The January 2023 high altitude surveillance balloon that traversed North American airspace exposed a basic policy truth. Detection alone is not enough. NORAD must be modernized around persistent, multi-domain domain awareness and clearer authorities so that detection leads to timely, safe and legally sound action.
Key capabilities are already on the modernization blueprint, but the balloon episode shows the gap between plans and operational effect. During congressional testimony the Department of Defense acknowledged work with Canada to modernize NORAD’s sensors and to develop a classified, complementary sensor network called Crossbow. That program is intended to augment the aging North Warning System and improve detection of unconventional, high altitude platforms.
Canadian parliamentary and defence analyses have been explicit about the limits of the current North Warning System. Ground radars built for a Cold War threat environment do not reliably detect or track the broad set of low signature, high altitude or maneuvering platforms we now face. Replacing and augmenting those radars is not a boutique technical project. It is a foundational requirement for credible continental warning and control.
Operational shortfalls are as much about integration and doctrine as they are about sensors. Public statements from NORAD and U.S. Northern Command acknowledged a “domain awareness gap” in earlier years and credited surveillance improvements for enabling the balloon’s eventual detection and tracking. That is a useful first step but it does not answer the harder questions. Who has custody of a detected object, who decides acceptable risk to civilians on the ground, and how do civil authorities and the FAA get real time, actionable information? Those are legal and procedural problems that require codified interagency protocols, not ad hoc phone calls.
There are four priority lines of effort policymakers should pursue immediately.
1) Accelerate sensor layering and system of systems integration. Crossbow, over the horizon radar investments and space and airborne sensing must be treated as complementary pieces of a single architecture. That architecture should be designed from the start to fuse inputs, produce high fidelity tracks and push standardized data to both military decision makers and civil authorities. Incremental upgrades to legacy radars without parallel data fusion will leave seams that adversaries will exploit.
2) Clarify authorities and decision timelines. The balloon case highlighted political and legal friction between the costs of action and the risks of inaction. Lawmakers must codify a framework that defines custody, escalation thresholds and who may authorize kinetic action in the continental domain. That framework should balance civilian safety, intelligence exploitation, evidence preservation and deterrence. It should also include rapid consultation procedures so decisions are not delayed by uncertain interagency handoffs.
3) Fund persistent surveillance and resiliency as an annual baseline. Modernization will not be a one time procurement. NORAD needs sustained, predictable funding lines for sensor refresh, communications backbone hardening, and research into countermeasures against low observable and low speed platforms. This is a multi year enterprise that must survive budget cycles and political churn. Congressional oversight must move from reactive hearings to a durable authorization and appropriations regime.
4) Institute transparent civil military integration and public risk communications. Mitigating risk to people on the ground was cited as a reason to delay shooting down the balloon until it was over water. Those judgments are operationally sensible but politically fraught. Clear prearranged protocols between DoD, FAA, DHS and local authorities would reduce second guessing after the fact and improve public trust. That includes agreed procedures for temporary airspace restrictions and timely safety notices to aviation stakeholders.
Technical fixes without policy reform will leave the continent vulnerable in new ways. The U.S. and Canada rightly emphasize modernization. But technical programs like Crossbow cannot succeed in a legal and organizational vacuum. NORAD modernization is also a governance modernization task. Decision rights, interagency playbooks, data sharing agreements and consistent funding must accompany radar towers and classified sensor nets.
Finally, defenders should treat the balloon incident as an intelligence gift and an institutional stress test. Use it to run after action reviews that are comprehensive and declassified where possible. Publish redacted lessons for the aviation community so pilots, controllers and local emergency managers understand what went wrong and what changed. If we want continental defense to be both effective and legitimate, transparency about capabilities and constraints will be as important as the next radar we buy.
NORAD can be brought into the 21st century. It will require technical ambition coupled with legal clarity and institutional commitment. Policymakers should not wait for the next spectacle in the sky before they fund the enduring changes required to detect, decide and act with speed and lawfulness across North America.