article states that it was on Canada's orders.
I didn't know that was a thing, Canadian PM having the power to command US jets.
Can anyone who knows more about NORAD weigh in with an ELI5?
I didn't know that was a thing, Canadian PM having the power to command US jets.
Can anyone who knows more about NORAD weigh in with an ELI5?
The US and Canada have gameplanned for all sorts of scenarios similar to this, and up to and including full nuclear war. They have established playbooks for alllllll kinds of scenarios. Because when shit goes down, you there is NO TIME to gameplan. No, you pull binder #568 off of the shelf and get to work executing gameplan #568, "US jets pursue craft into Canada" or whatever.
There is a playbook for this kind of thing, and they are following it. The playbook possibly does include some kind of explicit authorization from the Canadian PM for the final shootdown.
So in reality this is certainly more "Trudeau authorized it" than "ordered it", because the US and Canada definitely can't order each other do things. However, for obvious optics purposes, they phrased it as "Trudeau ordered the shootdown." Because it looks sort of weak to the untrained eye if Trudeau just sort of allowed it.
However, the actual wording is sort of irrelevant. The reality is that it was a fairly seamless bit of cooperation between two close allies.
The US was monitoring it on Friday:
> A statement from Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said the object shot down on Saturday was first noticed over Alaska on Friday evening. Two F-22 fighter jets “monitored the object” with the help of the Alaska Air National Guard, Ryder’s statement said, “tracking it closely and taking time to characterize the nature of the object.”
* https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/11/politics/norad-additional-obj...
However:
> Defence Minister Anita Anand said in a news conference the "small, cylindrical object" was about 40,000 feet above ground and downed — due to possible risks to civilian aviation — at around 3:40 p.m. ET about 100 miles from the U.S. border in central Yukon.
> A senior government source with direct knowledge of the situation told CBC News that the Canadian government was first alerted to the object Friday night when it was still travelling through Alaska.
> The source added the object crossed into Yukon on Saturday morning and Trudeau ordered the shoot down by whichever country arrived at it first.
* https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/norad-monitoring-airborne-o...
So it looks like the US 'took too long' to decide to shoot it down, and once it crossed the border Canada had final authorization. The US jets just happened to be closer (CA jets were scrambled as well).