The Gripen is a good choice for geographically small countries.
It's able to operate from airstrips that are no more than roads, with modest mobile ground equipment for support. Saab commercial for the Gripen: [1]
The USAF's force model involves basing at big, well-equipped, well-protected air bases. Those are now hard to protect from drone attacks, as Russia recently found out. From now on, air forces have to be able to operate from improvised bases, or build very strong bunkers at major bases.
"It's able to operate from airstrips that are no more than roads, with modest mobile ground equipment for support."
Nothing is really new. I used to live in West Germany in the '70s and '80s. The UK had an aircraft called Harrier - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrier_jump_jet. At that time I think Sweden was deploying the Drakken (Dragon) and later the Vigen (Lightning). I made models of both as a child and I think both of them were superb in their own way.
Harrier was designed to work out of fields, let alone roads. Rather similar to an Apache. Minimal maint (ish) and so on.
I now live in Yeovil, Somerset and we have recently had several Italian rotary wing aircraft, such as The Seaking doing test flights around here. Presumably airframe testing and proving for VJ Day.
Not sure if ever made a lot of sense to land harrier in an unprepared location though. Lots of risk of foreign object damage to the engines. And logistically more difficult for refueling/rearming. Much better to use it on short but prepared strips.
Which RAF bases are around there? I used to live at the end of the Filton airstrip and I came home one day to a Harrier hovering directly over my house. It moved off towards Filton, but I didn't see where it went. I didn't think about what RAF bases are in the West Country.
There’s another approach, which the US is very experienced with: have your airbase far away from the enemy, perhaps in Missouri, and do a lot of in-air refueling.
Ukraine has been successful attacking Russian airbases with drones because they can sneak entire truckloads of drones and drone pilots into Russian-controlled territory. And even that was a massive operation that took over a year to plan. Israel carried out similar drone operations against Iran, so we know it’s not a fluke and this approach can be effective, but it’s harder to pull off the longer the distances become.
The F-35 has a STOVL model if that's somehow relevant, which is superior to the Gripen in both stealth and ability to operate from improvised bases
While Ukraine was able to use drones to attack Russian airbases, this was not the way Israel overpowered Iran, whose main driving factor was F-35s rather than drones (although these were present)
Only the F-35B, and it has to sacrifice performance in speed and maneuverability to get there. The Gripen still boasts a number of advantages (and higher G-loading) if you aren't penetrating hostile airspace.
Any VTOL/STOVL jet has to trade off other performance qualities for VTOL/STOVL capability. Likewise, the Gripen still needs a longer runway, which limits the use of “improvised” airfields.
In practice the main benefit of STOVL has been in naval aviation. CATOBAR carriers are expensive and challenging to build, especially if you don’t have the economy of scale of building a dozen of the same class instead of just the 1-2 most countries can actually afford. A STOVL jet can also operate from an amphibious assault ship. The feasibility of the “improvised airfield” concept with modern jets is unproven and controversial, while STOVL naval aviation has been successfully done for decades.
Yes? The most common justification for having any air force at all is the interceptor role. Dozens of nations have legitimate, blooded air forces that exclusively serve the interception/CAP mission profile. Many are near-peer threat actors if things go wrong.
How do improvised bases offer protection, especially in a world where radar on satellites sees through clouds and certain vegetation?
USAF's switch to improvised bases seems to be motivated by needing to operate from small islands in the Pacific where they isn't enough solid ground to build a full airbase.
You can land it on any road and hide it under trees etc. Is it perfect? No, but probably hell lot harder to spot it in a random forest on a random road on the countryside than finding one of a few airports
In terms of military resources required, there's a vast difference between keeping a close eye on the other side's few known airfields, and keeping a close eye on every park, parking lot, farm field, forest clearing, etc., etc. in their country.
The very successful attack that Ukraine performed on Russian long range bombers would have never worked if those weren't tied to particular locations for a really long time. 6 months of planning and execution would have gone out of the window by a single late (as in the last 30 days) order to move things around. All airfields are now at risk of such attacks, including civilian ones.
I would bet that within a year we'll see ransom attacks on airfields in open societies. The idea is out there and the capabilities are so cheap that any idiot could do it.
The schedules, radar frequencies, etc. of those commercial satellites are all public knowledge.
(Based on timestamps) your reference is to user cutemonster's comment. Yep - "move immediately after the satellite passes" is a game that children can master. I would put a bit more weight on user walrus01's (later) sibling comment - on the problem of distinguishing small, pop-up air bases from routine civilian activities.
Also, I suspect that very few of those commercial satellite radars have much resilience in the face of jamming. That is expensive and security-sensitive tech on the satellite operator's end, of minimal use to most users of the satellites' services. Vs. in a war zone, the diplomatic consequences of using cheap (relative to getting hit) ECM against surveillance satellites will usually be the lesser evil.
> How do improvised bases offer protection, especially in a world where radar on satellites sees through clouds and certain vegetation?
If operating from an airfield that has been improvised out of a straight stretch of highway, the grouping of vehicles that contain all of the necessary ground support equipment and munitions resupply can be disguised to resemble an ordinary civilian cargo box truck, or tractor trailer combo.
Unless the attacking force is willing to begin with the resources needed, and repercussions of airstriking everything that looks like a civilian cargo truck moving in the region, it would be extremely difficult to eliminate the group of vehicle and men that compromise the ground support equipment element. Particularly when you might have multiple groups of such roaming randomly around an area.
The Swedish airforce doesn't have a "grouping of vehicles".
They are all parked individually at separate locations kilometers away from the road landing strip.
When the plane comes in for landing, they (3-5 pickup trucks and a tiny tanker) all scramble and meet up when the plane touches down. Refuel and rearm in 10 minutes, drive away again.
I've seen this done with my own eyes, it's very impressive.
A better metric is likely how far out you want/need to project power rather than country size. The answer for that is very different depending on whether you're sweden or the usa
> It's able to operate from airstrips that are no more than roads, with modest mobile ground equipment for support.
This is an oft quoted gimmick. Most planes can take off just fine from a normal paved road. As a rule of thumb, if the road can supported a heavy container truck, it can support an aircraft of equivalent weight. (Transportation class and airliners are a different story entirely as they are extremely heavy).
A good runway is one that's without debris. The only other factor that makes a plane good for taking off on different surfaces is the location and design of the engine intake. You want to avoid rocks being sucked into the engine.
But generally speaking, if you have a nice clean paved road that can support heavy usage by semis trucks, most random fighter jets can take off from it just fine.
While sweden has a lot of straight road stretches specifically designed to serve as emergency airfields, it is a lot easier to find 500 m of suitable road than 1600.
- Anti-air weapons all based on maneuverability much exceed planes with human pilots.
- Anti-missile maneuver based on limited energy in missile, because it is usually ~100 times smaller then plane, and square-cube rule mean, missile could make active flight just few seconds - if plane survive these seconds it win.
Stealth planes are new tier in warfare, because enemy see them when already lost time need to launch anti-air weapons.
Yes, there's already Ukrainian fpv flown quadcopters which are optimized to intercept, as a munition, common flying wing camera surveillance platforms. I've seen probably 20 or 30 different videos now taken from the view of the quadcopter, with detonator contact wires sticking out the front, diving into the rear of a large Russian flying wing UAV.
There have been thousands of such instances by now. Ramming is indeed the most frequently used option. Depending on the target drone there are different defender drones in use. Some favor altitude and duration of flight, others favor speed. It all depends on what you are trying to hit, what sensor package and what kind of flight conditions you will face (day/night for instance).
> It's able to operate from airstrips that are no more than roads
I can understand this argument.
> The USAF's force model involves basing at big, well-equipped, well-protected air bases.
But I don't understand this one. Isn't a drone attack a drone attack? The same drones that could take out F-16s could take out Gripens. You'd have to defend your expensive weapon systems in either case.
Don't we need a new strategy that isn't entirely reliant upon extremely powerful, but extremely expensive hardware? I'd imagine you still want your expensive pieces, but that you want a compliment of inexpensive combat items and fortified bunkers as a line of defense to protect them when not deployed.
> The same drones that could take out F-16s could take out Gripens
Gripens could base on ordinary highway, so could distribute planes through big territory.
Drones usually have limited range, so they really could target most air bases capable for F-16 (using for example semi-truck container as movable nest), but it is literally impossible now, to target all highways.
Yes but it's a question of finding targets. Why was Ukraine able to decimate the Russian Air Force? Partly because they are all based out of big, well known bases. Even in wartime they have to be in a big base.
A jet like the Gripen can move basically instantly to basically anywhere and then it's hard to find, especially because it can just move again
They hit a substantial fraction of the Russian long range bombers and assorted other aircraft. Quite a bit of that is at least for the moment impossible for Russia to replace.
True, but the Gripen is not a big strategic bomber and Sweden doesn't have nukes to threaten other countries with. They do air policing and would employ guerilla tactics in case of war, like put a gripen in a cattle shed somewhere and operate it from a road¹. It's a good strategy for a smaller country with lower population density to defend itself. Possibly not such a great option for Benelux, but for most of the EU, save for the big boys it's great. Even Germany could employ it, with the amount of sheds and the highway network that they have. Russia and the US needs aibases to operate strategic bombers from.
I admit I didn't read the article. Is the Gripen 40% cheaper so that countries can own more of them?
Also smaller airbases can mean more airbases. So a single drone attack might take out one or two bases worth of Gripen. But it takes a lot more drones and a lot more sophisticated attack to take out all the Gripen spread across so many small bases.
Gripen is more expensive to purchase than the F-35 and F-16. The operating costs are a bit cheaper than the F-16 and substantially cheaper than the F-35 however.
The on paper assumption / sales pitch that remains valid in most scenarios is increased survivability of shooters = more sorties. If hardware can operate from austere conditions you can squeeze in a few more missions, which may be tactically/operationally significant, but there's limitations on modern airframes, still need to go back to a well resourced large base (5th gen also requires conditioned shelters) for maintenance, i.e. it's still fundamentally a bandaid solution. The logistics tail is also larger <- this gets slept on (or underplayed in public facing messaging).
It remains valid in most scenarios, as in most force on force that is not US/PRC, because very few countries has c4isr abilities to kill chain entire operational theatre, i.e. it's partially hopium strategy in US vs PRC in IndoPac. Which circles back to your second point, the related debate around hardening and distributing is almost distraction - airforce capitalization of highend platforms is in the shitters - so there's parallel discussion around distributed / agile deployment but with cheaper CCAs. Of course what's typically being hand waved away is the logistics tail part, i.e. there's already massive maintenance personnel shortages, unlikely to disperse thousands of maintenance crews on the ground to support the concept. The even more handwaved part for US in IndoPac is host nation access / political constraints.
There's a reason US wants JP to support ACE/agile combat employment (as in on main islands), increase harden shelters... but JP reluctant to open main islands. Because no one wants more American forces doing shenanigans with their civilians and the optics of having support fleets reminding populace they're on the frontline is bad. Hence JP still largely constraining US to Okinawa/Ryukyus, PH in Luzon/Palawan. The further downstream handwaving of all this is even if properly implemented, is now you've spread out shit load of more exposed logistics staff across vulnerable islands, i.e. dramatically increased exfiltration complexity / suicide deployments. Survivability of drones increases, survivability of the logistics force decreases. Which is... even worse optics, hence it's rarely even part of discussion with respect to ACE. There some self awareness with marine NMESIS MLRS / EABO (expeditionary advanced base operations)... i.e. wait we're sending marines on likely one way missions to tiny islands that PRC can lock down? Maybe that's worth if they take out a type055.
Switzerland also has an open fixed-price deal for 36 F-35s.
The US are trying to alter the deal and raise the price to ~1 billion USD more than agreed to.
I wish Switzerland would do the same and cancel the deal.
On top of that Switzerland should go a step further and impose a tax on gold exported to the united states if they don't stop with their silly little 39% tariffs on imported Swiss goods. Just ridiculous and embarrassing to sever long running trade relationships out of ignorance.
I don't understand why people claim that. Here are the actual facts/timeline:
Nov 2021: Switzerland agreed contract terms with the U.S. government for 36 F-35A and budgeted CHF 6.035 bn. Under U.S. FMS (Foreign military sales) rules, LOA (letter of offer) values are estimates and the buyer owes actual full cost, so this was not an enforceable CHF-fixed total.
May 2022: The Swiss Federal Audit Office warned of legal uncertainty around any fixed price, but the warning was ignored internally.
Sep 2022: Parliament authorized; LOA signed Sep 19, 2022.
Jun 2025: Switzerland announced the U.S. disputes a binding fixed price and sought a diplomatic solution. U.S. officials pointed to inflation/raw-material/energy costs that have changed.
Aug 2025: Switzerland announced it cannot legally enforce a fixed price and is estimating additional costs (+CHF 650 m–1.3 bn).
Pointing to consumer or raw material inflation in the context of defence is a bit of a strawman argument. Defence deals are made for products that are supposed to often last 30-40 years at minimum. All factors such as inflation and potential continuing maintenance are already priced in at the onset. Unless the product faces significant issues down the line, or faces unexpected and ungodly levels of demand, price per product remains largely constant. Early buyers are paying the premium for early access to the tech, while late buyers are paying the same for an older product with inflation priced in.
Fighter jets are not immune to normal economics. If the material costs of production inputs go up, then so will the cost of the fighter, unless there was some pre-agreed binding contract which locks in the price, which in this case there was not. Switzerland should have negotiated a guaranteed price given how long the timelines on delivery were.
There is no such thing as a tariff on exports. Tariffs are specifically an import tax intended to increase domestic demand for domestically produced goods by shifting it away from imported goods
That's correct, or at least it was until this week. Did you happen to see the recent announcement where NVidia and AMD are now apparently required to pay 15% of the revenue from GPUs exported to China to the U.S. government? This is apparently GPUs which were, prior to this new 15% payment, "too harmful to our national security" to export to China.
Frankly, I only saw the headlines and haven't looked into it myself yet - mostly because it makes my head hurt trying to even tally the laws, policies and trade agreements doing this would probably violate. So, I'm admittedly unclear on the details but it sure sounds like an "export tariff".
or we could describe it by its actual term, extortion. step 1) tell businesses they can no longer export X product because of "national security concerns"; 2) tell businesses the "national security concerns" can be dropped if they pay 15% of sales.
in other words, threaten to put up barriers than agree to take them down for a "fee"; it's exactly what the mafia does
Swiss appear to believe that if they kiss hard enough they will get favorable terms, so they confirmed that the f-35 deal is still on. This f-45 thing was always a way to pledge allegiance and pay your duty to USA for the protection more than actually intending to use the aircraft.
Swiss also pride themselves to European but having their own way of doing things, and as a result they aren't going to join EU.
There are more things that make the whole ordeal more controversial. For one, the swiss people voted for the procurement of a new fleet of fighter jets with a majority of 50.1%. They later voted to approve a budget of 6 billion swiss franks for this. The current proposed price by the US now exceeds that budget.
Also, this procurement process was driven by former Swiss Defence Minister Viola Amherd who has since stepped down from her position.
While the deal may still be own, it will probably be altered such that it is within budget (lower quantity).
I'm American and kinda stunned how little salience the issue has. Please punish us as much as possible.
It feel like we're gonna full on Erdogan inflation speed run out of this. i.e. multiple years of lunacy, coupled to forced interest rate decreases that make the inflation worse. I have no idea why US markets rallied earlier in the week on the idea they'd be lowered. We're full on in "well, if Herr Daddy says he fixed it, we can all say it's fixed, in fact it'd be damaging not to" territory.
Edit: also, for the historians, it's absolutely stunning how little power the legal system has. This is obviously illegal, and yet, many months will proceed by the time it gets judge, appealed, and then a 65/35 shot at the supreme court saying "well, gee, are we sure the constitution was against this instance of being a king?"
> Edit: also, for the historians, it's absolutely stunning how little power the legal system has.
For historians (and political scientists, for similar reasons), it is not stunning at all. It might be stunning for other people, but people who study history are likely to be very aware that the legal system isn’t magic and is ultimately only a notional agreement about what society will tolerate which has only the weight that people refusing to tolerate violations gives it.
Indeed, checks and balances mean absolutely nothing if there is no will to enforce. This is the main innovation of the Trump administration: to prove that the checks and balances that we thought were in place are absolutely meaningless.
> I'm American and kinda stunned how little salience the issue has. Please punish us as much as possible.
The EU has already agreed to one of the most lopsided trade deals in history as a result of all of this. It's a business arrangement just like any other, and at this point it's pretty clear where the leverage is. It's not with the EU.
The 15% flat tariff (with 0% reciprocal tariff), was only a small part of the agreement.
> They'll just ramp up economic production and turn toward China like we're seeing with BYD penetration.
EU also agreed to $750 billion in USA energy purchases over the next three years and another $600 billion in miscellaneous investments in USA companies and industries.
That stuff isn't legally binding and is unlikely to happen.
> The European Union's pledge to buy $250 billion of U.S. energy supplies per year is unrealistic because it would require the redirection of most U.S. energy exports towards Europe [0, emphasis mine]
> EU also agreed to $750 billion in USA energy purchases over the next three years and another $600 billion in miscellaneous investments in USA companies and industries.
Kinda. The EU have no power to make that happen, so it was more of an agreement to aim for that. But even if the EU buys, say, $750bn oil and natural gas from the USA, because of how interchangeable most (but not all) of that stuff is, even if they did agree to it in an enforceable manner it would only really mean the EU wouldn't buy the same stuff from somewhere else and also the USA wouldn't sell the same stuff to someone else.
The EU negotiates as a bloc. If the trade deal includes $750 billion in energy purchases and $600 billion in investments, those commitments came from the EU's negotiating mandate, not from separate members acting on their own.
Maybe some of the EU member states don't like how the "union" operates. In that case, they should pull a Brexit. We already saw it happen once.
I'm not sure where you're getting your information, but this is a quote from the European Commission itself:
> The political agreement of 27 July 2025 is not legally binding. Beyond taking the immediate actions committed, the EU and the US will further negotiate, in line with their relevant internal procedures, to fully implement the political agreement.
You might consider updating your mistaken prior beliefs.
Edit: I see another comment made the same point. I'll have to presume that after you've been presented with this new information, you'll realize that you are in fact very wrong.
America also agreed to quite a few things, alongside the EU, with the Iranian nuclear deal. Then, we left the EU hanging when we pulled out. One could be forgiven for thinking that "done deals" are renegotiable in the current paradigm.
The EU made a bad deal from a propaganda point of view, and as a European I wish it had not.
But the truth is: there is no concrete deal beyond the tariff. There are supposed investments and expenses the EU will do which have not been specified and would need to be approved by national governments.
