Full on invasion is not the only risk. What if we wanted to support allies in protecting Greenland? What if we wanted to conduct an operation elsewhere in the world that the US disagrees with?

It is not impossible to believe the US oppose NATO from defending a county against Russia. That is the enemy the Gripens were specifically designed to fight.

What bullshit, they can't even keep them in the air. Massive cost overruns, budgets ballooning exponentially, capabilities advertised unavailable, 50% availability means while our enemies are blowing the shit out of us they are stuck in the hanger being paper-weights. Look it up yourself, they won't have advertised capability until 2035. They are also rusting on the tarmac, how will that work for stealth, lol. Fuck the F35 i'd rather have a fighter that can fly and perform as advertised. Look up all it's problems yourself, they are numerous.

And then you’d have a few million Canadians that look physically identical to Americans becoming insurgents fucking up canadian infrastructure making a Canadian invasion expensive and troublesome. We’d never go after them with guns blazing, that would be foolish, we’d just make it uncomfortable and very expensive to be here.

America couldn’t win wars against 3rd world countries with a thousandth the resources of Canada and a visibly different demographic. What makes you think they’d be any more successful here?

Brilliant.

I know what he’s talking about: not against American pilots, but as make-believe American pilots.

Which is a good idea, but not perfect: American pilots will have noticeably different behaviours and tactics, and even personality types that are (generally) not found up here. While training against other Canadians in an F-35 is great, it’s not as good as training against Americans in an F-35.

But that’s the trick - how do we get America, using F-35 aircraft, to help us to train up our Gripen pilots?

And when our original order of 88 or so F-35 planes could, if completely cancelled and on a per-dollar basis, buy 420 Gripens straight from Europe, how do we get America to unknowingly train up so many Gripen pilots?

Yes, because even though America made a shitty fighter jet, it is their best fighter jet, and likely better than your fighter jet(when working), and they will sell it to you because they believe non-Americans can be allies.

China will never ally themselves with anybody else at that level. They are an ethnostate that purges minorities and redraws the borders to capture land from their “allies” like clockwork.

Quip if you must, but know the next hegemon in line will barely tolerate you as a vassal.