Saab makes excellent AWACS systems, this strikes me as a good choice. It'll be interesting to see if Canada also invests in the Gripen long-term, as a replacement for the aging CF-18 fleet.
> Saab is also in the running to sell Canada some of its Gripen fighters.
The Iran war has uncovered a vulnerability of the USAF's approach to basing. The USAF likes to build large, elaborate air bases. Many of the bases used to attack Iran have been hit by Iran.[1][2]
Large air bases are tough to defend from drones and missiles in quantity. There are anti-drone weapons, but now that drones are used by the thousands and tens of thousands, some of the attacks will get through. A major air base is a big, fat, soft target. Both the US and Russia have recently found this out the hard way. Air forces now need to disperse and hide.
Saab, which stresses operating from minimal airfields and roads, has aircraft better suited to that.[3]
Stealth may not help as much, especially for fighters. Geometric stealth, which is designed to reflect radar beams to anywhere except straight back, doesn't help for bistatic and multi-static radar. All the players in the current wars have some of those systems now.
So, as in WWII, air operations anywhere near the enemy require dispersal.
Now the interesting question to me is why is that a country with a tenth of population can have car, truck and military plane manufacturing yet Canada can’t, even with virtually all resources for inputs, including energy can’t.
The Arrow would be a terrible, terrible aircraft for today's world.
It was built to shoot down Soviet bombers coming over the North Pole. It could not perform air superiority missions because it was too big to be agile. It could maybe be a strike fighter, but generally its reputation overstates just how good it would have actually been.
>As of March 31st, 2026, Airbus reported a commercial aircraft backlog of 9,031 aircraft. Based on the company’s 2026 delivery target of 870 aircraft, this represents approximately 10.4 years of production coverage.
>Boeing’s commercial backlog stood at approximately 6,719 aircraft at the end of March. Using Forecast International’s production estimates, Boeing’s backlog equates to roughly 10.1 years of production coverage.
What does a commercial backlog have to do with an aircraft for military purposes? I'm sure there is a different lane for military aircraft. Anyone ordering an aircraft for military purposes is not going to sit on the same waiting list as a commercial airline.
Canada is aligning itself with it's European Allies. Several EU NATO members have chosen the same aircraft over Boeing.
>Airbus reported a commercial aircraft backlog of 9,031
> 10.4 years of production coverage
Kinda true, airlines and manufacturers like to do big order announcements/deals for their future needs of few years all upfront. If Airbus suddenly delivered all 9k aircraft most airlines simply cannot afford it, or take possession and use them even.
For example Indigo is Airbus only operator with a fleet of 450 today and has around 920 more Airbus aircraft (10% of the book) on order. Neither Indigo or Indian aviation sector( of which Indigo is 60%) can triple the capacity today . India need serious upgrades (Terminals, Runways, Gates, new airports) coming online and also demand maturing, i.e. more people can afford to fly for that kind of volume to make sense which even the best scenario will happen over the next decade.
For more mature/slow growing airlines it is function of existing fleet age and the optimal point each aircraft is retired/sold , doing it too early will make them unprofitable .
It is a less a backlog and more their next 10 years of committed sales.
P.S. There is whole other industry aspect around Buy-Sell-and-leaseback financial engineering that can drive order volumes a bit. The backlog/order book also have commodity futures aspects.
What is stopping the Swedes from electing a jackass? They seem smart for now? It happens in Europe too. All these weaknesses are liable for any country in a democratic model where executive is controlled via popular vote. Population is trivial to manipulate. This is the new world. Running to Sweden doesn't change the underlying issue of the ease of manipulating an electorate using technological affordances to capture a nation from the inside without a single shot fired.
I do think first past the post is a big part of the problem. Combined with primaries dominated by the most radical parts of the population you have the recipe for very unhinged results.
From a very practical PoV, the only military threat to Canada is from the U.S.
Even if the U.S. and Canada are enemies, if Canada is being attacked by a country that is not the U.S., then the U.S. will come to its defense because they don’t want another nation with the capability to attack Canada to have a North American presence.
So given that the U.S. is the only possible military threat to the U.S., and now that the U.S. has openly threatened Canada, it’s incredibly silly to buy weaponry from the only country that could militarily attack you and almost certainly won’t share repair material, parts, software source etc. and possibly has a kill switch.
aside from political alignment, theres a lot of geographic, budget and climate and stategic alignments that would put swdeen designers in the same headspace.
Vastly inferior and overpriced. From now till delivery the US will blackmail the buyer with delays and increase the agreed upon price at least 3 times. Standard practice.
this has been happening before anyone even thought trump would run: in 2015 trudeau ran on cancelling the f35 purchase. So what did obama do to canadians?
The US wedgetail order was canceled and Canada can't afford to fund the program on its own. But slop journalists will spin a geopolitical angle because it gets clicks.
Over the last few months we've seen announcements of shifts from US-based supply chains to non-US-supply chains. As an American, I think this is prudent, based on what has happened in the last year and change. The US is no longer a reliable partner and this is what you do when that happens.
