The Coming Fighter Aircraft Decision

See The Simons Foundation Canada's Arctic Security Briefing Papers for information on military policies and practices in the Arctic region by Ernie Regehr O.C., Senior Fellow in Arctic Security and Defence at The Simons Foundation Canada.

The Coming Fighter Aircraft Decision

Sooner or later, and for the third time,[i] Ottawa will make its final decision on fighter aircraft to replace the current F-18, now that the Swedish Gripen E is back as an option along with the American F-35. The decision will probably have more to do with managing Canada-US relations and Canada’s industrial involvements than with either the relative merits of the two aircraft, or what might best serve Canada’s long-term peace and security needs, especially beyond our borders. While “red carding” risks have emerged as a concern, the greater challenge is twofold: 1) to face the inconvenient truth that the destructive power of military might is these days rarely leveraged to resolve conflicts and usher in sustainable security; and 2) to find the resolve to deploy military and diplomatic resources to prevent rather than prosecute wars. 

A political decision

Some argue that politics should be kept out of the decision process, with a recent CBC News headline declaring there is “no place for politics” in the cockpit.[ii] But the decision won’t be made in a cockpit. It will be made in the halls of Government by politicians, and leaving politics out of politicians’ decision-making would be a dereliction of their duty. Politicians have the responsibility of putting it all together – beside the costs, they obviously need to consider national defence requirements and whether or which fighters are most likely to best serve that end. The have to take into account relations with our major military power neighbours (the US and Russia), and they should envision new ways to interact with Europe and the world beyond to contribute meaningfully to international peace and security. 

Ottawa can’t escape a politically fraught choice among what have become essentially three options – the F-35, the Gripen, or a mix of both. 

While official Canada is still making up its mind, Canadians seem to have decided – and they clearly prefer the Gripen. Only 13 percent favour going ahead with the F-35 as the only Canadian fighter, while 43% favour making it exclusively the Gripen, and another 29% favour an F-35/Gripen mixed fleet.^[iii] Reporting and analyses generally assume that the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) leadership leans heavily towards the F-35.^[iv] 

Canada has already ordered 16 F-35s, but it’s not locked into buying all 88 as earlier intended. A former strategic planning director for DND’s material group told the Hill Times that, though the Defence Department is now preparing infrastructure to receive F-35s, adjustments for other fighters could be made, and that Canada might also have the option of selling the F-35s it has on order to somebody else.[v] 

Two North American roles

The public, as do the politicians, ultimately depends on experts and operators to credibly define the technical characteristic and merits of the F-35 and Gripen, but there are broad profiles that emerge from their analysis. 

The F-35 is typically lauded for its relative stealth characteristics and especially for being more effective in high intensity armed conflict environments. It is generally said to have a heightened capacity to penetrate through an adversary’s air defence systems and for destroying adversary air attack and defence systems and infrastructure. After one F-35 famously crashed in Alaska due to a frozen hydraulic line in its nose landing gear, its suitability for Arctic duties may be further questioned.[vi] 

The Gripen E meanwhile is said to be well suited for long-range intercepts, for operating from minimally equipped sites with shorter or damaged runways, for northern operations, and with much less maintenance time required (thus greater availability). The Gripen reportedly also has significantly lower operating costs. 

While the F-35[vii] is regularly described as the world’s best-connected aircraft and seamlessly integrates into North American and NATO military operations, the Gripen has also been demonstrated to be interoperable with NORAD and NATO forces. And if it ends up, as seems increasingly likely, a mixed fleet, it won’t be a first for Canada, having operated a mix of CF-100, CF-101, and CF-104 fighter aircraft in the Cold War, before switching to the current CF-18.

Whatever aircraft are finally acquired, in North America they will be used in two main roles by the CAF. 

Defending continental airspace

Though we now live in a climate of heightened strategic tension, some things have changed very little. There is still no current military threat to North American airspace, and Russian military aircraft patrols near North American/Arctic shores, now sometimes accompanied by Chinese military aircraft, remain occasional (unlike in Europe and the European Arctic where the pace of encounters has grown more intense). In the North American zone, any Russian or joint patrols stay, as they always have, well within international airspace, and in 2023 Canadian Lt. General Alain Pelletier told the House of Commons defence committee that, on average, NORAD does about seven intercepts of Russian military aircraft annually, “primarily in the Alaska area.”[viii] Since then the pace of those operations has picked up. NORAD does not routinely report numbers, but the American Stars and Stripes magazine reports that in some recent years it has been as high as 15.[ix] Since most happen adjacent to Alaska, only some of the intercepts are likely to involve Canadian aircraft.

That’s a definite uptick, but the unchanged nature and significance of such patrols and intercepts is illustrated by a March 4, 2026 NORAD interception, off the coast of Alaska, of two Russian TU-142 surveillance and anti-submarine-warfare aircraft – four engine turboprops derived from the TU-95 strategic bomber. The NORAD operation involved six fighter aircraft (two US F-35s, two US F-22s, and two Canadian F-18s) and five tankers for air-to-air refuelling (four US KC-135s and one Canadian CC-150). Here’s how the NORAD press release characterized the incident[x] (no word on the likely green house gas emissions in the encounter):

“The Russian aircraft remained in international airspace and did not enter American or Canadian airspace. This Russian activity in the Alaskan ADIZ (air defence identification zone) occurs regularly and is not seen as a threat.” 

 In other words, it was for both sides a routine, and daresay, welcome training exercise.

Through coastal and Arctic radars and other sensors, frontiers are monitored and the fighter force is meant to be at the ready to mount basic defences against limited attacks into North American airspace – which would now likely involve hypersonic and cruise missiles on conventional attack. That does require ongoing vigilance, but in peacetime there are no direct encounters, and the general consensus is that there is currently no external threat to North American airspace.

