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I'm surprised the main reason isn't mentioned. NATO. This is a way to pony up money in a way that would be appreciated if Finland joined NATO. It's the kille

I'm surprised the main reason isn't mentioned. NATO. This is a way to pony up money in a way that would be appreciated if Finland joined NATO. It's the killer feature of F-35 and F-22 and heck modernized F-16s. I suppose it's hinted at. Finland can't find and maintain an air force alone... Stealth simply isn't as important as one would think so long as you're not running missions into enemy territory.

sofixa 4y ago
There are other NATO jets outside of the US manufactured ones - Rafales, Typhoons, soon Gripens.
- psychphysic 4y ago
  This is a side note, but are you absolutely convinced Sweden will join NATO?
  - sofixa 4y ago
    I'm an optimist and hope that Erdogan will finally lose the next election, and thus there will be no more political blocking of Sweden joining.
    - miroljub 4y ago
      Why do you expect the next government will somehow be better for Sweden than Erdoğan? If they climb to power, they will still need to compel to hardcore nationalist population, in case of Sweden even more than Erdoğan, since they will need their social credit for topic they find important to them and won't burn it because of Sweden.
      - mschuster91 4y ago
        In the end, Erdogan's opposition to Sweden is mostly related to Sweden granting asylum to Kurds, and Sweden can't (and won't) extradite them because Swedish law forbids them to. And if the opposition candidate wins, he will be busy repairing all the mess Erdogan did to Turkey's foreign relations - even if the nationalists in the coalition will whine, they can't afford wasting more political good-will for a couple hundred Kurds.
        chii 4y ago
        turkey knows they are in a position to extract more concessions out of sweden (and the US). Sweden wants to be in NATO more than NATO truly need sweden, and turkey knows it. Eventually turkey will concede, but not before squeezing every drop of advantage they can obtain. It doesn't really matter who's at the top in turkey - the incentive dictates the behaviour.
      - psychphysic 4y ago
        Similarly I suspect any Turkish leadship would place a high value on it's relationship with Russia. Turkey feels safe already with respect to Russia. But increasingly slighted by Western attitudes.
    - rswskg 4y ago
      Erdogan is going nowhere sadly.
- actionfromafar 4y ago
  If it wasn't for the need to do your part in the alliance, of which the US is the most powerful member, then Finland would probably choose Gripen, hands down. The Gripen is basically designed for Finland by virtue of being designed for Sweden. Ground crew of 3, can land and depart with regular roads, reload-refuel in 15 minutes, low fuel consumption etc etc. Even with Sweden within NATO, Sweden would be a small industrial-military partner and the US a big one.
  - gggggg5 4y ago
    > can land and depart with regular roads This is worth way less than it sounds like. Building runways is cheap. > The Gripen is basically designed for Finland by virtue of being designed for Sweden Sweden wanting to prop up their domestic industry does not mean that Gripen is the best fighter jet for Sweden.
    - actionfromafar 4y ago
      > Building runways is cheap? I don't think you understand. Sweden always planned to fight a contracting, losing war, eventually devolving into partisan warfare. If I recall the Cold War plans correctly, one of the more realistic plans prepared for 3-4 weeks of war before being overrun and partisan warfare starting. The road-as-runway plan was critical for this, there would be no time to build anything, just keep everything flying and attacking from surprise locations for as long as possible. The submarine force tied into to this also, with its ability to stay submerged for 3 weeks. The whole idea was never for Sweden to really win, just to make the Soviet win so momentally Pyrrhic they would think twice about an actual