100 years from now, the last 15 months will be written about in no uncertain terms: this administration has loaded many footguns and pulled the trigger, over ideologies which are just plain stupid. "America First" indeed. Soft power is power. "Forever" wars are wars we shouldn't be in. Retribution by POTUS acting like a 5 year old is disgusting no matter what party that person came from.
It will take decades to recover from what has and will happen during this administration's run. Let's hope the power they have ends in November 2026 and not Nov 2028.
As an American with mostly headline-level knowledge of Canadian politics, this Mark Carney seems unusually competent and effective, as far as heads-of-state go.
Mark is a technocrat. He started his political career after a long, successful stint as an economist and central bank governor. Nobody is perfect but he is about the best leader Canada can hope for to lead it out of the current funk it is in. Pivoting away from a long-term trading partner is not an easy process.
Frankly, the issues that Canada faces now stem from a long history of questionable policies, starting from when Diefenbaker shuttered the Arrow and stripped the talent and parts to be scooped up by Boeing, Lockheed et al all the way to when Mulroney & Reagan signed the FTA dooming Canada's private sector. None of this has been good for Canada's sovereignty and long term independence/success. A non-trivial amount of the SV luminaries that have started companies which showcase American inventiveness have a Canadian passport even though they don't advertise it.
The strained relationship with the US right now is actually providing ample opportunity for Canada to make some strategic long term bets without the "US foreign policy alignment" overhang. I'm optimistic.
Countries always use the threat of buying Swedish war planes as a bargaining chip to get a better deal from the US, or whoever they're really going to buy from. So these news are best believed when everything is signed, sealed, and delivered. This has been going on for at least 20 years with SAAB fighters.
From the article: "Saab is also in the running to sell Canada some of its Gripen fighters. Canada has a deal to buy 88 F-35 jets from Lockheed-Martin, but last year, after the US slapped tariffs on key Canadian imports, Carney asked the military to investigate whether it could cut back the order and buy some planes from another manufacturer."
Ask yourself: Why would a nation spill military secrets like this to the media? They're trying to put pressure on the US. Those Gripen fighters are in all likelihood staying in Sweden after all is said and done.
I feel a deep sense of pride and hope, palpably in my chest, when I get a week of news about how we're developing much closer ties with our European allies and divesting ourselves of the abusive American relationship.
Carney's Davos speech was powerful, but those words needed to be followed by actions, which I think we are seeing. I'm used to being so disappointed by politicians.
This is actually more likely a non-political procurement decision that looks like a political one.
This is the 'right size' for Canada and other nations - the US doesn't offer a true comparable, and, looks like the US balked at buying the 'kind of comparable' Boeing E7 putting it in jeopardy.
With European military renaissance and the SAAB gear proving itself in Ukraine ... well, you see the shift.
This is the shift writ large.
This is going to happen across all industries.
I don't think it's going to 'fundamentally' alter the landscape, but it will be a shift we don't come back from.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 65.7 ms ] threadhttps://aerospaceglobalnews.com/news/pentagon-e-7-wedgetail-...
> Saab is also in the running to sell Canada some of its Gripen fighters.
The Iran war has uncovered a vulnerability of the USAF's approach to basing. The USAF likes to build large, elaborate air bases. Many of the bases used to attack Iran have been hit by Iran.[1][2]
Large air bases are tough to defend from drones and missiles in quantity. There are anti-drone weapons, but now that drones are used by the thousands and tens of thousands, some of the attacks will get through. A major air base is a big, fat, soft target. Both the US and Russia have recently found this out the hard way. Air forces now need to disperse and hide. Saab, which stresses operating from minimal airfields and roads, has aircraft better suited to that.[3]
Stealth may not help as much, especially for fighters. Geometric stealth, which is designed to reflect radar beams to anywhere except straight back, doesn't help for bistatic and multi-static radar. All the players in the current wars have some of those systems now.
So, as in WWII, air operations anywhere near the enemy require dispersal.
[1] https://defencesecurityasia.com/en/iran-strikes-us-bases-mid...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/01/world/middleeast/iran-str...
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyD0liioY8E
These engineers came in handy when the Industrial Revolution started.
Thus Sweden has a long history of manufacturing industry.
The future of air superiority, particularly with respect to sovereign defence is passive or quantum radar, autonomous A2/AD and directed energy.
It was built to shoot down Soviet bombers coming over the North Pole. It could not perform air superiority missions because it was too big to be agile. It could maybe be a strike fighter, but generally its reputation overstates just how good it would have actually been.
I wonder why ? I think we may be seeing a lot more of this.
Maybe we will get to see what US Corporations value more, real paying customers or large tax cuts w/stock buy back curtsy of US Gov Monetary Support.
>As of March 31st, 2026, Airbus reported a commercial aircraft backlog of 9,031 aircraft. Based on the company’s 2026 delivery target of 870 aircraft, this represents approximately 10.4 years of production coverage.
>Boeing’s commercial backlog stood at approximately 6,719 aircraft at the end of March. Using Forecast International’s production estimates, Boeing’s backlog equates to roughly 10.1 years of production coverage.
https://flightplan.forecastinternational.com/2026/04/14/airb...
