Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced on Wednesday that his government would not purchase early-warning-radar planes from the United States, opting instead for a European model.
Canada will purchase Swedish Saab’s GlobalEye, which is based on the Canadian-manufactured Bombardier Global 6500 jet.
Tensions between the US and Canada have been high since Donald Trump launched a trade war against the US’ northern neighbor and even suggested that Canada should become the 51st US state, which caused widespread outrage in Canada, just as Carney was seeking the post of prime minister and succeeded in getting elected to it.
Since then, the Canadian government has also opted ot review the planned purchase of US F-35 fighter jets to explore other options.
Gripen is next. With a factory coming to Canada to produce them, under the wise guidance of our Swedish friends. Win-win for Canada, although buying war machines is a lose-lose for humanity.
I agree with you friend, that buying war machines is a lose-lose, but I also think is necessary, to avoid situations like the invasion from greedy old men, like what Russia attempted with Ukraine
My wife has a good way of putting it; “We can’t be a progressive country if we’re not a country at all.” It sucks that we live in a world where such things are necessary, but they are necessary no matter how much we wish they weren’t. You don’t have to be pro-war to be supportive of a strong enough military.
Strong fences make good neighbours
It isn’t strategic for Canada to invest in its airforce, because it is mostly useless for the types of wars Canada may find itself into:
A foreign (non-American) adversary attacks Canada: won’t be necessary since the United States will intervene automatically as it doesn’t want to have a (probably nuclear capable) enemy at its border.
The United States attacks Canada: The airforce will probably be destroyed on the ground as they did with Iran. Asymmetrical warfare will be Canada’s best leverage here.
Canada attacks a foreign nation for some reason: This is just going to fail abysmally. Reminder that Canada doesn’t even operate an aircraft carrier. If it attacks as part of a coalition, the CAF won’t be the determining factor in victory or defeat.
It is strategic for Canada to invest in its air force because:
You can see some of the absurdities of not having a proper air force in Switzerland. They used to have an Air Force that only operated during daytime business hours. In 2014 an Ethiopian Airlines pilot hijacked his own plane and landed it in Geneva. Italy and France scrambled to escort the plane through their airspaces. Switzerland had to just let it do what it wanted because their Air Force didn’t operate 24 hours a day.
In fact, for a huge and nearly empty country like Canada, the air force is arguably the most important military branch. Since prehistoric times, the size of a country / kingdom / empire was defined by the region in which it had a monopoly on the use of force. If Canada wants to claim sovereignty over the entire North, and not just the Montreal to Toronto corridor, it needs to be able to notice an invasion in the north, attack anybody there tying to claim its territory, and transport soldiers up there if necessary. That’s all Air Force stuff.
A modern Air Force might not mean fighter pilots in supersonic planes. As things in Ukraine have shown, it might instead be mostly drones.
Or Canada responds when an ally activates article 5 of the NATO treaty. Then an air force will be needed
So coalition scenario. Then it will need more allies that just itself anyway.
If Canada buys the Gripen, it’s basically an admission that they have no plans of using them on a modern battlefield, as their survivability would be extremely low. The same goes for any sub 5th generation platform.
And you know what? That’s probably okay. The only modern war Canada would be likely to engage in, is one where they’re fighting alongside the United States, and that doesn’t seem like it would happen anytime soon either.
The F-35 is very underwhelming and unreliable. They don’t perform as advertised. Everyone should stay away from them.
It will do just fine against anything Russia has, and not as much of a money pit as the Fail-35. Unless Canada goes back to requiring a twin engine the Gripen was always the best choice, otherwise it’s down to the Rafale, Eurofighter, or Super Hornet. Then the Super Hornet has an advantage that it should be familiar to RCAF pilots and cost of training should initially be lower.
Against anything it has left.
Correct, we don’t.
What I should have said, is that buying the Gripen is an admission that they are voluntarily forfeiting their ability to fight a modern war.
And i’m not saying that’s a bad thing. What I am saying is that an acquisition program for a 4th generation fighter in the year 2026 is an incredible waste of resources.
