Canada shouldn't buy the F35. The Saab is a less capable plane, for sure, but it doesn't leave Canada (and it's defense) dependent on the US at a time when the president is openly floating the idea of "acquiring" Canada.
The very suggestion of Canada being able to defend itself without the United States is a laughable one. It's so patently ridiculous it's hard to tell if you're serious.
The strategic adversary their fighters are likely to encounter, Russia, flies propeller-driven subsonic bombers for the most part. Any modern fighter is adequate to the task.
(it's beyond the scope of the current conversation but Canada's more pressing problem is having enough pilots and getting them enough flight hours)
Well, they need to do something. Kind of silly to ask them to ask the US to defend them against the US. It might be a cakewalk, but at least they’ll have tried to stand up to a wanna-be dictator, which is more than we’re doing.
It seems like that was true for the Volvo-manufactured engines in the currently operating versions, but the new versions that are being sold now (currently in the news for a deal with Colombia) use a new US-manufactured model.
Who's the adversary? That's the main question. If the US is, then a better choice of fighters won't make much difference. Most likely it's russia, and it's arctic warfare.
The smart move, both for canada and EU nations isn't to build up conventional military (although nothing wrong with that, if done in parallel), but to build up a nuclear force. First strike capabilities. ICBMs, ICBM deterrents, submarines and trans-continental bombers.
France and the UK have nuclear capability already, it will cost a lot, but it isn't impossible to achieve in less time than it would take to bootstrap military force that can conventionally take on either the US, China or even Russia.
The problem is, unlike Iran and North Korea, Europe and Canada don't yet see themselves as vulnerable as they really are. If a madman like current madman decided to attack the US's allies, nukes are not off the table. Matter of fact, not only do the insane people in the US with power crave such levels of carnage, they crave it. And in their minds, taking out a small city in europe or canada will save lives in the long run and is a quick way to achieve victory.
There is a reason the current dictator in the US is trying to bring the 'golden dome' and "dominating our hemisphere". I suspect in the long run, these people will really want to invade europe and "purify it" from those "pesky" brown people, after they're done with the US. ICBM capable (and by the numbers too) Europe and Canada is the most peaceful outcome for everyone involved. If denmark had nukes, there wouldn't have been any talk of invading greenland.
Currently, the US provides nuclear capability for nato to the most part. but if self-defense against the US and Russia is the priority for europe, preparing for land and aerial attacks makes little sense. A standing continental military for europe, or even a capable military for canada costs a lot of money, the US spends $800B, and China like $300B on military, that's going to hurt!
No one has ever even attempted the invasion of a nuclear capable country. If canada had nukes, they hardly need ICBMs, they could probably use trebuchet from across the border and attack seattle and new york state probably (just kidding of course)
The MP representing the NDP in this matter is also the MP who represents Canada's northernmost territory (Nunavut). They are clear on who the adversary is, like almost all Canadians are, it is the US. No one else is threatening our territory, whether it's threatening Canada all at once, refusing to officially recognize our arctic territory (even while asking for permission to go through it), threatening to attempt to encircle us by taking arctic territory from an ally that we (and the US, oddly) are bound by treaty to defend, or just pretending our prime minister is a governor of a piece of the states.
Russia is an afterthought at best. They don't border us particularly directly in the arctic. They don't have a modern navy that poses us an actual threat. Even the strongest part of their army - their land army - isn't able to successfully invade a neighbouring country at this point. We don't even have a land border with them.
Fighting a war against the US is futile. Not saying it should be annexed but if it has to be anyone then it may as well be your neighbors who have a lot in common with you. Life in Canada would no doubt improve if it was a US territory.
Life in Canada would no doubt deprove drastically. The loss of healthcare. The loss of language rights. The loss of the right not to be harassed and gassed by secret police. Etc.
You are very confused about the state of your country:
* Healthcare: Veterans are encouraged to get euthanasia because they complain about long waits for service.
* "Language rights": You have the "right" to be required to do legal documents in two languages instead of one. In the US we really don't even have a mandatory official language, though we should require English. People speak whatever they want to anyone they can get to listen. Remember the Tower of Babel? That is a story of a divine curse for a reason!