This will be a nothingburger, cause all Trump cares about is the announcement, not any actual effect.
You may know this cause even in his first term he made a deal to export beef to the EU, which sounded big, but was effectively un-impactful once the details were hammered out.
Sure, we import more beef from Mercosur countries than US beef from soy fed cattle. The EU customer is rather educated about what they eat.
This is just how the $600 bn worth of investments will pan out, leading Trump to state time again that the EU has screwed the US. Fortunately he'll be too old by then to be taken seriously.
> America was founded on the intellectual rejection of one man taxes on imports
The 1789 constitution created a federal government that was funded chiefly by import duties! Setting up the system of import taxes was one of the first things Congress did. Import taxes were also a founding plank of Lincoln’s GOP.
Fair enough, but in this case the "theater" seems to have produced tangible, one-sided terms that will impact billions in USA-EU trade.
Regardless of whether it's rooted in principle or posturing, the EU still has to live with its economic reality. And that reality heavily favors USA in whatever they deem necessary to facilitate their economy.
The EU didn't agree to the one-sided trade deal for no reason.
I'm honestly confused, you sort of repeated "but the US was willing to impose higher taxes on its citizens than the EU"
I get there's the pandemic of the braindead thinking they've invented new economics like new gravity, but I'd think it'd feel a bit absurd when it's that bald-faced.
I'd especially think it was absurd when you can check on how the markets, the real skin in the game, price this fantastic W.
The countries that have 10-20% VAT don’t think consumption taxes are bad, lol.
Most countries that aren’t the U.S. take affirmative steps to discourage imports and encourage exports. Sometimes they even engage in currency manipulation to make exports artificially cheap while making imports more expensive.
Many of the big EU countries are export-oriented economies. Germany is not upset about the trade deal because they perceive it as a “fantastic W.” https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/07/29/german-politic.... They don’t want Germans buying American products tax free. They want Americans to buy German products tax free.
The compilation of unrelated "water is wet" things like VAT is a consumption tax, opposition party complains in Germany, belies that you are violently agreeing that yes, the big W is the US is in fact willing to have higher "consumption taxes" than anywhere else.
I think it's reasonable to need to perform a ritualistic EU sneering with this much Winning occuring, but it's a little bit disquieting see it sort of cause this black hole where you can't discuss the thing at hand, just complain about other things.
You’re just glibly saying “haha taxes.” But Germany (1) clearly doesn’t think consumption taxes are bad—and tariffs are just consumption taxes that have the added benefit of discouraging imports; and (2) don’t think they’re winning with this trade deal.
Obviously the EU has no leverage. They spent the last 30 years making themselves dependent on the American military, Russian oil and gas, and mass immigration. They’re not real countries, they’re vassal states and they made themselves that way.
>I'm American and kinda stunned how little salience the issue has. Please punish us as much as possible.
The majority of major economies are all exporters, it's only a few and mostly just the USA that is both large enough and willing to absorb their surpluses. Without the USA, the entire system collapses because nobody else is willing to run that deficit. You cannot have a room filled only with sellers.
The root of the dispute here is the right to freely sell to the USA while simulatenously pursuing their own protectionist tariffs and subsidies. When you realize the absurdity of a relationship which requires both parties to believe in different things, then it's also understandable that the gravy train has stopped and it's time to negotiate to a more realistic deal. Ironically enough, it's for the same reasons in their beliefs in protectionism that they won't be able to coordinate together.
You won't be keeping the USD as the global reserve. Trump wants his cake and to eat it, but that position is likely unsustainable long term anyways. Mind you, the role of reserve currency today is larged hoisted by the rest of the world onto the USA, there is no rule dictacting its role. But the thing is anybody who is large enough to support it (EU/China) dosen't want that role either, lest they end up deindustrialising like USA.
The actual alternative, with the so-called multilateral "Bancor" and the International Clearing Union as originally proposed by Keynes works via directly controlling exchange rates to punish surplus nations and provide relief to deficit nations. Well, it's for that reason there isn't a serious effort to create it from these other nations, which leaves them at an impasse. That's why as much as I hate to admit, Trump may actually win here because other countries don't really have any good options. Unfortunately the USA is playing a necessary systemic role here that nobody else wants to do.
> the role of reserve currency today is larged hoisted by the rest of the world onto the USA
> Unfortunately the USA is playing a necessary systemic role here that nobody else wants to do
Well. I know what you're trying to say, but it's not like the USA just does nothing to maintain the system. The military, the middle east bases, the petrodollar - none of this is free. The economy is larger than oil, of course - but at the end of the day, most countries still need oil, most oil is still paid for in USD, and will continue to be as long as the USA is the final underwriter of security in that region (and asian, and europe.. until recently).
That's always been the deal. The USA provides the security at the end of the day, and everyone else agrees to use its currency. The unwritten promise part is that the US government won't allow too much inflation, keeps an independent central bank, and the debt it offers is to be considered risk-free.
The US military isn't going away but the security guarantees which were such an important part of the compact are fading, and inflation - serious inflation - seems to be coming into view. It won't happen overnight but it does smell a bit like the beginning of the end.
> EU/China) dosen't want that role either, lest they end up deindustrialising like USA
I don't actually think there's any law of nature that reserve currency status == de-industrialization. The UK didn't do so when it wore the crown and I don't think there's any reason the EU or PRC would inevitably do so either should they step up. I think it just happened to overlap - plenty of rich countries also de-industrialized without being the USA!
I think/hope that it will eventually be the EU that steps up but it obviously won't happen quickly and they aren't exactly covering themselves with glory over the current crises. There would need to be a lot of changes needed on their side, not least of which the mechanisms and mandate to issue a much, much larger amount of debt. But if the USA sees 5% inflation for a year or two - I think the opportunity would be there.
This is a bit of popular myth on sites like this but isn't supported by economists, historians or people in finance. The total volume of oil trade is small fraction of total global trade or capital flows.
Like I said, the USD is the reserve partly because it's beneficial to these surplus economies to have somebody else holding the bags, but also because there aren't viable alternatives because anybody else who can do it dosen't want to. And given there are 180^180 possible exchanges, a reserve currency will exist for practical reasons.
>I don't actually think there's any law of nature that reserve currency status == de-industrialization.
A currency that assumes reserve currency status will strengthen due to increased demand, thus making their exports more expensive and thus uncompetitive on the international stage. Which is incompatible with the export-driven strategies of the EU, China or Japan, all the main contenders for alternative reserve currencies. If you look at the behaviour of their central banks, when they receive capital inflows, they in turn buy assets elsewhere to offset the appreciation to maintain the value of their currency. But the Fed cannot and dosen't do that.
But that is counter-balanced by being able to issue debt in your own currency at low interest rates. So while yes you do run a deficit, you are in control of your own destiny so to speak, with the ability to print your way out of it (providing you do so wisely so as not to trigger runaway inflation), rather than being at the mercy of lenders due to foreign-currency issued debt (i.e., South America and the IMF).
Well clearly America has decided that costs of the reserve currency outweight\ the benefits conferred. Many other countries after all manage large debts but also confer the advantages of a surplus economy.
>mercy of lenders due to foreign-currency issued debt (i.e., South America and the IMF).
Countries come to the IMF when nobody else want to lend to them. It's that or national insolvency. That obviously means some harsh and politically unpopular reforms need to made with spending if they want to restore confidence with everyone else. The IMF is a useful scapegoat that diverts the heat from government to make the actions it needs to make.
Nobody is forced to go the IMF, yet despite all the critique, people are still going to them today. In fact the alternatives like China are alot harsher now in their debt relief terms when they realised how many of their lending projects were failing. It's a bit ironically actually when they realise themselves why debt to troubled countries tends to come with stipulations.
Trump is being pulled in too many different directions to the point where nothing coherent is going to emerge from his strategies (or lack of). You can't promise Wall Street/Corporate America the moon and keep the economy running along nicely while rounding up and deporting immigrants, cutting federal spending, and implementing regressive taxes via tariffs. If he would have just limited himself to the goal of balancing trade while maintaining reserve currency status, I think that he would have had a shot to pull it off. But there is the very real risk that the rest of the world just starts routing around the US so even that is not a given. But when you combine this with all the other things he is trying to do, I think he is seriously risking sending the U.S. economy off a very tall cliff. That is also why he probably is so obsessed with lower interest rates. It is an attempt to try and jolt the economy before all the head winds from his policies start to have an impact.
> Mind you, the role of reserve currency today is largely hoisted by the rest of the world onto the USA
It’s the opposite [1]. Trump openly threatens anyone who tries to replace dollar. It even goes beyond Trump. I bet it will go to war if there are real threats to replace USD.
> there is no rule dictating its role
There’s also no rule dictating other countries to honor US sanctions, but they do.
You can read Bern Bernanke's hypothesis on the Global Savings Glut. But there are plenty of articles by almost all economic insitutions that are talking about the imbalanced nature of trade today.
The current account balance (BoP) considers goods and services. And it's not bilateral relationships that matter, but the aggregate global imbalance. To say that America is the engine of the deficits that absorbs the world's surpluses is trivially accepted by economists.
There's a nice table to understand how skewed things are really with the balance of payments here. America's deficit is 10x higher than the second rank with the UK, which should illustrate how difficult it is for the surplus countries to find alternatives. In any case, this whole situation on excessively relying on one country to buy all the world's exports is a stupidly unstable situation.
>"well, if Herr Daddy says he fixed it, we can all say it's fixed, in fact it'd be damaging not to" territory.
Worked for Biden. Which is not me, as a progressive, saying that Trump is any better, or that the two are even close to comparable on a number of important (mostly social) issues. However, common across admins and parties is an absolute terror of even the suggestion that we've entered a recession. That's because we're in a massive bubble, completely dislocated from fundamentals; in fact, the only thing keeping sentiment and performance afloat is... sentiment.
I think the tacit plan may be to inflate their way out of debt (personal, corporate, national...) while strong-arming the rest of the world into keeping the dollar the reserve currency, which allows us to continue "exporting" a portion of that inflation. It's obviously supervillain shit that will never work, but I suppose that they consider it the superior choice to letting the "bust" part of the "boom-bust cycle" actually take place.
These tariff powers are given for emergency use only under the IEEPA, so you're being disingenuous IMO. I don't think most reasonable people would see what's going on with Trump cooking up a "national emergency" over trade deficits and think it's a legitimate emergency.
The United States has become an unreliable security partner
ridiculous politics, open bribery and extortion... which impacts other countries. The decoupling has begun, spurred by Americas adversaries and our own abhorrent behavior
“Selling the F-35, or American systems for that matter, will certainly become more complicated for American companies,” said Gesine Weber, a Paris-based fellow at transatlantic think tank German Marshall Fund.
“An important factor in the purchase of the F-35 by European governments was the idea that European defense would be built on a transatlantic basis in terms of strategy, institutions and capabilities,” she said, adding that “the Trump administration is in the process of dissolving the transatlantic link, and the purchase of American systems will therefore no longer have any added value for Europeans.”
“If you keep punching your allies in the face, eventually they’re going to stop wanting to buy weapons from you,” said a Western European defense official, granted anonymity to discuss the matter candidly. “Right now we have limited options outside of U.S. platforms, but in the long run? That could change in the coming decades if this combativeness keeps up.”
If you are Boeing or Northrup Grumman, etc. most of your focus is on the coming decades. A huge part of your budget is getting governments to sign procurement deals that are 20 years out. They know that will guarantee revenues 40 years out.
Boeing's string of disasters over the last couple of years isn't so much a concern for its short-term health as it is for Boeing's ability to land any long-term payouts. They hire people today to deliver a product twelve years from now. If there is no prospect for twelve years from now they start caving in today. You just don't see the dust cloud for a few years.
Except the reason people say decades is that's how long military procurement programs run for. Companies have order books past 2035 for many systems and standing up new programs takes time.
You start making yourself look unreliable now, then you prompt a transition away and by the time it's underway there's no reason to switch back anyway - i.e. traditionally stable companies "suddenly" are having trouble finding sales.
I think the comment is calling out how Europe can be slow or indecisive when it comes to building businesses, startups, industries, etc. Not that Europe doesn't have a desire to do so.
I can’t see a world in which this stuff isn’t considered on a decades long scale. It’s not like you go year to year ordering a couple of different fighter jets here and there.
If you are buying military equipment that you will keep around for a few decades, you need to look into the future to make reasonable buying decisions.
It makes good sense though. International weapons systems integration has massive inertia. If not for that the US would sell a lot less than it does right now, people are not buying because they want to, but because they have to. There has been some progress on integrating more diverse systems but it is slow, the number of people able to do this work is not large outside of the circles where the systems were developed in the first place. But Europe has never really shut down its defense industry, and there has been a massive revival in the last couple of years. It is still ramping up as far as I can see and it will for the foreseeable future. No matter what the outcome of the Trump-Putin summit (I refuse to call it the Ukraine peace summit, just like I wouldn't call the Molotov Ribbentrop meeting the Polish, Latvian and Estonian peace summit).
The United States is an unreliable partner and cannot be trusted. I welcome the ongoing cultural divorce and am hoping Canada will move closer to the EU for military partnership as well.
> [I] am hoping Canada will move closer to the EU for military partnership as well.
Have you ever looked at a map?
If the threat comes from Russia, EU would struggle mightily merely to defend themselves; they're not crossing the Atlantic to come to Canada's aid. And Canada already has existing military partnerships with many EU countries through NATO... which is a creature of the US. Canada's defense against Russia relies upon integration with the US and NATO.
If the threat comes from China, there is zero chance EU nations will declare war on China for Canada's sake. Even if they did, they have zero chance of projecting meaningful force across the world against China. Canada's defense against China relies upon integration with the US.
If the threat comes from the US, there is zero chance EU nations will declare war on the US for Canada's sake. Even if they did, they have zero chance of projecting meaningful force across the Atlantic against the US. And if they did, they'd probably end up getting double-teamed by both the US and Russia. Canada's defense against the US is hopeless.
No other nation has the geographical position or force projection capabilities to pose a serious threat to Canada's sovereignty. I'm sure you're very emotional about Trump's annexation comments and tariffs on Canada, but you can't base national security strategy on your fee fees. You ought to get real about Canada's position and options and act accordingly.
Anything is better than nothing. And being an ally of America is pretty much nothing, if not worse, it seems. I think something that unsettles me so is that even reasonable Americans seem absolutely blind to the reality of how the world perceives them now.
If Trump is actually serious about annexing Canada (or at least retaining the option), development of nuclear weapons would seem more likely to precipitate an invasion than to deter one.
Building nuclear weapons specifically to use against the US would also--in some measure, at least--justify any claims that such an invasion is a national security imperative.
Obviously these situations are quite a bit different.
Canada shares a border with the US and is an ocean away from anybody else.
DPRK is an ocean away from the US and shares borders with and enjoyed very credible security guarantees from both China and Russia. DPRK also shares a border with US ally South Korea, whose capital and millions of residents they already held at risk from thousands of hardened artillery positions and mobile launchers.
From what I understand, there were the usual half-arsed plans from the same stable geniuses who invaded Iraq. I've mostly been facetious, but honestly, the fact that you would consider a response to an idle invasion threat from a serially belligerent nation as itself being a threatening act - it's pretty indicative of the problem at hand.
I wouldn't consider it a threatening act. But I am not Commander in Chief of the US Armed Forces.
I am not advocating an invasion of Canada. I deplore the annexation rhetoric coming from POTUS. I don't believe there is a serious intention to annex Canada through military force, but I do believe loose talk like what we've seen harms our national security interests and understandably frightens our utterly vulnerable neighbors.
However, I also believe that in this new Great Game it's important to understand the actual state of the board and the likely actions/reactions of the other players.
Deluding oneself that Canada can resist a full-scale invasion by their only neighbor with overwhelming military, economic, industrial, financial, and diplomatic advantages because foreign nations will be obliged to join the war on Canada's side is unwise.
Deluding oneself that developing nuclear weapons would not be an easy casus belli for an actually hostile US is similarly unwise.
You're right, it's seeking and developing nuclear weapons that has been the problem historically. Once you have them it's fine, the sabre-rattling pretty much stops. Worked for India, Pakistan, China, North Korea.
I can't speak for all Canadians but in my sphere the attitude is that the U.S. is the greater threat. I think it's a very American mindset to perceive the existence of some overseas bogeyman coming and invading Canada in some way that your assertion would mean much.
If Canada's threat model really is US invasion, they shouldn't waste their time with EU alliances. Can you really imagine the EU projecting enough power across the across the Atlantic to stop the US military fighting next to their home base?
Well of course not. With oceans between us and our allies and friends, we'd be the ablative armour while the rest of the world got organized. Much like the Baltics. But they're in NATO for reasons other than expecting a prompt rescue.
> we'd be the ablative armour while the rest of the world got organized.
If the trade negotiations are any indication, I wouldn't count on a magical solution to a global coordination problem.
Those countries you are expecting to commit suicide to defend your sovereignty are much more likely to appease the US either because they depend on the US for energy, trade, or military defense (or some combination of those) and have no good alternatives; or because a war with the US would be so devastating--potentially even escalating to nuclear warfare--it is only worth risking for core national security interests.
Of course, geostrategically speaking, Canada is already just America's hat. Direct US control over Canada is not a threat to the core national security interests of any nation with a capability to intervene. So I wouldn't count on foreign intervention if I were you.
Anyway the balance of forces between the US and Canada is so lopsided that any invasion would likely be a fait accompli before any substantive foreign intervention could be launched. Certainly Canada's ports and airspace would be blockaded and closed in any opening action.
In the case of (an IMO very unlikely) US invasion, I think Canada could be isolated, have its energy infrastructure destroyed and internal logistics disrupted, and ultimately the population could be starved into submission if necessary without much difficulty. And no other nation would do anything about it.
Canada would be much better off just surrendering and trying to maintain a national identity post-annexation in the hope of a future peaceful secession.
> Canada would be much better off just surrendering and trying to maintain a national identity post-annexation in the hope of a future peaceful secession.
I think the difference between American values and real values is that there’s nothing tolerable about surrendering to Nazis in hope of some sort of better deal. For a nation that’s been a freedom and liberty cosplayer, I can understand why this idea seems sensible, logical even.
I guess your position is "Better dead than red (white and blue)".
If you really believe Americans are Nazis coming for Canada, you presumably believe the US has the capability and will to force that choice upon you. If so, posting on a US forum about how you'd resist US forces to the bitter end seems like a poor choice. Unfortunately, being dead makes it difficult to defend your values. Peter Thiel says hi.
I understand that jimmies have been thoroughly rustled and that Canadians are frightened. But this "elbows up" false bravado is a bit ridiculous. The US isn't going to invade Canada--and if they did, Canada has no real capacity to resist.
