you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It’s a bit more complicated than that I think. It was a NORAD response and that has a fair amount of integration between US and Canada. The base the American jets flew from has Canadian air force pilots stationed there—and is a western norad air defense post, so likely they are closest responding, and the Canadian hornets were coming from farther out (possibly Alberta?). But operationally the request came from a NORAD division in Canada, so it wasn’t like the US Air Force deciding to unilaterally violate Canadas sovereignty over a rogue Cessna. More like joint operation under mutual defense treaty kind of stuff like you’d get with NATO countries.

I don’t fully understand exactly how it all works but back in the pandemic a us F-22 shot down a spy ballon in Canada also I think, run via NORAD also. Canada maintains a lot of the northern radar and early warning stuff that NORAD uses as well.

Anyhow I wouldn’t blame Canadians for not being thrilled about American military assets zipping around overhead right now, just saying it’s not specifically remarkable as the article headline seems to suggest.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I think the bigger issue is why was Norad notified for a Canadian civilian issue. Air command could easily have handled things with bumping it up to Norad.

    The spy weather balloons are a different issue.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Yeah that’s a fair point—I feel like you could manage this incident with a police helicopter or something. Maybe NORAD was just bored and itching for an excuse to scramble…

  • source
  • parent