* Harrassed by police: Canadians have effectively lost gun rights, free speech rights, much of their financial autonomy, etc. To add insult to injury, there are countless stories of Canadian crime victims having essentially no recourse. They are ignored or punished by police for speaking out about crime or defending their lives and property.
I know you are trying to take a dig at ICE in your comment, but a country without borders is not sustainable. Maybe you want infinite "diversity" and "enrichment" but most people want to see their culture and race continue. You can't import a very disproportionate amount of culturally incompatible people and keep your country. I think you and people like you have been infected with a mind virus that destroys your self-respect and self-preservation instincts.
You're not exactly wrong, but the net outcome can be favorable to the common man in the invaded country. Some takeovers of countries have been (relatively) peaceful as well.
the goal is to make a war unpalatable to the us public. this is not very difficult to do, since the us public doesn't like it when their own soldiers die. having fighter jets that can be remotely shut down by the us makes it a great deal more difficult.
US citizen also not used to having war at their front door. I assume that would make a great difference.
But what the duck are people (including me) even discussing here? Within a year it has come so far that the US government alienated one of their most important allies and people discussing the possibility of a war against them.
I think this could be a scheme to get other countries to start paying for their own defense more, instead of relying on the US to do it. It is perhaps rude or undiplomatic, but it's supposed to be a kick in the ass. I remember Trump talking to EU leaders years ago to explain this to them, and nothing changed. Maybe now they got the message.
I think that's a bit shortsighted. It's sort of an open secret that the current US admin is doing russia's bidding. Obviously America will lose a lot more than gain if it attacked or invaded Canada. There is nothing canada has right now that is inaccessible to the US, the US can deploy troops, bases, train soldiers,etc.. if it had peaceful relations with Canada. keystone XL is sifting canadian oil to US refineries, alaska benefits a ton from canada based supply chain and airspace, alaska strategically is extremely critical to the US, far more than any part of canada, because it's proximity to asia, the US itself and europe by way of the arctic, it is a major (if not the most important) logistics hub the US has in the western hemisphere (I'd say Ramstein in germany is the only other more important hub the US has). All to say that canada attacking alaska would be devastating to the US. If canada simply stopped all relations with the US, I'm pretty sure it will cause a major recession in the US, if not a depression outright. Again, all THAT to say that the hostility against canada is not being done on behalf of the american people but on behalf or russia. Similar to how the hostility against EU via greenland is meant to destroy nato for the benefit of russia.
Russia cares a lot about controlling canada and greenland because of their desire to dominate the arctic. They already control one half of it more or less, but as I mentioned earlier, the fastest way to europe from the americas, and even from eastern russia and north eastern asia to western europe is via the arctic. They want ukraine to dominate agriculture, and gain warm water ports, the arctic to control shipping lines and flight paths (including ICBM flight paths :) ).
With a presumed fallen global order where Canada and the US are not allies in the least, Russia has every reason to invade Canada, if they decide to control all of canada, that'd be an immense victory for them, outside of china no one can stop them from global domination at that point.
Strategically, what Ukraine is for europe, Canada is to north america.
Russia's arctic fleet supposedly is even superior to the US navy's from what little I've heard about the topic. Wars aren't that simple either, Russia hasn't mobilized or entered full wartime mode yet with Ukraine, it's still a "special operation". They're more than willing to mow down tens of millions more of their people. Another interesting aspect of a prolonged war is that they start building internal supply chains to build tanks, artillery, basic supplies,etc.. that is if their economy doesn't collapse, which it hasn't. Oil sales is still keeping them alive (in no small parts thanks to europe). But I'm sure putin is content merely controlling canada via the US as its vassal state.
> There is nothing canada has right now that is inaccessible to the US, the US can deploy troops, bases, train soldiers,etc.. if it had peaceful relations with Canada.
If Russia had the means to invade Canada and hold territory they might try it. They don't. It's not even within the realm of possibility. It's absurdist fantasy to imagine otherwise. Their military is simply far too weak and the geography too poor.
They could probably land some troops in the middle of nowhere by taking advantage of how slow politicians are to react to incursions. Only to have the troops die from bombs and accomplish nothing but scaring some polar bears.