ground invasion. From a military standpoint, we never hoped for our major cities to be spared nukes. We counted on them being bombed to oblivion day one. Try building runways when all major infrastructure and the country is in total chaos. That's why there were arms and fuel depots everywhere, with everything from missiles down to submachine guns. Edit: and you say propping up defence industry as if insinuating it's just a boondoggle. When it comes to geopolitics, it's not. It's the only way to have total control of supply chains and constant upgrade of arms. Gripen may have become something of a boondoggle over time, but it was born from the Cold War and still traces most of its design goals from that situation.
- Phiwise_ 4y ago
  The Rafale, Typhoon, Gripen, etc. are not comparable to the F-35. The F-35, beyond being a purpose-built stealth jet, is almost as much an electronic warfare platform as it is traditional multirole fighter. The tech is as much on sale as the ability to fly is; 35's software, sensor suite, etc. is famously advanced. Neither can really be substituted for the other; the US' own A-10 and F-15/16 modernization projects failing to really keep pace demonstrate this. This is why SaaB had to throw in two GlobalEye AWACS platforms with their offer of 64 Gripens to match LM's 64 F-35s (and Boeing's 14 EA-18Gs with their 50 FA-18Fs). Finland pretty much knew who would win the testing when they selected their definition of success, ignoring the unexpected (which to be fair did eliminate two competitors); either you want the traditional fighter model with inherent low cost and you go with Gripen, or you want in on the F-35's technology platform and true multirole capability (higher payload) and you politically bully LM into delivering you a reasonable price cut (probably on the basis of US jobs in the short term, I'd guess), like the article seems to describe. And frankly, good on the Finns for doing it.
oblio 4y ago
> Stealth simply isn't as important as one would think so long as you're not running missions into enemy territory. That would be a silly assumption, to buy a jet fighter and assume you'd never run missions into enemy territory. More than that, if <<your own country>> gets invaded, guess what, they put SAMs onto your territory and suddenly it becomes <<enemy territory>> :-)
- psychphysic 4y ago
  Edit: I realised you're probably being tongue in cheek here and I completely missed it. That's not quite how it works. It's not like a game of Civilization II where stealth beats SAM. The problem modern stealth aims to defeat is that radar capabilities are networked with high speed processing. Rolling a single S-400 into enemy territory doesn't suddenly make even mig-29s obselete. Similarly an F-117 couldn't fly over even a S-125 with absolute safety.
  - oblio 4y ago
    Russia or similar invaders didn't roll a "single S-400" into Ukraine. Nor would they in any similar invasion. They'd bring in the whole shebang. So my rhetorical question to you would be: why would you not buy a system with a reduced radar footprint, advanced avionics, advanced weapons control systems and advanced networking? Even if it's only for defensive purposes. Heck, even if it's for flying strictly over territory you control. Advanced radars cover hundreds of kilometers as do modern anti-air missiles. They can shoot you down without even going near their direct airspace. That's what Russia is doing right now, they're taking down Ukrainian aircraft at no risk to themselves launching a bunch of R37s from deep in their territory (50-100km) from Migs Ukraine can't reach or even see.
    - psychphysic 4y ago
