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Some time later this month, after the
Standing Committee on External Affairs —
and National Defence issues its report and
recommendations, the Mulroney cabinet ©
will be faced with making one of the most *
critical foreign policy decisions in 2%
decades — whether to renew the NORAD

She
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agreement. ree
. d It’s a decision that is every bit as impor-
BoE Aes : tant as the decision last year not to partici-

pate in Star Wars. In fact, it is more critical *

because the debate over the NORAD rene- ©

wal has put the issue of Star Wars at front
cut AER and centre once again in Canadian policy.
NI A . .

Bra: (es : All of the evidence points compellingly to —
the conclusion that the decision not to par- -
ticipate on a government-to-government PR
level in Star Wars could prove to bea mere |
formality — that unless this country takes *
forceful steps to prevent it, she will be drawn —
inextricably into the Star Wars program as_

“a direct consequence of participation in
NORAD.

And that evidence is growing. =

When the Diefenbaker government
accepted the NORAD agreement without
reference to Parliament in 1957 — the for-
mal agreement was not signed till a year ®
later — it was an unprecedented abroga-
tion of defence sovereignty in peacetime. —
The agreement put the air defence of Can-—
ada and the U.S. under a U.S.-dominated *
command. Nominally, it was a joint com- —
mand; in fact, the authority still resides with *
the commander-in-chief of NORAD, always —
a US. officer. 7

Justified at its inception by U.S. and —
Canadian policy makers on the basis ofan *
alleged Soviet bomber threat, the NORAD
agreement has, since 1958, integrated the ®
Canadian military with all of the strategic
aims of the Pentagon. And in 1981, the
name was changed from North American
Air Defence Command to North American
Aerospace Defence Command to reflect the
new U.S. emphasis on the militarization of
space.

And now, at a time when the USS. is
embarked ona massive military build-up to
achieve a nuclear-war fighting capacity,
Canadian integration in NORAD has taken
on new and more dangerous dimensions.

“U.S. policy now requires a capacity to‘
engage in ‘protracted’ nuclear combat and —
to ‘prevail’ in a nuclear war,” researcher
Peter Chapman wrote in a paper on
NORAD prepared for Project Plough-
shares in May, 1985. “As a result, Canadi- ®
ans must consider the possibility that
Canadian government policy supports de-_
stabilizing, warfighting nuclear forces,
rather than a ‘stable mutual deterrent.”

Since that was written, a number of sig-
nificant developments have taken place:

© The U.S. Air Force is completing the ©
merger of NORAD with its Space Com- —
mand to form NORAD/Space Command —
which, according to Craig Covault, writing —
in Aviation Week and Space Technology in —
February 1985, “will merge the missile, air —
and space warning roles into a new mode —
that will change fundamentally the way the —
nation is guarded against Soviet attack long —
before any new systems from the Strategic —
Defence Initiative are deployed. 4

“NORAD/Space Command officers —
foresee the Strategic Defence Initiative pur-
suing a similar course with defensive sys-
tems deployed to counter three separate
Soviet threats — those in space, low alti- —
tude bombers and cruise missiles and ballis-
tic bombers,”’ Covault wrote.

In the same article, USAF Maj. Gen.
Neill Beer, deputy chief of staff for the
Space Command, noted that the new
“defence architecture” being set in place by
the merger would ensure that there “would —
be no transition required between peace-
time and wartime.” a

NORAD and the U.S. Space command —
are both under the command of USAF —
Gen. Robert Herres, who is also the author —
of the new strategy now being implemented. —

© In testimony before the parliamentary —
committee studying NORAD, a Canadian -
Defence Department spokesman noted that

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