A beachhead in the arctic is utterly worthless as a starting point for moving south - the logistics simply make it impossible (the north is really big and really empty and has lots of really shitty terrain to cross). Even if you suppose somehow Russia is in principle capable of the logistics, Canada isn't reachable from Russia by the arctic sea except through Denmark or the US - they'd need to be co-belligerents or conquered first (narrow exception of submarines and airplanes of course, but not in large enough quantity to matter). They have no means to "control all of Canada" even if the Canadian military, and the allied militaries with treaties guaranteeing mutual defence, somehow magically ceased to exist.
Meanwhile we've seen from Ukraine that they lack effective air defence against planes far more outdated than what Canada already has... and our military isn't going to magically cease existing. Whatever beachhead they could establish, it wouldn't last long.
All this to say that Russia simply isn't a threat to Canada. The only exception to this is that they have enough nuclear bombs to say "fuck the world" and cause nuclear winter or something similarly stupid - but there's nothing militarily we could ever do to prevent that.
I agree that the US is acting consistent with being a Russian puppet - but the conclusion from that is that the US might invade to the benefit of Russia - not that Russia itself is somehow going to magic up an army capable of an invasion directly across the centre of the arctic ocean.
You make good points, but my point wasn't that Russia would use a beachhead in the arctic, but that it can use flight paths through the arctic to project power in southern Canada. long-range missiles are one thing, but strategic long-range bombers with some in-flight refueling too. As far as an actual invading force, that I concede, they can't do that today, but who knows what they're planning, they have the manpower, the money and the lunacy to build up such a force. Their main advantage is the nuclear deterrent preventing others from invading them back. Canada has been left alone so far (by everyone hostile) because it has (had?) the US's protection, not because of it's fearsome military (although I know they're quite fierce on their own -- just not B52, nukes, ICBMs, aircraft carriers level fierce).
If I had to speculate, they won't try to take populated centers of Canada, but they might make claims to arctic resources and land, and just take it. Start bombing Toronto and Montreal if Canada fights back. They might even do it in the next few years if the US starts enough chaos elsewhere as a distraction. Once they take land, you're not getting it back, why? Back to my original point: They have nukes.
Canada is part of NATO, and if the VDV and the Spetnaz demonstration in Ukraine are any indication of the current level of Russian spec ops, any Nordic country, UK, France and Italy all have better trained arctic/Alpine forces than Russia. Individually.
The Feb 2nd episode of the "The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge" podcast may be of interest to you, its title is "Should Canada Include Nuclear Weapons In Its Defence Strategy?", and offers a perspective on the subject.
Ukraine was invaded to begin with because they gave up their nukes in the 90's in exchange for territorial recognition and a promise of non-invasion from russia lol.
at the time the US policy was that if Russia used a nuke in Ukraine, they would lose pretty much everything outside Russia.
nowadays the gremlin from the kremlin can just turn up in the US and marines will lay down the red carpet. so I'm not sure the same thing can be repeated safely.
Let's be real, it really doesn't matter what jets Canada buys if US wants to annex Canada. For NORAD duties, US can sortie F35s out of Alaska, Canada on paper better off with some Gripens for cheap performative arctic patrols. But F35s cooler than Gripens for airshows, which US provides anyway.
Look just buy some F35s and park it in the Eaton Center for the gram.
Canada's air bases are very far apart, and the Arctic is very remote, so F-35's range advantage makes it particularly well-suited to performing longer patrols (though it's still only a single-engine fighter). Additionally, the F-35's stealth means that an adversary can never be confident of when or how often patrols take place.
Gripens with external tanks outrange F35 with external tanks flying dirty, and since 4th gen, stealth hardly matters. Spaced based ISR is proliferating, in 10 years F35s will be picked up through SAR from space if not already... well depending on adversary. PRC and US, stealth broadly not meaningful. IMO RU hardly relevant.
And to be blunt, RU/PRC is MORE aligned with Canadian position on Northwest Passage sovereignty. Which really only leaves US... i.e. the only actual on paper threat to NWP is US, which makes F35s terminally stupid acquisition for CAN arctic. But broad IMO is Canada simply doesn't need a strong air game because it won't survive vs adversaries operating in the north anyway. Geopolitically, Canada needs F35 to NORDAD dues/ransom more than it needs F35 for tactical/operational needs. Cue CAN buys f35, find them ruinously expensive to operate, and US will end simply "patrolling" Canadian airspace anyways.
