I was trying to avoid this, but I suppose it’s time to discuss Canada’s purchase of the F-35 jet fighter, especially in light of the Trump regime’s repeated threats to Canada, our economy, and our sovereignty.
I like the second option. Reduce the numbers as much as possible and then buy the grippens. I would very much worrry about the jets being treated like my Mercedes where all of a sudden multiple electronic systems don’t work unless I pay $$$
I hope you have a good break. The F35 procurement seems like a nightmare and a problem now that the US has gone rogue. Maybe non-American jets like the Gripen will be viable in the future
Fuck that shit. At best (or worst) option #2. I say cancel F-35 and go Swedish or French, right now. Let the Americans sue us. Who gives a shit. We can ignore their court decisions/orders in the same way the Retrumplicans are doing in their own country. Reciprocal enforcement of court orders? Only the ones we like - you know, just like them. They don’t like it - tough shit. Build a wall and make them pay for it hahaha.
I know. I was a lawyer for 40 years. Let them sue. It wouldn’t be easy for them (who break contracts on a whim) either. Winning lawsuits is not easy. And collecting if you do win is even harder.
Sometimes you have to take a hit to make things right. Also I can’t help but wonder whether the Americans would build a tech back door into the F-35 technology which would enable them to disable the aircraft remotely and thereby make them useless to us. Can we trust the Americans not to do that - I don’t.
I’m convinced that COA 1 is our least dangerous politically and militarily. Trump will (may) be gone by 2029 anyway, and things may have settled into something more closely resembling friendly relations again. I’m not a huge fan of the aircraft and I’m not convinced that it is right plane for Canada’s NORAD commitments (and I did work there for one posting), but it is still a valuable asset and can perform a lot of other missions very well.
At the same time, I still feel that having all our air power eggs in the US’s basket is unacceptable. Two squadrons plus spares of Gripen or Rafale could likely be delivered from established production lines before F-35 even reaches IOC, and longer-term I think we should join the GCAP program to be near the front of the line to acquire Tempest.
And of course, moving forward, we need to definitively end the RCAF’s one-way bromance with the USAF and American suppliers.
There is a huge caveat about Harper's "announcement" that we would purchase 66 F-35s. It was vaporware. Yes, he said it, but his government never signed a contract or put so much as a nickle in any budget for it.
That’s not so much a caveat as a clear description of doing business with Harper, or Trump. Neither verifiably human, though from different manufacturers.
I’m in on option one. Cover interoperability and NORAD robustly, and integrate with European and World defence and cooperation with a parallel fleet of non-American exposed equipment (working with SAAB on a new engine option if possible).
Canada can absolutely go to 2% GDP in Defence, and even beyond. And do all of the other things that are critical to us as a nation. As long as we corral the Current American ridiculousness we are a fantastically rich country that habitually mismanages programs and finances. We can do this, we have to.
Changed my mind. My vote is pull the plug and go all in on anything non-American. The latest ridiculous rhetoric has dialed up the batshit even further, and is totally unconscionable. Even if we have to eat the already spent funds it would be cheap at twice the price to escape this clown show.
If Im not mistaken, and thanks to Wikipedia, we are only commited to a first tranche of 16 aircraft. So lets get those 16 which would cover our Norad commitment (lets see if Norad will survive Trump) and buy something else for the rest of yhe Fleet. Gripen is a no go, US can Block the export of the Gripen which has a significant number of US components, including the engine. US has recently blocked the Gripen to Colombia. We want to have a sovereign aircraft, thats the Dassault Rafale.
Wikipedia : By 20 December 2022, the Department of National Defence received approval to spend $7 billion on 16 F-35As and related equipment, including training systems, potential weapons and support infrastructure.
Wow when you read these comments you get an understanding of the history! Too many opinions, Too many options, too much fear of change and or failure.
When we faced these decisions in my business career we studied the data made the best decision we could and stopped talking about it. If we made a mistake we course corrected and kept moving forward . After 40 years that included many mistakes we always arrived at a better spot than we started.
No more time to dither about Canadian security our next PM needs to get it done !!!
There are 16+ countries operating or buying F-35. Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, S Korea, Singapore, Switzerland, Uk and US. Cutting off access to F-35 would permanently damage the US relationship with many of the US’s most important security partners, not just Canada, or NATO, but those in the Indo-Pacific region as well.
