Canada to order military plane fleet from Sweden in shift from US suppliers • Hacker News Board

Re: Canada to order military plane fleet from Sweden in shift from US suppliers

#241

Post by asdff » Wed, May 27, 2026, 10:22 PM UTC

throwaway27448 wrote: post #224

asdff wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not supportive of them either. I just don't consider them untrustworthy though. Everything they do is exactly what they've always done since that state was formed. Easily the most predictable nation on earth, Israel. Easy way to get Israel off your back though? Stop funding terrorists like Hamas and Hezbollah that inevitably do something stupid to provoke the Israelis into armed conflict. It is really that simple…

True. Israel begins, Israel assassinates and complains about being targeted by terrorism. Israel begins the loop again. What is more reliable than Israel? Iran would be a better ally. China would be a better ally. Fucking Russia would be a better ally. Why did we decide to die on the hills of (loosely translated, I guess) mageddo? But instead our state leans into exterminating people because our PR team was inspired…

It is like a modern day state of Prussia. A beachhead and airstrip in the middle east. Weapons manufacturing. Rocket science. A cyber security firm. An intelligence agency. Some of the best in the world at these things. All wrapped up into one. This is why nations like to ally with Israel.

But again, if you don't want problems with Israel don't make problems with Israel. Their populace is militarized like few other and seemingly with a lot of political cohesion. Egypt has learned not to poke the bear. So has Jordan.

Re: Canada to order military plane fleet from Sweden in shift from US suppliers

#242

Post by red-iron-pine » Wed, May 27, 2026, 10:23 PM UTC

throwaway27448 wrote: post #204

datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Trump has nothing to do with it. Genuinely, what makes the US untrustworthy if not Trump? I’m curious what I may be missing.

> Genuinely, what makes the US untrustworthy if not Trump? We invaded Korea, and then Vietnam, and a few hundred other interventions that don't seem to be sanctioned by the international community. All because of a hardon for ideology that doesn't seem to actually reflect the interests of the people who live here.

> We invaded Korea

what a terrible bad faith arguemnt

N Korea invaded the south and the UN voted to create a joint force in there to defend it.

Re: Canada to order military plane fleet from Sweden in shift from US suppliers

#243

Post by jleyank » Wed, May 27, 2026, 10:23 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #188

866-RON-0-FEZ wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We call this confirmation bias. The Saab is likely cheaper to operate as it's a smaller plane and Canada only has to patrol its northern border.

Open a history book. They do a lot more than patrol the northern border. Canada was involved in WWI, WWII, Korea, Iraq 1 and 2, Fall of Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libyan civil war, Iraq civil war, Syrian civil war and ISIS conflict, Yemeni civil war, and a smattering of other conflicts over the past century.

Canada, as a commonwealth country, was involved in ww I and ww ii years before the us decided to get involved. Or more involved than selling arms.

Re: Canada to order military plane fleet from Sweden in shift from US suppliers

#244

Post by jleyank » Wed, May 27, 2026, 10:26 PM UTC

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #138

AlexandrB wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you watch this video? About half way through he confirms that Alberta has the highest GDP/capita in Canada and is the largest (per capita) tax contributor. Ontario is obviously larger in absolute terms, but it has at least 4x the population.

As with any time you deploy an average... (And I'd expect better on this forum of all places) Show me the distribution. Show me the median not just the mean. Show me the standard deviation. Otherwise ... abused. Yes, we all know oil is an extremely profitable (and environmentally destructive) commodity. That doesn't make the typical Albertans somehow responsible for holding up all of confederation. Just means oil is…

Do the oil profits even stay in Canada? Taxes maybe, but it’s not like the province owns the wells.

Re: Canada to order military plane fleet from Sweden in shift from US suppliers

#245

Post by red-iron-pine » Wed, May 27, 2026, 10:27 PM UTC

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #69

lysace wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Canada is very unlikely to be invaded Except from the south.

Or, as it turns out, from within. (Looking at you, Danielle Smith). But yes you're right. The only times we've been invaded were from that direction.

Danielle Smith is plainly a US agit-prop effort. Probably in concert with the Russians, since funding separatists is their MO

Re: Canada to order military plane fleet from Sweden in shift from US suppliers

#246

Post by jleyank » Wed, May 27, 2026, 10:27 PM UTC

petcat wrote: post #158

stackghost wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The only thing really stopping Alberta from leaving is whether or not BC, Ontario, and Quebec are willing to fight a war to stop it. Unlike the individual US states, Alberta never joined Canada. It was not an entity that existed prior to Canada's confederation. Alberta was basically pencil-whipped into existence by carving out a chunk of an already existing territory (the Northwest Territory). Despite American and R…

> there is no legal mechanism by which Canadian provinces can unilaterally secede Legal? Who's laws? Albertans can just declare that they don't respect Ottawa's authority, right? Guns and bullets are the only "legal" currency. It's not paperwork.

If Canada cuts off the money tap, that health and security bill is going to be significant.

Re: Canada to order military plane fleet from Sweden in shift from US suppliers

#247

Post by JuniperMesos » Wed, May 27, 2026, 10:28 PM UTC

khriss wrote: post #198

throwaway27448 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's kind of insane they trusted us to begin with. Why?

Because Trump is a new, and (hopefully!) a one time phenomenon. He is unique in that he seems to have absolute control over the Republican base which makes all internal party checks fail. The rest is provided by a hyper polarized media landscape and a conservative supreme court majority that seems to be open to radical upheavals. The combination of all three has rendered the constitutional safe guards ineffective. In…

> He is unique in that he seems to have absolute control over the Republican base which makes all internal party checks fail. The rest is provided by a hyper polarized media landscape and a conservative supreme court majority that seems to be open to radical upheavals. The combination of all three has rendered the constitutional safe guards ineffective. In other words, we seem to have run into an edge case in the US constitution.

The US constitution has absolutely nothing at all to say about political parties or the particular state of the media landscape, or for that matter the partisan alignment of justices of the supreme court. It's incoherent to suggest that there are "constitutional safe guards" that should have prevented the election of a president (or the exercise of power by that president), who is supported by about one-half of a very polarized electorate and opposed by a separate one-half. Everything about the Trump presidency is as constitutional as every previous US presidency, including the phenomenon of opponents of the president trying to claim that specific things they do are or should be unconstitutional.

Re: Canada to order military plane fleet from Sweden in shift from US suppliers

#248

Post by red-iron-pine » Wed, May 27, 2026, 10:29 PM UTC

danesparza wrote: post #55

866-RON-0-FEZ wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We call this confirmation bias. The Saab is likely cheaper to operate as it's a smaller plane and Canada only has to patrol its northern border.

"We call this confirmation bias". I'm genuinely curious to know what you think the author's pre-existing beliefs are. You seem to have a few of your own: "Canada only has to patrol its northern border"

> You seem to have a few of your own: "Canada only has to patrol its northern border"

the Canadians do not aggressively patrol the southern border because that is where all of the people are -- unlike the north -- and because the reality is that the entire Canadian military is basically a speedbump for if/when the US invaded in earnest.

Re: Canada to order military plane fleet from Sweden in shift from US suppliers

#249

Post by bluegatty » Wed, May 27, 2026, 10:29 PM UTC

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.

Re: Canada to order military plane fleet from Sweden in shift from US suppliers

#250

Post by adjejmxbdjdn » Wed, May 27, 2026, 10:29 PM UTC

khriss wrote: post #30

I can understand why this change happened. Even if American equipment is superior, there is a lot of value to not depending on a supposed 'ally' which * 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 b…

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.