Key Points and Summary – Canada is weighing a switch from its contracted F-35 buy to Saab’s JAS 39 Gripen.
-On paper, Gripen’s rugged dispersed ops and lower sticker price appeal, but lifecycle, integration, and delay costs would overwhelm any savings.
-NORAD modernization is built around stealth, sensor fusion and low-latency data links the F-35 already provides; Gripen would add latency and interoperability seams.
-A pivot would also sideline Canadian industry from F-35 upgrade cycles and signal reduced alliance interchangeability, complicating Arctic defense and the bridge to the U.S. F-47 ecosystem.
-The prudent course: stay with F-35, align block upgrades, and invest in Arctic-ready stealth infrastructure.
JAS 39 Gripen for Canada?
What if Ottawa scraps its plan to purchase the F-35 and instead chooses Saab’s JAS 39 Gripen?
Strong Specs, But Deceiving
The Swedish jet looks appealing on the spec sheet: It is road-base hardened, can be maintained in austere environments, operates with a fast turnaround, and has an attractively lower sticker price. However, lifecycle and integration costs would erase any notional savings.
When you back up to consider the full network the aircraft must operate inside – NORAD today, and the emerging sixth-generation ecosystem tomorrow – the downsides stack up fast. A JAS 39 Gripen buy would fracture U.S.–Canada air integration right at the moment it is being reoriented toward the Arctic.
It would also strand Canadian industry outside the core allied combat cloud, and it would delay or even derail Canada’s entry into the future F-47 family. The costs would swamp any operational, economic, or diplomatic gain.
First, consider timing and commitments. Canada is on contract to purchase the F-35. Aircraft will flow first to Luke Air Force Base for training in 2026–27, then to Canada from 2028–32. Switching to a different type would mean restarting processes such as certification, training, weapons integration, and construction of new infrastructure.
JAS 39 Gripen. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
This creates years of delay at the very time threats are developing fast in the Arctic and north Pacific. You don’t “save time” by starting over. You risk slipping well beyond the 2028–32 delivery window and missing the planned 2033 full operational capability.
It’s Not the Platform, It’s the System
Zoom out to the architecture within which Canadian aircraft operate. NORAD modernization is just now replacing 20th-century tripwires with 21st-century sensing. This involves Arctic and polar over-the-horizon radar, new command-and-control, and fighter infrastructure upgrades designed around high-bandwidth, low-latency data flows. This system is being built for persistent track-to-target continuity across the continent; it presumes a stealthy, deeply integrated sensor-shooter platform is in the loop.
The F-35 is that node today, and the JAS 39 Gripen is not. Buying outside this architecture would force Canada to add translation layers, accept more latency, and cut into the very advantage NORAD modernization is meant to deliver.
Proponents will point out the Gripen was designed for dispersed-operations, able to perform turnarounds on roads with minimal ground crews. This is true in a narrow sense, because that is exactly how Sweden designed the aircraft to perform. But survivable Arctic airpower is first and foremost about staying hidden in the network, not just agile on the ground. In long-range northern fights, a non-stealth 4.5-generation jet would count on the support of more tankers, more escorts, more decoys, and it would create more emissions.
That means a greater chance of early detection and interception, inverting any notional savings from the capability for austere support. The Gripen’s ruggedness is laudable, but it is not a substitute for low observability, fused sensors, and data-centric interoperability.
Canada Should Not Select Its Own Irrelevance
The alliance signal is also important. Canada’s credibility in NORAD and NATO is earned by being interchangeable with the United States in the missions that matter most. The F-35 is the common allied cockpit, software pipeline, and weapons roadmap.
A U.S. Air Force F-35A Lightning II assigned to the F-35A Lightning II Demonstration Team performs at the Westmoreland County Airshow in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, August 18, 2024. The F-35A is an agile, versatile, high-performance, 9g capable multirole fighter that combines stealth, sensor fusion and unprecedented situational awareness. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Zachary Rufus)
Stepping outside that ecosystem would force bespoke Canadian workarounds in mission data files, electronic warfare libraries, and software baselines, opening precisely the interoperability seams that NORAD modernization is spending billions to close.