2. Gripen is a great aircraft, but it does not have the capabilities of an F-35, and the things that make it NATO compatible are primarily US-controlled capabilities. Sweden, Hungary, Czechia, Brazil, South Africa, and Thailand all operate or are buying Gripen, but in relatively small numbers.
3. If Canada were to operate the Gripen instead of the F-35, it would actually make the US less secure and increase Canadian dependency on the US military because of interoperability challenges with the Gripen with NORAD.
4. Many F-35 parts are built in Canada and around the world. Tariffs are going to make those built-in-Canada parts more expensive for the USAF, USN and USMC as well.
5. There are good reasons for Canada to keep F-35. Those who know, know why. Everyone else is just speculating.
I worry about Australia's purchase of 72 x F-35s. The Liberal-National Opposition, who are influenced by Trump, want us to buy another 28. But sepating our F-35s from American control seems problematic. Probably the Albanese Government will say nothing until after the elections in May. Fortunately it continues to support Ukraine. And we are increasingly dealing with non-American military sources, including South Korea, Germany, the UK and Japan. Maybe we should dump the US leg of AUKUS and accelerate our UK-AUS submarine program.
If Canada developed the Arrow, why can’t we develop and build aircraft in Canada, made by Canadians for our Canadian military? We need to start realizing we are ALONE IN THE WORLD.., we need to start thinking about America wanting our natural resources. We need to arm and defend Canada. We need aircraft carriers, ice breakers, submarines, tanks, all manner of defence weaponry. We should have never let that slide. Now we’re in trouble
I would never have thought I would be writing this, but here goes.
Because there have been, at least two instances of the Trump admin cutting Starlink access to Ukraine, the possibility is real. They are also, allegedly, using location services to target Ukrainian military providing this data to Russian military. So, we would need to have the ability to disable the US’s access.
While the second option is more enticing due to security, the realistic option would be option 1 with the addition of hiring an engineer to assist with security measures. Geoblock, firewall, root disablement; whatever it takes.
There’s still no actual proof Elon Musk has cut off Starlink to Ukraine, just Ukrainian complaints that likely add up to Russian EW getting better at detecting and triangulating uplink signals from Ukrainian Starlink terminals and hitting them with Iskander missile and glide bomb strikes.
If Starlink was actually cut, you’d be seeing the impact all across the front, not just the Ukrainian collapse in Kursk where they were semi encircled on three sides with only two paved highway supply lines in a narrow corridor to begin with…
The thing is, during the initial invasion, Ukrainian drones suddenly lost connectivity when striking naval units in a crucial area. Initially Musk stated that he would not restore connectivity. He then went on to say that it was in an area that was geofenced due to US sanctions. However, since Russians have been spotted, in Russian territory, with terminals. If it was geofenced, they would not function.
I believe nothing that is said or written by Musk. He blatantly pushes BS propaganda to bend the reality to his advantage. He just called a decorated United States Navy Captain, Astronaut, now Senator Mark Kelly, a traitor for calling for the US to continue aid to Ukraine while he was on a trip there.
Musk is “in bed” with Russia. Same with Trump and Vance and who knows how many more who are compromised.
Unfortunately, since 2016 Americans have been calling each other "traitor/s" the way middle school boys call each other gay.
I'm an American who grew up around the US military. Although I think occupying Afghanistan for years after 9/11 was not good, I respect the sacrifices Canadians made as our allies in WW1 and WW2.
Senator Mark Kelly is wrong, and not because the Ukrainians haven't fought like hell, but because the Ukrainian command, in the testimony of former Senator now confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is not so much running out of weapons, as running out of Ukrainians. This foolish waste of Kiev's best troops and much of its NATO provided armor in the Kursk operation (which was intended as with so many prior Ukrainian operations to bolster morale rather than achieve any decisive military objective) has exacerbated the manpower shortages. trump and Vance are not urging Zelensky to make a General Mannerheim in late 1944 style deal (Finland survived and albeit Finlandized, kept its independence with much of Karelia amputated) with the Russians because they are pro-Russian. They are doing so because their advisors including DNI Tulsi Gabbard are sharing with them the actual, previously Biden Admin suppressed intel that Ukraine is another couple years maximum three more years away from drafting mid-teens boys manpower exhaustion. Like Nazi Germany collapsed in 1945 from running out of men, rather than panzerfausts and machine guns, and a generation earlier collapsed in late 1918 from manpower and economic exhaustion, with many Germans (some of whom later joined the Nazi Party) clinging to a Stab in the Back Myth.
