Tuesday, I was in Mexico City to attend a ceremony in which the U.S. Government delivered five Bell-412 helicopters to Mexico as part of the Merida Initiative.  As Commander of U.S. Northern Command, I was honored to represent the Department of Defense in this historic ceremony. 

The helicopters are to be used by the Mexican Air Force for transport and reconnaissance missions. 

The delivery of these five helicopters reflect the U.S. Government’s continued commitment to work with the Government of Mexico as a full partner in dealing with the societal, international and regional challenges posed by the international cartels and narcotics trafficking.

U.S. Northern Command is prepared to do its part through continued support for the Merida Initiative and by taking steps here at home that complement those efforts.  We will continue to work with our Mexican military counterparts to increase information-sharing, interoperability, and training and equipping of their military forces.  A great step forward in our continuing relationship.

Cheers,

Gene

Another great week highlighted by a trip to New York City!  On Wednesday, we spent some valuable time with the Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg.  Mayor Bloomberg’s city has really become the gold standard for how municipalities should plan for the spectrum of catastrophes that can come at the hands of either a terrorist or Mother Nature.  They have taken the lessons learned from the tragedy of 9/11 and established a response framework that is obviously one of the best in our Nation. 

His leadership style is impressive and can best be highlighted by how he interacts with his staff and his constituents.  One noticeable example was that the Mayor has decided to not have a traditional office.  In fact, his desk is literally at the epicenter of activity for city operations.  He expressed to me that this design was the best way to break down barriers of communication and ensure that information flow between his staff and him is near instantaneous and allows for the least amount of bureaucratic obstacles.  At some level, this information design structure is very similar to NORAD and USNORTHCOM’s integrated Command Center.  Our center, which is tied to every state and territory in the United States, was designed to ensure that all of our domain watch standers (land, air, sea, space, and cyber) could provide information to our N2C2 leadership and then to me in the same unencumbered manner. 

We also spent some time talking about and pledging to each other to continue to work together.  I hope in the near future that we will be working with the City on large-scale exercises, which will truly hone our coordinated response should it be necessary. 

Next I spent the afternoon with USCG Captain Bob O’Rielly and his team at Sector NY. We had a great opportunity to understand the challenges he faces as Captain of the Port in the complex environment that is NY/NJ/CT. Weather kept us from getting out on the water!

The day ended with me attending the 48^th USO Armed Forces Gala & Gold Medal Dinner.  A great night and a great organization.  Thank you USO for all that you do for our troops!

Service Members, Family, and Friends of NORAD and USNORTHCOM,

Like many of you, I awoke this morning to a news story titled, “Secret Pentagon e-mails suggest distrust of Canada.”  I would have not spent another moment of thought on this story if I hadn’t realized that someone is actually taking these allegations seriously.

Unfortunately, no one called NORAD and U.S. Northern Command to ask us our thoughts on this theory.  If they had, I would gladly have educated the questioner on the long-standing and proud tradition of cooperation between the nations of Canada and the United States under the North American Aerospace Defense Agreement.

Since 1940, when U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King met to discuss the war in Europe and the mutual defense of North America, our nations have expanded and reinforced that relationship. Since 1957, when the first “North American Air Defense Command” was formed, U.S. and Canadian Forces have worked side-by-side under the NORAD banner to perform aerospace warning and aerospace control in defense of our homelands.

Today, more than 300 Canadian Forces work in the United States with the “North American Aerospace Defense Command,” where we continue with our original charter and the addition of maritime warning to deter and detect potential threats and ultimately defend our homelands. Under one command, every day, the U.S. and Canada share critical intelligence, resources, policy and procedures necessary to complete our mission. Ours is a trust forged by a half-century of active and comprehensive defense of North America. If any question remains of the trust between our nations, let the success of NORAD be the answer.