Remnants of Empire: Tracing Norway's F-35 Decision

Abstract

What is left of the ‘empire by invitation’? Coined by Geir Lundestad in 1986, the seemingly contradictory phrase has been used to explain the nature of American power in Western Europe and beyond. This article revisits the concept to shed light on Norway's 2008 decision to recapitalize its fighter jet fleet with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter – an event of considerable political significance in the ongoing history of this complex, controversial, and geopolitically consequential weapons programme. Using multiple sources, including diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks, the article traces how Americans and their local brokers intervened in the Norwegian policy process to ensure that the F-35s would go to the Royal Norwegian Air Force. In addition to suggesting that ‘empire by invitation’ remains a fact of international political life, the analysis also shows the importance of legitimation strategies in security policy. This especially applies to the study of international arms deals because interactions between and among politicians, diplomats, bureaucrats, and lobbyists always involve claims and counterclaims about legitimate national interest.

Acknowledgements

For comments we are grateful to Amit Julka, Manali Kumar, Medha, Dag Mossige and Jens Ringsmose. The paper also benefited from presentations at the 2013 International Conference of Europeanists and the 2011 convention of the European Consortium for Political Research. Special thanks also go to Aaron Karp, for his editorial input.

Notes

1. Lundestad initially focused on the 1945–1952 period – see Lundestad, ‘Empire by Invitation? The United States and Western Europe, 1945–1952’, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 23, No. 3 (1986), pp. 263–77. Subsequently he suggested that the logic of ‘empire by invitation’ can be extended to the subsequent period on the understanding that ‘invitation’ is subject to political contingencies and contestation. Lundestad, ‘Empire’ by Invitation: The United States and European Integration, 1945–1997 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), Ch. 1; Lundestad, The United States and Western Europe since 1945: From ‘Empire’ by Invitation to Transatlantic Drift (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 256–7; and Lundestad. The Rise & Decline of the American ‘Empire': Power and Its Limits in Comparative Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 97.

2. Edward Hallett Carr, The Twenty Yearís Crisis, 1919–1939 (New York: Harper, 1964), p. 132.

3. For example: Jan Nederveen Pieterse, ‘Leaking Superpower: WikiLeaks and the Contradictions of Democracy’, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 10 (2012), pp. 1909–24; Mark Page and J.E. Spence, ‘Open Secrets Questionably Arrived At: The Impact of Wikileaks on Diplomacy’, Defence Studies, Vol. 11, No. 2 (2011), pp. 234–43; and Henry Farrell and Martha Finnemore. ‘The End of Hypocrisy’, Foreign Affairs (November/December 2013), pp. 22–8, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/140155/henry-farrell-and-martha-finnemore/the-end-of-hypocrisy (accessed 12 June 2014).

4. John O'Loughlin, Frank D.W. Witmer, Andrew M. Linke and Nancy Thorwardson, ‘Peering into the Fog of War: The Geography of the WikiLeaks Afghanistan War Logs, 2004–2009’, Eurasian Geography and Economics, Vol. 51, No. 4 (2010), pp. 472–95; Scott Pegg and Eiki Berg, ‘Lost and Found: The WikiLeaks of De Facto State–Great Power Relations’, International Studies Perspectives (2014), http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/insp.12078/pdf (accessed 12 June 2014).

5. Jeffrey A. Lefebvre, ‘Choosing Sides in the Horn of Africa: Wikileaks, the Ethiopia Imperative, and American Responses to Post-9/11 Regional Conflicts’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, Vol. 23, No. 4 (2012), pp. 704–27; Christopher Y. Huang and Joseph Tse-Hei Lee, ‘Entangled Web: The Wikileaks and US-China Rivalries over Taiwan’, International Journal of China Studies, Vol. 4, No. 3 (2013), pp. 285–300.

6. A historiography of the WikiLeaks is yet to be written, but see Lefebvre, ‘Choosing Sides in the Horn of Africa’ (note 5), p. 705; Huang and Lee, ‘Entangled Web’ (note 5), p. 286–7.

7. The cables were retrieved in January 2011 using links from The Guardian website (WikiLeaks URLs are characterized by instability), and are on file with the authors.

8. Johannes Wahlstroem and Richard Aschberg, ‘Här blir vi blåsta’, Aftonbladet, 3 December 2010. The story was reported in the English language media on the same day. For example, Bill Sweetman, ‘WikiLeaks, Weaklings and Weasels’, Aviation Week & Space Technology, 3 December 2010.

9. International arms deals revolve around a huge range of sensitive issues about which participants rarely speak on the record unless their anonymity is fully protected. The interviews were conducted between February 2012 and July 2014 in Oslo, Stockholm, and at a major international air show. The format for citation is interview number-year (we agreed to omit the exact date and location).

10. Saying that future historians will have a more definitive say would be misleading. As one anonymous reviewer pointed out, more than 30 years have passed since the last time Norway bought a fighter jet, yet the official records of the transaction are still unavailable to researchers.

