One of smartest examples of the practical pooling of assets is the international program for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. A number of NATO allies including Great Britain, Italy, Netherlands, Canada, Denmark, Norway and Turkey are not only acquiring the Joint Strike Fighter but are participating in the development and production of the aircraft. At least for now, Great Britain is the only other country besides the United States that is acquiring the STOVL variant, the F-35B.----
Not only does the international program reduce the cost of acquiring fifth-generation fighters for all participants, but there will be tremendous advantages to be gained by virtue of the global supply chain, availability of shared facilities and standardized procedures. When it comes to conducting actual combat operations, the “pool” of F-35s in NATO will be one of the smartest defense investments the alliance has ever made.
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Daniel Goure, Ph.D.
Early Warning Blog, Lexington Institute
Given the lack of money everywhere, the "joint" solution calls for the Gripen. Or, just sign up for the F-35 so it can destroy a shrinking defense budget situation by gobbling up any money available for less than half the aircraft planned. As a "combat" force, it will be mostly defective.
5 comments:
Exactly. This has been my contention for a long while now. The whole project is espionage of the west.
Yup, the F-35 might be the greatest gift to come to the disarmament movement since the Berlin Wall came down. Only this time it will be massively effective on a global scale. Who knew?
Gripen? An F-16 class fighter? It'll be outdated in 10 years. As a stop gap measure, sure, but you already have Super Hornets.
A catastrophic TACAIR implosion event... as could be seen years ago.
I am going to laugh out loud when the F-35 turns out to be like an X-Wing Fighter or VF-1 Valkyrie...
One can hope.
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