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.
this post was submitted on 28 May 2026
487 points (99.4% liked)
World News
57140 readers
2276 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF OCTOBER 19 2025
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
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
Strong fences make good neighbours
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.
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:
- Hmm, what happened in that far northern area? We should go check it out. Oh wait, we don't have planes to do that.
- Russia attacks Finland. Finland calls for help from its NATO allies. Canada sends its air force.
- Every single flight from Europe to the US west coast flies over Canada. Even flights from Europe to Mexico City pass over Atlantic Canada. One of those flights stops responding and there's a fear it was hijacked. Oh well, I guess the USAF can check it out once it crosses the border... if it crosses the border.
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.
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.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(17 replies)
load more comments
(7 replies)
This is starting to become a movement: countries going with Non-US tech or converting from it, and that's probably for the best, given the general lack of ethics and insatiable greed of US-based tech companies and the people who lead them.
Yeah, I mean as a US citizen I don't really care TBH. I just hope the planes they bought/are buying are better in some way, buying crap out of spite isn't a good reason. I really hope the US economy collapses and we get to spit roast all these piece of shit politicians. So please, stop buying US anything.
Thé base plane is made on Canada. Its also a job création d'or Canada.
load more comments
(1 replies)
rEpUbLiCaNs ArE bEtTeR fOr BuSiNeSs
$5 gas at Costco is winning
Good. Put the Untied States on economic time out until it behaves
Economic timeout is the best "political" term I have heard in a looong fuckin time
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
Why are there so many people in this thread simping for the United States?
Yeah. So many sad fans of expensive support heavy trash
Makes sense. Endless grafting with no real innovation has made US mil tec questionable. F-35 was downed in its first actual combat mission that was not a balloon.
load more comments
(14 replies)
US is planning to take over Canada and Greenland for their resources , like they did with Venezuela
US wants to take over these countries but have 0 plans lol. They said they would take Iran in 24 hours, good luck taking Montreal.
The descendants of Lafayette will likely end up northward in that kind of conflict, in which case the US is fucked.
load more comments
(6 replies)
They should rethink those plans
load more comments
(1 replies)
Well saan aaf a bitch!
good :)
Canadian airmen are not going to be pleased with this one. Although the small lapse in reconnaissance capability is probably well worth the long term strategic planning and sovereignty benefits.
load more comments
(1 replies)
view more: next ›