Any fighter jet requires a lot of maintenance, and the F35 requires more than most.
If they US cut us off from getting parts for the planes it wouldn’t take too long before they wouldn’t be flying anymore.
And yeah the biggest concern for me is a country that’s potential adversary being able to shut down our air force when they want. I’d say it’s not likely they’d do this to attack us militarily, but I could definitely see a them doing this to put pressure on us in a trade negotiation. They did temporarily cut off Ukraine from supply in the middle of a war to pressure them, that’s a line that should never be crossed, and they crossed it. So yeah they’d be willing ground our airf orce to strong arm us someday.
So using American planes makes the RCAF a potential liability in negotiations in the future. The military should be a strength in geopolitics, not a liability.
The Swedish offer shouldn’t just be about jobs, though that’s a nice bonus. If we’re building the parts for the planes here in Canada then no one can cut us off and ground our planes.
Any fighter jet requires a lot of maintenance, and the F35 requires more than most.
If they US cut us off from getting parts for the planes it wouldn’t take too long before they wouldn’t be flying anymore.
And yeah the biggest concern for me is a country that’s potential adversary being able to shut down our air force when they want. I’d say it’s not likely they’d do this to attack us militarily, but I could definitely see a them doing this to put pressure on us in a trade negotiation. They did temporarily cut off Ukraine from supply in the middle of a war to pressure them, that’s a line that should never be crossed, and they crossed it. So yeah they’d be willing ground our airf orce to strong arm us someday.
So using American planes makes the RCAF a potential liability in negotiations in the future. The military should be a strength in geopolitics, not a liability.
The Swedish offer shouldn’t just be about jobs, though that’s a nice bonus. If we’re building the parts for the planes here in Canada then no one can cut us off and ground our planes.
exactly right, IMO