What the WorldWarWoke ist Left and Soros organs are doing to indoctrinate veterans now is constructing a 21st century Dolstosslegende but this time for Ukraine, that Trump is stabbing them in the back as opposed to trying to save them from their own stubbornness bordering on Imperial Japanese in 1944 levels of fanaticism.
So my polite but blunt question to you sir is: what part of you're running out of Ukrainian men whose backs NATO has been hiding and waging war on Russia from behind these last 3 years do you not understand?
With all my respect to our polite Canadian veteran host, I also do not think the hardliners here in the comments advocating for a fully confrontational approach toward this Administration, or even an outright Cold War waged by a Fortress EU with the UK and Canada as allies against a Trump and later Vance Administrations, understand what they are advocating. The last attempt to build a Festung Europa that viewed Russians as racially inferior and Americans as cultural poison enemies ended with GIs and Russian soldiers shaking hands at the Elbe, 80 years ago next month.
To his credit, our host is presenting what it looks like in real time when a veteran is being indoctrinated with WorldWarWoke ist anti-MAGA America feelings. The problem with this is Trump actually did win not only an impressive electoral college victory, but also the popular vote. Even if you happen to loathe Trump, you can't cling to just a bicoastal USA while demonizing the middle of the country that elected this man. Atlas was going to shrug at some point regarding the wildly disproportionately American share of NATO's funding, Trump has merely accelerated the process, which is the main reason I'm more sanguine about it.
The Germans threatening to seriously re arm (they will find this much harder than they think due to the erosion of their own defense industrial base and the hollowed out state of the Bundeswehr) is just more oh no don't throw me in that briar patch said the rabbit, to quote a children's book. But just understand not everyone in Europe is going to be happy about this, and the Brits knowing their nature will revert to double dealing, nominally embracing the Franco-German EUro Army corps while in reality undermining it as they have for decades. London may be dominated by Russia hating lunatics hellbent on refighting the Crimean War even if Trump has opted the US out, but it also has offshore balancing off the Continental powers in its blood. So I think our host is going to be disappointed with what actually happens after all the mighty European chest thumping. The UK itself still has an army that can be comfortably seated inside Wembley Stadium, wake me up when they pass a draft and start putting British Army boots and butts (not just those of disavowable volunteers') on the line in Ukraine alongside those of the French.
Canada is certainly stuck with 16 of them. As for the rest, the US may be threatening to force us to complete the sale b/c even the Gripen’s engines are US-made.
Canada should RESIST. We must disentangle ourselves from the Slave States of America as soon as we can. Gripens are a good step, but allies - OTHER than the Putin-loving Americans - should be part of our process. In the end, we should ensure we have capacity to design and build our own fighter jets (or whatever) at all times, even if we lean on allies.
Why do penalties and commercial impacts trump national sovereignty? A hostile national can cripple our aircraft and new frigates yet this is somehow an act of nature that can’t be stopped? The Govt regularly makes decisions that are not grounded on a business case justification (+30B for a pipeline no bank nor company would touch). So rush procurement of the Gripen and as Sweden needs another major customer to help offset its cost, push them for arms production and defence cooperation. The USA has only ever acted in its own self interest. Because of natural resources (water scarcity is the leading issue) it was inevitable that the USA was going to dominate Canada. The status quo was a slow but methodical cultural and economic assimilation. So the current administration jettisoned this, but even if this regime is changed, their end goal has not. At any point it could flip back to the fast track option. So if our airmen ever find their targeting radar is refusing to lock onto the US planes bombing Ottawa, just tell them the contracts were too far along to stop.
You may be wrong about how quickly Ottawa will act, or at least I hope so. I am a life-long pacifist, and I’m certainly o e of those voters who approved of cutting military spending. In the last six weeks however it has become obvious to me that this was an error and we need to reverse course, hard and fast.
The only extent to which I disagree with your analysis above is that I don’t believe we will ever see a single F-35 delivered to us by the US, unless we’re in the cross-hairs of one. In that light, I think we need to cut our losses, cancel out of the F-35 contract, and go hat in hand to the Europeans.