The USA has left Ukraine in the lurch after signing the Budapest memorandum. They should’ve kept their Nukes and Russia wouldn’t have been able to invade and steal all their land, kidnap and auction off children , commit massacres etc.
Because America is currently an untrustworthy ally who is 100% American first and thinks deploying the military on home soil and applying harsh tariffs to its allies is more important than anything else, it’s best to countries no longer rely on the USA for basically anything. That will probably mean the end of the USD as a global reserve currency at some point too. Which is fine because it’s what the majority of voting Americans wanted. Isolationist, American first policies.
Go look at how Zelensky was treated in the interview with Trump and Vance and how the literal red carpet is rolled out for Putin and other world leaders with a brain see that and say, no thanks…
Re: Ukraine defending itself with the nukes it gave up as part of Budapest memorandum - the nuclear code required to activate the warheads never left Moscow.
Maybe the Ukrainians could have tinkered with these warheads and find out how to enable them.... but that is quite risky.
> the nuclear code required to activate the warheads never left Moscow
It's an open question among people who research these things whether the weapons stored in Ukraine even had the PALs you're referring to (Permissive Action Link). The literature is contradictory and while wikipedia insists they did, other (quite credible IMO) accounts indicate the PALs were only used on submarine devices at the time. In any rate, it is well known that the Ukranians could have reverse engineered and bypassed the devices; even the US State Dept contemporaneously estimated the PAL would last only "months".
I have no idea what was actually on those weapons but the popular notion that they had the PALs installed is not actually that well founded once you look at the primary sources. Whether it makes any difference is of course another story (I suspect not).
Would you mind listing these “primary sources”? Until you do that here are some of my sources [0], [1] and [2]
[0] https://russianforces.org/RussianStrategicNuclearForcesC2Pag... page 61-62 see references to authorization codes required for launch in retaliation . See page 64 for launching retaliatory strike when supreme command has been eliminated- again authorization codes are required.
[1] https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/0297russians/ References the January 25 1995 incident when Boris Yeltsin activated the Kazbek command and authorization system as a result of a false alarm. Again: authorization from supreme command is required
If the Ukranianians had started trying to reverse engineer the nukes, the US and Russia would have invaded together and regime changed Ukraine in under 12 hours.. Just political and military reality.
People have an extremely bad understanding of nuclear security: yes, if you have a warhead and a few days you aren't going to be able to arm it...but nuclear bombs can be built with 1940s machining technology. They are not complicated devices.
If you have a warhead and a few months (definitely if more then a year) then you have a warhead.
Ukraine has rocketry expertise and nuclear scientists and powerplants. As a nation they were easily capable of reactivating Russian warheads - physical access is total access.
It’s not about that, it’s about doing the right thing and trusting alliances. Ukraine seems to trust it alliance with Europe , probably because they need Ukraine to defend them now. But Ukraine could also build a nuke but they know it would’ve just give the current administration an excuse to never help them again. They’re hostages.
If they had nuclear weapons they’d be respected, like North Korea now. No one going to mess with them.
He's implying the Gripen deal was a result of Trump.
In reality, the US-Thailand relationship has been dead since the Junta took over in Thailand, and for domestic brownie points we decided to make an example out of them and Cambodia for democratic backsliding during the Biden admin [3]
Edit: cannot reply below (@Dang am I being rate limited)
The US has consistently rejected Thailand's F-35 request under the Biden admin [0][1]. If forced to buy a 4th gen jet, may as well buy the cheapest option on the market, which is the Gripen, as they have been using the Gripen for decades [2].
European affairs have little to do with affairs in Asia.
But Thailand is far from alone in this move away from US weapons. Spain cancelled their bid for F-35s and Switzerland is looking into doing the same. Denmark recently expressed regret over their purchase of F-35s. Portugal and Canada also both lost interest in American F-35s recently.
It could just be tariff backlash—aircraft have historically been the US' largest export. But I do wonder if the recent tests of US military tech in Russia/Iran had any hand in this
It seems the recent volatility from this American administration is being overlooked. They’ve turned their back on allies, resorted to bullying, and even issued outright threats, while walking away from commitments. Buyers may be weighing the risk that when they need service for their purchase, they could be strong-armed with threats of withheld maintenance — or worse, face a remote kill switch being activated.
If Trump were to broker a deal that would "instantly end the war", it would be only by and for the sake of looking after his own interests. In the process he would ignore the interests and long-term security of Ukraine while likely yielding to Putin's wishes where he -- not Ukraine -- feels like he isn't losing a lot.
There's no other way Trump can broker a quick end to the war. He doesn't have the kind of leverage to persuade a peace deal without giving Putin what Putin wants, and even if he did, there's a good chance the calculating manipulator Putin would still play him like a fiddle due to Trump's egotism.
Even if Trump were to be able to broker a quick peace -- which he has been promising since day one but obviously not achieved -- he would not be doing that for the sake of the allies of the US.
That's wildly optimistic that Trump would convince Putin to admit his mistake and fully retreat from all of occupied Ukraine, but I admire the sentiment.
You are clearly overlooking his threats to withdraw from NATO, and his rhetoric about possibly not coming to the aid if another member was attacked. Of course, Trump being Trump later stated he would abide by Article 5.
The fact his response was not an immediate yes response to supporting Article 5 is destabilizing. As a result, the other NATO members are hedging their bets.
There are many more trees in the world than the Ukraine shaped tree that you can't seem to look around.
God, a warmonger is currently dealing with someone who cosplays as a strongman/world-leader, and poorly.
I can't imagine the stupidity to imagine he's going to make a good deal. But then again, that Koolaid is going to make you believe that it will be a good deal, and if Zelensky or the EU don't want it, they're ungrateful losers...
Buying US weapons puts you in a position of needing US backing for decades. You need replacement parts, maintenance training, and a million other dependencies. Naturally, you'd need similar from any supplier. So an important part of your calculus has to be, "Will these guys be around to support me in 25-40 years?" That has never really been a question for the US in the last 75 years.
Now it is.
I don't think anybody fears that the US will cease to be a country. Or even that it will cease to be an important country. The question is whether they will be your reliable ally in 25-40 years, or even in four years. Or will they start some pattern of being your friend for a couple years, then cutting you off for a few years, then trying to re-friend you? That is not a relationship on which anybody wants to build their national security support.
> "Will these guys be around to support me in 25-40 years?" That has never really been a question for the US in the last 75 years.
From the POV of the time? Sure, we can see with the benefit of hindsight that even 40 years was true up until at least 1985, but did people plan that far ahead at the time?
25 years, sure, I think that was true for most of it, with only a handful of exceptions like France and the UK being upset about what happened in response to their actions in the Suez Crisis. IMO correct call by USA there, and I say that as a British citizen by birth, but still means "can we rely on them?" resolves "no", and this loss of de facto independence in what they could do explains much of British foreign policy since then.
I still think US military tech is king, especially their fighter jets. eu countries cancelling or regrets is just geopolitics pandering
fighter jets are unicorns on the same level as chips you cant just procure 3nm chips tomorrow because you want too. I'm not super knowledgeable on them, but its interesting to see how difficult maintaining and making new gens are for example gripens still rely on US engine, china relies on Russian engines etc and the US seems to be always ahead
Perhaps. But the US is less and less capable of producing them. Especially since the tariffs back-and-forth with China that lead to an exports control on rare earth minerals. Even before that, US manufacturers were consistently under-delivering and behind schedule on orders
Not to mention there are key areas that the US is widely considered to be behind on (e.g. hypersonic glide vehicles and drones) compared to the "Second World" powers. And there's been lots of talk—even from within the US—that drones have become more important to modern warfare than manned jets.
When you procure a 3nm chip you expect to keep it working as well as when you bought it, even if you block the management engine for privacy.
When you buy a fighter plane you should expect to not be able to fly for the full duration of a single conflict the manufacturing country disagrees about.
Lack of MDFs does not mean that you can't fly missions. It's an intelligence product that assists with mission planning. That's like saying your car is completely unusable if the builtin maps are a few years out of date.
Ukranian hackers know how to hack John Deere tractors.. hah, downloading files from a Ukranian web forum to install on your F-35 would be very dystopian cyberpunk.
F-35s parked on the runway because the tangerine clown told LM to withhold this week's software update is a lot less useful than a squadron of 4th gen fighters in the air chock a block full of state-of-the-art missiles.
Do we know this to be true still? There's a lot of new modern equipment that other countries have that have not gone head-to-head against to really know that any more.
People think jets are things that should work even if they aren't supported by the manufacturer. Javelin and patriot don't work that way? How exactly does someone beside the us manage the hydrazine supplychain without usa logistics?
At the end of the day it just doesn’t matter whether these countries buy F-35s or not except as additional profit streams for US defense companies and in some ways it’s good that they are looking to buy EU jets instead since the EU needs to invest more in its “domestic” defense industry.
Do we really think Spain and Portugal are going to fight alongside US forces in Europe or elsewhere? I don’t. Isn’t Switzerland a neutral country? This isn’t a slight against any of these countries but let’s be realistic.
There is a lot more proof for the Europeans fighting alongside the USA than for the reverse if we ignore WWII. And even in WWII the USA would have stayed out much longer if not for Pearl Harbor.
I don’t really know what you mean, nor why we would selectively exclude the most important war which requires the most contributions from any nation, but regardless past actions don’t guarantee future actions.
But let’s take a step back - I specifically mentioned Spain, Portugal, and Switzerland. I didn’t say France or the United Kingdom wouldn’t fight alongside the United States, for example. So let’s not lump all European countries together unfairly.
> nor why we would selectively exclude the most important war which requires the most contributions from any nation
Because the United States from back then is completely gone now.
All that's left is people who had nothing to do with it claiming the heritage while acting in the opposite spirit.
> But let’s take a step back - I specifically mentioned Spain, Portugal, and Switzerland. I didn’t say France or the United Kingdom wouldn’t fight alongside the United States, for example.
Switzerland shouldn't even be in that list and Spain and Portugal are just about able to stay afloat, a little bit ahead of Italy, Romania and Bulgaria on some dimensions and at party on others.
> So let’s not lump all European countries together unfairly.
1) Over a hundred Spanish soldiers died defending America as part of the Afghanistan war. How many Americans have died defending Spain in a hot war since the founding of NATO?
2) The linked article doesn't say what you claim it says. The Cdn. military is advising the government to go ahead with the entire F-35 purchase. That doesn't necessarily mean the civilian government will agree. We just don't know yet.
1) Over a hundred Spanish soldiers died defending America as part of the Afghanistan war. How many Americans have died defending Spain in a hot war since the founding of NATO?
How many times has Spain been attacked? Not a great argument.
And just to make sure the record is very clear I am very grateful for our allies and their contributions, particularly to the war in Afghanistan, but that’s Afghanistan, it’s not Russia or China. And Spain in particular is unwilling to increase defense spending - why is that?
2) The linked article doesn't say what you claim it says. The Cdn. military is advising the government to go ahead with the entire F-35 purchase. That doesn't necessarily mean the civilian government will agree. We just don't know yet.
They’ll buy. Also the OP said
“Portugal and Canada also both lost interest in American F-35s recently.”
Did they lose interest? Doesn’t appear to be the case for Canada.
>How many times has Spain been attacked? Not a great argument.
It's a perfect argument. You declared that Spain (and Portugal) would likely not help in a NATO action. Yet, recent history proves you directly and unequivocally wrong. Spanish blood was spilled to prove that point, so maybe have some respect?
>How many times has Spain been attacked? Not a great argument.
>...
>And Spain in particular is unwilling to increase defense spending - why is that?
You answered your own question. Well done.
Note: I'm not supporting their decision, just pointing out that it's arguably quite rational from a certain point of view.
Lastly, the linked article still doesn't say what you claimed it said. If you were responding to a falsehood, that doesn't excuse confidently posting another falsehood.
The advantage of the Gripen isn't that it's cheap. The F-16 is cheaper.
But Gripen has Meteor and can fly really well. Now, I'm a Swede, but there are claims of practical experiments in Norway trying out old some Gripen planes vs F-15C and F-16 have shown that the Gripen is simply better at air-to-air stuff.
The F-16 is obviously bigger though, so if you want to bomb somebody a lot and whoever that is doesn't have anything to put up against it then maybe it's reasonable to get one of those instead, but I don't think that's a problem Thailand has. I think they want an air force that can challenge another air force if required.
It's also nice since one can actually fly with it without breaking the bank.
Yes, but this was in 2009, with a Gripen C. The F-16 thing was with Gripen A.
Maybe. The F-16V doesn't Meteor though and probably has a much larger radar signature, probably also much larger IR signature, probably also worse close-in performance since the Gripen has so low wing loading, but I don't understand that kind of thing.
I’m not any sort of analyst but from my understanding the threats Thai faces is Cambodia border skirmishes and Myanmar both of which could be handled with any aircraft.
China is a non starter, even a next gen aircraft is no match for their entire military.
Maybe, but I don't think China, despite its population, has a large pool of people suited to be fighter pilots, so I don't think they'll be throwing their pilots away against competent air forces.
A competent air-to-air capability will be a deterrent.
A country like Cambodia is screwed against Thailand whatever Thailand buys.
US has become an unreliable ally. Siding with war criminal, lack of intelligence services response, potential leaks to the hostile states and ability to ground planes and other weapons remotely, means US equipment has become a non-starter.
See what a coincidence that Trump becomes a president and few months later Patriots can't intercept Russian missiles.
No idea what the reasons are in this specific case, but these kinds of military procurements are inherently tied to the political side.
Planes like this quickly become paperweights if you can't get replacements parts, support and ammunition. And most buyers won't be able to get significant parts of the construction into their countries. So you must trust the political stability of the country you're buying from, that they're still your friend in a decade or a few and support your planes.
Trump and his administration are anything but reliable partners.
Thailand wanted the F-35 [0], but the we will not give it to them given how close the Thai government has become to China after the junta [1].
Their junta and King wants to keep Thailand as an authoritarian illiberal democracy. The Biden admin on the other hand strongly opposed democratic backsliding in Thailand [2]
As a result, they - like Cambodia - decided to flip to China.
But in the 2010s we helped Cambodia transition into a democracy, build an independent press (a number of Cambodian journalists used to be HN users back in the day), invest in rural healthcare expansion, and even sponsored Hun Sen's son to study in the US.
The Cambodian leadership didn't want any of that. They wanted to continue to rule as an oligarchy, and Western development funds came with oversight requirements and American firms followed the FCPA.
On the other hand, Chinese vendors were fine paying bribes to leadership in Cambodia and ignoring rising criminality (it was a win-win for China as well - they were able to "convince" organized crime to leave China).
China's elite centric approach [0][1] to foreign relations is better than grassroots democracy promotion that a subset of Americans believed in.
If Cambodia or Serbia or Thailand's leadership want to remain a dictatorship or oligarchy, let them. It's not our problem. Our commitment to democracy should be within our borders. Let other countries be dictatorships or democracies as long as they align with our interests. This is what China and Russia does.
> But in the 2010s we helped Cambodia transition into a democracy, build an independent press
History of US-Cambodia relations -
1970 - CIA aids Lon Nol coup against government. US invades Cambodia. US kills 4 student protesters against invasion at Kent State, 2 at Jackson State
1970-1973 Operation Freedom Deal, US drops 250,000 tons of bombs on Cambodia
1975 King Sihanouk, overthrown by CIA assisted coup in 1970 returns to power, in coalition with communists. The destabilization of the country by the US is what is seen to help bring the communists to power
1979 Split in Cambodian communists, Vietnamese-aligned side comes to power. US immediately begins to arm the coalition of Sihanouk and the so-called "Khmer Rouge". The US also fights to keep the Khmer Rouge coalition as Cambodia's UN representatives. The New York Times reports on the arms shipments in the early-mid 1980s
[...]
"2010s we helped Cambodia transition into a democracy"
Thanks for this insightful rebuttal. I've briefly fact-checked what you wrote (don't take this personally; it's just something I do), and your timeline is overall correct.
I've noticed that alephnerd's comments are often tinted with pro-U.S. propaganda. Note that I'm not accusing him of being disingenuous or malicious. I think he shares his thoughts and viewpoints in good faith. But his bias is very obvious when he writes about topics I'm familiar with, which makes me a bit skeptical when he writes about topics I'm not familiar with.
Yes, the Chinese are horrible people. Only if these countries could look into Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Vietnam, and on and on, they would realise that the Americans are indeed the trustworthy and reliable partner.
In 2010 nothing noteworthy (politically) happened in Cambodia. The most democratic elections were run by UNTAC in 1991. There were a few USAID projects that did try to help defeat CPP since then.
We the US cannot have a values based foreign policy - all that matters is power.
Cambodian and Thai leadership wants to retain power, so they decided to work with the Chinese - who don't care if you are an autocracy or a democracy, while we tried to make an example out of Thailand (and Cambodia) for regressing into authoritarian military governments.
We the US need to return to the same mercenary foreign policy. We are starting to do that again with rappoachment to Pakistan, shielding Israel, and arm twisting the Europeans.
Welcome to a multipolar world - only the powerful can set the rules.
This is exactly why countries are deciding to reduce their dependence on the US. If you're one president or one policy away from being cut off from technology, tariffed to death or otherwise bullied you're going to choose other partners.
Politics is about power, that much is true. But power exercised with restraint. China isn't increasing its influence by arm twisting but the opposite. Simply saying "we're open for business" and not interfering in the domestic politics of other countries as long as that's reciprocated. This is effectively a reversal of the Cold War, which they learned a lesson from. Acting like the Soviet Union isn't going to serve the US well.
The more you look like a desperate empire in its late stages losing its grip, replacing mutual benefit with brutality the faster you're done. That ought to be the lesson of the 20th century.
No, it’s a side effect of US hypocrisy. We apply “standards” - or at least claim to - in some cases but not others. We apply or seek to apply international law in some cases but not others. There was never a true values-based foreign policy. It has always been nothing more than holier than thou posturing.
My limited understanding is that the F135 is massively over-powered to be capable of VTOL + push through the bulky shape of the F35, resulting in a disappointing range. I don't know that it would make sense to use it on a different platform.
Today, Thailand decided to go with Swedish Gripen jets over F-16s. A week ago, Spain chose the Eurofighter over the F-35[0] and Switzerland seems to be considering a similar move.[1] Before that the Pentagon halved its funding for the F-35 program.[2] Criticism of the F-35's status as a "hangar queen" have been around a long time[3] and seem to be increasingly prominent.
California—the world's 4th largest economy—'s biggest export is airplane parts.[4] Is California in for a reckoning as the world seems to be increasingly rejecting US weapons technology?
