• RandAlThor@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    15
    ·
    13 hours ago

    I know this US ambassador is an a-hole, and he tends to shoot his mouth like Trump. However. After reading the article, it isn’t as bad as the headline implies. Sending their jets isn’t as a threat, but what the ambassador is saying is that more F-35s are needed to fill in whatever security roles it plays in their defensive strategy if Canada buys something else. In the event of some other jets we’re using, they would have to alter NORAD in order to allow more US F-35 jets to patrol the skies over Canada.

    • Canaconda@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      20
      ·
      edit-2
      14 hours ago

      ~70% of the lifetime revenue of the F-35 program would be the support costs on top of the purchase price. Even if Canada paid for every plane it ordered and grounded them the USA would be out 40Billion in revenue.

      Meanwhile the planes cost 80-100 Million each to build. So if we refused to buy the remaining ~70 they’d be out 5.6Billion in production costs.

      This new threat is a pathetically naked admission that the USA is hurting for revenue.

  • PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    9 minutes ago

    They say, as though if we agree they won’t simply use the same threat later for something else, and then ignore the agreement when it suits them.

    Might as well just ignore the threat

    • randy@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      12 hours ago

      That’s not at all what the article is saying.

      Under the current terms of NORAD, the U.S. and Canada can operate in one another’s airspace to track or intercept threats.

      Ambassador Pete Hoekstra cautioned that if Canada purchased fewer fighter jets, the U.S. would “fill those gaps” in security concerns.

      “NORAD would have to be altered,” Hoekstra told CBC News.

      One can read threats into that, but it’s quite far from threats of bombing.

  • WatDabney@sopuli.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    39
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    14 hours ago

    We need much more of this sort of thing.

    It needs to reach the point at which the universal international response to Trump’s latest bullshit is a diplomatically phrased (or even not) “Fuck you.”

    Whatever it is and whoever is on the receiving end - “Fuck you.”