensive options to strike at adversaries' platforms ("the archers") rather than dealing with the multiple mis- siles ("the arrows") that they launch. The SHIELD concept, oriented to counter the deployment of adversaries' offensive conventional threats, may also be used to deter nuclear forces, as adversaries may also deploy nuclear warheads on dual-use ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missile de- livery platforms. Changes in command and control, re- newal of the North Warning System, Can- ada's recently expanded Air Defence Iden- tification Zone (CADIZ), and SHIELD and JADC2 comprise main elements in the modernization of North American de- fence, which affects the future of NORAD – particularly its early warning role and possibly the expansion of its mission to offensive roles beyond North America as part of "deterrence by denial." The Arctic as an "avenue of approach" cannot be ig- nored, and the release of Arctic strategies by the US Department of Defense, Navy, Introducing the VR-DT "Verdict" Virtual Reality | Decisions & Tactics Step into a three-dimensional realistic world and become immersed in environments only limited by your imagination. The InVeris VR‐DT platform brings you virtual reality from the world's most experienced provider of simulation training systems. Fully customizable, scalable and robust, the VR-DT is the most technologically advanced training system ever experienced by law enforcement and military forces. Train today for tomorrow's reality. Because Seconds Matter™ inveristraining.com Train for your reality

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