      I'm not disagreeing at all. It's just that being in with NATO is more important than equipment case in point Ukraine. F-35 is designed for ingress into densely covered enemy territory. The stealth allows more flexibility in approach it stops jets being scrambled along the route, it stops assets being moved in to hangars and otherwise hidden. It means you're less likely to be flying through a valley of manpads. Who were all warned of impending jets coming in. Flying into an enemy carrier group with airborne radar being pinged from every direction. These are the missions Israel runs against Iran and Syria (not the carrier group) or the US may theoretically run against Russia in a world war situation (during conflict it's likely the US would be protected by heavy ECW from growlers not just stealth). This is not within Finland's likely missions unless it's acting with NATO. If you don't need that then there are many cheaper, easier to run alternatives. So does Finland want an F-35 or a bunch of gripen and hundreds of manpads and ATGMs? Ukraine has repelled Russia very effectively with just manpads, ATGMs and NATO intelligence. All things being equal that would be preferable. If buying US weapons NATO becomes more protective then the calculus changes.
mlindner 4y ago
> I'm surprised the main reason isn't mentioned. > NATO. Because that's not the main reason or even a primary reason. There are a bunch of NATO countries that don't use US aircraft. Similarly there are non-NATO countries that buy the F-35 and many non-NATO countries that would want to buy it if they were able to. For a much better breakdown on why countries would buy the F-35. This portion of this presentation by Perun is a great intro: https://youtu.be/7Z_gTGJc7nQ?t=2219 https://youtu.be/7Z_gTGJc7nQ?t=2219 In short, because of massive scale, the F-35 is cheap despite being highly advanced.
- psychphysic 4y ago
  You're totally missing the point. It's about avoiding a go pound sand stance no matter the US leadership. If you're in NATO, or have applied you're relatively cozy. What if you don't want to do those things?
  - mlindner 4y ago
    I think you're misunderstanding something. Our underlying facts we're basing our opinions on appear to be different.
- jmnicolas 4y ago
  > There are a bunch of NATO countries that don't use US aircraft. Except France and Spain, they all use US aircraft or are in the acquisition phase. BTW Spain is also considering buying the F-35.
sandworm101 4y ago
>> Stealth simply isn't as important as one would think so long as you're not running missions into enemy territory. ??? Stealth has myriad applications in defensive engagements. Dont like being killed by radar-guided missiles? Stealth helps.
- psychphysic 4y ago
  All jets are designed with stealthy constraints. But the kind of all aspect high quality stealth of the F-35 only matters when you're surrounded by advanced radar capabilities. That's high power radar and high coverage to capture scatter at different angles..along with the bandwidth (processing) needed to detect coincident events. Most of the time you want to destroy those assets and you have cheaper jets like the F-16/18 respond to every ping with an anti radiation missile.
  - Kim_Bruning 4y ago
    F-35 should be able to do SEAD quite well, because it can safely get in closer before being detected. This is always an advantage.
  - sandworm101 4y ago
    >> when you're surrounded by advanced radar capabilities Like maybe when you are defending a border against waves of incoming fighters? >> cheaper jets like the F-16/18 respond to every ping with an anti radiation missile. If those pings are in range of air-launched anti-radiation missiles, then those launch platforms are well within the range of the much larger ground-launched sams beside those pings. SEAD with non-stealthy aircraft is a much more complex mission than simply throwing harms at pings.
- Kim_Bruning 4y ago
  Being able to see (and hopefully shoot at) the opponent before they can do the same gives you an edge in every engagement, offense or defense.
  - yobbo 4y ago
Denvercoder9 4y ago
> It's the killer feature of F-35 and F-22 and heck modernized F-16s. The US does not export the F-22, even to NATO allies.
- psychphysic 4y ago
  Good point, nor should they. Did the Ancient Greeks tell anyone how to make their flamethrowers?
  - jefftk 4y ago
    The F22 hasn't been made for a decade, and we do export the F35. Not clear to me we should maintain the ban on F22 exports.