Washington would read a JAS 39 Gripen pivot not as a sovereign choice to diversify, but as self-selected irrelevance. Canada cannot afford to be the odd jet out in its own airspace.
Industrial logic points the same way. Canadian firms are already wired into the global F-35 program, with billions awarded in work and long-tail sustainment. Shifting to the Gripen would not only jeopardize existing participation, but it would also shut Canadian industry out of the upgrade cycles of the most numerous fleet of fifth-generation aircraft in the world. In a software-defined aircraft, those cycles are the true economic engine. Walking away from them would be an own-goal.
The most important consequences would be strategic. The F-35 is the only credible bridge to the sixth-generation era that the United States has now locked in around the F-47. Boeing carries the F-47 mantle.
But Lockheed Martin is pitching a “fifth-generation-plus” F-35 that would incorporate selected Next Generation Air Dominance technologies including sensors, signatures, and possibly propulsion, to create a lower-risk, lower-cost onramp. That approach keeps allies inside the same combat cloud as the F-47 family.
Staying the Course: Say No to JAS 39 Gripen
Diplomatically, the collateral damage of a switch would be real. Framed however politely, a Canadian choice for the JAS 39 Gripen over a fifth-generation-plus F-35 would be received in Washington as a deliberate step away from interchangeability at the exact moment NORAD is being rebuilt for shared deterrence.
It would also complicate the bilateral division of labor in the Arctic, where U.S. planners are counting on Canadian fighters to plug specific gaps in a common kill web, not to stand up an incompatible parallel force. Ottawa could insist nothing fundamental had changed, but U.S. counterparts would act as if everything had.
This is not to denigrate the Gripen. It is a clever, cost-conscious fighter designed to fit Sweden’s geography and doctrine. In another strategic context, one with short ranges, dense passive networks, and built around roadbase dispersal against a nearby foe, it could shine. Canada’s context is different. It reckons with continental-scale distances, polar approaches, and an air defense mission that is fused with a superpower’s. That should drive the choice.
Seven F-35 Lightning II aircraft wait to take off for a U.S. Air Force Weapons School training mission at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, Jan. 31, 2024. The U.S. Air Force Weapons School teaches graduate-level instructor courses that provide advanced training in weapons and tactics employment to officers and enlisted specialists of the combat and mobility air forces. (U.S. Air Force photo by William R. Lewis)
The prudent choice is to stay the course on the F-35 and press for the “plus.” Align Canada’s block upgrades with the U.S. bridging plan so that software, sensors, and weapons spiral toward the F-47 ecosystem.
Keep investing in fighter infrastructure sized for stealth operations and Arctic dispersal; pair that with tankers, runway repair, and munitions stocks that make the network lethal in bad weather and at long range. Taken together, those moves harden deterrence and magnify alliance leverage.
Airpower is no longer a story about individual aircraft, but the network they enable. Canada can buy an airplane that excels at operating from a frozen road, or it can buy into the only allied combat cloud designed to keep North America safe through the 2030s and beyond.
About the Author: Dr. Andrew Latham
Andrew Latham is a Senior Washington Fellow with the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy, a non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities, and a professor of international relations and political theory at Macalester College in Saint Paul, MN. You can follow him on X: @aakatham. He writes a daily column for National Security Journal.
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William Finbarr Wilson
September 20, 2025 at 11:22 am
Problems with the F-35:
It is slow.
It is a gas guzzler.
It can only operate from a few bases (probably two in Canada).
It is perfectly easy to detect an F-35 with an L band radar which means a Tu-95 can easily avoid an intercept by the slow and low range F-35 operating from known bases.
Operating from a few known bases is an issue… (ask the Russians)
The spare parts are all 100 per cent in control of a country that has openly declared it wants to take over Canada.
The supplier of the F-35 has openly declared they would use “economic coercion” on Canada.