I like the second option. Reduce the numbers as much as possible and then buy the grippens. I would very much worrry about the jets being treated like my Mercedes where all of a sudden multiple electronic systems don’t work unless I pay $$$
I hope you have a good break. The F35 procurement seems like a nightmare and a problem now that the US has gone rogue. Maybe non-American jets like the Gripen will be viable in the future
Fuck that shit. At best (or worst) option #2. I say cancel F-35 and go Swedish or French, right now. Let the Americans sue us. Who gives a shit. We can ignore their court decisions/orders in the same way the Retrumplicans are doing in their own country. Reciprocal enforcement of court orders? Only the ones we like - you know, just like them. They don’t like it - tough shit. Build a wall and make them pay for it hahaha.
Until they sue in a Canadian court. Plus the losses to our industry. It isn’t that easy.
I know. I was a lawyer for 40 years. Let them sue. It wouldn’t be easy for them (who break contracts on a whim) either. Winning lawsuits is not easy. And collecting if you do win is even harder.
Like the idea. But the amount we have already invested?
Should have went with our other two options years ago.
or make our own
Arrow 2 🤔
Sometimes you have to take a hit to make things right. Also I can’t help but wonder whether the Americans would build a tech back door into the F-35 technology which would enable them to disable the aircraft remotely and thereby make them useless to us. Can we trust the Americans not to do that - I don’t.
I’m convinced that COA 1 is our least dangerous politically and militarily. Trump will (may) be gone by 2029 anyway, and things may have settled into something more closely resembling friendly relations again. I’m not a huge fan of the aircraft and I’m not convinced that it is right plane for Canada’s NORAD commitments (and I did work there for one posting), but it is still a valuable asset and can perform a lot of other missions very well.
At the same time, I still feel that having all our air power eggs in the US’s basket is unacceptable. Two squadrons plus spares of Gripen or Rafale could likely be delivered from established production lines before F-35 even reaches IOC, and longer-term I think we should join the GCAP program to be near the front of the line to acquire Tempest.
And of course, moving forward, we need to definitively end the RCAF’s one-way bromance with the USAF and American suppliers.
There is a huge caveat about Harper's "announcement" that we would purchase 66 F-35s. It was vaporware. Yes, he said it, but his government never signed a contract or put so much as a nickle in any budget for it.
That’s not so much a caveat as a clear description of doing business with Harper, or Trump. Neither verifiably human, though from different manufacturers.
Have a good break. Although the “something earth shattering happening” is a distinct possibility 🙄
I’m in on option one. Cover interoperability and NORAD robustly, and integrate with European and World defence and cooperation with a parallel fleet of non-American exposed equipment (working with SAAB on a new engine option if possible).
Canada can absolutely go to 2% GDP in Defence, and even beyond. And do all of the other things that are critical to us as a nation. As long as we corral the Current American ridiculousness we are a fantastically rich country that habitually mismanages programs and finances. We can do this, we have to.
Changed my mind. My vote is pull the plug and go all in on anything non-American. The latest ridiculous rhetoric has dialed up the batshit even further, and is totally unconscionable. Even if we have to eat the already spent funds it would be cheap at twice the price to escape this clown show.
If Im not mistaken, and thanks to Wikipedia, we are only commited to a first tranche of 16 aircraft. So lets get those 16 which would cover our Norad commitment (lets see if Norad will survive Trump) and buy something else for the rest of yhe Fleet. Gripen is a no go, US can Block the export of the Gripen which has a significant number of US components, including the engine. US has recently blocked the Gripen to Colombia. We want to have a sovereign aircraft, thats the Dassault Rafale.
Wikipedia : By 20 December 2022, the Department of National Defence received approval to spend $7 billion on 16 F-35As and related equipment, including training systems, potential weapons and support infrastructure.
Wow when you read these comments you get an understanding of the history! Too many opinions, Too many options, too much fear of change and or failure.
When we faced these decisions in my business career we studied the data made the best decision we could and stopped talking about it. If we made a mistake we course corrected and kept moving forward . After 40 years that included many mistakes we always arrived at a better spot than we started.
No more time to dither about Canadian security our next PM needs to get it done !!!
1. If the US were to cut off F-35 support to partners, they would cripple their ability to sell anything to anyone in the future. https://www.f35.com/f35/global-enterprise.html
There are 16+ countries operating or buying F-35. Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, S Korea, Singapore, Switzerland, Uk and US. Cutting off access to F-35 would permanently damage the US relationship with many of the US’s most important security partners, not just Canada, or NATO, but those in the Indo-Pacific region as well.
