Government's JAS jippo
The war in Ukraine is coming to a head, with Russian forces facing less and less resistance and Ukraine struggling to find both soldiers and armour to send to the front. Foreign support has fallen by 41 % over the past year. Independent experts such as Professor John Mearsheimer, Alexander Mercourios, Colonel Douglas McGregor, Professor Glenn Diesen and many others agree that Ukraine's army is breaking down and the war is rapidly coming to an end.
JAS to Ukraine
In this critical situation, our Minister of Defence Pål Jonson and Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, together with Volodymyr Zelenskyj, step forward to present a ”Letter of Intent” under which SAAB will sell 100-150 JAS 39E to Ukraine. The delivery is planned to start in three years, which raises questions. Do we not need to rejuvenate our own air force when many of the oldest JAS aircraft are now beginning to show their age? Nothing in these far-fetched plans seems to have any ground contact.
Russia's objectives in the war
Since the start of the invasion, Russia has declared the following objectives: to keep Ukraine out of NATO, to demilitarise the country and to ensure that Ukraine's military does not pose a threat to Russia in the future. At the moment, there is no indication that Russia will not have its demands met in the near future. The US, realising that the war is largely lost, has more or less withdrawn and seems to have no plans to supply Ukraine with more weapons. Despite this, Europe's leaders, including Pål Jonson, are apparently convinced that the war will continue for at least another decade, because that is the time SAAB needs to deliver these aircraft starting in early 2029.
SAAB and the government live in a fantasy world
By the time the planned JAS delivery begins, it is highly likely that the war will be over and Russia's demilitarisation demands already implemented. To think that Russia would accept Ukraine acquiring an air force of 100-150 JAS 39Es at that point is nothing more than childish wishful thinking.
Financing plans
How this whole dream project will be financed is even more baffling than the project itself. Pål Jonson stated in Aktuellt that Ukraine would be able to pay for the aircraft when the war is over. But how can a shattered country afford to buy fighter jets for around SEK 120 billion? There is also talk of possible export credits, which means that taxpayers will once again have to foot the bill for a massive state project. Even more serious are plans to use Russian frozen assets in European banks to finance this project, in effect pure theft. The European Commission plans to issue bonds with the Russian assets as collateral, which Sweden hopes to benefit from. So Russia will accept that their money is used to buy weapons to be used against them. Pål Jonson's plans are not only unrealistic, they are morally reprehensible. One day, the Russian money will be demanded back with interest under international law. Already now, the freezing of Russian assets is illegal because no European country is formally at war with Russia. The European Commission is acting as if the EU were a state, while seeming to forget that the EU is made up of many sovereign states with their different views on debt and decisions to declare war.
Marketing Yippee?
Pål Jonson and the government's spectacle, which took place in Linköping on 22 October, increasingly appears to be a publicity stunt commissioned by SAAB and its owners to promote the new JAS 39E Gripen. The new JAS aircraft is an absolutely world-class product and something we can be proud that our small country has managed to produce. But the marketing ploy launched by Pål Jonson and SAAB leaves a bitter aftertaste in that they are exploiting a desperate Mr Zelensky, who represents a country that is falling apart. For the government to engage in such activity is not only misguided; it goes against all norms of a civilised society. This is another example of the offensive cooperation between the state and capital, a so-called ”public-private partnership”, which definitely deserves to be scrutinised by the Constitutional Committee.
Major and former fighter pilot and spokesperson for defence issues, Ambition Sverige (A)