Might as well hold out and wait to acquire a 6th gen European platform, which should be available in the early 2040s.
I think you don’t understand the Gripen. Seeing an airplane on radar doesn’t mean that airplane is useless.
Gripens cost 1/10 of the cost to run per flight hour than an F-35, and have all the same capabilities, aside from its radar cross section. For drone defense and stand-off munitions, the Gripen is a better weapon.
Russia never gained air superiority over Ukraine. Even with air superiority, the US military cannot destroy all of Iran’s weapons. Hundreds of gripens hiding in the high north is a nightmare for any would-be Canada invader.
I should have put it differently as well; what I meant was that Canada simply doesn’t have the capability to fight a modern war, and it never will. There’s too great of a differential between our main adversaries ( historically the USA, more recently Russia, and in a more far-fetched way China and India) and Canada; the metrics will never match up.
Come to think of it, Canada has never fought a war per se. It has only assisted in wars, usually as part some sort of Anglo-American coalition. I argue that we shouldn’t get involved in British or American wars (like we recently declined with Iran) and hence we wouldn’t really need any fighter capability. But in any case, even as part of an allied coalition, Canada will not be able to be the difference maker in the fight. We cannot determine the outcome of a war, that will be up to what our allies can make happen.
And therefore, we will not be starting any war; we might begrudgingly join one, in which case our allies will have to carry the day. None of these cases requires a powerful fighter fleet.
Relying on the Europeans to achieve anything is basically a waste of time. Sure they may be able to do it, after long delays, but as I mentioned, 6th gen isn’t the point. The recon planes are a better asset that will actually see practical use; I would have preferred to see the E-3 Sentry get selected over this radar mounted on a business jet thing, but no one is going to cry over Boeing missing a contract. Maybe the Americans could put some duct tape on the ones they “damaged” in Iran and call it refurbished?
You shouldn’t. But you should have the capability to fight a modern war in case you or your allies come under attack. Neither Russia nor America look all too friendly right now, having a capable defensive military seems less and less optional.
Gripen is good at what it’s designed for.
and it comes flat packed with simple instruction and free allen wrenches.
It was designed very intentionally around the challenges of defending Sweden during the Cold War.
Ukraine just bought a shit load of them today. Can’t be all bad.
That’s because they don’t have a choice.
The Gripen is a good 4.5 generation platform, but we’re almost at the dawn of 6th generation fighters.
Building your modern first air force around 4th generation platforms is generally a bad idea, which is why Canada abandoned that idea previously.
But understandably, when your only option for 5th gen fighters is now openly antagonistic towards you, that changes the calculations.
We’re currently in generation drone.
Nah, the fighter generation concept is outdated post-Ukraine.
And the brunt of current day air menace comes from low cost, slow flying drones which a modern jet cannot shoot down in any economically sensible way.
Maybe restarting spitfire production lines would be better.
That’s not entirely true; we have the Chinese option. Although I doubt any politician would have the courage to even consider it.
China would not sell a NATO country their 5th generation airframes for the same reason why Turkey was booted from the F-35 program for purchasing S-400s from Russia.
Probably correct; although we will never know until an offer is made. That’s why it will just remain a hypothetical.
Carney is going F-35, sunk cost fallacy from Harpo and Trudeau.
We are stuck with 16 F-35s, we can’t back out of that order AFAIK. There is enough political pressure, especially with threats by the US that they will disable any US built jets if they have to, that we will get the rest as Gripens.
Being stuck with the F35s sucks but good on Canada for standing up to their deals and not wriggling out of them.
Lockheed was unable to deliver F35s to the US Navy.
We are even honoring a massive LAV III sale to the Saudis. How are you supposed to operate in good faith if you break deals/contracts? Nobody is going to want to business with you anymore.
Exactly. That’s where trump wrecked it for his own country. Doing business with a rip-off artist is a fool’s game.
I did not even tie that basic business principle to him on purpose. Back in the day grocery stores, gas stations, etc. Used to have collections of pictures of people that wrote bad cheques to tell the employees who was blacklisted from paying with cheques. It usually took more than one bad cheque to get your picture on the wall too. The concept is so simple.