2. Gripen is a great aircraft, but it does not have the capabilities of an F-35, and the things that make it NATO compatible are primarily US-controlled capabilities. Sweden, Hungary, Czechia, Brazil, South Africa, and Thailand all operate or are buying Gripen, but in relatively small numbers.
3. If Canada were to operate the Gripen instead of the F-35, it would actually make the US less secure and increase Canadian dependency on the US military because of interoperability challenges with the Gripen with NORAD.
4. Many F-35 parts are built in Canada and around the world. Tariffs are going to make those built-in-Canada parts more expensive for the USAF, USN and USMC as well.
5. There are good reasons for Canada to keep F-35. Those who know, know why. Everyone else is just speculating.
I worry about Australia's purchase of 72 x F-35s. The Liberal-National Opposition, who are influenced by Trump, want us to buy another 28. But sepating our F-35s from American control seems problematic. Probably the Albanese Government will say nothing until after the elections in May. Fortunately it continues to support Ukraine. And we are increasingly dealing with non-American military sources, including South Korea, Germany, the UK and Japan. Maybe we should dump the US leg of AUKUS and accelerate our UK-AUS submarine program.
If Canada developed the Arrow, why can’t we develop and build aircraft in Canada, made by Canadians for our Canadian military? We need to start realizing we are ALONE IN THE WORLD.., we need to start thinking about America wanting our natural resources. We need to arm and defend Canada. We need aircraft carriers, ice breakers, submarines, tanks, all manner of defence weaponry. We should have never let that slide. Now we’re in trouble
I would never have thought I would be writing this, but here goes.
Because there have been, at least two instances of the Trump admin cutting Starlink access to Ukraine, the possibility is real. They are also, allegedly, using location services to target Ukrainian military providing this data to Russian military. So, we would need to have the ability to disable the US’s access.
While the second option is more enticing due to security, the realistic option would be option 1 with the addition of hiring an engineer to assist with security measures. Geoblock, firewall, root disablement; whatever it takes.
There’s still no actual proof Elon Musk has cut off Starlink to Ukraine, just Ukrainian complaints that likely add up to Russian EW getting better at detecting and triangulating uplink signals from Ukrainian Starlink terminals and hitting them with Iskander missile and glide bomb strikes.
If Starlink was actually cut, you’d be seeing the impact all across the front, not just the Ukrainian collapse in Kursk where they were semi encircled on three sides with only two paved highway supply lines in a narrow corridor to begin with…
The thing is, during the initial invasion, Ukrainian drones suddenly lost connectivity when striking naval units in a crucial area. Initially Musk stated that he would not restore connectivity. He then went on to say that it was in an area that was geofenced due to US sanctions. However, since Russians have been spotted, in Russian territory, with terminals. If it was geofenced, they would not function.
I believe nothing that is said or written by Musk. He blatantly pushes BS propaganda to bend the reality to his advantage. He just called a decorated United States Navy Captain, Astronaut, now Senator Mark Kelly, a traitor for calling for the US to continue aid to Ukraine while he was on a trip there.
Musk is “in bed” with Russia. Same with Trump and Vance and who knows how many more who are compromised.
Unfortunately, since 2016 Americans have been calling each other "traitor/s" the way middle school boys call each other gay.
I'm an American who grew up around the US military. Although I think occupying Afghanistan for years after 9/11 was not good, I respect the sacrifices Canadians made as our allies in WW1 and WW2.
Senator Mark Kelly is wrong, and not because the Ukrainians haven't fought like hell, but because the Ukrainian command, in the testimony of former Senator now confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is not so much running out of weapons, as running out of Ukrainians. This foolish waste of Kiev's best troops and much of its NATO provided armor in the Kursk operation (which was intended as with so many prior Ukrainian operations to bolster morale rather than achieve any decisive military objective) has exacerbated the manpower shortages. trump and Vance are not urging Zelensky to make a General Mannerheim in late 1944 style deal (Finland survived and albeit Finlandized, kept its independence with much of Karelia amputated) with the Russians because they are pro-Russian. They are doing so because their advisors including DNI Tulsi Gabbard are sharing with them the actual, previously Biden Admin suppressed intel that Ukraine is another couple years maximum three more years away from drafting mid-teens boys manpower exhaustion. Like Nazi Germany collapsed in 1945 from running out of men, rather than panzerfausts and machine guns, and a generation earlier collapsed in late 1918 from manpower and economic exhaustion, with many Germans (some of whom later joined the Nazi Party) clinging to a Stab in the Back Myth.
