Sheepdog John

I have high hopes for Carney and the DIA.

Again, I am not opposed to diversifying our hardware and making more friends.

But South Korea also uses American engines. Their next-gen KF-21 uses the F414 engine, also licensed from GE.

I am not personally opposed to Gripen.

Sweden does not run an engine and materials science research division.

They license a last generation American engine from GE and took twice the time to develop an objectively inferior jet. This is not to detract from the fact we should buy Gripen.

Let me be clear. Defense is very capital and technically intensive. I do not expect another GE, PW, Rolls-Royce, another high-end engine prime to pop up in my lifetime.

You will only see more options if a large, rich nation pours billions of dollars into standing up an (inferior) competitor.

I'd like to point out that I'm not talking about F-35 at this time. I'm talking about all the other projects that were procured through UOR.

In our case with the F-35, we kinda have to go with the technically worse option just because we're not sure we can rely on the supply chain for our preferred option.

The point is that sometimes (a lot of times), there is no competition and your options are to sole source the one product that fits your requirements or run a competition with options that objectively don't fit your requirements.

It's always been the case. Defense technology is by definition cutting edge and has a limited market.

It's expensive to run a jet engine and materials science R&D program and even more so when you can only sell to maybe ten clients.

The F-35 program is a more than decade long project. It is not an UOR.

Another example: GD is the only company that manufactures APCs in Canada. The Canadian government had a fleet of 650 LAV3s that they upgraded to LAV6.

Do you honestly believe that any foreign competitor would submit a bid with the actual expectation of winning? Would the government ever pick them?

If you want jet engines, your options are basically GE, Rolls-Royce, or Pratt and Whitney. Don't like the Americans? Great. That means your only option is Rolls-Royce which means there's no point of holding a competition.

The other thing about defense is that there is inherently less competition in the defense industry. It's not like you can just go into Walmart and buy a dozen APCs.

And that's if no future cabinet comes in and cancels it.

We definitely need UORs.

You're right. It should not take years to do a major purchase.

However, practically, if you are spending >$10 million on a procurement (basically every project), it's classified as a major capital project (it'll take at least 10 years to complete).

A lot more than 159 Canadian soldiers would be casualties in Afghanistan if UORs for Leopard 2, RG-31 MRAPs, C-IED equipment, and LAV III were not executed. UORs are your only option when you're out of time.

I don't have internal insight into the program. But Lockheed will have to have an upgrade package for pre Block 4 jets unless they want to lose customers. No one is going to buy new jets with every upgrade package.

The Australians have their own metrics on how to fight China. Thankfully, we're much farther away so we have less stringent requirements.

A Block 3 F-35 has less processing power, munition flexibility, and kinematic performance than a Block 4. It will still kill everything that isn't an F-35.

I remind you that Israel tore apart the Iranian A2AD network, purposely designed against F-35, and suppressed ballistic missile launches across the country with just 45 planes. By comparison, the US required an order of magnitude more planes to do the same in Iraq.

Let me put it this way. If you have 4th gen fighters and want to strike a peer opponent or fend off a 5th gen fighter, you'll need around 4 fighters. With F-35, you only need the one.

I've written to you saying that I believe in a mixed fleet solution. However, the F-35 has no real Western competitor. Even if it's expensive (not that much more by fighter jet standards), nothing else can do the job as well.

Russia/China in the Arctic and Russia in Europe.

Take some advice from a defense observer. FPVs and small drones cannot replace stealthy airpower. Just because it may be a bad idea to go all in on F-35 doesn't mean they don't do their jobs very well.

I don't think we disagree about diversification. It's just nuance over how many more we should buy. It would be wasteful to buy and support a jet that only comprises 20% of your fleet. Maybe 32-44 F-35s would be a good compromise?

4. We are not going to buy hundreds of fighters.

1. A hi-lo mix of F-35 and Gripen sounds fine.
2. The argument is more whether a GCAP and F-35 mix is a better option given time scale (2035 target service) if F-35 does come through.
3. CCA will require manned (stealth) fighters to accompany them even when autonomy gets ironed out.

Buying no jets at all is not really an option because that's essentially just killing the Air Force.

To be clear, are you advocating buying Gripen jets for a mixed fleet or are you criticizing any further purchase of F-35?

The armed forces are but one component for securing our sovereignty. They alone cannot form a sufficient deterrent and must be paired with other more unconventional methods to send the message that any revisionism will be dearly paid for.