11. See, for example, ‘ISP Forum: American Empire’, International Studies Perspectives, Vol. 9, No. 3 (2008), pp. 272–330. Most authors in this symposium suggest that the nature of external US authority should be categorized as primarily hegemonic rather than primarily imperial, and that the term ‘influence’ is more appropriate in this context than ‘rule.’ Cf. Lundestad, The United States and Western Europe since 1945 (note 1), p. 119.

12. Lundestad, The United States and Western Europe since 1945 (note 1), p. 1. In this view, Washington and its peripheries can and do interact with each other along multiple political dimensions simultaneously, not all of which are hierarchically ordered. Also see ‘ISP Forum,’ 2008.

13. Theories of empire vary in explaining how and why ruling elites within subordinate polities develop interest in sustaining hierarchy. For an early agenda-setting text, see Ronald Robinson, ‘Non-European Foundations of European Imperialism: Sketch for a Theory of Collaboration', in Roger Owen and Bob Sutcliffe (eds), Studies in the Theory of Imperialism (London: Longman, 1972), pp. 118–40.

14. Lundestad's thesis has its share of critics over the years. For one, separating consent from coercion appears to be analytically difficult, if not impossible. See the historiography on the architecture of the Marshall Plan, for example: Charles S. Maier, ‘American Visions and British Interests: Hogan's Marshall Plan', Reviews in American History, Vol. 18, No. 1 (1990), pp. 102–11, and the special forum on Michael Cox and Caroline Kennedy-Pipe, ‘The Tragedy of American Diplomacy? Rethinking the Marshall Plan', Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 7, No. 1 (2005), pp. 97–181.

15. According to Lundestad, the fact that some values were shared more than others lost foreign policy relevance once ‘socialist Norway' joined NATO (Lundestad, The United States and Western Europe since 1945 (note 1), p. 48; also see pp. 51–2, 45–55, 100).

16. For US bases in Norway today, see the Pentagon's dedicated website http://www.militaryinstallations.dod.mil/ No US military facility in Norway was ever nuclearized or declared permanent (of course, back-to-back rotation of US forces ensured continual presence). For an excellent summary of Lundestad's views on the history (and future) of Norway–USA relations, see Lundestad, ‘The United States and Norway, 1905–2000. Allies of a Kind: So Similar, So Different’, Journal of Transatlantic Studies, Vol. 4, No. 2 (2006), pp. 187–210.

17. Lundestad, ‘Empire’ by Invitation (note 1): p. 1; also see Ibid., pp. 124–5.

18. Spruyt,‘“American Empire” as an Analytic Question or a Rhetorical Move?’, International Studies Perspectives, Vol. 9, No. 3 (2008), pp. 290–9, p. 292. Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper agree with this point when they write that empires are ‘sites of debates over political legitimacy and sovereign power.' Burbank and Cooper, Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), p. 292. As these two historians note, the use public reason to resolve political contradictions, mobilize support, and mollify dissent in different contexts can tell us a great deal about the evolution of international hierarchies in the world. While not explicitly theorized by Lundestad, the concept of legitimacy is arguably central to his thesis. See, especially, Lundestad, ‘Empire’ by Invitation (note 1), Ch. 1.

19. Here we invoke the constructivist (or constructionist) social ontology that treats actors as inseparable from the historical and institutional context that shapes them. The so-called co-constitution of actors and their context means that the former cannot ‘rise above’ their surroundings and follow objectively rational strategies. For a useful discussion of different ‘dimensions' of power in an IR theory context, see Ronald Krebs and Patrick T. Jackson, ‘Twisting Tongues and Twisting Arms: The Power of Political Rhetoric’, European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 13, No. 1 (2007), pp. 35–66. Suffice it to say, not all the practices of legitimation are discursive.

20. Carr did not say that the two types of power are inseparable (cf. note 2), only that they are ‘closely associated.’ Carr, 1964, p. 132.

21. Strategic communication, strategic narratives, public diplomacy, and public relations are nearby concepts in that they all refer to organized efforts by actors to promote particular interpretations, evaluations, or solutions. See Philip M. Taylor, ‘Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication’, in Nancy Snow and Philip M. Taylor (eds), Routledge Handbook of Public Diplomacy (New York: Routledge, 2009), pp. 12–18; Alister Miskimmon, Ben O'Loughlin and Laura Roselle, Strategic Narratives: Communication and the New World Order (New York: Routledge, 2013), Ch. 1; George Dimitriu, Beatrice de Graaf, and Jens Ringsmose (eds), Strategic Narratives, Public Opinion and War (New York: Routledge, 2015), Ch. 1; and assorted contributions to Inderjeet Parmar and Michael Cox (eds), Soft Power and US Foreign Policy. Theoretical, Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (London: Routledge, 2010).

