For months, senior officials have been discussing exporting Australia’s world-leading radar technology JORN to the United States, but after Donald Trump’s return to the White House, Canada saw an opportunity and leapt.
Overnight, new Canadian leader Mark Carney spoke to his counterpart, Anthony Albanese, then flew to his country’s Arctic territory of Nunavut to announce a $6.5 billion high-tech Australian military purchase.
“Today, I’m announcing that our government will be working with our long-standing defence and security partner Australia to build a new, long-range, over-the-horizon military radar system,” he said.
“[It] will enable Canada to detect and respond to both air and maritime threats over our Arctic both faster and from further away. It will most fundamentally keep all Canadians safe.”
Following President Trump’s repeated threats to annex Canada and Greenland, Ottawa is purchasing the Australian-developed technology known as the Jindalee Over-the-Horizon Radar (JORN) to build its new Arctic Over-the-Horizon Radar system.
Ottawa is purchasing Australia’s Jindalee Over-the-Horizon Radar (JORN). (Department of Defence)
Ottawa has been under pressure from Washington to step up its defence spending and the new radar system will support “NORAD”, the joint US-Canadian initiative that detects incoming threats.
Now in its fourth decade of service, the high-frequency, sky-wave, over-the-horizon (OTHR) system is considered the most advanced in the world, providing wide-area surveillance of ships and aircraft out to 3,000 kilometres.
Unlike traditional radars that were limited by line of sight, Australian scientists designed JORN to beam a high-frequency radio signal skywards towards the ionosphere above the earth’s surface, which then refracted the signal down to illuminate a target.
The echo from the target then travels by a similar path back to a separate receiver site and the data received is processed into real-time tracking information — a capability crucial to monitoring Australia’s vast northern maritime approaches.
With the United States continuing its campaign of tariffs on foreign nations, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said it was good for Australia to “diversify” its trade relationships.
“[Mark Carney] certainly spoke to me about the over-the-horizon radar technology that Canada is interested in purchasing from Australia, it’s important that we diversify our trade relationships,” Mr Albanese said.
“It’s important that we develop that diverse series of relationships and Canada is a very important one, we have so much in common.”
DOGE razor gang made JORN project uncertain
In recent meetings, senior Australian officials have continued discussing exporting and installing the JORN technology on the United States’ west coast, but the massive project faces uncertainty under the Elon Musk-led DOGE audit of Pentagon spending.
For well over a year, American military officials have privately expressed interest in purchasing Australia’s JORN technology because of its potential to monitor military movements as far away as China’s mainland.
One senior Australian official confirmed to the ABC that “the Canadians were always going to follow the US purchase and slipstream off that” but circumstances changed and “things moved quickly”.
Following Canada’s announcement, Defence Minister Richard Marles talked up the potential of the final JORN deal, which could end up being Australia’s largest military export on record.
“There’s a little water to go under the bridge, but what’s in prospect here is potentially the biggest defence industry export that Australia has ever been a part of,” he told ABC News Breakfast.
“That would obviously be very good for Australian industry.”
The ABC has confirmed the United Kingdom, where the parent company of BAE Systems Australia is based, has also expressed interest in purchasing the JORN technology, but is yet to approve the idea.
