The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) is a binational command, jointly run by both the United States and Canada, designed to detect, deter, and defeat threats coming from the air and from space. It is the bedrock of North American homeland defense and has run continuously ever since the outset of the Cold War. 

Initially meant to defend the United States and Canada from the Soviet nuclear missile threat, today it endures, protecting North America from a variety of threats.

Today, NORAD is charged with tracking strategic bombers, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, hypersonic weapons, space launches (and space objects), and unidentified airborne threats. 

Founded in 1958 to fight the Cold War, during a time when the Americans feared a Soviet attack from over the Arctic, the main purpose of NORAD originally was to track Soviet long-range bombers, early ICBM movements, and to patch up the serious vulnerability of North America’s northern approaches. After all, the Arctic, not the Atlantic or Pacific, remains the shortest path of nuclear attack.

But there’s a........

© The National Interest