>Before that the Pentagon halved its funding for the F-35 program.[2]
This is so misleading. They cut this year's orders of the F-35 in half. That's not even close to the same thing as cutting funding for the program in half. Part of that funding was even reallocated towards streamlining the supply chains and improving maintainence practices.
Looks like Thailand's no longer in a rush to get a "final" tariff deal, even if we're stuck at a 19% rate. (I think our flag carrier might be refreshing its fleet exclusively with Boeing to sweeten the deal.)
You basically cannot trust the US at this point - Trump is so mercurial, that any possible scenario, however ostensibly unrealistic, now has to be factored into the equation. Doesn't get better when Trump gets removed in 3 years, it has been proven now that US democracy can produce any kind of result and hence persistent unreliability most now be the default
If removed in 3 years. So many societal norms are being broken, what's one more. It sounds hyperbolic to say out loud because it usually is, but we're dealing with any possible scenario here.
It sounded hyperbolic for the 50 last newsworthy things he has done. Americans seems to think the current order is a given when in reality it's much more precarious.
Trump will be gone in 3 years, dead or degraded into a bowl of racist jello.
It seems clear that the plan is to game the system as much as possible before then so Republicans never have to win an election again. If they can do that, they don't need Trump - the Trump administration will live on.
I agree with this though I wouldn’t be surprised if they can’t manage without Trump.
Republicans aren’t some consistent viewpoint. It’s a big tent that’s (somehow) united by Trump. Even if Republicans came to completely dominate politics, they may have their own schism and we end up back in two party land.
Thought that may still be a more chaotic two party land than we have today. Who knows what the future brings.
It's not so much the republican party anymore, it's project 2025 people and the federalist society, Christian fascists funded by people like Thiel and built on the plans of Curtis Yarvin. They'll still be there after trump as they are his entire cabinet, Vance is in deep on it so succession is already secured, they'll rig or cheat elections to keep political power. Part of project 2025 was a CV database so they could insert sycophants in all levels of unelected government positions as well. They're entrenched and chipping away at election integrity every day.
There's a strong possibility. He's a cult of personality, and really doesn't believe in the values of either party. The Republican establishment loves him, because he gets people out to vote, and he'll push their agenda as long as he gets his cut of the action. This is one model of understanding Trump anyways.
(There are many models, and all models are wrong, yadda yadda)
Personality cults rarely survive the first leader, though it has happened (munster Rebellion). But at that point the plans of Christo fascist like thiel and the federalist society have progressed so far it's too late that it doesn't matter. Maybe a military coup is all we can hope for now.
>If removed in 3 years. So many societal norms are being broken, what's one more.
Are you American? I don't think you understand our culture if you go down this road. Trump operates in the gray -- gray enabled in part by two Democratic presidents doing things like keeping the minimum wage low while painting themselves as progressive as being "soft" on immigration. Is it a kindness to create instability in one's homeland, then look the other way if they flee as long as they don't insist on the same legal protections as others?
Anyways, the two term limit is a very basic rule, one that would provoke an overwhelming response the likes of which I do not think anyone who contemplates such a move fully grasps, and one that is difficult to put into words without sounding theatrical or shrill.
> by two Democratic presidents doing things like keeping the minimum wage low while painting themselves as progressive
Biden proposed and backed a boost of the federal minimum wage to $15/hr, it was defeated in Congress (he also unilaterally implemented a boost in the minimum wages under federal contracts, which did not require legislation, to create upward pressure on wages.)
Prior to that, President Obama also backed a federal minimum wage increase which, as well as boosting the wage would have indexed it to inflation going forward, this also was defeated in Congress (President Obama also unilaterally boosted the minimum wage under federal contracts.)
(OTOH, people pretending the President is a dictator and blaming him for failure to implement legislation when the President pushed for it but Congress refused to allow it to be passed is not entirely unrelated to the status quo where the President simply refuses to be bound by the law in his actions, though its not the main reason for that problem.)
> Anyways, the two term limit is a very basic rule, one that would provoke an overwhelming response the likes of which I do not think anyone who contemplates such a move fully grasps
The degree to which people are confident and complacent that other people will spontaneously rise up and do something if Trunp crosses on red line or another is, perhaps, one of the significant reasons why people do not, in fact, rise up in any way that is effective as Trump crosses every red line that exists.
>Biden proposed and backed a boost of the federal minimum wage to $15/hr... Prior to that, President Obama also backed a federal minimum wage increase
I don't have time to get into the specifics with you, but to put it in poker terms, the democrats play a "tight-passive" strategy - they make piddling bets then fold when called, when faced with an opponent who will C bet them to the river.
Combined with the documented kneecapping of candidates further left than neoliberalism, it's the height of entitlement to fail to govern well, repeatedly, and demand votes because the "other guy" is worse.
>The degree to which people are confident and complacent that other people will spontaneously rise up and do something if Trunp crosses on red line
Maybe spellcheck your own post before assuming I speak for anyone but myself?
>Trump crosses every red line that exists.
You have not spoken to the victims of totalitarianism, and your histrionics will make it sound less dire when folks like me announce with deadly seriousness it's time to go into your condo, lock the door, and get in the bathtub.
The USA already came within a hair of testing that boundary, outside of natural causes I think Trump will make a play for it. He's had zero respect for any rule, I don't see why that one would be different, especially not given what has already happened.
Nope, but have spent my time in the Bay and Massachusetts. Born European and currently in Canada. But, guess what, every country looking at their trade deals in the world are not American either. If you need to be American to have confidence in it as a trading partner, there are no such American trading partners on the international stage. Welcome to what the majority of the world is actively thinking about the state of the US right now. The borders can remain the same while the paperwork governing those borders can be changed, just ask the Fifth French Republic.
Very basic rule indeed, and who upholds those rules? The army and police? ICE? The paper is only worth the systems that support them, and there are years to go in tinkering with the make up of those systems. A ruling or two by the Supreme Court, and it's a whole new ball game.
Let me be crystal. TL;DR Only babbling fools think America isn't capable of crossing any line right now on the international stage. The trust, is gone.
>Let me be crystal. TL;DR Only babbling fools think America isn't capable of crossing any line right now
I think the babbling fools are the ones with multiple passports, ignorant of their privilege, who demand that the same untrained civilians they turned their noses up at when they tried to leave this place take risks for a type of global elite who's happy to float in wherever they can enrich themselves, then flee.
There are plenty of great unis in the EU and Canada. Why come here, if we're so terrible?
This gerrymandering debacle does seem to increase political tensions around and between states, especially if it spreads to multiple states and everyone starts gerrymandering, making all states politically binary in their representation. The sides for a succession / civil war become clear.
Just yesterday federal agents were in California against the will of the California state government, and gathered outside a building where the governor was speaking, so threats of violence / force are on the table already.
It's basically so incredible that I can't believe Russia and or China wasn't behind this, the dismantling of The Union, it's a Soviet wet dream and it could be happening for real.
Gerrymandering is not new, but have states threatened to counter gerrymander each other like this before? Have we seen an escalating tit-for-tat directly between states like this before?
Also, Texas politicians are hiding in other states, and politicians in those other states are acknowledging this and trying to harbor them. This is a situation involving violent force, since Texas and the FBI are trying to arrest the Texas politicians who fled. Just states openly aggravating each other in matters of violence.
President Trump has also done things like threaten to withhold federal funds and aid from states he does not like. There are multiple examples of this. A state could justly feel that they are not getting any benefit from paying federal taxes if that happens.
We're also seeing the US military being deployed on US soil for divisive political reasons, and Trump threatens to do more of this in the future.
Not disagreeing. What Texas is doing and California's response is new, just adding context on what current state of gerrymandering. No idea if it will work, at least some democrat is doing something. But I have a feeling that its a bit late now that they'll have military in the streets of most major democrat cities once they copy what they did in DC. Frankly, anything less than a military coup is unlikely to stop project 2025.
If the Supreme Court wants to have its rulings respected they'll need to ensure that they have buy-in from all parties. Secession would be very messy. But there are borders that some states will not cross and others will, when - and if, and let's hope it does not come to pass - that happens there are lots of things on the table that the Supreme Court can no longer put a stop to. This is why Trump is as dangerous as he is: he doesn't care one bit about how the USA became the superpower that it is, he'll burn it all down for ego and personal gain, no matter what the consequences.
Unclear if this is some kind of reactionary retaliation for perceived favorability toward Cambodia or if Trump’s apparently favorability toward Cambodia is retaliation for what he may have already known about Thailand’s shift toward EU weaponry. They’re hardly the first country to start shopping around, so the latter wouldn’t surprise me.
This is not some reciprocal action, it's just logical fallout that the US is no longer reliable as a military ally under this administration, and capable of electing similar leadership in the future. Much, much more of this is ahead. It will impact the USD.
I mean, I would buy a Gripen over an F-16 anyday. However, the view from the F-16 cockpit is matched only by the F-22/F-35. damn near 360 degree bubble view.
When we want to sell fighter jets and Karl Gustav rockets we send the King of Sweden to pander the deal. There have been some debacle over a few suitcases with bribes as well but hey that's probably a good paying job.
"insanely good" is still an exaggeration. It performs worse than the Gripen to carry a smaller payload a shorter distance, all sacrifices for a stealth feature you won't need outside hostile airspace or to launch standoff attacks. It is a suitable fit for America's JSF program, and a pretty dubious platform for almost everyone else.
You don't see the F-35 in deployment abroad too often because it's not really needed unless you intend to molest neighboring airspace. Unless you're Washington or Tel Aviv, it's hard justifying the cost.
Then maybe ask the pilots who doubt whether it can keep them alive, let alone accomplish a mission. Or look at the ready time versus maintenance time ratio.
Military hardware exists to achieve a certain mission. Having some insanely great engineering figures Mena's nothing if the hardware is too unreliable to get the job done.
Brazil chose Gripen very soon after it Snowden leaks had revealed had intercepted Dilma Rouseff personal communications. I will be lazy here and paste a ChatGPT summary since I recalled the outline but not the details:
It’s very likely it played a significant role in the final choice — not necessarily as the only reason, but as a decisive tie-breaker.
Here’s why:
1. Timing was suspiciously close
Snowden’s NSA revelations came out in mid-2013.
Rousseff’s UN speech condemning U.S. spying was in September 2013.
Brazil announced the Saab Gripen NG selection in December 2013 — just three months later.
2. Boeing’s bid was politically radioactive
Even if the Air Force had rated the F/A-18 highly, the president would have had to approve the purchase. After the scandal, a U.S. fighter buy would have looked domestically like ignoring a national insult.
3. Public and congressional pressure
Brazilian media hammered the NSA issue for months, and opposition politicians would have used a U.S. aircraft deal as evidence of weakness or hypocrisy.
4. The other contenders were “good enough”
Gripen NG wasn’t the cheapest in sticker price (Rafale was more expensive), but it was competitive in capability and far stronger in technology transfer terms. That made it easy to justify dropping the U.S. option without taking a big performance hit.
My assessment: If the NSA scandal hadn’t happened, Boeing would still have faced challenges on tech transfer, but it would likely have been the Gripen or F/A-18 in the final decision. With the scandal, the F/A-18 had near-zero chance — the scandal probably moved the Gripen from “contender” to “winner.”
https://archive.md/y6jr5
The Gripen is a good choice for geographically small countries. It's able to operate from airstrips that are no more than roads, with modest mobile ground equipment for support. Saab commercial for the Gripen: [1]
The USAF's force model involves basing at big, well-equipped, well-protected air bases. Those are now hard to protect from drone attacks, as Russia recently found out. From now on, air forces have to be able to operate from improvised bases, or build very strong bunkers at major bases.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyD0liioY8E
"It's able to operate from airstrips that are no more than roads, with modest mobile ground equipment for support."
Nothing is really new. I used to live in West Germany in the '70s and '80s. The UK had an aircraft called Harrier - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrier_jump_jet. At that time I think Sweden was deploying the Drakken (Dragon) and later the Vigen (Lightning). I made models of both as a child and I think both of them were superb in their own way.
Harrier was designed to work out of fields, let alone roads. Rather similar to an Apache. Minimal maint (ish) and so on.
I now live in Yeovil, Somerset and we have recently had several Italian rotary wing aircraft, such as The Seaking doing test flights around here. Presumably airframe testing and proving for VJ Day.
> I think Sweden was deploying the Drakken (Dragon) and later the Vigen (Lightning).
The names are much less flashy, Draken (The kite, due to the shape) and Viggen (The tufted duck) :P.
Yes, Draken and Viggen are officially named after the kite and the tufted duck, respectively.
The names do however carry the other meanings as well.
Draken means (the) kite, dragon and male duck.
Viggen means (the) lightning and tufted duck.
And Gripen is the Griffin. Before Draken was Tunnan, the Barrel.
> The UK had an aircraft called Harrier - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrier_jump_jet …
Also, the French: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEPECAT_Jaguar which was designed to be useable from improvised runways, hence the extremely robust landing gear.
Not sure if ever made a lot of sense to land harrier in an unprepared location though. Lots of risk of foreign object damage to the engines. And logistically more difficult for refueling/rearming. Much better to use it on short but prepared strips.
Or ships!
Which RAF bases are around there? I used to live at the end of the Filton airstrip and I came home one day to a Harrier hovering directly over my house. It moved off towards Filton, but I didn't see where it went. I didn't think about what RAF bases are in the West Country.
I have to imagine that Gripen is an order of magnitude cheaper to operate than the Harrier though
There’s another approach, which the US is very experienced with: have your airbase far away from the enemy, perhaps in Missouri, and do a lot of in-air refueling.
Ukraine has been successful attacking Russian airbases with drones because they can sneak entire truckloads of drones and drone pilots into Russian-controlled territory. And even that was a massive operation that took over a year to plan. Israel carried out similar drone operations against Iran, so we know it’s not a fluke and this approach can be effective, but it’s harder to pull off the longer the distances become.
The F-35 has a STOVL model if that's somehow relevant, which is superior to the Gripen in both stealth and ability to operate from improvised bases
While Ukraine was able to use drones to attack Russian airbases, this was not the way Israel overpowered Iran, whose main driving factor was F-35s rather than drones (although these were present)
Edited: STOVL not VTOL
Only the F-35B, and it has to sacrifice performance in speed and maneuverability to get there. The Gripen still boasts a number of advantages (and higher G-loading) if you aren't penetrating hostile airspace.
Any VTOL/STOVL jet has to trade off other performance qualities for VTOL/STOVL capability. Likewise, the Gripen still needs a longer runway, which limits the use of “improvised” airfields.
In practice the main benefit of STOVL has been in naval aviation. CATOBAR carriers are expensive and challenging to build, especially if you don’t have the economy of scale of building a dozen of the same class instead of just the 1-2 most countries can actually afford. A STOVL jet can also operate from an amphibious assault ship. The feasibility of the “improvised airfield” concept with modern jets is unproven and controversial, while STOVL naval aviation has been successfully done for decades.
If you aren't penetrating hostile airspace to bring the war to the enemy are you even an air force?
Yes? The most common justification for having any air force at all is the interceptor role. Dozens of nations have legitimate, blooded air forces that exclusively serve the interception/CAP mission profile. Many are near-peer threat actors if things go wrong.
How do improvised bases offer protection, especially in a world where radar on satellites sees through clouds and certain vegetation?
USAF's switch to improvised bases seems to be motivated by needing to operate from small islands in the Pacific where they isn't enough solid ground to build a full airbase.
If a plane can land anywhere to refuel and takes off again in 10 minutes, the other side needs a fast kill chain to catch the plane.
But if they land on big well known bases, it's much simpler.
Another comment here about slow drone speeds and nest drones:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44918955
And sometimes the other side can destroy all big airbases in a small country.
Thanks, that was clarifying for me!
You can land it on any road and hide it under trees etc. Is it perfect? No, but probably hell lot harder to spot it in a random forest on a random road on the countryside than finding one of a few airports
Maybe large industrial or commercial units would be the ideal place for inprovised bases now.
In terms of military resources required, there's a vast difference between keeping a close eye on the other side's few known airfields, and keeping a close eye on every park, parking lot, farm field, forest clearing, etc., etc. in their country.
This kind of monitoring is something you can buy commercially now, for less than the cost of the weapons carried by a fighter jet on a single mission.
However, revisit times are still long enough that sibling comment's remarks on mobility make sense.
The very successful attack that Ukraine performed on Russian long range bombers would have never worked if those weren't tied to particular locations for a really long time. 6 months of planning and execution would have gone out of the window by a single late (as in the last 30 days) order to move things around. All airfields are now at risk of such attacks, including civilian ones.
I would bet that within a year we'll see ransom attacks on airfields in open societies. The idea is out there and the capabilities are so cheap that any idiot could do it.
Not in practice. Not even russia has access to every inch of Ukraine 24/7.
you can buy it if you have someone willing to sell it to you...
> ... can buy commercially now ...
The schedules, radar frequencies, etc. of those commercial satellites are all public knowledge.
(Based on timestamps) your reference is to user cutemonster's comment. Yep - "move immediately after the satellite passes" is a game that children can master. I would put a bit more weight on user walrus01's (later) sibling comment - on the problem of distinguishing small, pop-up air bases from routine civilian activities.
Also, I suspect that very few of those commercial satellite radars have much resilience in the face of jamming. That is expensive and security-sensitive tech on the satellite operator's end, of minimal use to most users of the satellites' services. Vs. in a war zone, the diplomatic consequences of using cheap (relative to getting hit) ECM against surveillance satellites will usually be the lesser evil.
> How do improvised bases offer protection, especially in a world where radar on satellites sees through clouds and certain vegetation?
If operating from an airfield that has been improvised out of a straight stretch of highway, the grouping of vehicles that contain all of the necessary ground support equipment and munitions resupply can be disguised to resemble an ordinary civilian cargo box truck, or tractor trailer combo.
Unless the attacking force is willing to begin with the resources needed, and repercussions of airstriking everything that looks like a civilian cargo truck moving in the region, it would be extremely difficult to eliminate the group of vehicle and men that compromise the ground support equipment element. Particularly when you might have multiple groups of such roaming randomly around an area.
The Swedish airforce doesn't have a "grouping of vehicles".
They are all parked individually at separate locations kilometers away from the road landing strip.
When the plane comes in for landing, they (3-5 pickup trucks and a tiny tanker) all scramble and meet up when the plane touches down. Refuel and rearm in 10 minutes, drive away again.
I've seen this done with my own eyes, it's very impressive.
If large air bases are hard to protect, wouldn’t the Gripen be good also for large countries?
A better metric is likely how far out you want/need to project power rather than country size. The answer for that is very different depending on whether you're sweden or the usa
> Those are now hard to protect from drone attacks, as Russia recently found out.
