This article originally appeared in The Hub.
By Richard Shimooka, June 1, 2026
The prime minister’s surprise announcement that Canada will enter into negotiations to procure Sweden’s GlobalEye airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft from Saab and Bombardier seems like good politics. The move is consistent with his favoured lines that Canada needs to wean itself off American systems and provide a more independent defence of the country. Yet doing so is much more difficult than it appears at first glance, and would leave the country much weaker as a result. Overall, this purchase is sure to increase tensions with the United States.
To fully appreciate how short-sighted this move is, it’s first important to understand how continental defence operates, specifically NORAD. NORAD’s mission is to “Deter, Detect, Deny, Defeat” any threat to North American aero- and airspace, and requires “domain awareness”—being able to detect, track, assess, and anticipate activities that could affect security or military operations.
While much of the focus has been on the visible enablers—the fighter-interceptors and anti-ballistic missiles—required to carry out this mission, command and control has been the central feature of NORAD’s existence. Back in the 1950s, the U.S. developed the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE), a groundbreaking project that linked together radars, air defence sites, and fighters on a single network—effectively the first such system ever developed. SAGE helped set the stage for our modern internet and is the core element for how Canada and the U.S. collaborate on continental defence.
The secret sauce is how those systems integrate a vast amount of data from sensors and other data sources. This includes highly sensitive intelligence data that is collected and operationalized by the United States’ vast intelligence-gathering apparatus.
Given the unprecedented increase in strategic nuclear systems being developed and fielded by the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation, investment in these defensive systems is absolutely necessary to provide security for North America.
The signals intelligence component of the U.S. military’s budget alone likely exceeds Canada’s entire defence budget, to speak nothing of the command and control networks, sensors, fighters, missile defence systems, or missiles that are essential parts of continental defence today.
In this context, the suggestion that Canada can “do it alone” in its Arctic defence is just utterly preposterous, given the scale of the threats facing the continent and the lack of resources Ottawa can bring to bear.
Canada’s ability to access U.S. data is unique. In practical terms, it means selected RCAF systems that operate in NORAD obtain cutting-edge U.S. data that can allow them to detect targets farther, or more accurately, as well as improve the precision of missiles and other defences. Due to its sensitivity, integration of systems is highly controlled, even within the U.S.
Within NORAD, AEW aircraft have played an important role. They are employed to extend vision beyond static terrestrial sensor sites, fill in gaps, and provide capabilities within Canadian territory. They also provide “air battle management,” which is localized command and control for aircraft.
In the late 2010s, it became increasingly apparent to the U.S. that the threat environment was worsening, and Canada, which had stalled its own military modernization efforts, was too reliant on U.S. NORAD capabilities. This was problematic as AEW aircraft are a scarce resource, and would be needed for other contingencies, like a major conflict in the Western Pacific or Eastern Europe. The Pentagon pushed Canada to acquire more of its own capabilities for NORAD to provide a more equitable burden: not just airborne early warning but ground radars and aerial refuelling aircraft.
Given the need for close integration with the U.S., it was assumed that the E-7 Wedgetail, a Boeing-Northrop Grumman system being procured by the USAF, and already in use with Australia and the U.K., would have the inside track to fill this capabilities gap. Failing that, a competing system developed by American contractor L3 Harris and Bombardier, picked by South Korea for their own AEW requirements, was seen as another plausible alternative.
Which brings us back to this week’s announcement, in which Canada chose neither of these options. GlobalEye was always seen as an unlikely candidate because it was never designed to be integrated into NORAD systems and lacks the security features that all other systems possess. Furthermore, it has significant capability deficiencies, like the lack of a 360-degree radar aperture, which is fairly critical for the RCAF operating in the north. It will also cost hundreds of millions in development costs, before even buying the aircraft.
All of this was tacitly acknowledged by Stephen Fuhr, Canada’s secretary of state for defence procurement, disclosing that Saab would need to develop a new radar and other mission systems to bring it up to a baseline level of capability.
However, more critically, without American clearance to provide specific communications gear, as well as ongoing cryptological support, GlobalEye will be unable to connect to NORAD command and control networks, making it essentially worthless in its stated role for northern defence.
This may lead to a significant impasse, especially given that the U.S. has asked Ottawa to provide a credible plan to quickly modernize NORAD, and its failure to do so yet was a reason recently cited by Elbridge Colby, the U.S. under secretary of war for policy, to suspend the Permanent Joint Board of Defence.
Another issue: the development of an entirely new radar capability for the GlobalEye aircraft, one that can be integrated into NORAD, will likely take at least a decade, if it happens at all.
Developing this system will only happen at a significant cost as well, which, given the wide range required, could pull much-needed resources away from other priorities. Part of the justification offered by the government is that the system would have great export opportunities.
However, the integration of sensitive American systems would render the GlobalEye subject to a set of U.S. regulations called International Traffic in Arms Regulations, which allows the U.S. a veto on their export. Given that the system would directly compete with the E-7, it’s quite likely that its potential market opportunities are limited, as the U.S. would limit its export options.
Perhaps the government believes it can use the promise to continue F-35 purchases as leverage to obtain U.S. support for the GlobalEye purchase. This would be a deeply foolish assumption—at no point is the Department of War likely to compromise on their own operational security, nor support a policy that would deliver less capability at a later date than their own program.
The GlobalEye decision was clearly made to cater to the particular political moment Canada is in, and facing an acrimonious relationship with the Trump administration. Yet Ottawa can ill afford, both politically and fiscally, to make decisions like this based on weak policy foundations. This decision has the potential to further sour bilateral relations, all while squandering precious fiscal resources for the much-needed modernization of the Canadian Armed Forces.
Richard Shimooka is a Hub contributing writer and a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute who writes on defence policy.
