Stockholm Offers Fighter Jets for Ukraine if Sweden is Allowed to Join NATO
The offer appeared to be the latest move in an ongoing diplomatic effort to persuade Turkey to drop its objection to Sweden joining the military alliance.
The Swedish defense ministry said on Friday it could contribute its Gripen warplanes to a Western coalition that is trying to speed fighter jets to Ukraine — but only after Sweden is allowed into NATO.
The offer, included in a $200 million package of weapons, 155-millimeter caliber ammunition and other defense support for Ukraine, was the latest move in an ongoing diplomatic effort to persuade Turkey to drop its objection to Sweden joining the military alliance.
“Support in the form of JAS-39 Gripen would be conditional on Sweden first becoming a member of NATO,” the Swedish Defense Ministry said in a statement.
Ok now THAT is a power move I can respect. I know it’s kinda in the realm of playing politics, but Erdogan is being such a fucking tool and he genuinely needs to be taken down a notch.
If this is the thing that finally gets him to stop dicking around and undermining the rest of NATO, and gets Sweden into NATO, and also gives Ukraine a modern multi role fighter that just happens to be able to fire Meteor missiles (much of the data is classified, but it’s considered to be at least as good as an AMRAAM, with a much newer design and longer range)… well, that’d be pretty awesome.
Why would this get Erdogan to do anything though?
Because the entire rest of NATO will lean on him even harder.
Tangentially, it might be a very shrewd tactic for Sweden to offer a deal to Turkey on some fighters. THAT might be a clear enough quid pro quo for Erdogan to accept.
Yeah, that’s more the horsetrading Erdogan that I know. I don’t think NATO is holding back on leaning on him, but he’s waiting for his kickback.
They drive a hard bargain, but deal!
Wouldn’t that require Turkey to actually care about Ukraine? They seem perfectly happy to play both sides of the conflict.
Or (positively) care about Sweden? The point of this alliance is to protect each other in case of an attack. If Turkey does not feel like risking their soldiers for Sweden, then it’s good to bring that up as early as possible. Not condoning, just saying.
This is less if a bargain than people ITT assume: The additional protection through NATO enables Sweden to give some of their mighty weapon systems, which they would otherwise need for their own safety until replenishments are available.
This is a key advantage of nato membership. You can afford to drain your weapons stockpile a great deal more when you have an 800 pound gorilla with no healthcare that will smash anything that tries to invade you.
But what if the gorilla gets sick? With no healthcare it might die.
In this metaphor, I think the Gorilla’s fists have excellent healthcare and are mandatory vaccinated
That’s just the price of freedom™
Yeah I don’t see this having any leverage over Erdogan any way.
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Wonderful paint / camo (is that camo?) job on that jet
I don’t know the name of it but I believe that pattern is the standard camp for Swedish military. This looks like an urban colour tone but there are Woodland and Arctic colour schemes too.
It’s called FOA, and it’s also the base for the current M90 uniform
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Swedish defense ministry said on Friday it could contribute its Gripen warplanes to a Western coalition that is trying to speed fighter jets to Ukraine — but only after Sweden is allowed into NATO.
The offer, included in a $200 million package of weapons, 155-millimeter caliber ammunition and other defense support for Ukraine, was the latest move in an ongoing diplomatic effort to persuade Turkey to drop its objection to Sweden joining the military alliance.
“Support in the form of JAS-39 Gripen would be conditional on Sweden first becoming a member of NATO,” the Swedish Defense Ministry said in a statement.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, had tentatively agreed to admit Sweden in July, on the eve of NATO’s annual summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Sweden’s conditional offer to give some JAS-39 Gripens also comes as NATO is racing to train Ukrainian pilots and support crews to fly Western fighter jets — what officials and experts describe as one of the few weapons systems that could change the course of the 19-month war.
But the Defense Ministry statement on Friday said that it would review the training needed for Ukraine’s pilots as well as the support that Stockholm might receive from the Western fighter jet coalition as it mulls whether to reverse course.
The original article contains 378 words, the summary contains 213 words. Saved 44%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I feel like this is more trouble than it’s worth. Ukraine doesn’t need to be training pilots and ground crew on two completely new aircraft that no one in Ukraine’s forces are familiar with.
This might be a good decision in peace time. But Ukraine is fighting for existence. They won’t care about the most efficient approach. They will care about bring as much capacity to the fight they can. If they can’t get more f16s these aircraft are likely to be welcome.
They will care about bring as much capacity to the fight they can.
That’s what I’m referring to, though. Trying to field Grippens as well will diminish their capability of fielding F16s.
We also don’t know what Ukraine think of this offer at this stage, right now Sweden is trying to negotiate its way into NATO, they’re interested in convincing NATO regardless of what Ukraine wants.
We do know what they think about it. They have asked for Gripen on multiple occasions.
Actually now that Finland joined we are surrounded by nato countries so many figure it doesn’t really matter as much or changed their minds on the matter. Not that we got to vote on the matter in the first place, though.
