North American Air Defense Agreement With Mexico

Since 1958 the North American Aerospace Defense Command has been protecting the skies over the United States and Canada. In the last 5 years there has been a strong push to merge the United States and Canada with Mexico. This is the due to signing agreements such as NAFTA and very recently the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America along with the FTAA will create the North American Union. The stated plan has been to close the development gap with Mexico and increase trade between the mutual countries but according to CFR documents such as, "Trinational Call for a North American Economic and Security Community by 2010" there is much more to the story.

The US and Canada will collaborate and integrate their defense systems with Mexico for full spectrum protection. Monitoring North America's skies for enemies is all well and good but far too much integration with Canada and Mexico is going on. Homeland Security plans to use biometrics on all three borders for seamless traffic between all three countries. There is university partnerships between US and Mexico with the Training, Internships, Exchanges and Scholarships (TIES) program as well as the NAFTA Superhighway which is dissolving American jobs as well as allowing a joint US/MEX customs facility in the heart of America.

The CFR is the thinktank behind these agreements. In their document Building a North American Community: Report of the Independant Task Force On the Future of North America they wish to redefine the duties of NORAD, 

"WHAT WE SHOULD DO NOW:
1. Expand NORAD into a multi-service Defense Command.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has for decades been the primary vehicle for expression of the unique defense alliance between Canada and the United States. As recommended in a report of the U.S.-Canada Joint PlanningGroup, NORAD should evolve into a multi-service Defense Command that would expand the principle of U.S.-Canadian joint command to land and naval as well as air forces engaged in defending the approaches to North America. In addition, Canada and the United States should reinforce other bilateral defense institutions including the Permanent Joint Board on Defense and Joint Planning Group, and invite Mexico to send observers.

2) Increase information and intelligence sharing at the local and national levels in both law enforcement and military organizations. In addition to cooperating and sharing information and intelligence, the United States and Canada invite "Mexico to consider more extensive information-sharing and collaborative planning involving military organizations and law enforcement as a means to build mutual trust and pave the way for closer cooperation in the future". It notes that a "Joint Analysis Center" should be established immediately to serve as a clearing house for information and development of products for supporting law enforcement and, as appropriate, military requirements."

The trilateral defense system will be managed between NorthCom and SouthCom. According to Joint Force Quarterly Issue 42 called A Prescription for Protecting the Southern Approach there are plans to integrate with numerous countries in Latin America,

"The Air Force recently initiated a program to create an integrated air defense system throughout Latin America, similar to the program started in Eastern Europe after the Cold War. The goals are to modernize airspace management and improve safety through a continuous air picture, updated with real-time flight track and flight plan data using civil and military resources, and to increase regional cooperation and interoperability. If given a higher priority and dedicated resources, this timely initiative could make a significant contribution to the creation of the Mexico-Caribbean Basin Surveillance System.

Secure Communication. An important element in furthering bilateral and multilateral security cooperation is interoperable means for protected communication. A major step in this direction is U.S. Southern Command's multinational information-sharing systems. In particular, the Cooperating Nation Information Exchange System uses computers on a protected network to enable two-way exchange on sea and air radar tracks between selected operations centers and the Joint Interagency Task Force-South."

Moreover the US will upgrade outdated equipment in these areas for further "hindsight". In the document Expanding North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) these plans were discussed after 9/11,

"SDN is a subset of Network Enabled Operations, a concept FAA officials call "aviation information sharing on steroids." They predict Network Enabled Operations will "rock the aviation world. The 9/11 Commission Report Implementation Act will accelerate inter-agency information sharing. This legislation mandates a strict timeline and funding to develop a systems architecture that offers decentralized, distributed information sharing. The legislation is designed to replace the current "need-to-know" culture of information protection with a "need-to-share" culture of integration. Furthermore, the legislation notes, "The effective use of information, from all available sources, is essential to the fight against terror and the protection of our homeland. The biggest impediment to all-source analysis, and to a greater likelihood of ‘connecting the dots,' is resistance to sharing information." The President will submit to Congress a system design and implementation plan for the Network to merge a diversely formatted data from all relevant Federal, State, tribal, local, and private sector entities. Once this architecture is in place for inter-agency information sharing, integrating Mexican sources into this common picture should be less complicated.

Including Mexican air traffic radar information in SDN helps satisfies the post-9/11 need for wide area surveillance. Although vastly improved from pre-9/11 days, NORAD air defense operations centers still rely on a fraction of the available radars -approximately 100 out of 500+ available sensors. Including Mexican sensors in the network would provide more coverage, a longer look, and more time to identify, react, and cue a response force to potential aerial threats. An international company recently finished revamping the Mexican En Route Radar systems with modern, compatible equipment. Figure 2 shows the radar coverage of some of the upgraded sites. Radar sites that monitor border areas like Tijuana may substitute for some of the coverage gaps created with the impending shutdown of the Tethered Aerostat Radar System. If cost proves prohibitive to integrate all Mexican civil and military radars into SDN, selecting a few choice radars on the border to incorporate into SDN would still provide a significantly increased surveillance capability for NORAD. The objective is to push the defense early warning line further south to give NORAD more time to react to potential threats. In effect, this would give NORAD the ability to monitor more "battlespace." Additional sensors are only one part of the SDN revolution."

Major Lawrence Spinetta also talks about how the "free trade" agreements has made Mexico's trade with America has surpassed even Japan,

"The U.S. and Mexico have an overriding national interest to preserve, protect, and promote "free trade as the best means of realizing developmental aspirations." The U.S.-Mexico border is the busiest in the world; over one million people cross the border every day. The North American Free Trade Agreement led to skyrocketing trade with Mexico, currently approaching $250 billion a year. Since NAFTA was signed into law, trade with Mexico has increased more than 300%. In 1999, Mexico surpassed Japan to become the United States' second largest trading partner behind Canada. Critical infrastructure, especially facilities like ports that speed the flow of trade or bottlenecks such as border crossing points are inviting terror targets because of the potential to inflict large economic damage. The ever-increasing volume of traffic between our two countries coupled with an enemy who actively searches for ways to exploit geographic seams makes the need for homeland defense cooperation even more urgent."

Take a good look at Mexico because we will share their future. The corporations in America will see a very large boon due to cheap labor and you will see a decline in the middle class, as well as an explosive surge in the income of those at the top. We have a European Union, an African Union and by 2010 and an American Union. The future looks bleak but we can put an end to these "free trade" agreements and protect our border. Good fences make good neighbors. Our fence is dilapidated and in need of repair.
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"Remember that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have." Barry Goldwater

Michael Vail