The Chinese and Russians would both acquire Canada outright if they could. Any alliance with them is fraught with peril. The US is more culturally compatible with Canada than any other country for real. Although, they are too commie up there, I think a lot of that is imposed from the top without regard for popular opinion. The same happens in Europe.
But they can't hence point moot, and when they could/might, i.e. Russian Alaska, they didn't try. Whereas US tried to annex Canada twice, but was context of British Canada / revolutionary war. CAN not going to ally with RU/PRC for the simple reason it would trigger peril from US.
Americans forget Canada fundamentally an anti/then counter American project, it wasn't until post world war that culture became more compatible. That's still based on US minimally respecting Canadian sovereignty, including NWP, which even before new annexation talk was sore subject. So not particularly imposed from top. Family fights over property gets just as ugly, even commies like their property.
Canada announced an intent to purchase F-35 in 2010, at which point their F-18 were old and worn-out. The current government has been delaying a purchase for over 10 years now, and just needs to do something. The F-18 are too old to be useful, and there is still no clarity on what the intended mission is. Canada needs to either buy something now, or just abandon the idea of maintaining a tactical air force.
Canada shouldn't buy the F35. The Saab is a less capable plane, for sure, but it doesn't leave Canada (and it's defense) dependent on the US at a time when the president is openly floating the idea of "acquiring" Canada.
[dead]
The very suggestion of Canada being able to defend itself without the United States is a laughable one. It's so patently ridiculous it's hard to tell if you're serious.
People also assumed the invasion of Ukraine would only take a few days.
You have nothing to win by thinking "as soon as they want to invade us, we will just give up, so let's just be an easy target"
The strategic adversary their fighters are likely to encounter, Russia, flies propeller-driven subsonic bombers for the most part. Any modern fighter is adequate to the task.
(it's beyond the scope of the current conversation but Canada's more pressing problem is having enough pilots and getting them enough flight hours)
Defend against whom?
Well, they need to do something. Kind of silly to ask them to ask the US to defend them against the US. It might be a cakewalk, but at least they’ll have tried to stand up to a wanna-be dictator, which is more than we’re doing.
No way a well coordinated attack on Canada by US occurs without US fragmenting into tribal factions and fighting amongst themselves.
If we let it get that far and I am still around, will be gunning for my fellow Americans. Cause at that point, fuck them.
Even if I get got after one, will send a message to the rest not all their old neighbors are on their side.
they don't need to win against the US. they just need to be enough of a pain in the cloaca.
As a fan of Area 88 I agree with this completely.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_88
As a Swede I'm obviously all for this but doesn't the Gripen still use a ton of US-sourced parts they could easily deny? Like the GE engines.
You license them, not source from the US.
It seems like that was true for the Volvo-manufactured engines in the currently operating versions, but the new versions that are being sold now (currently in the news for a deal with Colombia) use a new US-manufactured model.
Oh, didn't know that. It changes s few things indeed.
Who's the adversary? That's the main question. If the US is, then a better choice of fighters won't make much difference. Most likely it's russia, and it's arctic warfare.
The smart move, both for canada and EU nations isn't to build up conventional military (although nothing wrong with that, if done in parallel), but to build up a nuclear force. First strike capabilities. ICBMs, ICBM deterrents, submarines and trans-continental bombers.
France and the UK have nuclear capability already, it will cost a lot, but it isn't impossible to achieve in less time than it would take to bootstrap military force that can conventionally take on either the US, China or even Russia.
The problem is, unlike Iran and North Korea, Europe and Canada don't yet see themselves as vulnerable as they really are. If a madman like current madman decided to attack the US's allies, nukes are not off the table. Matter of fact, not only do the insane people in the US with power crave such levels of carnage, they crave it. And in their minds, taking out a small city in europe or canada will save lives in the long run and is a quick way to achieve victory.
There is a reason the current dictator in the US is trying to bring the 'golden dome' and "dominating our hemisphere". I suspect in the long run, these people will really want to invade europe and "purify it" from those "pesky" brown people, after they're done with the US. ICBM capable (and by the numbers too) Europe and Canada is the most peaceful outcome for everyone involved. If denmark had nukes, there wouldn't have been any talk of invading greenland.
