The F-35 is a poison pill for Canadian defence sovereignty against a hostile America. We cannot win against an invasion, but with the Gripen we can make it a phyrric victory for them.
The F-35 is a poison pill for Canadian defence sovereignty against a hostile America. We cannot win against an invasion, but with the Gripen we can make it a phyrric victory for them.
A phyrric victory is one where the costs have exceeded the benefits that have accrued through victory.
Make no mistake, we would never be able to win in a modern conflict against America. Even if we dropped the entire original order of 80 F-35 aircraft, and used that money to buy 420 Gripen straight from Europe (ignoring domestic production and the lack of skilled fighter pilots, here), we would still lose any kind of air superiority push by America.
But (again, assuming sufficient well-trained pilots) we would definitely f**k up America’s ability to project air superiority by a massive amount. I would even call it a strategic disembowelling of America’s air power.
Just like hunting boar with a spear, the hunter risks the boar being so enraged that, despite being lethally wounded, it still force-impales itself the rest of the way up the spear to get at and kill the hunter.
The point of the Gripen isn’t to win against America. That is impossible.
The point of the Gripen is to have the majority or entirety of the Canadian Air Force beyond America’s ability to remotely restrict operations or shut down completely, such that the pain of any invasion dramatically exceeds any rewards and could even be a lasting semi-lethal blow to their domestic air capabilities as a whole.