sofixa 4y ago

There are other NATO jets outside of the US manufactured ones - Rafales, Typhoons, soon Gripens.

psychphysic 4y ago
This is a side note, but are you absolutely convinced Sweden will join NATO?
- sofixa 4y ago
  I'm an optimist and hope that Erdogan will finally lose the next election, and thus there will be no more political blocking of Sweden joining.
  - miroljub 4y ago
    Why do you expect the next government will somehow be better for Sweden than Erdoğan? If they climb to power, they will still need to compel to hardcore nationalist population, in case of Sweden even more than Erdoğan, since they will need their social credit for topic they find important to them and won't burn it because of Sweden.
    - mschuster91 4y ago
      In the end, Erdogan's opposition to Sweden is mostly related to Sweden granting asylum to Kurds, and Sweden can't (and won't) extradite them because Swedish law forbids them to. And if the opposition candidate wins, he will be busy repairing all the mess Erdogan did to Turkey's foreign relations - even if the nationalists in the coalition will whine, they can't afford wasting more political good-will for a couple hundred Kurds.
      - chii 4y ago
        turkey knows they are in a position to extract more concessions out of sweden (and the US). Sweden wants to be in NATO more than NATO truly need sweden, and turkey knows it. Eventually turkey will concede, but not before squeezing every drop of advantage they can obtain. It doesn't really matter who's at the top in turkey - the incentive dictates the behaviour.
    - psychphysic 4y ago
      Similarly I suspect any Turkish leadship would place a high value on it's relationship with Russia. Turkey feels safe already with respect to Russia. But increasingly slighted by Western attitudes.
  - rswskg 4y ago
    Erdogan is going nowhere sadly.
actionfromafar 4y ago
If it wasn't for the need to do your part in the alliance, of which the US is the most powerful member, then Finland would probably choose Gripen, hands down. The Gripen is basically designed for Finland by virtue of being designed for Sweden. Ground crew of 3, can land and depart with regular roads, reload-refuel in 15 minutes, low fuel consumption etc etc. Even with Sweden within NATO, Sweden would be a small industrial-military partner and the US a big one.
- gggggg5 4y ago
  > can land and depart with regular roads This is worth way less than it sounds like. Building runways is cheap. > The Gripen is basically designed for Finland by virtue of being designed for Sweden Sweden wanting to prop up their domestic industry does not mean that Gripen is the best fighter jet for Sweden.
  - actionfromafar 4y ago
    > Building runways is cheap? I don't think you understand. Sweden always planned to fight a contracting, losing war, eventually devolving into partisan warfare. If I recall the Cold War plans correctly, one of the more realistic plans prepared for 3-4 weeks of war before being overrun and partisan warfare starting. The road-as-runway plan was critical for this, there would be no time to build anything, just keep everything flying and attacking from surprise locations for as long as possible. The submarine force tied into to this also, with its ability to stay submerged for 3 weeks. The whole idea was never for Sweden to really win, just to make the Soviet win so momentally Pyrrhic they would think twice about an actual ground invasion. From a military standpoint, we never hoped for our major cities to be spared nukes. We counted on them being bombed to oblivion day one. Try building runways when all major infrastructure and the country is in total chaos. That's why there were arms and fuel depots everywhere, with everything from missiles down to submachine guns. Edit: and you say propping up defence industry as if insinuating it's just a boondoggle. When it comes to geopolitics, it's not. It's the only way to have total control of supply chains and constant upgrade of arms. Gripen may have become something of a boondoggle over time, but it was born from the Cold War and still traces most of its design goals from that situation.
Phiwise_ 4y ago
The Rafale, Typhoon, Gripen, etc. are not comparable to the F-35. The F-35, beyond being a purpose-built stealth jet, is almost as much an electronic warfare platform as it is traditional multirole fighter. The tech is as much on sale as the ability to fly is; 35's software, sensor suite, etc. is famously advanced. Neither can really be substituted for the other; the US' own A-10 and F-15/16 modernization projects failing to really keep pace demonstrate this. This is why SaaB had to throw in two GlobalEye AWACS platforms with their offer of 64 Gripens to match LM's 64 F-35s (and Boeing's 14 EA-18Gs with their 50 FA-18Fs). Finland pretty much knew who would win the testing when they selected their definition of success, ignoring the unexpected (which to be fair did eliminate two competitors); either you want the traditional fighter model with inherent low cost and you go with Gripen, or you want in on the F-35's technology platform and true multirole capability (higher payload) and you politically bully LM into delivering you a reasonable price cut (probably on the basis of US jobs in the short term, I'd guess), like the article seems to describe. And frankly, good on the Finns for doing it.

oblio 4y ago

> Stealth simply isn't as important as one would think so long as you're not running missions into enemy territory. That would be a silly assumption, to buy a jet fighter and assume you'd never run missions into enemy territory. More than that, if <<your own country>> gets invaded, guess what, they put SAMs onto your territory and suddenly it becomes <<enemy territory>> :-)

