Senior defense officials are defending the decision to have fighter jets escort St. Nick this year on the North American Air Defense Command’s Santa tracker website.

The NORAD website each December posts videos of Santa Claus entering different countries and cities around the world. This year, some of the videos will show fighter planes escorting the sleigh, a decision that has drawn criticism from the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and others.

But a senior defense official traveling this week with Secretary Chuck Hagel as he visited Bahrain said the military escorts for Santa are necessary given “the proliferation of air defense identification zones.”

China, of course, announced last month it would require aircraft flying over disputed islands in the East China Sea to comply with a new air defense identification zone, filing flight plans with Beijing. The move has been challenged by the U.S., which flew B-52 bombers into the zone without notifying Beijing. On a subsequent flight of American surveillance aircraft into the zone, China scrambled its own fighter jets.

Capt. Jeff Davis, the NORAD spokesman, noted that that the NORAD videos would only be showing fighter escorts for Santa in the U.S. and Canada.

“While we track Santa around the world, NORAD only provides escorts while he is in North American aerospace,” he said. “Japan does not provide similar escorts that we are aware of.”

Given that there are no children on the disputed islands – they are uninhabited — it seems unlikely that Santa will actually pass over the disputed islands, known as the Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.

Capt. Davis said he did not know what route Santa would take, but suggested if Saint Nick did fly over the disputed islands he would not be observing the Chinese ADIZ.

“I would note that his visit to every inhabited place on earth involves flying through all manner of airspace, whether it is open, controlled, restricted, prohibited or disputed,” Capt. Davis said. “He does not file a flight plan with anybody.”