Canada is aligning itself with it's European Allies. Several EU NATO members have chosen the same aircraft over Boeing.
> 10.4 years of production coverage
Kinda true, airlines and manufacturers like to do big order announcements/deals for their future needs of few years all upfront. If Airbus suddenly delivered all 9k aircraft most airlines simply cannot afford it, or take possession and use them even.
For example Indigo is Airbus only operator with a fleet of 450 today and has around 920 more Airbus aircraft (10% of the book) on order. Neither Indigo or Indian aviation sector( of which Indigo is 60%) can triple the capacity today . India need serious upgrades (Terminals, Runways, Gates, new airports) coming online and also demand maturing, i.e. more people can afford to fly for that kind of volume to make sense which even the best scenario will happen over the next decade.
For more mature/slow growing airlines it is function of existing fleet age and the optimal point each aircraft is retired/sold , doing it too early will make them unprofitable .
It is a less a backlog and more their next 10 years of committed sales.
P.S. There is whole other industry aspect around Buy-Sell-and-leaseback financial engineering that can drive order volumes a bit. The backlog/order book also have commodity futures aspects.
* Arbitrarily slapped high tariffs on all goods from Canada while exempting Russia and Belarus.
* Threatened to take over the country by force.
* Officially suspended the Permanent Joint Board on Defense between US and Canada because of criticism of US foreign policy by the Canadian PM
This is due to sanctions. There is no trade between Russia and the USA to put tariffs on.
Even if the U.S. and Canada are enemies, if Canada is being attacked by a country that is not the U.S., then the U.S. will come to its defense because they don’t want another nation with the capability to attack Canada to have a North American presence.
So given that the U.S. is the only possible military threat to the U.S., and now that the U.S. has openly threatened Canada, it’s incredibly silly to buy weaponry from the only country that could militarily attack you and almost certainly won’t share repair material, parts, software source etc. and possibly has a kill switch.
I thought they were sanctioned to hell and back. Do tariffs even apply as a concept?
this has been happening before anyone even thought trump would run: in 2015 trudeau ran on cancelling the f35 purchase. So what did obama do to canadians?
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2026/05/21/italy-moves-to...
I guess insulting and threatening your allies isn't great for arms sales.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8qSZO4jvTI
(You can watch just the first minute to get the gist)
100 years from now, the last 15 months will be written about in no uncertain terms: this administration has loaded many footguns and pulled the trigger, over ideologies which are just plain stupid. "America First" indeed. Soft power is power. "Forever" wars are wars we shouldn't be in. Retribution by POTUS acting like a 5 year old is disgusting no matter what party that person came from.
It will take decades to recover from what has and will happen during this administration's run. Let's hope the power they have ends in November 2026 and not Nov 2028.
That's putting it mildly. Threatening to invade allies justifies stronger words.
Frankly, the issues that Canada faces now stem from a long history of questionable policies, starting from when Diefenbaker shuttered the Arrow and stripped the talent and parts to be scooped up by Boeing, Lockheed et al all the way to when Mulroney & Reagan signed the FTA dooming Canada's private sector. None of this has been good for Canada's sovereignty and long term independence/success. A non-trivial amount of the SV luminaries that have started companies which showcase American inventiveness have a Canadian passport even though they don't advertise it.
The strained relationship with the US right now is actually providing ample opportunity for Canada to make some strategic long term bets without the "US foreign policy alignment" overhang. I'm optimistic.
It's like when your favourite restaurant gets taken over by new management, and you discover cockroaches and maggots in your Trenette al Pesto
You switch restaurants.
From the article: "Saab is also in the running to sell Canada some of its Gripen fighters. Canada has a deal to buy 88 F-35 jets from Lockheed-Martin, but last year, after the US slapped tariffs on key Canadian imports, Carney asked the military to investigate whether it could cut back the order and buy some planes from another manufacturer."
Ask yourself: Why would a nation spill military secrets like this to the media? They're trying to put pressure on the US. Those Gripen fighters are in all likelihood staying in Sweden after all is said and done.
Carney's Davos speech was powerful, but those words needed to be followed by actions, which I think we are seeing. I'm used to being so disappointed by politicians.
This is the 'right size' for Canada and other nations - the US doesn't offer a true comparable, and, looks like the US balked at buying the 'kind of comparable' Boeing E7 putting it in jeopardy.
With European military renaissance and the SAAB gear proving itself in Ukraine ... well, you see the shift.
This is the shift writ large.
This is going to happen across all industries.
I don't think it's going to 'fundamentally' alter the landscape, but it will be a shift we don't come back from.
For those who aren't aware, the Boeing E7 is yet-another-delayed-Boeing project.
The UK has bought it but it has been continually delayed: https://breakingdefense.com/2026/03/uk-defense-official-boei...
Australia flies it (an earlier version) but today announced they are also buying three Bombardier Global 6500: https://www.australiandefence.com.au/news/news/bombardier-de...