Currently, the US provides nuclear capability for nato to the most part. but if self-defense against the US and Russia is the priority for europe, preparing for land and aerial attacks makes little sense. A standing continental military for europe, or even a capable military for canada costs a lot of money, the US spends $800B, and China like $300B on military, that's going to hurt!
No one has ever even attempted the invasion of a nuclear capable country. If canada had nukes, they hardly need ICBMs, they could probably use trebuchet from across the border and attack seattle and new york state probably (just kidding of course)
The MP representing the NDP in this matter is also the MP who represents Canada's northernmost territory (Nunavut). They are clear on who the adversary is, like almost all Canadians are, it is the US. No one else is threatening our territory, whether it's threatening Canada all at once, refusing to officially recognize our arctic territory (even while asking for permission to go through it), threatening to attempt to encircle us by taking arctic territory from an ally that we (and the US, oddly) are bound by treaty to defend, or just pretending our prime minister is a governor of a piece of the states.
Russia is an afterthought at best. They don't border us particularly directly in the arctic. They don't have a modern navy that poses us an actual threat. Even the strongest part of their army - their land army - isn't able to successfully invade a neighbouring country at this point. We don't even have a land border with them.
Fighting a war against the US is futile. Not saying it should be annexed but if it has to be anyone then it may as well be your neighbors who have a lot in common with you. Life in Canada would no doubt improve if it was a US territory.
Life in Canada would no doubt deprove drastically. The loss of healthcare. The loss of language rights. The loss of the right not to be harassed and gassed by secret police. Etc.
You are very confused about the state of your country:
* Healthcare: Veterans are encouraged to get euthanasia because they complain about long waits for service.
* "Language rights": You have the "right" to be required to do legal documents in two languages instead of one. In the US we really don't even have a mandatory official language, though we should require English. People speak whatever they want to anyone they can get to listen. Remember the Tower of Babel? That is a story of a divine curse for a reason!
* Harrassed by police: Canadians have effectively lost gun rights, free speech rights, much of their financial autonomy, etc. To add insult to injury, there are countless stories of Canadian crime victims having essentially no recourse. They are ignored or punished by police for speaking out about crime or defending their lives and property.
I know you are trying to take a dig at ICE in your comment, but a country without borders is not sustainable. Maybe you want infinite "diversity" and "enrichment" but most people want to see their culture and race continue. You can't import a very disproportionate amount of culturally incompatible people and keep your country. I think you and people like you have been infected with a mind virus that destroys your self-respect and self-preservation instincts.
> Life in Canada would no doubt improve if it was a US territory.
Nobody ever invaded another country to improve the life of the citizen of the other country.
Countries get invaded to increase the power of the own country and that implies a less favorable outcome for the invaded country.
You're not exactly wrong, but the net outcome can be favorable to the common man in the invaded country. Some takeovers of countries have been (relatively) peaceful as well.
the goal is to make a war unpalatable to the us public. this is not very difficult to do, since the us public doesn't like it when their own soldiers die. having fighter jets that can be remotely shut down by the us makes it a great deal more difficult.
US citizen also not used to having war at their front door. I assume that would make a great difference.
But what the duck are people (including me) even discussing here? Within a year it has come so far that the US government alienated one of their most important allies and people discussing the possibility of a war against them.
I think this could be a scheme to get other countries to start paying for their own defense more, instead of relying on the US to do it. It is perhaps rude or undiplomatic, but it's supposed to be a kick in the ass. I remember Trump talking to EU leaders years ago to explain this to them, and nothing changed. Maybe now they got the message.
I think that's a bit shortsighted. It's sort of an open secret that the current US admin is doing russia's bidding. Obviously America will lose a lot more than gain if it attacked or invaded Canada. There is nothing canada has right now that is inaccessible to the US, the US can deploy troops, bases, train soldiers,etc.. if it had peaceful relations with Canada. keystone XL is sifting canadian oil to US refineries, alaska benefits a ton from canada based supply chain and airspace, alaska strategically is extremely critical to the US, far more than any part of canada, because it's proximity to asia, the US itself and europe by way of the arctic, it is a major (if not the most important) logistics hub the US has in the western hemisphere (I'd say Ramstein in germany is the only other more important hub the US has). All to say that canada attacking alaska would be devastating to the US. If canada simply stopped all relations with the US, I'm pretty sure it will cause a major recession in the US, if not a depression outright. Again, all THAT to say that the hostility against canada is not being done on behalf of the american people but on behalf or russia. Similar to how the hostility against EU via greenland is meant to destroy nato for the benefit of russia.