We in Canada probably won’t be buying into the F-47 and its downgraded capabilities as outlined by the USA’s commander and chief and head of state.
Sorry… but no thanks… It would be like buying a Corolla for the farm and not being able to access the spare tires if Toyota has a tizzy fit.
Karolis
September 20, 2025 at 3:19 pm
Why on Earth would you buy military equipment from a country that threatens you with annexation? Buying jet fighter (that can be “switched off) from potential military adversary is the stupidest idea of all times.
Tom Mckeown
September 20, 2025 at 7:39 pm
Why should Canada’s Govenment take any advise from an American political theorist. Your President has threaten us and we will not bend a knee to some foreign leader who thinks he should be a king. Also the veiled threats from the US Ambassador are vile. More then enough reason to not buy the F-35.
Koondog
September 20, 2025 at 8:12 pm
Hmm…an American weighs in on what is best for Canada. Yeah, there’s a waste of time for you. The F45 was chosen only because of the political capital it garnered with the States. Since you now have a completely irrational and unpredictable government in power that is bent on destroying international relations and betraying your closest ally at every turn, it is in Canada’s best interest on EVERY level to pick a European designed fighter.
The Gripen in particular is 1/4 the cost to buy, 1/4 the cost to operate, can be fully integrated with all NATO allies, can take off, land, and be serviced on a short stretch of straight highway, is built for our cold weather, has modular systems that are customizable and upgradable in house…the list of advantages just doesn’t stop.
Of course, the biggest failing with the F-45 is it leaves us in bed with a neighbour who neither respects nor values us.
Koondog
September 20, 2025 at 8:15 pm
For some reason I had 45 in my head. Obviously, everything I said applies to the F-35. The F-47 will be an absolute gong show as well…don’t expect any colourful cash coming your way for that debacle.
John
September 20, 2025 at 8:50 pm
Where’s Canada’s planes?
Dan
September 20, 2025 at 8:59 pm
The F35 is atrocious in cost and flight cost per hour. The American control over all aspects of this jet from mission approval to maintenance is ridiculous. Canada doesn’t ‘need’ this kind of submission.
Ken McMullen
September 20, 2025 at 9:32 pm
Which would be fine if we thought we could trust the United States.
In fact, we can’t, nor can NATO that the U.S. will even show up if the war in Ukraine expanded.
Mike Jones
September 20, 2025 at 9:58 pm
As a Canadian citizen, I believe we should scrap the F35 program. Keep the sixteen we already paid for and dump the rest. I believe Canada should go with the sob gripen as it is more suited for our climate and terrain. It will also bring jobs here to canadian soil. Therefore I believe it is a better fit,and deal for Canada and our airforce.. Put my tax dollars to good use.
Edmund Moores
September 20, 2025 at 10:08 pm
From what I have been reading the f-35 is already behind schedule and way above the original price. The Jas39 Gripen will be built in Canada and all parts needed will be easily obtained unlike the F-35. Sounds like a win for Canada
No one
September 20, 2025 at 10:33 pm
More jobs in Canada with choosing Gripen. F35 is a cash sink with low reliability and short on promises
Ray
September 20, 2025 at 11:13 pm
Then there is the issue of when it breaks down. And it does. Just ask the UK. Twice stranded overseas. Canada has no runways up north for the F35. Costs? Delays? Just look at the ballooning budget and they have yet to cost in tarrif or cost increases over the life span. Not a good deal for what is needed. Better to go to unmanned systems and leave the pilot sitting in Edmonton or comox
Canuck
September 20, 2025 at 11:45 pm
They’re both the wrong choice. We need a dedicated long-rage CAP fighter to cover the arctic, and a single-engine fighter isn’t that. That’s why we have 18s now, not 16s.
Both of those jets are great, they’re just not great for Canada.