Not hard at all - just build the damn concrete shelters. Not going to protect you from bunker busters but more than plenty against drones
> It's able to operate from airstrips that are no more than roads, with modest mobile ground equipment for support.
This is an oft quoted gimmick. Most planes can take off just fine from a normal paved road. As a rule of thumb, if the road can supported a heavy container truck, it can support an aircraft of equivalent weight. (Transportation class and airliners are a different story entirely as they are extremely heavy).
A good runway is one that's without debris. The only other factor that makes a plane good for taking off on different surfaces is the location and design of the engine intake. You want to avoid rocks being sucked into the engine.
But generally speaking, if you have a nice clean paved road that can support heavy usage by semis trucks, most random fighter jets can take off from it just fine.
The road also needs to be wide enough, flat enough, and without overhead wires.
> It's able to operate from airstrips that are no more than roads
The Swiss Air Force is regularly practicing starting and landing on highways: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYkleF72du8
While sweden has a lot of straight road stretches specifically designed to serve as emergency airfields, it is a lot easier to find 500 m of suitable road than 1600.
Is there an equivalent to drone dog fighting? In that case, we may as well shift warfare to that.
What you mean? Aerobatic?
- Anti-air weapons all based on maneuverability much exceed planes with human pilots.
- Anti-missile maneuver based on limited energy in missile, because it is usually ~100 times smaller then plane, and square-cube rule mean, missile could make active flight just few seconds - if plane survive these seconds it win.
Stealth planes are new tier in warfare, because enemy see them when already lost time need to launch anti-air weapons.
Yes, there's already Ukrainian fpv flown quadcopters which are optimized to intercept, as a munition, common flying wing camera surveillance platforms. I've seen probably 20 or 30 different videos now taken from the view of the quadcopter, with detonator contact wires sticking out the front, diving into the rear of a large Russian flying wing UAV.
Sorta - in Ukraine there have been instances of drones killing other drones, mostly by ramming them. But it's all very new.
There have been thousands of such instances by now. Ramming is indeed the most frequently used option. Depending on the target drone there are different defender drones in use. Some favor altitude and duration of flight, others favor speed. It all depends on what you are trying to hit, what sensor package and what kind of flight conditions you will face (day/night for instance).
> It's able to operate from airstrips that are no more than roads
I can understand this argument.
> The USAF's force model involves basing at big, well-equipped, well-protected air bases.
But I don't understand this one. Isn't a drone attack a drone attack? The same drones that could take out F-16s could take out Gripens. You'd have to defend your expensive weapon systems in either case.
Don't we need a new strategy that isn't entirely reliant upon extremely powerful, but extremely expensive hardware? I'd imagine you still want your expensive pieces, but that you want a compliment of inexpensive combat items and fortified bunkers as a line of defense to protect them when not deployed.
The USAF argues over this internally. See [1], and a reply, [2].
Some USAF officers have been making noise about the need for more dispersal for years.[3]
There's a "build tougher bases" faction in the military. Read "Concrete Sky"[4]
If you want to read up on this, those are some good starting points.
[1] https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/AEtherJournal/Jo...
[2] https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/drone-hype-and-air...
[3] https://www.doctrine.af.mil/Portals/61/documents/AFDN_1-21/A...
[4] https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/media.hudson.org/Concrete...
This is so much better than I even asked for! Thank you so much for putting this together and sharing.
Any opinion as to which faction(s) will win these arguments?
> The same drones that could take out F-16s could take out Gripens
Gripens could base on ordinary highway, so could distribute planes through big territory.
Drones usually have limited range, so they really could target most air bases capable for F-16 (using for example semi-truck container as movable nest), but it is literally impossible now, to target all highways.
Yes but it's a question of finding targets. Why was Ukraine able to decimate the Russian Air Force? Partly because they are all based out of big, well known bases. Even in wartime they have to be in a big base.
A jet like the Gripen can move basically instantly to basically anywhere and then it's hard to find, especially because it can just move again
I don't want to sound negative, I wish all the best to Ukraine, but did they actually "decimate" the Russian air force?
I was under the impression a few attacks on air bases happened, but a lot more drones were aimed at refineries and other infrastructure.
Yes.
They hit a substantial fraction of the Russian long range bombers and assorted other aircraft. Quite a bit of that is at least for the moment impossible for Russia to replace.
Given the original definition of decimate, to remove one in ten, perhaps so.
True, but the Gripen is not a big strategic bomber and Sweden doesn't have nukes to threaten other countries with. They do air policing and would employ guerilla tactics in case of war, like put a gripen in a cattle shed somewhere and operate it from a road¹. It's a good strategy for a smaller country with lower population density to defend itself. Possibly not such a great option for Benelux, but for most of the EU, save for the big boys it's great. Even Germany could employ it, with the amount of sheds and the highway network that they have. Russia and the US needs aibases to operate strategic bombers from.
1. https://youtu.be/HbkScZFCgro
I admit I didn't read the article. Is the Gripen 40% cheaper so that countries can own more of them?
Also smaller airbases can mean more airbases. So a single drone attack might take out one or two bases worth of Gripen. But it takes a lot more drones and a lot more sophisticated attack to take out all the Gripen spread across so many small bases.
Gripen is more expensive to purchase than the F-35 and F-16. The operating costs are a bit cheaper than the F-16 and substantially cheaper than the F-35 however.
Easier to spot a plane in one of X airports vs spot a plane on any road anywhere in the country hiden in the woods
The on paper assumption / sales pitch that remains valid in most scenarios is increased survivability of shooters = more sorties. If hardware can operate from austere conditions you can squeeze in a few more missions, which may be tactically/operationally significant, but there's limitations on modern airframes, still need to go back to a well resourced large base (5th gen also requires conditioned shelters) for maintenance, i.e. it's still fundamentally a bandaid solution. The logistics tail is also larger <- this gets slept on (or underplayed in public facing messaging).
It remains valid in most scenarios, as in most force on force that is not US/PRC, because very few countries has c4isr abilities to kill chain entire operational theatre, i.e. it's partially hopium strategy in US vs PRC in IndoPac. Which circles back to your second point, the related debate around hardening and distributing is almost distraction - airforce capitalization of highend platforms is in the shitters - so there's parallel discussion around distributed / agile deployment but with cheaper CCAs. Of course what's typically being hand waved away is the logistics tail part, i.e. there's already massive maintenance personnel shortages, unlikely to disperse thousands of maintenance crews on the ground to support the concept. The even more handwaved part for US in IndoPac is host nation access / political constraints.
There's a reason US wants JP to support ACE/agile combat employment (as in on main islands), increase harden shelters... but JP reluctant to open main islands. Because no one wants more American forces doing shenanigans with their civilians and the optics of having support fleets reminding populace they're on the frontline is bad. Hence JP still largely constraining US to Okinawa/Ryukyus, PH in Luzon/Palawan. The further downstream handwaving of all this is even if properly implemented, is now you've spread out shit load of more exposed logistics staff across vulnerable islands, i.e. dramatically increased exfiltration complexity / suicide deployments. Survivability of drones increases, survivability of the logistics force decreases. Which is... even worse optics, hence it's rarely even part of discussion with respect to ACE. There some self awareness with marine NMESIS MLRS / EABO (expeditionary advanced base operations)... i.e. wait we're sending marines on likely one way missions to tiny islands that PRC can lock down? Maybe that's worth if they take out a type055.
Switzerland also has an open fixed-price deal for 36 F-35s.
The US are trying to alter the deal and raise the price to ~1 billion USD more than agreed to.
I wish Switzerland would do the same and cancel the deal.
On top of that Switzerland should go a step further and impose a tax on gold exported to the united states if they don't stop with their silly little 39% tariffs on imported Swiss goods. Just ridiculous and embarrassing to sever long running trade relationships out of ignorance.
>The US are trying to alter the deal
I don't understand why people claim that. Here are the actual facts/timeline:
Nov 2021: Switzerland agreed contract terms with the U.S. government for 36 F-35A and budgeted CHF 6.035 bn. Under U.S. FMS (Foreign military sales) rules, LOA (letter of offer) values are estimates and the buyer owes actual full cost, so this was not an enforceable CHF-fixed total.
May 2022: The Swiss Federal Audit Office warned of legal uncertainty around any fixed price, but the warning was ignored internally.
Sep 2022: Parliament authorized; LOA signed Sep 19, 2022.
Jun 2025: Switzerland announced the U.S. disputes a binding fixed price and sought a diplomatic solution. U.S. officials pointed to inflation/raw-material/energy costs that have changed.
Aug 2025: Switzerland announced it cannot legally enforce a fixed price and is estimating additional costs (+CHF 650 m–1.3 bn).
Good timeline but would be better to put in that inflation was pretty big over that period as well.
Pointing to consumer or raw material inflation in the context of defence is a bit of a strawman argument. Defence deals are made for products that are supposed to often last 30-40 years at minimum. All factors such as inflation and potential continuing maintenance are already priced in at the onset. Unless the product faces significant issues down the line, or faces unexpected and ungodly levels of demand, price per product remains largely constant. Early buyers are paying the premium for early access to the tech, while late buyers are paying the same for an older product with inflation priced in.
Fighter jets are not immune to normal economics. If the material costs of production inputs go up, then so will the cost of the fighter, unless there was some pre-agreed binding contract which locks in the price, which in this case there was not. Switzerland should have negotiated a guaranteed price given how long the timelines on delivery were.
There is no such thing as a tariff on exports. Tariffs are specifically an import tax intended to increase domestic demand for domestically produced goods by shifting it away from imported goods
> There is no such thing as a tariff on exports.
That's correct, or at least it was until this week. Did you happen to see the recent announcement where NVidia and AMD are now apparently required to pay 15% of the revenue from GPUs exported to China to the U.S. government? This is apparently GPUs which were, prior to this new 15% payment, "too harmful to our national security" to export to China.
Frankly, I only saw the headlines and haven't looked into it myself yet - mostly because it makes my head hurt trying to even tally the laws, policies and trade agreements doing this would probably violate. So, I'm admittedly unclear on the details but it sure sounds like an "export tariff".
It’s just an export tax. The reason they are trying to call it anything but that is because the constitution specifically prohibits it
or we could describe it by its actual term, extortion. step 1) tell businesses they can no longer export X product because of "national security concerns"; 2) tell businesses the "national security concerns" can be dropped if they pay 15% of sales.
in other words, threaten to put up barriers than agree to take them down for a "fee"; it's exactly what the mafia does
My limited understanding is that this is going to be an offset against the applicable import tariff, not an export tariff.
So, a roundabout way to do the same thing that he's prohibited from doing by the Constitution? Yeah, that sounds totally legit.
The new legal is where you just do what you want and if you get away with it (by hook or by crook) then it was legal.
Not correct actually. Checked dictionary, tariff applies to an import or an export.
It just isn't commonly done to apply an export tariff.
I think he meant export taxes or export duties.
Tariff is just a different name for "tax". You can tax imports, and you can also tax exports. You can also tax anything that moves, or doesn't.
> There is no such thing as a tariff on exports
Tell that to Nvidia and AMD
Swiss appear to believe that if they kiss hard enough they will get favorable terms, so they confirmed that the f-35 deal is still on. This f-45 thing was always a way to pledge allegiance and pay your duty to USA for the protection more than actually intending to use the aircraft.
Swiss also pride themselves to European but having their own way of doing things, and as a result they aren't going to join EU.
Tough times, wishing them the best luck.
There are more things that make the whole ordeal more controversial. For one, the swiss people voted for the procurement of a new fleet of fighter jets with a majority of 50.1%. They later voted to approve a budget of 6 billion swiss franks for this. The current proposed price by the US now exceeds that budget.
Also, this procurement process was driven by former Swiss Defence Minister Viola Amherd who has since stepped down from her position.
While the deal may still be own, it will probably be altered such that it is within budget (lower quantity).
Tough times indeed.
I'm American and kinda stunned how little salience the issue has. Please punish us as much as possible.
It feel like we're gonna full on Erdogan inflation speed run out of this. i.e. multiple years of lunacy, coupled to forced interest rate decreases that make the inflation worse. I have no idea why US markets rallied earlier in the week on the idea they'd be lowered. We're full on in "well, if Herr Daddy says he fixed it, we can all say it's fixed, in fact it'd be damaging not to" territory.
Edit: also, for the historians, it's absolutely stunning how little power the legal system has. This is obviously illegal, and yet, many months will proceed by the time it gets judge, appealed, and then a 65/35 shot at the supreme court saying "well, gee, are we sure the constitution was against this instance of being a king?"
> Edit: also, for the historians, it's absolutely stunning how little power the legal system has.
For historians (and political scientists, for similar reasons), it is not stunning at all. It might be stunning for other people, but people who study history are likely to be very aware that the legal system isn’t magic and is ultimately only a notional agreement about what society will tolerate which has only the weight that people refusing to tolerate violations gives it.
Indeed, checks and balances mean absolutely nothing if there is no will to enforce. This is the main innovation of the Trump administration: to prove that the checks and balances that we thought were in place are absolutely meaningless.
> I'm American and kinda stunned how little salience the issue has. Please punish us as much as possible.
The EU has already agreed to one of the most lopsided trade deals in history as a result of all of this. It's a business arrangement just like any other, and at this point it's pretty clear where the leverage is. It's not with the EU.
The EU recognized that the US placed a large tax on American consumers and saw no reason to place a similar tax on European consumers.
They'll just ramp up economic production and turn toward China like we're seeing with BYD penetration.
> US placed a large tax on American consumers
The 15% flat tariff (with 0% reciprocal tariff), was only a small part of the agreement.
> They'll just ramp up economic production and turn toward China like we're seeing with BYD penetration.
EU also agreed to $750 billion in USA energy purchases over the next three years and another $600 billion in miscellaneous investments in USA companies and industries.
That stuff isn't legally binding and is unlikely to happen.
> The European Union's pledge to buy $250 billion of U.S. energy supplies per year is unrealistic because it would require the redirection of most U.S. energy exports towards Europe [0, emphasis mine]
[0] https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulat...
> EU also agreed to $750 billion in USA energy purchases over the next three years and another $600 billion in miscellaneous investments in USA companies and industries.
Kinda. The EU have no power to make that happen, so it was more of an agreement to aim for that. But even if the EU buys, say, $750bn oil and natural gas from the USA, because of how interchangeable most (but not all) of that stuff is, even if they did agree to it in an enforceable manner it would only really mean the EU wouldn't buy the same stuff from somewhere else and also the USA wouldn't sell the same stuff to someone else.
That's not really up for the EU to decide on.
The EU negotiates as a bloc. If the trade deal includes $750 billion in energy purchases and $600 billion in investments, those commitments came from the EU's negotiating mandate, not from separate members acting on their own.
Maybe some of the EU member states don't like how the "union" operates. In that case, they should pull a Brexit. We already saw it happen once.
Neither the EU, nor its member states, have the power to make investment decisions on behalf of private companies.
https://www.politico.eu/article/eus-600bn-us-investment-will...
The extra investments pledged under the trade deal would come from private companies, which Brussels conceded it has no power to control.
Politico? We aren't quoting Politico
"EU companies have expressed interest in investing at least $600 billion (ca. €550 billion) in various sectors in the US by 2029"[1]
1. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_...
I'm not sure where you're getting your information, but this is a quote from the European Commission itself:
> The political agreement of 27 July 2025 is not legally binding. Beyond taking the immediate actions committed, the EU and the US will further negotiate, in line with their relevant internal procedures, to fully implement the political agreement.
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_...
You might consider updating your mistaken prior beliefs.
Edit: I see another comment made the same point. I'll have to presume that after you've been presented with this new information, you'll realize that you are in fact very wrong.
America also agreed to quite a few things, alongside the EU, with the Iranian nuclear deal. Then, we left the EU hanging when we pulled out. One could be forgiven for thinking that "done deals" are renegotiable in the current paradigm.
They'll turn toward China by increasing imports and thus reduce their surplus in response to US tariffs that were aimed to reduce said surplus?
The EU made a bad deal from a propaganda point of view, and as a European I wish it had not.
But the truth is: there is no concrete deal beyond the tariff. There are supposed investments and expenses the EU will do which have not been specified and would need to be approved by national governments.
This will be a nothingburger, cause all Trump cares about is the announcement, not any actual effect.
You may know this cause even in his first term he made a deal to export beef to the EU, which sounded big, but was effectively un-impactful once the details were hammered out.
Sure, we import more beef from Mercosur countries than US beef from soy fed cattle. The EU customer is rather educated about what they eat.
This is just how the $600 bn worth of investments will pan out, leading Trump to state time again that the EU has screwed the US. Fortunately he'll be too old by then to be taken seriously.
> Fortunately he'll be too old by then to be taken seriously.
Tbf, Trump is already too old and is already not being taken seriously by anybody, so...
Let's accept that.
Then my mind turns to a couple things.
America was founded on the intellectual rejection of one man taxes on imports.
Demonstrations of power are not an end unto themselves, they are theater and province of the weak minded.
> America was founded on the intellectual rejection of one man taxes on imports
The 1789 constitution created a federal government that was funded chiefly by import duties! Setting up the system of import taxes was one of the first things Congress did. Import taxes were also a founding plank of Lincoln’s GOP.
Fair enough, but in this case the "theater" seems to have produced tangible, one-sided terms that will impact billions in USA-EU trade.
Regardless of whether it's rooted in principle or posturing, the EU still has to live with its economic reality. And that reality heavily favors USA in whatever they deem necessary to facilitate their economy.
The EU didn't agree to the one-sided trade deal for no reason.
It doesn't sound one-sided at all?
I'm honestly confused, you sort of repeated "but the US was willing to impose higher taxes on its citizens than the EU"
I get there's the pandemic of the braindead thinking they've invented new economics like new gravity, but I'd think it'd feel a bit absurd when it's that bald-faced.
I'd especially think it was absurd when you can check on how the markets, the real skin in the game, price this fantastic W.
The countries that have 10-20% VAT don’t think consumption taxes are bad, lol.
Most countries that aren’t the U.S. take affirmative steps to discourage imports and encourage exports. Sometimes they even engage in currency manipulation to make exports artificially cheap while making imports more expensive.
Many of the big EU countries are export-oriented economies. Germany is not upset about the trade deal because they perceive it as a “fantastic W.” https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/07/29/german-politic.... They don’t want Germans buying American products tax free. They want Americans to buy German products tax free.
The compilation of unrelated "water is wet" things like VAT is a consumption tax, opposition party complains in Germany, belies that you are violently agreeing that yes, the big W is the US is in fact willing to have higher "consumption taxes" than anywhere else.
