The flawed exercise of self determination by the people and parliament of Crimea is no big deal. I expect that the fuss being made over this will die down fairly quickly.

I do not think that what has happened indicates a need to maintain the level of US forces in Europe to counter Russian expansionism.

It doesn’t matter what you say happened in Crimea, it matters what the US-NATO axis thinks happened in Crimea. And what happened, from NATO’s perspective, is that the long post-Cold War era has come to an end, and great power politics (and NATO’s mission) are back with a vengeance. If nothing else, anxiety on the part of Poland and the Baltic states will keep things simmering, but the ramifications run far deeper in terms of Europe making medium- and long-term adjustments to energy sourcing. I’m afraid I disagree with you completely: the fuss is only beginning.

And perhaps it is for the best. After all, realists have been saying for a long time now that this fantasy-land that the west has inhabited for the last generation was just that: a fantasy born of explicitly temporary circumstances, i.e. Russia’s period of weakness in which it was unable to assert its interests as NATO moved east and America inserted itself into Russia’s sphere of influence. Maybe these events — i.e. Washington’s colossal miscalculation as to just how far Russia could be pushed in 2014 — will serve as a wake-up call for the establishment before the US blunders into World War III with China. But probably not — not when you have raving lunatics like John McCain at the very top, as well as a national mythology and institutional psychoses that generate a reliable ongoing supply of John McCains.

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They do it in part by picking components that have already been developed by others; for instance the F414 all R&D costs were sunk already; the IRST system is just an evolution of the Typhon IRST; the EWS is an evolution of the current; the Raven AESA is evolved from an existing Selex AESA; Elbit also provides some sensors (was it RWR?) with R&D costs already sunk, etc. etc.

Or there is a Martian spacecraft buried under Uppsala. Take your pick. 😉

The number of export clients is a minor matter when the Indian buy could conceivably reach 250 aircraft.

Meh. Its more manufacturer claims.

I dismiss Lockheed’s as largely BS, and I do the same here (or if it were Sukhoi).

The more specific a claim, the more credible it is. Companies rarely lie outright, rather they are selective in which truths they convey and the context in which they do so. With programs of this complexity, there are usually enough loopholes to turn water into wine or any other desired substance.

Hasn’t the mission computer fit been changed since the earlier batches.

That’s a claim I’ve seen on BRF — that the half of the fleet that is grounded essentially represents all of the aircraft delivered pre-2006, i.e. those with the relevant Russian components.

Pretty sure the only reason the Gripen C/D lease option exists is because of the post-Cold War drawdown of the Swedish Air Force… SAAB isn’t going to build Gripen E/Fs with its own money just in case someone wants to lease them.

With the future of Gripen E/F now on much firmer ground through Brazil, I don’t think the case for a Swiss buy is as strong as it was. Ideally, Switzerland would operate a single combat type and Gripen E/F is the ideal candidate. Standing in the way of that scenario is that the Hornets are an inconveniently long way from retirement. The case for pushing Gripen E/F now, as opposed to a decade hence, is that prior to the Swiss and now Brazilian involvement it didn’t appear as though Gripen E/F, or any other aircraft in the same ideal class, was going to be around a decade hence. The other problem is the political difficulty of ‘recovering’ aircraft numbers once conceded to a Hornet-only low. One of those two issues has now been largely ameliorated.

I still think the buy is a good one, but the lack of it isn’t going to be a disaster either for Switzerland or SAAB.