We need to look closer at the Rafale and Typhoon.
philip darcy street
September 21, 2025 at 4:47 am
Since the CL84 Dynavert developed in Canada if a plane was not made in America, America was not interested in buying, so since the early mid 1970s we have faced discrimination only now do we see out right prejudice and mob pressure tactics ie pay to play or have access to USA markets. Why buy a plane were 50 to 55% are only fully operational ready to fly ie mission ready this is the USA own statistics while the Gripen is 80 to 85%. Tariffs are a tax a VAT tax on Americans. It was done to find money to try a service the massive debt and provide a massive tax break ony for the very rich. I hope a pray Americans will figure this out and figure this out soon before the current political person’s in control destroy everything.
Leon Meawasige
September 21, 2025 at 9:19 am
Its true, were in deep with the F-35 platform. Which sucks, cuz the gripen E, is exactly what we need. Its a mini Arrow.
I’ve heard, the rcaf, wants the f-35. So, it is known.
Im not a pilot, I reckon the gripen E is way more fun to fly. Its comparable to the f16, which is praise.
Too bad. I was looking forward to Canadian sovereignty with our air fighters, but, it seems we will stick with the system.
Carney will buy all 88, no doubt.
Too bad.
DAVID L PERKINS
September 21, 2025 at 9:41 am
So in other words, Canada shouldn’t aquire the Gripen because they couldn’t integrate with the US systems as easily. In the current global situation. That’s a definite plus. Canada has seen the US is not a reliable ally and with threats to its sovereignty bring made, I would distance myself from a supplier that could kill my whole air defense with a single command.
Timothy Olheiser
September 21, 2025 at 11:48 am
Canada has already agreed to purchasing, and have already paid for 16 F-35. I personally see three options for Canada as a Canadian: One, If we can bury the hatchet with Boeing in our dispute with Bombardier, there is the F15EX, a dual engine fighter. Second there is the South Korean KAI KF 21 Boramae also dual engine, and has a fifth gen on the drawing board, a joint program with Lockheed Martin. Third is the SAAB SAP 39 Gripen E/F, which has shown after the latest wargames shot down the F35 and F22 using interlink after turning off it’s radar. Canada was not considered for the F22 program, why would we believe we would be included in the F47 program? Other aircraft included in our consideration could be the UK Tempest program. The lesson learned here, is do you trust your allies, and our country’s sovereignty is not on the negotiating block when buying aircraft for Canada’s self defence? Yes, we have had ten years of stupid Trudeau/Carney Liberal government, but I can assure American’s, this former CF member Canadian takes it defense and sovereignty seriously.
Bow Wah Liu
September 21, 2025 at 12:50 pm
The Gripen wins in any air combat exercise it enters. Lately in a NATO exercise it defeated the F-35. It’s cheaper n better than the expensive F-35. Yrs ago Diefenbaker knuckled under to the USA: our $ lost $0.35 n the world’s best fighter the AVRO ARROW was scrapped n we were made to buy Voodoo CF-100(an outdated US fighter) not the F-100 orF4 Phantom. We can not rely on a country that wants to own us.
Rick Booth
September 21, 2025 at 1:10 pm
Interesting! Uniquely biased. Operational costs would be much less. Operational parameters and versatility far greater. Cost over the lifetime, much less. Economic benefits substantial. You talk of the F-47 as if it’s the second coming. Surely the UK, Italian and Japanese 6th gen looks more exciting and real.
You gloss over so much. Your apparent conclusion is that a review process, in fact a Canadian government decision is not necessary. The US will decide for Canada because they always have their best interests in mind. If anyone actually believes that check your audience for a heart beat.
Terry
September 21, 2025 at 1:13 pm
Trump killed this F35 sale by running his big mouth. For a host of reasons, I’d buy a very minimal number of F35s and buy the British Tempest.
All this could change if the US would manufacture the F35s in Canada.