Aid to civil authorities

The other role continues NORAD’s aid to civil authorities in peacetime monitoring (to our collective good fortune, that’s the only kind NORAD has known) of frontiers to identify and, when called upon, intercept unauthorized civilian flights approaching or entering into North American airspace. When questionable approaches to Canadian airspace are not resolved – such as not having filed a flight plan, straying from a flight plan, suspicion of carrying contraband, and so on – interceptors can be dispatched to guide or force the offending aircraft to land. 

An unusual example was the March 18, 2026 scrambling of NORAD fighters, Canadian F-18s and American F-16s and KC-135s, to escort two commercial aircraft to their landing at Trudeau airport near Montreal. Police then arrested two persons linked to what was described simply as a security incident.[xi] 

NORAD also monitors and enforces adherence to internal areas of Temporary Flight Restrictions. For example, Canadian aircraft intercepted a civilian aircraft in Kananaskis, Alberta which had violated the temporary flight restriction over the area during the June 2025 meetings of the G-7.[xii] NORAD does not report statistics on civilian aircraft interceptions either. 

Supersonic jet fighters, especially 5^th generation stealth fighters, are hardly the most suitable or cost-effective aircraft for that domestic mission, or even for intercepting Russian or Chinese military aircraft. As reported in Hill Times,[xiii] the US Commander of NORAD (who also commands USNORTHCOM) recently told American Senators that, “frankly, sir, we don't need fifth-gen to defend our borders.” He told the US Senate Committee On Armed Services[xiv] he preferred what he referred to as “modernized” fourth generation fighter aircraft (sometimes referred to as 4.5 generation) for North America. He said fifth-generation aircraft like the F-35 should be for “overseas, where their stealth air to ground weapons and penetration capability are needed.” 

More than a decade ago, a Canadian analyst suggested that interceptions of small commercial aircraft could best be carried out by slower, low flying aircraft. An example given was a Brazilian made turboprop – at about one-tenth of the cost of a supersonic fighter, thus making it possible to procure enough to station them in locations where most needed.^[xv] Peacekeeping or peace-support missions might also be well-served by that kind of small aircraft in environments in which advanced anti-aircraft capabilities are not a factor. 

A 2014 paper by the Defence Department’s research group, Defence Research and Development Canada, pointed out that, as the CBC reported,^[xvi] a maximum of 36 operational fighter would be required for NORAD, describing anything beyond that to be “in excess of current requirements. The report also said “there is no hard minimum requirement for the NATO commitment.” 

Canadian fighters for Europe?

A question Canadians should be asking is, why Canada’s contributions to NATO emphasize fighter aircraft, given that Europe already boasts large fleets of its own fighters? 

According to publicly available databases on global fighter aircraft inventories,[xvii] European NATO members operate some 1,800-2,100 fighter aircraft, compared to Russia’s 900-1,050, while the United States operates 2,600-2,700. Numbers for Russia vary more than for NATO and the US due to the opaqueness of Russian data. For example, one source puts the Russian total at 1,560, but then indicates that many of those are no longer serviceable and sets the “core flightworthy fleet” at 660. Definitions of “fighter aircraft” vary and can include certain bomber aircraft as well.

But the overall picture is of a European NATO inventory of fighter aircraft that is at least twice that of Russia’s. That isn’t surprising, since Europe has emphasized fighter aircraft production through companies like Saab, 

Airbus, BAE Systems, and Dassault. And when the NATO tally includes North America, the alliance is able to field well over four times as many as Russia (for neither NATO nor Russia, would all counted aircraft be available for European operations). If the concern, entirely legitimate, is that Europe can no longer rely on the US, the European NATO/Russia fighter balance is still substantially in Europe’s favour. It is also clear that Canada would be able to muster only a marginal fighter force for European deployment – perhaps a symbol of Canada’s transatlantic solidarity, but not operationally consequential. 

The Ekos poll that showed Canadians favouring the Gripen did not include the options of choosing fewer fighters, or even none at all. In the present strategic climate the latter finds few takers, but it is worth remembering that just over a decade ago, foregoing fighter aircraft was a thinkable option. At the time, at least some defence experts and former officials known as committed advocates for expanding Canadian military capacity could and did suggest that Canada didn’t really need fighter aircraft.^[xviii] That was, to be sure, another time – among other things, a strategic context that was perhaps more open to innovative thinking than is today’s. 

Even so, Canada’s commitment of military capacity to European NATO has never really been fighter centric.[xix] Canadian contributions currently include the deployment of about 2,000 military personnel with a range of equipment that includes artillery and electronic warfare through its leadership of NATO Multinational Brigade in Latvia. Sea-based support includes rotational deployments of naval vessels and divers for the NATO Mine Countermeasures Group.[xx] Support for the NATO Standing Maritime Groups[xxi] is offered through rotational ship and helicopter deployments, and anti-submarine warfare commitments in the North Atlantic and Baltic Seas involve frigates, maritime patrol aircraft, underwater sensors in the Arctic, and planning towards submarines and related armaments. 

Instead of maintaining an ongoing and costly capacity to make symbolic, marginal contributions to European air combat forces, or to American or NATO expeditionary campaigns, Canada could shift its air contributions to Europe, for example, to tactical and strategic airlift capabilities, making a more tangible difference to NATO. The same aircraft could be available for UN peacekeeping operations as well.  Continue reading...

Ernie Regehr, O.C. is Senior Fellow in Arctic Security and Defence at The Simons Foundation Canada; Research Fellow at the The Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement, Conrad Grebel University College, University of Waterloo; and co-founder and former Executive Director of Project Ploughshares.