psychphysic 4y ago
Edit: I realised you're probably being tongue in cheek here and I completely missed it. That's not quite how it works. It's not like a game of Civilization II where stealth beats SAM. The problem modern stealth aims to defeat is that radar capabilities are networked with high speed processing. Rolling a single S-400 into enemy territory doesn't suddenly make even mig-29s obselete. Similarly an F-117 couldn't fly over even a S-125 with absolute safety.
- oblio 4y ago
  Russia or similar invaders didn't roll a "single S-400" into Ukraine. Nor would they in any similar invasion. They'd bring in the whole shebang. So my rhetorical question to you would be: why would you not buy a system with a reduced radar footprint, advanced avionics, advanced weapons control systems and advanced networking? Even if it's only for defensive purposes. Heck, even if it's for flying strictly over territory you control. Advanced radars cover hundreds of kilometers as do modern anti-air missiles. They can shoot you down without even going near their direct airspace. That's what Russia is doing right now, they're taking down Ukrainian aircraft at no risk to themselves launching a bunch of R37s from deep in their territory (50-100km) from Migs Ukraine can't reach or even see.
  - psychphysic 4y ago
    I'm not disagreeing at all. It's just that being in with NATO is more important than equipment case in point Ukraine. F-35 is designed for ingress into densely covered enemy territory. The stealth allows more flexibility in approach it stops jets being scrambled along the route, it stops assets being moved in to hangars and otherwise hidden. It means you're less likely to be flying through a valley of manpads. Who were all warned of impending jets coming in. Flying into an enemy carrier group with airborne radar being pinged from every direction. These are the missions Israel runs against Iran and Syria (not the carrier group) or the US may theoretically run against Russia in a world war situation (during conflict it's likely the US would be protected by heavy ECW from growlers not just stealth). This is not within Finland's likely missions unless it's acting with NATO. If you don't need that then there are many cheaper, easier to run alternatives. So does Finland want an F-35 or a bunch of gripen and hundreds of manpads and ATGMs? Ukraine has repelled Russia very effectively with just manpads, ATGMs and NATO intelligence. All things being equal that would be preferable. If buying US weapons NATO becomes more protective then the calculus changes.

mlindner 4y ago

> I'm surprised the main reason isn't mentioned. > NATO. Because that's not the main reason or even a primary reason. There are a bunch of NATO countries that don't use US aircraft. Similarly there are non-NATO countries that buy the F-35 and many non-NATO countries that would want to buy it if they were able to. For a much better breakdown on why countries would buy the F-35. This portion of this presentation by Perun is a great intro: https://youtu.be/7Z_gTGJc7nQ?t=2219 https://youtu.be/7Z_gTGJc7nQ?t=2219 In short, because of massive scale, the F-35 is cheap despite being highly advanced.

psychphysic 4y ago
You're totally missing the point. It's about avoiding a go pound sand stance no matter the US leadership. If you're in NATO, or have applied you're relatively cozy. What if you don't want to do those things?
- mlindner 4y ago
  I think you're misunderstanding something. Our underlying facts we're basing our opinions on appear to be different.
jmnicolas 4y ago
> There are a bunch of NATO countries that don't use US aircraft. Except France and Spain, they all use US aircraft or are in the acquisition phase. BTW Spain is also considering buying the F-35.

sandworm101 4y ago

>> Stealth simply isn't as important as one would think so long as you're not running missions into enemy territory. ??? Stealth has myriad applications in defensive engagements. Dont like being killed by radar-guided missiles? Stealth helps.

psychphysic 4y ago
All jets are designed with stealthy constraints. But the kind of all aspect high quality stealth of the F-35 only matters when you're surrounded by advanced radar capabilities. That's high power radar and high coverage to capture scatter at different angles..along with the bandwidth (processing) needed to detect coincident events. Most of the time you want to destroy those assets and you have cheaper jets like the F-16/18 respond to every ping with an anti radiation missile.
- Kim_Bruning 4y ago
  F-35 should be able to do SEAD quite well, because it can safely get in closer before being detected. This is always an advantage.
- sandworm101 4y ago
  >> when you're surrounded by advanced radar capabilities Like maybe when you are defending a border against waves of incoming fighters? >> cheaper jets like the F-16/18 respond to every ping with an anti radiation missile. If those pings are in range of air-launched anti-radiation missiles, then those launch platforms are well within the range of the much larger ground-launched sams beside those pings. SEAD with non-stealthy aircraft is a much more complex mission than simply throwing harms at pings.
Kim_Bruning 4y ago
Being able to see (and hopefully shoot at) the opponent before they can do the same gives you an edge in every engagement, offense or defense.
- yobbo 4y ago

Denvercoder9 4y ago

> It's the killer feature of F-35 and F-22 and heck modernized F-16s. The US does not export the F-22, even to NATO allies.

psychphysic 4y ago
Good point, nor should they. Did the Ancient Greeks tell anyone how to make their flamethrowers?
- jefftk 4y ago
  The F22 hasn't been made for a decade, and we do export the F35. Not clear to me we should maintain the ban on F22 exports.