Russia cares a lot about controlling canada and greenland because of their desire to dominate the arctic. They already control one half of it more or less, but as I mentioned earlier, the fastest way to europe from the americas, and even from eastern russia and north eastern asia to western europe is via the arctic. They want ukraine to dominate agriculture, and gain warm water ports, the arctic to control shipping lines and flight paths (including ICBM flight paths :) ).
With a presumed fallen global order where Canada and the US are not allies in the least, Russia has every reason to invade Canada, if they decide to control all of canada, that'd be an immense victory for them, outside of china no one can stop them from global domination at that point.
Strategically, what Ukraine is for europe, Canada is to north america.
Russia's arctic fleet supposedly is even superior to the US navy's from what little I've heard about the topic. Wars aren't that simple either, Russia hasn't mobilized or entered full wartime mode yet with Ukraine, it's still a "special operation". They're more than willing to mow down tens of millions more of their people. Another interesting aspect of a prolonged war is that they start building internal supply chains to build tanks, artillery, basic supplies,etc.. that is if their economy doesn't collapse, which it hasn't. Oil sales is still keeping them alive (in no small parts thanks to europe). But I'm sure putin is content merely controlling canada via the US as its vassal state.
> There is nothing canada has right now that is inaccessible to the US, the US can deploy troops, bases, train soldiers,etc.. if it had peaceful relations with Canada.
Reminds me of Greenland.
If Russia had the means to invade Canada and hold territory they might try it. They don't. It's not even within the realm of possibility. It's absurdist fantasy to imagine otherwise. Their military is simply far too weak and the geography too poor.
They could probably land some troops in the middle of nowhere by taking advantage of how slow politicians are to react to incursions. Only to have the troops die from bombs and accomplish nothing but scaring some polar bears.
A beachhead in the arctic is utterly worthless as a starting point for moving south - the logistics simply make it impossible (the north is really big and really empty and has lots of really shitty terrain to cross). Even if you suppose somehow Russia is in principle capable of the logistics, Canada isn't reachable from Russia by the arctic sea except through Denmark or the US - they'd need to be co-belligerents or conquered first (narrow exception of submarines and airplanes of course, but not in large enough quantity to matter). They have no means to "control all of Canada" even if the Canadian military, and the allied militaries with treaties guaranteeing mutual defence, somehow magically ceased to exist.
Meanwhile we've seen from Ukraine that they lack effective air defence against planes far more outdated than what Canada already has... and our military isn't going to magically cease existing. Whatever beachhead they could establish, it wouldn't last long.
All this to say that Russia simply isn't a threat to Canada. The only exception to this is that they have enough nuclear bombs to say "fuck the world" and cause nuclear winter or something similarly stupid - but there's nothing militarily we could ever do to prevent that.
I agree that the US is acting consistent with being a Russian puppet - but the conclusion from that is that the US might invade to the benefit of Russia - not that Russia itself is somehow going to magic up an army capable of an invasion directly across the centre of the arctic ocean.
You make good points, but my point wasn't that Russia would use a beachhead in the arctic, but that it can use flight paths through the arctic to project power in southern Canada. long-range missiles are one thing, but strategic long-range bombers with some in-flight refueling too. As far as an actual invading force, that I concede, they can't do that today, but who knows what they're planning, they have the manpower, the money and the lunacy to build up such a force. Their main advantage is the nuclear deterrent preventing others from invading them back. Canada has been left alone so far (by everyone hostile) because it has (had?) the US's protection, not because of it's fearsome military (although I know they're quite fierce on their own -- just not B52, nukes, ICBMs, aircraft carriers level fierce).
If I had to speculate, they won't try to take populated centers of Canada, but they might make claims to arctic resources and land, and just take it. Start bombing Toronto and Montreal if Canada fights back. They might even do it in the next few years if the US starts enough chaos elsewhere as a distraction. Once they take land, you're not getting it back, why? Back to my original point: They have nukes.