I think it's reasonable to need to perform a ritualistic EU sneering with this much Winning occuring, but it's a little bit disquieting see it sort of cause this black hole where you can't discuss the thing at hand, just complain about other things.
You’re just glibly saying “haha taxes.” But Germany (1) clearly doesn’t think consumption taxes are bad—and tariffs are just consumption taxes that have the added benefit of discouraging imports; and (2) don’t think they’re winning with this trade deal.
Obviously the EU has no leverage. They spent the last 30 years making themselves dependent on the American military, Russian oil and gas, and mass immigration. They’re not real countries, they’re vassal states and they made themselves that way.
What is the purpose of such inflammatory language and lopsided argumentation? Very poor form.
>I'm American and kinda stunned how little salience the issue has. Please punish us as much as possible.
The majority of major economies are all exporters, it's only a few and mostly just the USA that is both large enough and willing to absorb their surpluses. Without the USA, the entire system collapses because nobody else is willing to run that deficit. You cannot have a room filled only with sellers.
The root of the dispute here is the right to freely sell to the USA while simulatenously pursuing their own protectionist tariffs and subsidies. When you realize the absurdity of a relationship which requires both parties to believe in different things, then it's also understandable that the gravy train has stopped and it's time to negotiate to a more realistic deal. Ironically enough, it's for the same reasons in their beliefs in protectionism that they won't be able to coordinate together.
I’m afraid it’s more complicated than that. How would you get rid of this asymmetric relationship and still keep USD as global reserve currency?
You won't be keeping the USD as the global reserve. Trump wants his cake and to eat it, but that position is likely unsustainable long term anyways. Mind you, the role of reserve currency today is larged hoisted by the rest of the world onto the USA, there is no rule dictacting its role. But the thing is anybody who is large enough to support it (EU/China) dosen't want that role either, lest they end up deindustrialising like USA.
The actual alternative, with the so-called multilateral "Bancor" and the International Clearing Union as originally proposed by Keynes works via directly controlling exchange rates to punish surplus nations and provide relief to deficit nations. Well, it's for that reason there isn't a serious effort to create it from these other nations, which leaves them at an impasse. That's why as much as I hate to admit, Trump may actually win here because other countries don't really have any good options. Unfortunately the USA is playing a necessary systemic role here that nobody else wants to do.
> the role of reserve currency today is larged hoisted by the rest of the world onto the USA
> Unfortunately the USA is playing a necessary systemic role here that nobody else wants to do
Well. I know what you're trying to say, but it's not like the USA just does nothing to maintain the system. The military, the middle east bases, the petrodollar - none of this is free. The economy is larger than oil, of course - but at the end of the day, most countries still need oil, most oil is still paid for in USD, and will continue to be as long as the USA is the final underwriter of security in that region (and asian, and europe.. until recently).
That's always been the deal. The USA provides the security at the end of the day, and everyone else agrees to use its currency. The unwritten promise part is that the US government won't allow too much inflation, keeps an independent central bank, and the debt it offers is to be considered risk-free.
The US military isn't going away but the security guarantees which were such an important part of the compact are fading, and inflation - serious inflation - seems to be coming into view. It won't happen overnight but it does smell a bit like the beginning of the end.
> EU/China) dosen't want that role either, lest they end up deindustrialising like USA
I don't actually think there's any law of nature that reserve currency status == de-industrialization. The UK didn't do so when it wore the crown and I don't think there's any reason the EU or PRC would inevitably do so either should they step up. I think it just happened to overlap - plenty of rich countries also de-industrialized without being the USA!
I think/hope that it will eventually be the EU that steps up but it obviously won't happen quickly and they aren't exactly covering themselves with glory over the current crises. There would need to be a lot of changes needed on their side, not least of which the mechanisms and mandate to issue a much, much larger amount of debt. But if the USA sees 5% inflation for a year or two - I think the opportunity would be there.
>That's always been the deal.
This is a bit of popular myth on sites like this but isn't supported by economists, historians or people in finance. The total volume of oil trade is small fraction of total global trade or capital flows.
Like I said, the USD is the reserve partly because it's beneficial to these surplus economies to have somebody else holding the bags, but also because there aren't viable alternatives because anybody else who can do it dosen't want to. And given there are 180^180 possible exchanges, a reserve currency will exist for practical reasons.
>I don't actually think there's any law of nature that reserve currency status == de-industrialization.
A currency that assumes reserve currency status will strengthen due to increased demand, thus making their exports more expensive and thus uncompetitive on the international stage. Which is incompatible with the export-driven strategies of the EU, China or Japan, all the main contenders for alternative reserve currencies. If you look at the behaviour of their central banks, when they receive capital inflows, they in turn buy assets elsewhere to offset the appreciation to maintain the value of their currency. But the Fed cannot and dosen't do that.
But that is counter-balanced by being able to issue debt in your own currency at low interest rates. So while yes you do run a deficit, you are in control of your own destiny so to speak, with the ability to print your way out of it (providing you do so wisely so as not to trigger runaway inflation), rather than being at the mercy of lenders due to foreign-currency issued debt (i.e., South America and the IMF).
Well clearly America has decided that costs of the reserve currency outweight\ the benefits conferred. Many other countries after all manage large debts but also confer the advantages of a surplus economy.
>mercy of lenders due to foreign-currency issued debt (i.e., South America and the IMF).
Countries come to the IMF when nobody else want to lend to them. It's that or national insolvency. That obviously means some harsh and politically unpopular reforms need to made with spending if they want to restore confidence with everyone else. The IMF is a useful scapegoat that diverts the heat from government to make the actions it needs to make.
Nobody is forced to go the IMF, yet despite all the critique, people are still going to them today. In fact the alternatives like China are alot harsher now in their debt relief terms when they realised how many of their lending projects were failing. It's a bit ironically actually when they realise themselves why debt to troubled countries tends to come with stipulations.
Trump is being pulled in too many different directions to the point where nothing coherent is going to emerge from his strategies (or lack of). You can't promise Wall Street/Corporate America the moon and keep the economy running along nicely while rounding up and deporting immigrants, cutting federal spending, and implementing regressive taxes via tariffs. If he would have just limited himself to the goal of balancing trade while maintaining reserve currency status, I think that he would have had a shot to pull it off. But there is the very real risk that the rest of the world just starts routing around the US so even that is not a given. But when you combine this with all the other things he is trying to do, I think he is seriously risking sending the U.S. economy off a very tall cliff. That is also why he probably is so obsessed with lower interest rates. It is an attempt to try and jolt the economy before all the head winds from his policies start to have an impact.
> But there is the very real risk that the rest of the world just starts routing around the US so even that is not a given.
That's no longer just a risk, it is a reality.
I do largely agree with you, however
> Mind you, the role of reserve currency today is largely hoisted by the rest of the world onto the USA
It’s the opposite [1]. Trump openly threatens anyone who tries to replace dollar. It even goes beyond Trump. I bet it will go to war if there are real threats to replace USD.
> there is no rule dictating its role
There’s also no rule dictating other countries to honor US sanctions, but they do.
Tarrif
1. https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/trump-repeats-tar...
Is there a resource you’d recommend to learn about this?
You can read Bern Bernanke's hypothesis on the Global Savings Glut. But there are plenty of articles by almost all economic insitutions that are talking about the imbalanced nature of trade today.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2005/20050...
You do not include digital services like FANG here.
The current account balance (BoP) considers goods and services. And it's not bilateral relationships that matter, but the aggregate global imbalance. To say that America is the engine of the deficits that absorbs the world's surpluses is trivially accepted by economists.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BN.CAB.XOKA.CD?most_rec...
There's a nice table to understand how skewed things are really with the balance of payments here. America's deficit is 10x higher than the second rank with the UK, which should illustrate how difficult it is for the surplus countries to find alternatives. In any case, this whole situation on excessively relying on one country to buy all the world's exports is a stupidly unstable situation.
>"well, if Herr Daddy says he fixed it, we can all say it's fixed, in fact it'd be damaging not to" territory.
Worked for Biden. Which is not me, as a progressive, saying that Trump is any better, or that the two are even close to comparable on a number of important (mostly social) issues. However, common across admins and parties is an absolute terror of even the suggestion that we've entered a recession. That's because we're in a massive bubble, completely dislocated from fundamentals; in fact, the only thing keeping sentiment and performance afloat is... sentiment.
I think the tacit plan may be to inflate their way out of debt (personal, corporate, national...) while strong-arming the rest of the world into keeping the dollar the reserve currency, which allows us to continue "exporting" a portion of that inflation. It's obviously supervillain shit that will never work, but I suppose that they consider it the superior choice to letting the "bust" part of the "boom-bust cycle" actually take place.
[dead]
The President isn’t a king, but he is CEO of the executive branch, and Congress gave the President power over tariffs.
I know it’s hard for people who believe “experts” are a branch of government but they’re not.
> Congress gave the President power over tariffs
a) It didn't.
b) It's not the case constitutionally that Congress can give away its powers unilaterally. Chevron deference is dead, for example.
Why isn’t tariffs within the “emanations from penumbras” of the president’s foreign policy powers?
I recognized you, Curtis Yarvin
The guy who can guess your specific european ancestry by looking at your face?
These tariff powers are given for emergency use only under the IEEPA, so you're being disingenuous IMO. I don't think most reasonable people would see what's going on with Trump cooking up a "national emergency" over trade deficits and think it's a legitimate emergency.
A lot of countries are learning lessons from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the world's reaponses
What do you mean specifically here?
The United States has become an unreliable security partner
ridiculous politics, open bribery and extortion... which impacts other countries. The decoupling has begun, spurred by Americas adversaries and our own abhorrent behavior
“Selling the F-35, or American systems for that matter, will certainly become more complicated for American companies,” said Gesine Weber, a Paris-based fellow at transatlantic think tank German Marshall Fund.
“An important factor in the purchase of the F-35 by European governments was the idea that European defense would be built on a transatlantic basis in terms of strategy, institutions and capabilities,” she said, adding that “the Trump administration is in the process of dissolving the transatlantic link, and the purchase of American systems will therefore no longer have any added value for Europeans.”
“If you keep punching your allies in the face, eventually they’re going to stop wanting to buy weapons from you,” said a Western European defense official, granted anonymity to discuss the matter candidly. “Right now we have limited options outside of U.S. platforms, but in the long run? That could change in the coming decades if this combativeness keeps up.”
[1] https://www.politico.eu/article/punching-allies-in-the-face-...
“Could change” “ coming decades” what a statement
Alienate customers, punish colleges, cancel research, send smart folks running from your borders. Sounds like a pretty logical conclusion.
The point of their comment is that the statement is tautological regardless of the subjects.
"I could change in the coming decades."
"The most stable rock formation could change in the coming decades."
"Even under the best possible leadership, EU and US relations could change in the coming decades."
If you are Boeing or Northrup Grumman, etc. most of your focus is on the coming decades. A huge part of your budget is getting governments to sign procurement deals that are 20 years out. They know that will guarantee revenues 40 years out.
Boeing's string of disasters over the last couple of years isn't so much a concern for its short-term health as it is for Boeing's ability to land any long-term payouts. They hire people today to deliver a product twelve years from now. If there is no prospect for twelve years from now they start caving in today. You just don't see the dust cloud for a few years.
Except the reason people say decades is that's how long military procurement programs run for. Companies have order books past 2035 for many systems and standing up new programs takes time.
You start making yourself look unreliable now, then you prompt a transition away and by the time it's underway there's no reason to switch back anyway - i.e. traditionally stable companies "suddenly" are having trouble finding sales.
I think the comment is calling out how Europe can be slow or indecisive when it comes to building businesses, startups, industries, etc. Not that Europe doesn't have a desire to do so.
I can’t see a world in which this stuff isn’t considered on a decades long scale. It’s not like you go year to year ordering a couple of different fighter jets here and there.
If you are buying military equipment that you will keep around for a few decades, you need to look into the future to make reasonable buying decisions.
It makes good sense though. International weapons systems integration has massive inertia. If not for that the US would sell a lot less than it does right now, people are not buying because they want to, but because they have to. There has been some progress on integrating more diverse systems but it is slow, the number of people able to do this work is not large outside of the circles where the systems were developed in the first place. But Europe has never really shut down its defense industry, and there has been a massive revival in the last couple of years. It is still ramping up as far as I can see and it will for the foreseeable future. No matter what the outcome of the Trump-Putin summit (I refuse to call it the Ukraine peace summit, just like I wouldn't call the Molotov Ribbentrop meeting the Polish, Latvian and Estonian peace summit).
The United States is an unreliable partner and cannot be trusted. I welcome the ongoing cultural divorce and am hoping Canada will move closer to the EU for military partnership as well.
> [I] am hoping Canada will move closer to the EU for military partnership as well.
Have you ever looked at a map?
If the threat comes from Russia, EU would struggle mightily merely to defend themselves; they're not crossing the Atlantic to come to Canada's aid. And Canada already has existing military partnerships with many EU countries through NATO... which is a creature of the US. Canada's defense against Russia relies upon integration with the US and NATO.
If the threat comes from China, there is zero chance EU nations will declare war on China for Canada's sake. Even if they did, they have zero chance of projecting meaningful force across the world against China. Canada's defense against China relies upon integration with the US.
If the threat comes from the US, there is zero chance EU nations will declare war on the US for Canada's sake. Even if they did, they have zero chance of projecting meaningful force across the Atlantic against the US. And if they did, they'd probably end up getting double-teamed by both the US and Russia. Canada's defense against the US is hopeless.
No other nation has the geographical position or force projection capabilities to pose a serious threat to Canada's sovereignty. I'm sure you're very emotional about Trump's annexation comments and tariffs on Canada, but you can't base national security strategy on your fee fees. You ought to get real about Canada's position and options and act accordingly.
Anything is better than nothing. And being an ally of America is pretty much nothing, if not worse, it seems. I think something that unsettles me so is that even reasonable Americans seem absolutely blind to the reality of how the world perceives them now.
>If the threat comes from Russia
The threat already came from russia, and all trump can manage are "two more weeks" TACOs
I suppse the only answer is for Canada to acquire nuclear weapons then? Only thing that ever seems to give America any pause.
(somewhat /s)
If Trump is actually serious about annexing Canada (or at least retaining the option), development of nuclear weapons would seem more likely to precipitate an invasion than to deter one.
Building nuclear weapons specifically to use against the US would also--in some measure, at least--justify any claims that such an invasion is a national security imperative.
Worked fine for North Korea. No invasion plans that we've heard about so far.
Obviously these situations are quite a bit different.
Canada shares a border with the US and is an ocean away from anybody else.
DPRK is an ocean away from the US and shares borders with and enjoyed very credible security guarantees from both China and Russia. DPRK also shares a border with US ally South Korea, whose capital and millions of residents they already held at risk from thousands of hardened artillery positions and mobile launchers.
From what I understand, there were the usual half-arsed plans from the same stable geniuses who invaded Iraq. I've mostly been facetious, but honestly, the fact that you would consider a response to an idle invasion threat from a serially belligerent nation as itself being a threatening act - it's pretty indicative of the problem at hand.
I wouldn't consider it a threatening act. But I am not Commander in Chief of the US Armed Forces.
I am not advocating an invasion of Canada. I deplore the annexation rhetoric coming from POTUS. I don't believe there is a serious intention to annex Canada through military force, but I do believe loose talk like what we've seen harms our national security interests and understandably frightens our utterly vulnerable neighbors.
However, I also believe that in this new Great Game it's important to understand the actual state of the board and the likely actions/reactions of the other players.
Deluding oneself that Canada can resist a full-scale invasion by their only neighbor with overwhelming military, economic, industrial, financial, and diplomatic advantages because foreign nations will be obliged to join the war on Canada's side is unwise.
Deluding oneself that developing nuclear weapons would not be an easy casus belli for an actually hostile US is similarly unwise.
You're right, it's seeking and developing nuclear weapons that has been the problem historically. Once you have them it's fine, the sabre-rattling pretty much stops. Worked for India, Pakistan, China, North Korea.
If it’s Canada, even already having nuclear weapons would be unacceptable to US security. See Cuban missile crisis.
My American friends use this logic when they bend over for Trump. "It'll just upset him." It's embarrassing to watch.
Low risk move for Canada since the US would likely not abide any foreign power invading N America, essentially giving Canada a free defense treaty.
I can't speak for all Canadians but in my sphere the attitude is that the U.S. is the greater threat. I think it's a very American mindset to perceive the existence of some overseas bogeyman coming and invading Canada in some way that your assertion would mean much.
If Canada's threat model really is US invasion, they shouldn't waste their time with EU alliances. Can you really imagine the EU projecting enough power across the across the Atlantic to stop the US military fighting next to their home base?
Well of course not. With oceans between us and our allies and friends, we'd be the ablative armour while the rest of the world got organized. Much like the Baltics. But they're in NATO for reasons other than expecting a prompt rescue.
> we'd be the ablative armour while the rest of the world got organized.
If the trade negotiations are any indication, I wouldn't count on a magical solution to a global coordination problem.
Those countries you are expecting to commit suicide to defend your sovereignty are much more likely to appease the US either because they depend on the US for energy, trade, or military defense (or some combination of those) and have no good alternatives; or because a war with the US would be so devastating--potentially even escalating to nuclear warfare--it is only worth risking for core national security interests.
Of course, geostrategically speaking, Canada is already just America's hat. Direct US control over Canada is not a threat to the core national security interests of any nation with a capability to intervene. So I wouldn't count on foreign intervention if I were you.
Anyway the balance of forces between the US and Canada is so lopsided that any invasion would likely be a fait accompli before any substantive foreign intervention could be launched. Certainly Canada's ports and airspace would be blockaded and closed in any opening action.
In the case of (an IMO very unlikely) US invasion, I think Canada could be isolated, have its energy infrastructure destroyed and internal logistics disrupted, and ultimately the population could be starved into submission if necessary without much difficulty. And no other nation would do anything about it.
Canada would be much better off just surrendering and trying to maintain a national identity post-annexation in the hope of a future peaceful secession.
> Canada would be much better off just surrendering and trying to maintain a national identity post-annexation in the hope of a future peaceful secession.
I think the difference between American values and real values is that there’s nothing tolerable about surrendering to Nazis in hope of some sort of better deal. For a nation that’s been a freedom and liberty cosplayer, I can understand why this idea seems sensible, logical even.
I guess your position is "Better dead than red (white and blue)".
If you really believe Americans are Nazis coming for Canada, you presumably believe the US has the capability and will to force that choice upon you. If so, posting on a US forum about how you'd resist US forces to the bitter end seems like a poor choice. Unfortunately, being dead makes it difficult to defend your values. Peter Thiel says hi.
