The roar of jets over Colorado Springs Friday marked the 65th anniversary of the North American Aerospace Defense Command as senior commanders took a moment to reflect on the evolving threats the United States and Canada are facing together.

“I can’t tell you what the future holds exactly. But I can tell you it will be incredibly challenging and it will be incredibly delicate,” said Gen. Glen VanHerck, commander of NORAD and U.S. Northern Command. NORAD is the only bi-national command in the world and significantly predates Northern Command, which was set up in 2002. 

VanHerck and other leaders spoke to a crowd gathered at Peterson Space Force Base, which included Melissa Dalton, the assistant secretary of defense for Homeland Defense. 

This year, NORAD and Northern Command were thrust into the international spotlight by a Chinese spy balloon that was shot down near the coast of South Carolina in February after floating over the U.S. and Canada. The event drew congressional interest in boosting funding for homeland protection. 

Modernizing NORAD has been a focus for several years and VanHerck told senators this week his department is in the midst of a cultural transition from the industrial age to the digital age.

In his testimony he highlighted the threat of hypersonic weapons because they are “extremely difficult to detect and counter given the weapons’ speed, maneuverability and low flight paths and unpredictable trajectories,” he said. The weapons challenge NORAD’s ability to provide warnings to Canada and the United States. 

Investments in over-the-horizon radar could help detect hypersonic weapons in addition to hundreds of new satellites Space Force is sending to low-Earth orbit, he said in an interview Friday

Canada is also making significant investments in missile detection, pledging to build two over-the-horizon radar systems as part of a nearly $40 billion investment in NORAD over 20 years, according to a news release. 

Royal Canadian Air Force Lt. Gen. Frances Allen, vice chief of the Defence Staff, noted the modern radar systems are arriving soon, but much more remains to be done to ensure defense decisions can happen faster. 

“We also need to understand our limitations and that we must maintain the utmost vigilance to counter the rapidly evolving threats to our nations,” she said 

VanHerck is most concerned about cyber threats to critical infrastructure and a lack of an ability to detect them because so much of the infrastructure is in the private sector, he said. 

“We have to understand those vulnerabilities,” he said.

As to the Chinese balloon, he said the U.S. saw the “best possible outcome” because the military mitigated the collection of information while maximizing its own collection of information. 

Hypersonics and spy balloons are some of the latest challenges for NORAD, originally set up to counter World War II era bombers coming over the North Pole. The urgency of the threat sparked the rapid construction of three west-to-east radar lines, said retired Gen. Tom Lawson, who served in the Royal Canadian Air Force. 

“The gravity of the threat swept away all barriers,” he said. 

The terrorist attacks on 9/11 reinforced the need for the command and homeland defense, he said. 

The bi-national ties remain strong among the current complex threats, the military leaders said. 

“We live and we strive and we grieve together,” Allen said.