Canada is part of NATO, and if the VDV and the Spetnaz demonstration in Ukraine are any indication of the current level of Russian spec ops, any Nordic country, UK, France and Italy all have better trained arctic/Alpine forces than Russia. Individually.
The Feb 2nd episode of the "The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge" podcast may be of interest to you, its title is "Should Canada Include Nuclear Weapons In Its Defence Strategy?", and offers a perspective on the subject.
Thanks, i'll try to check it out, it sounds interesting.
Nit: Ukraine invaded and occupied hundreds of square miles of Russian territory in 2024 and Russia is nuclear capable.
Ukraine was invaded to begin with because they gave up their nukes in the 90's in exchange for territorial recognition and a promise of non-invasion from russia lol.
at the time the US policy was that if Russia used a nuke in Ukraine, they would lose pretty much everything outside Russia.
nowadays the gremlin from the kremlin can just turn up in the US and marines will lay down the red carpet. so I'm not sure the same thing can be repeated safely.
Let's be real, it really doesn't matter what jets Canada buys if US wants to annex Canada. For NORAD duties, US can sortie F35s out of Alaska, Canada on paper better off with some Gripens for cheap performative arctic patrols. But F35s cooler than Gripens for airshows, which US provides anyway.
Look just buy some F35s and park it in the Eaton Center for the gram.
Canada's air bases are very far apart, and the Arctic is very remote, so F-35's range advantage makes it particularly well-suited to performing longer patrols (though it's still only a single-engine fighter). Additionally, the F-35's stealth means that an adversary can never be confident of when or how often patrols take place.
Gripens with external tanks outrange F35 with external tanks flying dirty, and since 4th gen, stealth hardly matters. Spaced based ISR is proliferating, in 10 years F35s will be picked up through SAR from space if not already... well depending on adversary. PRC and US, stealth broadly not meaningful. IMO RU hardly relevant.
And to be blunt, RU/PRC is MORE aligned with Canadian position on Northwest Passage sovereignty. Which really only leaves US... i.e. the only actual on paper threat to NWP is US, which makes F35s terminally stupid acquisition for CAN arctic. But broad IMO is Canada simply doesn't need a strong air game because it won't survive vs adversaries operating in the north anyway. Geopolitically, Canada needs F35 to NORDAD dues/ransom more than it needs F35 for tactical/operational needs. Cue CAN buys f35, find them ruinously expensive to operate, and US will end simply "patrolling" Canadian airspace anyways.
The Chinese and Russians would both acquire Canada outright if they could. Any alliance with them is fraught with peril. The US is more culturally compatible with Canada than any other country for real. Although, they are too commie up there, I think a lot of that is imposed from the top without regard for popular opinion. The same happens in Europe.
But they can't hence point moot, and when they could/might, i.e. Russian Alaska, they didn't try. Whereas US tried to annex Canada twice, but was context of British Canada / revolutionary war. CAN not going to ally with RU/PRC for the simple reason it would trigger peril from US.
Americans forget Canada fundamentally an anti/then counter American project, it wasn't until post world war that culture became more compatible. That's still based on US minimally respecting Canadian sovereignty, including NWP, which even before new annexation talk was sore subject. So not particularly imposed from top. Family fights over property gets just as ugly, even commies like their property.
Sorry, is the F35 already arctic capable? I thought it was a work in progress?
Wait, does the US sell any stealth planes? I thought that was special secret stuff only for US usage.
Yeah... the F-35 in pretty large quantities.
They should buy both. Stealth is indispensable when needed, but for most tasks the Canadian Air Force performs the Gripen would be perfect.
It clearly seems the right thing to do. I guess the devil is in the details?
Canada announced an intent to purchase F-35 in 2010, at which point their F-18 were old and worn-out. The current government has been delaying a purchase for over 10 years now, and just needs to do something. The F-18 are too old to be useful, and there is still no clarity on what the intended mission is. Canada needs to either buy something now, or just abandon the idea of maintaining a tactical air force.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning...
Canada must integrate with USA and help subsidize advanced tech, not freeload and nickle&dime it's giant landmass defense as it has been for decades.
This shitshow's been going on long enough
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43376221
What is ndp and who is Carney?
Carney is the prime minister of Canada. The NDP is the farther left party in Canada.
NDP is basically the communist party in Canada, platform is handing out free stuff.
Let me guess, you're USian?