Fred Scribner
September 21, 2025 at 3:57 pm
Of course this is an Andrew Latham piece the man is nothing but a shill for the American Military Industrial complex and this article is full of half truths and misrepresentations from the American point of view. You talk about life costs, it costs $35,000 US per hour to operate an F-35 and as we’ve seen with the Alaska crash it’s prone to malfunction in the freezing temperatures we have to operate in. The Gripen costs six or seven times less to operate and does the job we need it to do. End of story.🍁
Naveed Khan
September 21, 2025 at 5:43 pm
The F-35 is a low reliability just having a reliability score of 30 percent and insane flying cost per hour 8000 usd compared to 47000 usd per hour. Even the US cannot afford the cost now standing at over 1.58 trillion. SAAB deal comes with technology transfer and a local Canadian manufacturing unit that is way better than relying on the a falling US power. This guy had some thing to gain from the F 35 deal. Canada should start moving away from NATO and NORAD especially after it kept mum on the attack on the Qatari capital.
SOB
September 21, 2025 at 8:29 pm
You also assume Canada stays in NORAD.
The gripen is the smart choice to bring their defence sector back into r&d cycles that could lead very quickly to their own domestically developed and manufactured product.
Dave Paterson
September 21, 2025 at 8:58 pm
Sounds like many years ago. Scrap the Arrow and we’ll give you BOMARC missiles. It the way of the future!
Fool me once, shame on you! Fool me twice, shame on me.
Marcos
September 21, 2025 at 9:58 pm
The F35 is over-rated, over priced and not what canada needs. The US can shut it off any time they like and is not invisible to radar. Maintenance costs are astronomical. This is a by product of cancelling the aero arrow- with pressure of the US regime. We need to design and build our own. Clearly we can.
Robert Murawsky
September 21, 2025 at 10:19 pm
Let’s build our own planes and call it the arrow contractor. Build what the country needs, put our people to work. We did it once we can do it again.
Shaun Martin
September 21, 2025 at 10:54 pm
Sir, your bias is way too thick. If it doesn’t benefit Washington and Norad it’s bad. There are two sides to this issue sir. The F35 leaves the US in control of our air force. The Grippen does not.
Joseph
September 22, 2025 at 5:53 am
At the absolute minimum, Canadians would have to be out of their collective minds to rely on the United States for at least the next three and a half years. Remarkable that the author makes no mention at all of the miserable state of US Canada relations.
DC
September 22, 2025 at 12:51 pm
The F-35 is a flawed platform with a pathetic 50% availability, it really doesn’t matter how well it integrates with US systems when it spends half its time in the hanger being repaired.
The F-35 also needs extensive infrastructure to support it and costs $40,000 and hour to operate. The Gripen can operate sustainably in rough field conditions with a minimal support staff and equipment. It costs $8,000 an hour to operate, the lowest of any advanced fighter. I don’t see how the author can claim it would be more expensive to operate Gripens over the F-35 in the long term.
And at 90% availability for Gripen, most of your fighters are on the flight line not in the shop.
That’s before we even look at the vastly changed geopolitical situation now as the US Trump regime seems more friendly to Russia than it does to NATO nations. And has made open threats towards Canadian sovereignty itself. We simply couldn’t rely on full support for the F-35s we do buy from the US because of this.
Sweden does not represent that problem.
RSC
September 22, 2025 at 8:12 pm
“In long-range northern fights, a non-stealth 4.5-generation jet would count on the support of more tankers, more escorts, more decoys, and it would create more emissions.”
Is this a propaganda plant of an article? The Gripen has more than 50% greater range than the the F35 so would have less need of tankers and it is also FAR more fuel efficient – it is the F35 that would “create more emissions”.
As other have pointed out, the F35 stealthiness doesn’t work against the very enemies we would want it to, as Russian systems can detect the f35.
You are most definitely correct about one very key point though: NORAD interoperability and the F35s integration as a ‘node’ in the defense network. That is why we should in fact, keep the order for 88 F35s, but also add 50-60 Saab Gripen Es. Please spare me the argument that 2 fighters is too much for little old Canada to operate and maintain: there are dozens of countries that do this including countries with significantly less money and population. Canada is more than doubling its military budget in the next few year so this reason hold ZERO water.
