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Small countries like netherlands, denmark or belgium all have similar needs: air policing of their airspace with quite a small budget to do so: operations inside heavily defended airspace are nowehere near the top of their priorities or needs, and even those who aim at such things will mostly use cruise missiles and such stuff to get there anyway.
@Spitfire9: I will use the above quote to answer your point as I think it illustrate what I don not believe in.
Let’s focus on Nth (even if I think that the situation with Belgium is fairly similar on teh point of AirPow).
Nth hve been a strong provider of A2A assets in the past 20 years for NATO. There was no major intervention where Nth pilots were not involved, even scoring the only A2A kill of a Eu NATO member during the Kosovo conflict. What leads to this result: strong commitment : budgetary and on the Tactical level. F16MLU, at one time where the most sophisticated vipers in the world.
So this has been a Niche for the Nth military where they excelled and were reliable.
Today the situation is different and it will be even more tommorrow: a lot of nation have raised potent A2A assets with 4th and 4.5 gen fighters. Any future intervention will see a lot of country willing to send their fighters for air to air policy. What will makes the diff against nation will be a strong mix of Survavibility (persistence) and deterence trough potential A2G offensive actions.
It’s not the same thing deploying A2A capable fighter that will provide defensive action than massing F35 fighters in front of an agressive nation. Clearly, A2A only won’t matter that much anymore since a single, determined action by an enmy can blow a decisive impact among the public, discalifying the intervention.
F35 fills that niche. It’s the equivalent of the F16 25 years ago (again, according that it can fulfill the expectations of their customer as you pointed out).
Unless Nth intend to turns its back to the world and resign from its present policy that lasted since the last two decades, Grip is not the one with who they shld go. There is not so much solutions than a 35 or a short termed Raf (the Raf can bring quickly both the A2A and A2G deterrence needed for the next ten years ( if correctly priced – what India seems to hve achieved)).
And again, you don’t defend a small country by firing in anger once the boots of your enmy is in your territory. It’s too late (see how Singapore invest in long range interdiction fighters since the last 20 years). You don’t either protect your industry with only conventional fighters. Think at the low leverage effect of your gvnment if suddenly one country is dennying you the right to access to a specific resource (rare metal for example). What use will hve a Grippen only forces ? Buzz the airspace of the vilains? No you need, persistence at low human cost and a strong pack of high precision weapon.
I understand that the 35 has gone wild with its price. But this is a political (ethical?) prob, not a concern abt air defense policy.
This is only my personal opinion obviously.
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