That's a great question, so thank you.
NORAD is responsible for air defence, aerospace defence, and it is responsible for maritime warning. A few years ago, North Command was stood up and added to the NORAD command structure. From a Canadian perspective. With Lieutenant-General St-Amand as the deputy commander there and the more than 50 years of successful history in working that binational relationship towards our collective defence of North America, we see NORAD as a great success.
NORTHCOM is still a new organization, much like CJOC, as a post 9/11 entity, if you will, just as CEFCOM, Canada Command, and CANSOFCOM were stood up in 2005-06 period, and with the CJOC merger just a few years ago.
As for the rules of organization, looking at it today is only good as a snapshot in time. For today's construct, I have no concerns about the relationship and would say that we're meeting the expectations of our respective governments and our respective bosses, noting that the change of command is different and noting that in the American context it's sometimes very difficult for American leaders to understand how Canada works. Given the size, scale, and scope of the United States, it's not easy for them, whether it's Canada or other nations, to understand how other organizations work.
The thing is, we're always looking at evolving our relationship to say that we have a responsibility as learning organizations. For every activity we do—everything, every operation, every exercise we run—we run an after-action review process. We compile lists of lessons identified. We try to develop processes and people responsible for ensuring that those become lessons learned, and we try to evolve.
We're also looking at circumstances and at how things might change, not just at what's going on today. In Operation Nanook, we'll have an earthquake scenario in the Yukon, and we'll use that to test. It's no different from using the forest fire in Fort Smith last year as an example to test our needs on a domestic basis.
As we look at the context of the world today and the threats toward North America—or the challenges—and then towards Canada, we're always asking ourselves where we are going to be five years and ten years from now. I think those are really good questions. A lot of them are about strategic political intent. Internally, we'll have that very good process after we run an exercise. As an example, with Vigilant Shield in the fall, with NORAD and NORTHCOM, we would be engaged in a process and asking how we could make it better, in that we responded to the crisis that was painted in the scenario of today, but how would it be tomorrow if the following things were different...?
That's what's going to generate a lot of very good and healthy professional dialogue. I gain a sense that you've seen that. We need to be mindful that we can't stand pat. We need to be aggressive in our thinking and we need to be looking to how we can make things better.
I offer that. I know your question is a teaser. There's something else that's in behind there.