http://deanjackson60.googlepages.com/thenoradpapersii

In The NORAD Papers we learned from documents dating from the 1990s that NORAD had three core missions since its creation in 1958. These are:

a. surveillance and control of the airspace of the United States and Canada;

b. providing the NCAs with tactical warning and attack assessment of an aerospace attack against North America; and

c. providing an appropriate response to any form of an air attack.

The last two missions constitute NORAD’s "outward" search for hostile aircraft approaching the North American continent. NORAD’s first mission, however, tasks the agency to monitor and control all aircraft within the United States’ and Canada’s air space. This is what NORAD calls "air sovereignty". Let’s take a closer look at what constitutes "air sovereignty".

As reported by the Government Accountability Office in 1994 "NORAD defines air sovereignty as providing surveillance and control of the territorial airspace, which includes:

1. intercepting and destroying uncontrollable air objects;