Sorry fellas, I did comment on this before here and again: The F35s are way way more superior than the Gripens for any conflict that doesn’t involve fighting the Americans.

If we have to fight the Americans, then we ain’t winning with planes (regardless of whether they are gripens or F35s). In that case, we’re winning with drones (a combination of Ukraine + Iran + Afghanistan).

Quite a few folks pointed to how F35s could be grounded simply by a potential remote kill switch. Again, if we have to fight the Americans, planes aren’t going to be useful in any manner. Our airstrips, maintenance facilities, fuel depots, all of it would be targeted and destroyed first. Gripens, F35s, it doesn’t matter - our planes would be grounded.

Ah sure, MOVING FORWARD, we should not make the mistake of purchasing American stuff again. But for the F35 program, backing out right now would hurt us more, no?

I mean the Danes have an even bigger reason than us to not buy F35s, and even they still went ahead with it in Oct 2025.

Now yes, using “we’ll buy Gripens instead of F35s” as a bargaining tool for the tariffs nonsense is definitely a good idea. Cuz uk, the US defense manufacturers and the GOP are close, and a threat to the flow of money could be useful to make the negotiations happen in our favor.

But if we’re looking at this from the standpoint of pure good faith, where we only look at defense capabilities for ourselves and NATO (through our armed forces), then the F35s are just better, no?

Sure, the SAAB offer to manufacture Gripens in Canada sounds really good. Better for our economy, our pockets. But in terms of raw defense capabilities? Not that much better, is it? Imo, it would just be a bad faith act to ourselves and our NATO allies, where we write “oooh we spent on defense” on paper, but didn’t actually better our capabilities.

Again, please be kind in the responses. I’m NOT a defense analyst, professional or amateur. Knowledge in this matter is low for me. I’m just looking at different opinions presented online and synthesising my own understanding/opinion.

Okay, question. What exactly is the Gripen good for? Asking because of ignorance, not as a gotcha.

From what I understand, our military purchases are to protect our borders against the Russians in the Arctic, the Americans in the south and also for NATO collective defense in Europe (where the largest aggressor is Russia).

Where in these cases would gripens be of any use compared to the f35s?

Against the Americans: Gripens or not, if we have to defend against them, we are kinda fucked. Our best bets would just be air defence/insurgency military hardware/drones/nukes if we can build them in event of escalation.

Against the Russians: We need to prepare to defend against the su57s, as that likely would make up their main thing for the decades to come. How would gripens help against that compared to the f35s?

As for the fears of Americans remotely disabling the f35s, well, we own the hardware, do we not? Can we not detect backdoors in advance right now, and come up with measures to remedy them? I mean how difficult is it really to flash different software when we have the hardware in our possession?

A consistent fleet of f35s would make stuff so much more efficient would it not? Getting a new plane from a new company, training maintenance crew on it, new pilots, etc. just seems… like a bad idea?

Ah, sure - moving away from US based platforms in the future makes perfect sense. Purchasing the successor of the f35 would be a bad idea, sure. Collaborating with the EU here would make more sense. But as for the current f35, I don’t understand the love for the Gripen.

YESSS!!! Credit unions ftw. Always much much better customer service, interest rates (for both, loans and investments).

Also, equal member ownership over means of production. So if you’re a leftist, you definitely definitely should consider these fellas.

I’m not liking the Liberals being so strong in Parliament. They need a proper counterbalance.

Agreed, poor writing there.

That being said, the idea as a whole isn’t bad from what super surface level understanding I have about quantum computing.

Quantum computing has the potential to break a lot of encryption. It’s not there yet, but definitely seems to be going in that direction. Encryption breaking would be catastrophic for defense, and literally all kinds of civil applications. This becomes (in my eyes) a legitimate national security threat.

From what I understand, they’re hinting at Canada proactively developing this offensive tech (hinted as domestic defense industry bs) while exploring anything and everything to do with quantum resistant systems of encryption and their implementation in the Canadian economy.

The definition of intelligence is context dependent. I know you’re trying to be humorous, but still. Here’s the definition according to Wikipedia:

Intelligence (/ˌɪntɛlɪˈdʒəns/) has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. It can be described as the ability to perceive or infer information and to retain it as knowledge to be applied to adaptive behaviors within an environment or context.[1]

Wikipedia