The modernization plan by Canada in NORAD amounts to spending 38.6 billion dollars over two decades, and the magnitude of this expenditure quietly supports what the fighter discussion has now become: it is not a competition of aircraft but rather a matter of how North America will feel, make its decisions and react at the machine pace.
On paper, a number of 4.5-generation fighters would be able to secure the Canadian airspacea. The continuing area of friction is that it is uncertain whether anything other than the coalition-scale architecture which is increasingly the hallmark of continental defense shared tracks, shared mission data and upgrades coming as software in place of once-a-decade rebuilds. The difference is most significant along the arctic and the western routes where distances are large and intercept times are narrow.
It is also based on that same logic that lies in the core of the relevance of F-35 to NORAD. The aircraft was planned based on sensor fusion and secure communications that transfer time sensitive information between aircrafts, vessels as well as ground nodes. Practically, a formation is not merely enveloping more sky; it is constructing one, dispersed image, which can be operated in a brief period. The Multi-function Advanced Data Link of the F-35 and the sensor suite, including the Distributed Aperture System, are designed in such a way that that “share-first” model aspect is not exceptional but mundane.
The other half of the message is the upgrade cadence. Block 4 and its reliance on Technology Refresh 3 is not a marketing line, it is the process through which the platform continues to add functionality without altering the fundamental jet. Weapons, sensing, and processing headroom is grown by the iterative drops in the program, and the capability of fielding new munitions is decided by the program as it grows. A more familiar example of the block 4 is the GBU-53/B Stormbreaker, which is said to utilize a “tri-mode seeker and” a bi-directional data link to effect retargeting and in-flight maneuvers. In Canadian terms, that does not mean strike glamour, but rather maintaining a fleet of fifth generation ships tactically up to date but not every time the threat is varied throwing the procurement question into the fray once more.
The technical strategic pressure is not the only one. The United States Ambassador Pete Hoekstra issued a threat publicly stating that unless Canada proceeds with a full fleet of F-35s, NORAD “would have to be modified,” and the United States would have to divert more of its fighters to serve the self-defense needs of the United States. Those comments do not alter the physics of the arctic; they underscore the working assumption that binational defence is optimally achieved when there is a plug and play across-the-border air-to-air interoperability of aircraft and command systems.
The modernization concerns of Canada itself support the movement in which interoperability has become the focus. The legacy sensors used by NORAD especially the North Warning System were designed in another era. Modern issues revolve around threats of lower altitude and less easily elucidated, resulting in investments in an Arctic Over-the-Horizon Radar with IOC to be deployed by 2028, a Polar OTHR trail behind it, and cloud-capable command-and-control enhancements. Fighters are simultaneously interceptors and network nodes, mobile sensor, decision enablers on one hand and weapon carriers on another hand in that environment.
The leadership of Royal Canadian Air Force has been strangely outspoken concerning the motivation behind the shift. According to MGen Jeff Smyth, the most realistic military threat to Canada is a missile coming over the horizon, and put them in place, “We need sensors and effectors, all supported by command-and-control systems, that tie it together.” Whichever model is selected, the fighter fleet is supposed to co-exist within such system-of-systems framework.
It is on that basis that the F-35 will not be an advantage as it will be able to perform a patrol where other aircraft cannot. That its model of modernization, datalinks, and multinational baselines resonate with how NORAD is being reconstructed: as a constantly changing network, which sees detection, tracking, and engagement as a single problematic issue.