Andrew Zador
September 23, 2025 at 12:55 pm
With all due respect the author’s expertise, the mere fact that he is a “Washington Fellow” should disqualify him from volunteering any advice to Canada. During ordinary times advice might acceptable, but with economic hostilities, insults to Prime Ministers, bullying, and the rise of far-right and even Nazi tactics, no advice can be treated as friendly.
Bob M
September 23, 2025 at 1:03 pm
Yes Mr Latham seems to consistantly write article on why Canada needs the F35. I have to wonder if someone (who is an American) who writes this same opinion consistently isn’t also being paid by Lockheed Martin as well to hype there product. As others have mentioned the Gripen looks better every day. The ongoing continuing extra costs on the F35 don’t appear to be going away. Further one has to remember Trump wants those f35 jobs brought back to the US after the current contracts run out.
Canuck666
September 23, 2025 at 5:09 pm
Forget the f35. Buy the gripen as a stopgap. Join the the UK japan Italy project. Forget the USA as a stable trading partner. The end.
Kent Hunter-Duvar
September 23, 2025 at 6:48 pm
As Canadian I have serious misgivings about buying the F-35. I’m not so sure we benefit so much from NORAD. We just happen to be on the route from Russia, not so much their target and are they even the prime threat anymore. Maybe NORAD would be effective against China, I’m not sure. He brings up Canada’s contributions to the F-35 ecosystem and the parts we currently manufacture. Under the current administration those benefits are under threat. Both the push to repatriate manufacturing to the US and tarrifs on aluminum. And if the US should become the attacker, will our F-35s be stealthy?
C Hartmann
September 24, 2025 at 11:31 am
How about the YF23? The stealth cross section was nearly invisible. It has already been designed and competed in a contaversary competition with F22. It was deemed superior in many aspects to F22. If necessary, buy they research if necessary. If we are still stuck on the f35 which will be obsolete when motion form of radar is designed, insist on the original price and built with tarriff exempt materials and in Canada.
C Hartmann
September 24, 2025 at 11:39 am
Consider purchasing the YF23 as an alternative to the F35. It is only a matter of time until stealth is solved (perhaps by motion detector) or a proximity missile that only needs to be close to cause damage. F35 is too slow, expensive to maintain, needs fuel. Further if they want the f35 sold to Canada, insist on the original price, Canadian tarriff exempt materials and built in Canada.
K Shevchenko
September 24, 2025 at 3:23 pm
So let me get this straight. A website run by the same people who are threatening us with punishment for trying to end a genocide that they have a hand in, is telling us somehow that buying an already overpriced fighter with additional tariffs in billions of dollars on top of it, for an incomplete fighter that won’t be complete until mid 2030’s, that even the USAF is calling a mistake and a pipedream, from a neighbor who threatens to invade and annex our sovereign nation into their dictatorship every week, with a kill switch in the form of denied software update from the United States, is in our best interest? You couldn’t even write a satire this bad. What kind of sick joke is this? You want to enslave us with NORAD? How much longer are we going to fall for these snake oil vendors south of our border? Gripen could be a gateway to reviving our own fighter programs. Saab offered to license build our Gripens in Canada. That’s still a step closer to developing our own indigenous designs than buying everything from the US. They killed the CF-100, and now they don’t want Canada to have any level of self-reliance. Disturbing and disingenuous. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
E
September 25, 2025 at 3:02 pm
So lockheed mouthpeice Latham is at it again trying to disprove the fact that the F-35 is a one trick pony. And a fat duck in the air, at that. The Fripen is faster, more agile, got longer range, got better air to air capabilities, at least equal strike capabilities. It is also the most technologically advanced fighter out of the two despite what Lockheed is saying, specifically developed to detect and engage stealth aircraft. Its networking capabilities exeeds the F-35 by a good margin. Plus its much more cost effective, faster to build, easier to upgrade, and countries can maintain sovereign controll over their fleets and their doctrine when using it, as opposed to the F-35.
So no, mr. Latham. Again you prove how ill conceived your Lockheed PR articles are.