I understand that jimmies have been thoroughly rustled and that Canadians are frightened. But this "elbows up" false bravado is a bit ridiculous. The US isn't going to invade Canada--and if they did, Canada has no real capacity to resist.
The USA has left Ukraine in the lurch after signing the Budapest memorandum. They should’ve kept their Nukes and Russia wouldn’t have been able to invade and steal all their land, kidnap and auction off children , commit massacres etc.
Because America is currently an untrustworthy ally who is 100% American first and thinks deploying the military on home soil and applying harsh tariffs to its allies is more important than anything else, it’s best to countries no longer rely on the USA for basically anything. That will probably mean the end of the USD as a global reserve currency at some point too. Which is fine because it’s what the majority of voting Americans wanted. Isolationist, American first policies.
Go look at how Zelensky was treated in the interview with Trump and Vance and how the literal red carpet is rolled out for Putin and other world leaders with a brain see that and say, no thanks…
Re: Ukraine defending itself with the nukes it gave up as part of Budapest memorandum - the nuclear code required to activate the warheads never left Moscow.
Maybe the Ukrainians could have tinkered with these warheads and find out how to enable them.... but that is quite risky.
> the nuclear code required to activate the warheads never left Moscow
It's an open question among people who research these things whether the weapons stored in Ukraine even had the PALs you're referring to (Permissive Action Link). The literature is contradictory and while wikipedia insists they did, other (quite credible IMO) accounts indicate the PALs were only used on submarine devices at the time. In any rate, it is well known that the Ukranians could have reverse engineered and bypassed the devices; even the US State Dept contemporaneously estimated the PAL would last only "months".
I have no idea what was actually on those weapons but the popular notion that they had the PALs installed is not actually that well founded once you look at the primary sources. Whether it makes any difference is of course another story (I suspect not).
Would you mind listing these “primary sources”? Until you do that here are some of my sources [0], [1] and [2]
[0] https://russianforces.org/RussianStrategicNuclearForcesC2Pag... page 61-62 see references to authorization codes required for launch in retaliation . See page 64 for launching retaliatory strike when supreme command has been eliminated- again authorization codes are required.
[1] https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/0297russians/ References the January 25 1995 incident when Boris Yeltsin activated the Kazbek command and authorization system as a result of a false alarm. Again: authorization from supreme command is required
[2] https://thebulletin.org/premium/2025-05/russian-nuclear-weap... section Russia’s nuclear strategy and its war in Ukraine again mentions authorization codes are required for nuclear strike
If the Ukranianians had started trying to reverse engineer the nukes, the US and Russia would have invaded together and regime changed Ukraine in under 12 hours.. Just political and military reality.
> the nuclear code required to activate the warheads never left Moscow.
did they try 0000? https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/launch-code-for-...
>Maybe the Ukrainians could have tinkered with these warheads and find out how to enable them.... but that is quite risky.
Not really. What do you expect to happen, exactly? Do you think they're designed to detonate if some tamper sensor is triggered, like in a movie?
People have an extremely bad understanding of nuclear security: yes, if you have a warhead and a few days you aren't going to be able to arm it...but nuclear bombs can be built with 1940s machining technology. They are not complicated devices.
If you have a warhead and a few months (definitely if more then a year) then you have a warhead.
Ukraine has rocketry expertise and nuclear scientists and powerplants. As a nation they were easily capable of reactivating Russian warheads - physical access is total access.
It's 1930s tech, it's not all that hard
It’s not about that, it’s about doing the right thing and trusting alliances. Ukraine seems to trust it alliance with Europe , probably because they need Ukraine to defend them now. But Ukraine could also build a nuke but they know it would’ve just give the current administration an excuse to never help them again. They’re hostages.
If they had nuclear weapons they’d be respected, like North Korea now. No one going to mess with them.
They could have taken the enriched uranium out and used it to shorten the critical path, no?
> untrustworthy ally who is 100% American first
Trump and Vance first, then their families, then America on a distant third place
He's implying the Gripen deal was a result of Trump.
In reality, the US-Thailand relationship has been dead since the Junta took over in Thailand, and for domestic brownie points we decided to make an example out of them and Cambodia for democratic backsliding during the Biden admin [3]
Edit: cannot reply below (@Dang am I being rate limited)
The US has consistently rejected Thailand's F-35 request under the Biden admin [0][1]. If forced to buy a 4th gen jet, may as well buy the cheapest option on the market, which is the Gripen, as they have been using the Gripen for decades [2].
European affairs have little to do with affairs in Asia.
[0] - https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/thailand-...
[1] - https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/thailand-f35-02162022...
[2] - https://www.reuters.com/article/business/autos-transportatio...
[3] - https://asia.nikkei.com/politics/turbulent-thailand/thailand...
But Thailand is far from alone in this move away from US weapons. Spain cancelled their bid for F-35s and Switzerland is looking into doing the same. Denmark recently expressed regret over their purchase of F-35s. Portugal and Canada also both lost interest in American F-35s recently.
It could just be tariff backlash—aircraft have historically been the US' largest export. But I do wonder if the recent tests of US military tech in Russia/Iran had any hand in this
It seems the recent volatility from this American administration is being overlooked. They’ve turned their back on allies, resorted to bullying, and even issued outright threats, while walking away from commitments. Buyers may be weighing the risk that when they need service for their purchase, they could be strong-armed with threats of withheld maintenance — or worse, face a remote kill switch being activated.
Turned their back on allies?
That's a funny thing to say on the very day that Trump might've brokered a peacedeal that instantly would end the war.
Seems obviously more valuable to me than selling weapons to Ukraine for many years to "help its ally"?
If Trump were to broker a deal that would "instantly end the war", it would be only by and for the sake of looking after his own interests. In the process he would ignore the interests and long-term security of Ukraine while likely yielding to Putin's wishes where he -- not Ukraine -- feels like he isn't losing a lot.
There's no other way Trump can broker a quick end to the war. He doesn't have the kind of leverage to persuade a peace deal without giving Putin what Putin wants, and even if he did, there's a good chance the calculating manipulator Putin would still play him like a fiddle due to Trump's egotism.
Even if Trump were to be able to broker a quick peace -- which he has been promising since day one but obviously not achieved -- he would not be doing that for the sake of the allies of the US.
Saying that he would annex Canada? Or were we always at war with Eurasia?
There is nothing indicating a ceasefire, and Zelensky isnt even there. That is not helping an ally.
Ukraine also is not our only ally - the current administration constantly makes fun of our other ones
That's wildly optimistic that Trump would convince Putin to admit his mistake and fully retreat from all of occupied Ukraine, but I admire the sentiment.
> That's a funny thing to say on the very day that Trump might've brokered a peacedeal that instantly would end the war.
With whom is he meeting on each side of the conflict such that he might have brokered a peace deal?
You are clearly overlooking his threats to withdraw from NATO, and his rhetoric about possibly not coming to the aid if another member was attacked. Of course, Trump being Trump later stated he would abide by Article 5.
The fact his response was not an immediate yes response to supporting Article 5 is destabilizing. As a result, the other NATO members are hedging their bets.
There are many more trees in the world than the Ukraine shaped tree that you can't seem to look around.
What flavor Koolaid are you drinking there, bud?
God, a warmonger is currently dealing with someone who cosplays as a strongman/world-leader, and poorly.
I can't imagine the stupidity to imagine he's going to make a good deal. But then again, that Koolaid is going to make you believe that it will be a good deal, and if Zelensky or the EU don't want it, they're ungrateful losers...
Buying US weapons puts you in a position of needing US backing for decades. You need replacement parts, maintenance training, and a million other dependencies. Naturally, you'd need similar from any supplier. So an important part of your calculus has to be, "Will these guys be around to support me in 25-40 years?" That has never really been a question for the US in the last 75 years.
Now it is.
I don't think anybody fears that the US will cease to be a country. Or even that it will cease to be an important country. The question is whether they will be your reliable ally in 25-40 years, or even in four years. Or will they start some pattern of being your friend for a couple years, then cutting you off for a few years, then trying to re-friend you? That is not a relationship on which anybody wants to build their national security support.
> "Will these guys be around to support me in 25-40 years?" That has never really been a question for the US in the last 75 years.
From the POV of the time? Sure, we can see with the benefit of hindsight that even 40 years was true up until at least 1985, but did people plan that far ahead at the time?
25 years, sure, I think that was true for most of it, with only a handful of exceptions like France and the UK being upset about what happened in response to their actions in the Suez Crisis. IMO correct call by USA there, and I say that as a British citizen by birth, but still means "can we rely on them?" resolves "no", and this loss of de facto independence in what they could do explains much of British foreign policy since then.
I still think US military tech is king, especially their fighter jets. eu countries cancelling or regrets is just geopolitics pandering
fighter jets are unicorns on the same level as chips you cant just procure 3nm chips tomorrow because you want too. I'm not super knowledgeable on them, but its interesting to see how difficult maintaining and making new gens are for example gripens still rely on US engine, china relies on Russian engines etc and the US seems to be always ahead
Perhaps. But the US is less and less capable of producing them. Especially since the tariffs back-and-forth with China that lead to an exports control on rare earth minerals. Even before that, US manufacturers were consistently under-delivering and behind schedule on orders
Not to mention there are key areas that the US is widely considered to be behind on (e.g. hypersonic glide vehicles and drones) compared to the "Second World" powers. And there's been lots of talk—even from within the US—that drones have become more important to modern warfare than manned jets.
When you procure a 3nm chip you expect to keep it working as well as when you bought it, even if you block the management engine for privacy.
When you buy a fighter plane you should expect to not be able to fly for the full duration of a single conflict the manufacturing country disagrees about.
Right: A powerful jet that can not be flown for lack of replacement-parts is worse than a mediocre jet that actually operates.
We've made great strides in reliability over the years, but planes are anything but solid-state like integrated CPUs are.
Forget parts. Mission's can't be flown. Look up Mission Data Files and F35 Partner Support Complexes.
Lack of MDFs does not mean that you can't fly missions. It's an intelligence product that assists with mission planning. That's like saying your car is completely unusable if the builtin maps are a few years out of date.
Ukranian hackers know how to hack John Deere tractors.. hah, downloading files from a Ukranian web forum to install on your F-35 would be very dystopian cyberpunk.
> When you procure a 3nm chip you expect to keep it working as well as when you bought it
This seems like it’s being revisited.
https://www.theverge.com/news/719697/nvidia-ai-gpu-chips-den...
F-35s parked on the runway because the tangerine clown told LM to withhold this week's software update is a lot less useful than a squadron of 4th gen fighters in the air chock a block full of state-of-the-art missiles.
US military tech is best but European stuff is pretty functional.
“Best” but you’re going to spend millions per missile system to have “the best”.
Israel quickly found out when trying to shoot down “cheap” $30k Iranian drones.
> US military tech is best
Do we know this to be true still? There's a lot of new modern equipment that other countries have that have not gone head-to-head against to really know that any more.
I'd say it's not true, not in all aspects. Ukraine for example is better at drone production and defence
People think jets are things that should work even if they aren't supported by the manufacturer. Javelin and patriot don't work that way? How exactly does someone beside the us manage the hydrazine supplychain without usa logistics?
At the end of the day it just doesn’t matter whether these countries buy F-35s or not except as additional profit streams for US defense companies and in some ways it’s good that they are looking to buy EU jets instead since the EU needs to invest more in its “domestic” defense industry.
Do we really think Spain and Portugal are going to fight alongside US forces in Europe or elsewhere? I don’t. Isn’t Switzerland a neutral country? This isn’t a slight against any of these countries but let’s be realistic.
Canada is going to buy still*
* https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/canada-to-buy-all-88-f-...
There is a lot more proof for the Europeans fighting alongside the USA than for the reverse if we ignore WWII. And even in WWII the USA would have stayed out much longer if not for Pearl Harbor.
I don’t really know what you mean, nor why we would selectively exclude the most important war which requires the most contributions from any nation, but regardless past actions don’t guarantee future actions.
But let’s take a step back - I specifically mentioned Spain, Portugal, and Switzerland. I didn’t say France or the United Kingdom wouldn’t fight alongside the United States, for example. So let’s not lump all European countries together unfairly.
> I don’t really know what you mean
That's ok.
> nor why we would selectively exclude the most important war which requires the most contributions from any nation
Because the United States from back then is completely gone now.
All that's left is people who had nothing to do with it claiming the heritage while acting in the opposite spirit.
> But let’s take a step back - I specifically mentioned Spain, Portugal, and Switzerland. I didn’t say France or the United Kingdom wouldn’t fight alongside the United States, for example.
Switzerland shouldn't even be in that list and Spain and Portugal are just about able to stay afloat, a little bit ahead of Italy, Romania and Bulgaria on some dimensions and at party on others.
> So let’s not lump all European countries together unfairly.
No, let's not.
1) Over a hundred Spanish soldiers died defending America as part of the Afghanistan war. How many Americans have died defending Spain in a hot war since the founding of NATO?
2) The linked article doesn't say what you claim it says. The Cdn. military is advising the government to go ahead with the entire F-35 purchase. That doesn't necessarily mean the civilian government will agree. We just don't know yet.
1) Over a hundred Spanish soldiers died defending America as part of the Afghanistan war. How many Americans have died defending Spain in a hot war since the founding of NATO?
How many times has Spain been attacked? Not a great argument.
And just to make sure the record is very clear I am very grateful for our allies and their contributions, particularly to the war in Afghanistan, but that’s Afghanistan, it’s not Russia or China. And Spain in particular is unwilling to increase defense spending - why is that?
2) The linked article doesn't say what you claim it says. The Cdn. military is advising the government to go ahead with the entire F-35 purchase. That doesn't necessarily mean the civilian government will agree. We just don't know yet.
They’ll buy. Also the OP said
“Portugal and Canada also both lost interest in American F-35s recently.”
Did they lose interest? Doesn’t appear to be the case for Canada.
>How many times has Spain been attacked? Not a great argument.
It's a perfect argument. You declared that Spain (and Portugal) would likely not help in a NATO action. Yet, recent history proves you directly and unequivocally wrong. Spanish blood was spilled to prove that point, so maybe have some respect?
>How many times has Spain been attacked? Not a great argument.
>...
>And Spain in particular is unwilling to increase defense spending - why is that?
You answered your own question. Well done.
Note: I'm not supporting their decision, just pointing out that it's arguably quite rational from a certain point of view.
Lastly, the linked article still doesn't say what you claimed it said. If you were responding to a falsehood, that doesn't excuse confidently posting another falsehood.
don't forget the Swiss too
who are livid after orangeman applied 39% tariffs because he doesn't understand the triangle trade of gold
[dead]
The advantage of the Gripen isn't that it's cheap. The F-16 is cheaper.
But Gripen has Meteor and can fly really well. Now, I'm a Swede, but there are claims of practical experiments in Norway trying out old some Gripen planes vs F-15C and F-16 have shown that the Gripen is simply better at air-to-air stuff.
The F-16 is obviously bigger though, so if you want to bomb somebody a lot and whoever that is doesn't have anything to put up against it then maybe it's reasonable to get one of those instead, but I don't think that's a problem Thailand has. I think they want an air force that can challenge another air force if required.
It's also nice since one can actually fly with it without breaking the bank.
F-15C is ancient. Gripen E vs F-16V shouldn't be that far apart in terms of performance.
Yes, but this was in 2009, with a Gripen C. The F-16 thing was with Gripen A.
Maybe. The F-16V doesn't Meteor though and probably has a much larger radar signature, probably also much larger IR signature, probably also worse close-in performance since the Gripen has so low wing loading, but I don't understand that kind of thing.
I’m not any sort of analyst but from my understanding the threats Thai faces is Cambodia border skirmishes and Myanmar both of which could be handled with any aircraft.
China is a non starter, even a next gen aircraft is no match for their entire military.
Maybe, but I don't think China, despite its population, has a large pool of people suited to be fighter pilots, so I don't think they'll be throwing their pilots away against competent air forces.
A competent air-to-air capability will be a deterrent.
A country like Cambodia is screwed against Thailand whatever Thailand buys.
US has become an unreliable ally. Siding with war criminal, lack of intelligence services response, potential leaks to the hostile states and ability to ground planes and other weapons remotely, means US equipment has become a non-starter.
See what a coincidence that Trump becomes a president and few months later Patriots can't intercept Russian missiles.
> Siding with war criminal,
Siding with two war criminals. FTFY
Da comrade.
No idea what the reasons are in this specific case, but these kinds of military procurements are inherently tied to the political side.
Planes like this quickly become paperweights if you can't get replacements parts, support and ammunition. And most buyers won't be able to get significant parts of the construction into their countries. So you must trust the political stability of the country you're buying from, that they're still your friend in a decade or a few and support your planes.
Trump and his administration are anything but reliable partners.
Thailand wanted the F-35 [0], but the we will not give it to them given how close the Thai government has become to China after the junta [1].
Their junta and King wants to keep Thailand as an authoritarian illiberal democracy. The Biden admin on the other hand strongly opposed democratic backsliding in Thailand [2]
As a result, they - like Cambodia - decided to flip to China.
[0] - https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/thailand-...
[1] - https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/06/17/china-thailand-submarin...
[2] - https://asia.nikkei.com/politics/turbulent-thailand/thailand...
Interesting that Cambodia is the recent adversary they want the jets for. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Cambodia%E2%80%93Thailand...
My brief research says Cambodia was using old Soviet and Chinese stuff, with some UAV support.
Yep! They are!
But in the 2010s we helped Cambodia transition into a democracy, build an independent press (a number of Cambodian journalists used to be HN users back in the day), invest in rural healthcare expansion, and even sponsored Hun Sen's son to study in the US.
The Cambodian leadership didn't want any of that. They wanted to continue to rule as an oligarchy, and Western development funds came with oversight requirements and American firms followed the FCPA.
On the other hand, Chinese vendors were fine paying bribes to leadership in Cambodia and ignoring rising criminality (it was a win-win for China as well - they were able to "convince" organized crime to leave China).
China's elite centric approach [0][1] to foreign relations is better than grassroots democracy promotion that a subset of Americans believed in.
If Cambodia or Serbia or Thailand's leadership want to remain a dictatorship or oligarchy, let them. It's not our problem. Our commitment to democracy should be within our borders. Let other countries be dictatorships or democracies as long as they align with our interests. This is what China and Russia does.
[0] - https://www.iseas.edu.sg/articles-commentaries/iseas-perspec...
[1] - https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/lost-translati...