What the WorldWarWoke ist Left and Soros organs are doing to indoctrinate veterans now is constructing a 21st century Dolstosslegende but this time for Ukraine, that Trump is stabbing them in the back as opposed to trying to save them from their own stubbornness bordering on Imperial Japanese in 1944 levels of fanaticism.
So my polite but blunt question to you sir is: what part of you're running out of Ukrainian men whose backs NATO has been hiding and waging war on Russia from behind these last 3 years do you not understand?
With all my respect to our polite Canadian veteran host, I also do not think the hardliners here in the comments advocating for a fully confrontational approach toward this Administration, or even an outright Cold War waged by a Fortress EU with the UK and Canada as allies against a Trump and later Vance Administrations, understand what they are advocating. The last attempt to build a Festung Europa that viewed Russians as racially inferior and Americans as cultural poison enemies ended with GIs and Russian soldiers shaking hands at the Elbe, 80 years ago next month.
To his credit, our host is presenting what it looks like in real time when a veteran is being indoctrinated with WorldWarWoke ist anti-MAGA America feelings. The problem with this is Trump actually did win not only an impressive electoral college victory, but also the popular vote. Even if you happen to loathe Trump, you can't cling to just a bicoastal USA while demonizing the middle of the country that elected this man. Atlas was going to shrug at some point regarding the wildly disproportionately American share of NATO's funding, Trump has merely accelerated the process, which is the main reason I'm more sanguine about it.
The Germans threatening to seriously re arm (they will find this much harder than they think due to the erosion of their own defense industrial base and the hollowed out state of the Bundeswehr) is just more oh no don't throw me in that briar patch said the rabbit, to quote a children's book. But just understand not everyone in Europe is going to be happy about this, and the Brits knowing their nature will revert to double dealing, nominally embracing the Franco-German EUro Army corps while in reality undermining it as they have for decades. London may be dominated by Russia hating lunatics hellbent on refighting the Crimean War even if Trump has opted the US out, but it also has offshore balancing off the Continental powers in its blood. So I think our host is going to be disappointed with what actually happens after all the mighty European chest thumping. The UK itself still has an army that can be comfortably seated inside Wembley Stadium, wake me up when they pass a draft and start putting British Army boots and butts (not just those of disavowable volunteers') on the line in Ukraine alongside those of the French.
Canada is certainly stuck with 16 of them. As for the rest, the US may be threatening to force us to complete the sale b/c even the Gripen’s engines are US-made.
Canada should RESIST. We must disentangle ourselves from the Slave States of America as soon as we can. Gripens are a good step, but allies - OTHER than the Putin-loving Americans - should be part of our process. In the end, we should ensure we have capacity to design and build our own fighter jets (or whatever) at all times, even if we lean on allies.
Why do penalties and commercial impacts trump national sovereignty? A hostile national can cripple our aircraft and new frigates yet this is somehow an act of nature that can’t be stopped? The Govt regularly makes decisions that are not grounded on a business case justification (+30B for a pipeline no bank nor company would touch). So rush procurement of the Gripen and as Sweden needs another major customer to help offset its cost, push them for arms production and defence cooperation. The USA has only ever acted in its own self interest. Because of natural resources (water scarcity is the leading issue) it was inevitable that the USA was going to dominate Canada. The status quo was a slow but methodical cultural and economic assimilation. So the current administration jettisoned this, but even if this regime is changed, their end goal has not. At any point it could flip back to the fast track option. So if our airmen ever find their targeting radar is refusing to lock onto the US planes bombing Ottawa, just tell them the contracts were too far along to stop.
You may be wrong about how quickly Ottawa will act, or at least I hope so. I am a life-long pacifist, and I’m certainly o e of those voters who approved of cutting military spending. In the last six weeks however it has become obvious to me that this was an error and we need to reverse course, hard and fast.
The only extent to which I disagree with your analysis above is that I don’t believe we will ever see a single F-35 delivered to us by the US, unless we’re in the cross-hairs of one. In that light, I think we need to cut our losses, cancel out of the F-35 contract, and go hat in hand to the Europeans.