> But in the 2010s we helped Cambodia transition into a democracy, build an independent press
History of US-Cambodia relations -
1970 - CIA aids Lon Nol coup against government. US invades Cambodia. US kills 4 student protesters against invasion at Kent State, 2 at Jackson State
1970-1973 Operation Freedom Deal, US drops 250,000 tons of bombs on Cambodia
1975 King Sihanouk, overthrown by CIA assisted coup in 1970 returns to power, in coalition with communists. The destabilization of the country by the US is what is seen to help bring the communists to power
1979 Split in Cambodian communists, Vietnamese-aligned side comes to power. US immediately begins to arm the coalition of Sihanouk and the so-called "Khmer Rouge". The US also fights to keep the Khmer Rouge coalition as Cambodia's UN representatives. The New York Times reports on the arms shipments in the early-mid 1980s
[...]
"2010s we helped Cambodia transition into a democracy"
Thanks for this insightful rebuttal. I've briefly fact-checked what you wrote (don't take this personally; it's just something I do), and your timeline is overall correct.
I've noticed that alephnerd's comments are often tinted with pro-U.S. propaganda. Note that I'm not accusing him of being disingenuous or malicious. I think he shares his thoughts and viewpoints in good faith. But his bias is very obvious when he writes about topics I'm familiar with, which makes me a bit skeptical when he writes about topics I'm not familiar with.
Yes, the Chinese are horrible people. Only if these countries could look into Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Vietnam, and on and on, they would realise that the Americans are indeed the trustworthy and reliable partner.
I don't particularly trust either.
In 2010 nothing noteworthy (politically) happened in Cambodia. The most democratic elections were run by UNTAC in 1991. There were a few USAID projects that did try to help defeat CPP since then.
The real joke is that the US or Biden cared about democracy in Thailand.
I for one welcome our new Chinese overloads.
It's a side effect of democracy promotion.
We the US cannot have a values based foreign policy - all that matters is power.
Cambodian and Thai leadership wants to retain power, so they decided to work with the Chinese - who don't care if you are an autocracy or a democracy, while we tried to make an example out of Thailand (and Cambodia) for regressing into authoritarian military governments.
We the US need to return to the same mercenary foreign policy. We are starting to do that again with rappoachment to Pakistan, shielding Israel, and arm twisting the Europeans.
Welcome to a multipolar world - only the powerful can set the rules.
>arm twisting
This is exactly why countries are deciding to reduce their dependence on the US. If you're one president or one policy away from being cut off from technology, tariffed to death or otherwise bullied you're going to choose other partners.
Politics is about power, that much is true. But power exercised with restraint. China isn't increasing its influence by arm twisting but the opposite. Simply saying "we're open for business" and not interfering in the domestic politics of other countries as long as that's reciprocated. This is effectively a reversal of the Cold War, which they learned a lesson from. Acting like the Soviet Union isn't going to serve the US well.
The more you look like a desperate empire in its late stages losing its grip, replacing mutual benefit with brutality the faster you're done. That ought to be the lesson of the 20th century.
You forgot about 'or threatened with invasion'. That's the big one.
Crazy take if you know anything about Americas meddling in South America and other parts of the world.
No, it’s a side effect of US hypocrisy. We apply “standards” - or at least claim to - in some cases but not others. We apply or seek to apply international law in some cases but not others. There was never a true values-based foreign policy. It has always been nothing more than holier than thou posturing.
Any sufficiently complex system has hypocrisy.
This deal is for four (4) jets, according to the SCMP.
With respect to everybody reading this, I'm not prepared to read anything into a purchase of four jets.
Total thai airfare is 112 capable aircraft. That includes the various types. 4 fighters in the context of a small airforce is a lot.
I can appreciate that perspective as well.
Good, the EU needs its own defense industry.
More specifically, we could use our own engine. Gripen E still rely on the GE F414. Europe has nothing to rival the P&W F135.
My limited understanding is that the F135 is massively over-powered to be capable of VTOL + push through the bulky shape of the F35, resulting in a disappointing range. I don't know that it would make sense to use it on a different platform.
I was thinking more in terms of it being a newer design.
From what I've gathered there's some work being done on new engine designs within the FCAS program, but I have no idea how it's going.
That just means it's the right size engine for a bigger plane without vtol.
No longer: Gripens are now offered with the Rolls Royce EJ230 engine.
The Gripen could have been designed around one Eurojet EJ200 or Snecma M88.
Today, Thailand decided to go with Swedish Gripen jets over F-16s. A week ago, Spain chose the Eurofighter over the F-35[0] and Switzerland seems to be considering a similar move.[1] Before that the Pentagon halved its funding for the F-35 program.[2] Criticism of the F-35's status as a "hangar queen" have been around a long time[3] and seem to be increasingly prominent.
California—the world's 4th largest economy—'s biggest export is airplane parts.[4] Is California in for a reckoning as the world seems to be increasingly rejecting US weapons technology?
[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/spain-rejects-f-35-for-europ...
[1] https://breakingdefense.com/2025/08/switzerland-weighs-cuts-...
[2] https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/us-slashe...
[3] https://web.archive.org/web/20210317192541/https://www.washi...
[4] https://www.worldstopexports.com/californias-top-10-exports/
>Before that the Pentagon halved its funding for the F-35 program.[2]
This is so misleading. They cut this year's orders of the F-35 in half. That's not even close to the same thing as cutting funding for the program in half. Part of that funding was even reallocated towards streamlining the supply chains and improving maintainence practices.
Any idea if its with the GE engine or the Roll Royce engine recently announced?
Looks like Thailand's no longer in a rush to get a "final" tariff deal, even if we're stuck at a 19% rate. (I think our flag carrier might be refreshing its fleet exclusively with Boeing to sweeten the deal.)
You basically cannot trust the US at this point - Trump is so mercurial, that any possible scenario, however ostensibly unrealistic, now has to be factored into the equation. Doesn't get better when Trump gets removed in 3 years, it has been proven now that US democracy can produce any kind of result and hence persistent unreliability most now be the default
If removed in 3 years. So many societal norms are being broken, what's one more. It sounds hyperbolic to say out loud because it usually is, but we're dealing with any possible scenario here.
It sounded hyperbolic for the 50 last newsworthy things he has done. Americans seems to think the current order is a given when in reality it's much more precarious.
Trump will be gone in 3 years, dead or degraded into a bowl of racist jello.
It seems clear that the plan is to game the system as much as possible before then so Republicans never have to win an election again. If they can do that, they don't need Trump - the Trump administration will live on.
I agree with this though I wouldn’t be surprised if they can’t manage without Trump.
Republicans aren’t some consistent viewpoint. It’s a big tent that’s (somehow) united by Trump. Even if Republicans came to completely dominate politics, they may have their own schism and we end up back in two party land.
Thought that may still be a more chaotic two party land than we have today. Who knows what the future brings.
It's not so much the republican party anymore, it's project 2025 people and the federalist society, Christian fascists funded by people like Thiel and built on the plans of Curtis Yarvin. They'll still be there after trump as they are his entire cabinet, Vance is in deep on it so succession is already secured, they'll rig or cheat elections to keep political power. Part of project 2025 was a CV database so they could insert sycophants in all levels of unelected government positions as well. They're entrenched and chipping away at election integrity every day.
There's a strong possibility. He's a cult of personality, and really doesn't believe in the values of either party. The Republican establishment loves him, because he gets people out to vote, and he'll push their agenda as long as he gets his cut of the action. This is one model of understanding Trump anyways.
(There are many models, and all models are wrong, yadda yadda)
If the Democratic Party can get their shit together, he will be a lame duck president in ~18 months.
Please note I am not planting a flag here, just making an observation.
The Democratic Party is a complete disaster. When they pushed out David Hogg, rather than embracing him, it was over for me.
Funny, ejecting him was one of the very few smart things the party has ever done.
Personality cults rarely survive the first leader, though it has happened (munster Rebellion). But at that point the plans of Christo fascist like thiel and the federalist society have progressed so far it's too late that it doesn't matter. Maybe a military coup is all we can hope for now.
Trump himself might not stay on as president, but one of his proxies could stand and win, assuming that there continues to be no viable opposition.
Vance is the obvious candidate, but I don’t think the 2028 strategy will become clear until after the 2026 mid-terms.
>If removed in 3 years. So many societal norms are being broken, what's one more.
Are you American? I don't think you understand our culture if you go down this road. Trump operates in the gray -- gray enabled in part by two Democratic presidents doing things like keeping the minimum wage low while painting themselves as progressive as being "soft" on immigration. Is it a kindness to create instability in one's homeland, then look the other way if they flee as long as they don't insist on the same legal protections as others?
Anyways, the two term limit is a very basic rule, one that would provoke an overwhelming response the likes of which I do not think anyone who contemplates such a move fully grasps, and one that is difficult to put into words without sounding theatrical or shrill.
> by two Democratic presidents doing things like keeping the minimum wage low while painting themselves as progressive
Biden proposed and backed a boost of the federal minimum wage to $15/hr, it was defeated in Congress (he also unilaterally implemented a boost in the minimum wages under federal contracts, which did not require legislation, to create upward pressure on wages.)
Prior to that, President Obama also backed a federal minimum wage increase which, as well as boosting the wage would have indexed it to inflation going forward, this also was defeated in Congress (President Obama also unilaterally boosted the minimum wage under federal contracts.)
(OTOH, people pretending the President is a dictator and blaming him for failure to implement legislation when the President pushed for it but Congress refused to allow it to be passed is not entirely unrelated to the status quo where the President simply refuses to be bound by the law in his actions, though its not the main reason for that problem.)
> Anyways, the two term limit is a very basic rule, one that would provoke an overwhelming response the likes of which I do not think anyone who contemplates such a move fully grasps
The degree to which people are confident and complacent that other people will spontaneously rise up and do something if Trunp crosses on red line or another is, perhaps, one of the significant reasons why people do not, in fact, rise up in any way that is effective as Trump crosses every red line that exists.
>Biden proposed and backed a boost of the federal minimum wage to $15/hr... Prior to that, President Obama also backed a federal minimum wage increase
I don't have time to get into the specifics with you, but to put it in poker terms, the democrats play a "tight-passive" strategy - they make piddling bets then fold when called, when faced with an opponent who will C bet them to the river.
Combined with the documented kneecapping of candidates further left than neoliberalism, it's the height of entitlement to fail to govern well, repeatedly, and demand votes because the "other guy" is worse.
>The degree to which people are confident and complacent that other people will spontaneously rise up and do something if Trunp crosses on red line
Maybe spellcheck your own post before assuming I speak for anyone but myself?
>Trump crosses every red line that exists.
You have not spoken to the victims of totalitarianism, and your histrionics will make it sound less dire when folks like me announce with deadly seriousness it's time to go into your condo, lock the door, and get in the bathtub.
Trump has already refused to admit electoral defeat. That line is much more important than the term limit, and our response was to elect him again.
The USA already came within a hair of testing that boundary, outside of natural causes I think Trump will make a play for it. He's had zero respect for any rule, I don't see why that one would be different, especially not given what has already happened.
> Are you American?
Nope, but have spent my time in the Bay and Massachusetts. Born European and currently in Canada. But, guess what, every country looking at their trade deals in the world are not American either. If you need to be American to have confidence in it as a trading partner, there are no such American trading partners on the international stage. Welcome to what the majority of the world is actively thinking about the state of the US right now. The borders can remain the same while the paperwork governing those borders can be changed, just ask the Fifth French Republic.
Very basic rule indeed, and who upholds those rules? The army and police? ICE? The paper is only worth the systems that support them, and there are years to go in tinkering with the make up of those systems. A ruling or two by the Supreme Court, and it's a whole new ball game.
Let me be crystal. TL;DR Only babbling fools think America isn't capable of crossing any line right now on the international stage. The trust, is gone.
>Let me be crystal. TL;DR Only babbling fools think America isn't capable of crossing any line right now
I think the babbling fools are the ones with multiple passports, ignorant of their privilege, who demand that the same untrained civilians they turned their noses up at when they tried to leave this place take risks for a type of global elite who's happy to float in wherever they can enrich themselves, then flee.
There are plenty of great unis in the EU and Canada. Why come here, if we're so terrible?
> Why come here, if we're so terrible?
Times have changed..
Will take decades to repair if that’s even possible, lots of reform. I can’t believe the USA could even have a king but here we are.
I wonder if some major states like California will secede eventually .
This gerrymandering debacle does seem to increase political tensions around and between states, especially if it spreads to multiple states and everyone starts gerrymandering, making all states politically binary in their representation. The sides for a succession / civil war become clear.
Just yesterday federal agents were in California against the will of the California state government, and gathered outside a building where the governor was speaking, so threats of violence / force are on the table already.
It's basically so incredible that I can't believe Russia and or China wasn't behind this, the dismantling of The Union, it's a Soviet wet dream and it could be happening for real.
Amazing.
It's not a new thing https://gerrymander.princeton.edu/
Gerrymandering is not new, but have states threatened to counter gerrymander each other like this before? Have we seen an escalating tit-for-tat directly between states like this before?
Also, Texas politicians are hiding in other states, and politicians in those other states are acknowledging this and trying to harbor them. This is a situation involving violent force, since Texas and the FBI are trying to arrest the Texas politicians who fled. Just states openly aggravating each other in matters of violence.
President Trump has also done things like threaten to withhold federal funds and aid from states he does not like. There are multiple examples of this. A state could justly feel that they are not getting any benefit from paying federal taxes if that happens.
We're also seeing the US military being deployed on US soil for divisive political reasons, and Trump threatens to do more of this in the future.
Not disagreeing. What Texas is doing and California's response is new, just adding context on what current state of gerrymandering. No idea if it will work, at least some democrat is doing something. But I have a feeling that its a bit late now that they'll have military in the streets of most major democrat cities once they copy what they did in DC. Frankly, anything less than a military coup is unlikely to stop project 2025.
The Supreme Court ruled in 1869 (Texas v. White) that a state cannot secede.
A state cannot secede* under the laws of the USA.
Similarly, under the laws of the Kingdom of Great Britain, the 13 colonies also couldn't secede: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proclamation_of_Rebellion
Famously, the laws didn't stop those colonies.
* T&C apply
If the Supreme Court wants to have its rulings respected they'll need to ensure that they have buy-in from all parties. Secession would be very messy. But there are borders that some states will not cross and others will, when - and if, and let's hope it does not come to pass - that happens there are lots of things on the table that the Supreme Court can no longer put a stop to. This is why Trump is as dangerous as he is: he doesn't care one bit about how the USA became the superpower that it is, he'll burn it all down for ego and personal gain, no matter what the consequences.
If the United States becomes an authoritarian dictatorship then the United States as we know it ceases to exist and all bets are off.
Cambodia nominated Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize for his administration’s apparent role in their recent ceasefire negotiations with Thailand: https://www.khmertimeskh.com/501734313/cambodia-officially-n...
Unclear if this is some kind of reactionary retaliation for perceived favorability toward Cambodia or if Trump’s apparently favorability toward Cambodia is retaliation for what he may have already known about Thailand’s shift toward EU weaponry. They’re hardly the first country to start shopping around, so the latter wouldn’t surprise me.
This is not some reciprocal action, it's just logical fallout that the US is no longer reliable as a military ally under this administration, and capable of electing similar leadership in the future. Much, much more of this is ahead. It will impact the USD.
Disgusting war profitering.
Sweden should not make such deals with a country attacking their neighbor.
Good thing Sweden isn’t selling jets to Cambodia then.
I mean, I would buy a Gripen over an F-16 anyday. However, the view from the F-16 cockpit is matched only by the F-22/F-35. damn near 360 degree bubble view.
How does one become a broker for military jets and does it pay well?
In Sweden, by being prime minister, aka arms dealer
Göran Persson selling JAS to south africa: https://www.aftonbladet.se/kultur/bokrecensioner/a/Rx6p1r/ja...
magdalena andersson wants to sell JAs to phillipines: https://www.svd.se/a/y6lrBg/sverige-kan-salja-jas-gripen-til...
the current Ulf Kristersson government is making money under the table selling jas to hungary: https://www.placera.se/telegram/saab-statssekreterare-kopte-...
sweden also sold jas to brazil.
notice how sweden is selling arms to dictators and crap countries?
All of those countries are democracies. Hungary is a member of the EU and NATO. "Crap countries" is just vague racism.
900 dollar profit. Heads should roll.
When we want to sell fighter jets and Karl Gustav rockets we send the King of Sweden to pander the deal. There have been some debacle over a few suitcases with bribes as well but hey that's probably a good paying job.
Ooh, now do Switzerland! We stupidly chose the stupid F-35, an airplane that couldn't even fly even if the Americans ssh'd in to let it.
The F35 overran on time and budget, sure, but it’s still an insanely good aircraft. I think the public perception that it’s a “failure” is a mistake
"insanely good" is still an exaggeration. It performs worse than the Gripen to carry a smaller payload a shorter distance, all sacrifices for a stealth feature you won't need outside hostile airspace or to launch standoff attacks. It is a suitable fit for America's JSF program, and a pretty dubious platform for almost everyone else.
You don't see the F-35 in deployment abroad too often because it's not really needed unless you intend to molest neighboring airspace. Unless you're Washington or Tel Aviv, it's hard justifying the cost.
Then maybe ask the pilots who doubt whether it can keep them alive, let alone accomplish a mission. Or look at the ready time versus maintenance time ratio.
Military hardware exists to achieve a certain mission. Having some insanely great engineering figures Mena's nothing if the hardware is too unreliable to get the job done.
I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that nobody wants to do business with a damned bully.
Brazil chose Gripen very soon after it Snowden leaks had revealed had intercepted Dilma Rouseff personal communications. I will be lazy here and paste a ChatGPT summary since I recalled the outline but not the details:
It’s very likely it played a significant role in the final choice — not necessarily as the only reason, but as a decisive tie-breaker.
Here’s why:
1. Timing was suspiciously close
Snowden’s NSA revelations came out in mid-2013.
Rousseff’s UN speech condemning U.S. spying was in September 2013.
Brazil announced the Saab Gripen NG selection in December 2013 — just three months later.
2. Boeing’s bid was politically radioactive Even if the Air Force had rated the F/A-18 highly, the president would have had to approve the purchase. After the scandal, a U.S. fighter buy would have looked domestically like ignoring a national insult.
3. Public and congressional pressure Brazilian media hammered the NSA issue for months, and opposition politicians would have used a U.S. aircraft deal as evidence of weakness or hypocrisy.
4. The other contenders were “good enough” Gripen NG wasn’t the cheapest in sticker price (Rafale was more expensive), but it was competitive in capability and far stronger in technology transfer terms. That made it easy to justify dropping the U.S. option without taking a big performance hit.
My assessment: If the NSA scandal hadn’t happened, Boeing would still have faced challenges on tech transfer, but it would likely have been the Gripen or F/A-18 in the final decision. With the scandal, the F/A-18 had near-zero chance — the scandal probably moved the Gripen from “contender” to “winner.”