22. In contrast to propaganda, public diplomacy had no obvious association with Soviet and Nazi practices. Some argue that public diplomacy should be reserved for benign, two-way forms of communication aimed at supporters and neutral groups under a broader ‘soft power’ umbrella, while one-way public communication targeting opponents should be called ‘overt propaganda’ or, for that matter, ‘psychological warfare.’ On these concepts, see Nicholas John Cull, David Holbrook Culbert and David Welch (eds), Propaganda and Mass Persuasion. A Historical Encyclopedia, 1500 to the Present (Santa Barbara: ABC Clio, 2003), pp. 323–8.

23. See, for example, Parmar and Cox (eds), 2011; Frank A. Ninkovich. The Diplomacy of Ideas: U.S. Foreign Policy and Cultural Relations, 1938–1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Jarol Manheim. Strategic Public Diplomacy and American Foreign Policy: The Evolution of Influence (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994); Giles Scott-Smith and Hans Krabbendam (eds), The Cultural Cold War in Western Europe, 1945–1960 (London: Frank Cass, 2003); and Nicholas J. Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, 1945–1989 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).

24. For the purposes of this analysis we equate state sovereignty with political independence. As Stephen Krasner has shown, given the fundamentally interdependent and hierarchical nature of international politics, state sovereignty has a ‘hypocritical' quality to it. Stephen Krasner, ‘Sovereignty Redux', International Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1 (2001), pp. 134–8. Also see Farrell and Finnemore, 2013, p. 23.

25. On the politics of alliance dependence in the European context, see the recent discussions in Anders Wivel and Robert Steinmetz (eds), Small States in Europe: Challenges and Opportunities (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2013), Laurent Goetschel (ed.), ‘Special Issue: Bound to be peaceful? The Changing Approach of Western European Small States to Peace', Swiss Political Science Review, Vol. 19, No, 3 (2013), pp. 259–78; and Jenne Haaland Matlary and Magnus Petersson (eds), NATO's European Allies: Military Capability and Political Will (Houndsmill: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). On the politics of sourcing fighter jets, see Srdjan Vucetic and Atsushi Tago, ‘Why Buy American? The International Politics of Fighter Jet Transfers', Canadian Journal of Political Science, forthcoming.

26. As Martin Hollis and Steve Smith have argued in their famous meta-theoretical manifesto, ‘explanation’ and ‘understanding’ rest on different philosophies of social science and each contributes different forms of empirical knowledge about world politics. Hollis and Smith, Explaining and Understanding in International Relations (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). Also note that any hypothesis-testing research design would be severely limited at this stage by the lopsided evidentiary base, as discussed in the introduction.

27. Considering that the RNoAF operated 57 F-16AMs at the time of the decision, this means that the F-35 deal constitutes an almost 1-to-1 recapitalization – a rarity in the contemporary fighter jet market that is partly explicable by Norway's oil wealth-supported defence budgets.

28. ‘The F-35A’, Lockheed Martin Corporation promotional pamphlet, not dated, https://www.f35.com/assets/uploads/downloads/13537/f-35a.pdf. Government officials and the media use the labels F-35 and JSF interchangeably; Lightning II is the plane's official nickname. There are three variants of the F-35 family. Norway is slated to receive the conventional ‘A' variant, albeit one rigged with the ability to deploy drag chutes that facilitate landing on icy runways.

29. Levels of partnership at once relate to the amount of cash invested, the amount of technology transfer and sub-contracting opportunities available, and the schedule of deliveries – all of which remain subject to annual review by the Joint Executive Steering Board. Srdjan Vucetic and Kim Richard Nossal (eds), ‘The International Politics of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’, International Journal, Vol. 68, No. 1 (Winter 2012–2013).

30. The ellipses in this and other quotes were necessary for the reasons of space. Strøm Erichsen also indicated that the F-35 was ‘considered to be the better of the two candidates regarding intelligence and surveillance, counter air, air interdict and anti-surface warfare’, the four ‘scenarios’ used in the MOD evaluation process. For the full statement, see The Prime Minister's Office, ‘Press Release 180/2009’, 20 November 2008. Unless otherwise noted, all official documents related to Norway's F-35 acquisition were retrieved in January, April and December 2012 from http://www.regjeringen.no/en/dep/fd (some available in English).

31. 08Oslo585.

32. We use this concept loosely. Precommitment, which may be a pleonasm, is associated with economists like Robert Strotz and Thomas Schelling. See, for example, the symposium in Texas Law Review, Vol. 81, No. 7 (2003), pp. 1729–927.

33. This is acknowledged in the cables: ‘The Gripen contains 50 per cent US content, including engines, avionics, and weapon systems; sales of the Gripen are good for U.S. industry’ (08Stockholm494). One hastens to add that sales of the F-35 are ‘even better’.

34. 08Stockholm494. The recommendation came after Sweden's Defence Minister Sven Tolgfors and the US Ambassador in Stockholm Michael Wood met to finalize the terms of the export of the AESA radar to Sweden.

35. The same point applies to the rest of the WikiLeaks cache. Also see Farrell and Finnemore, 2013, p. 22; Lefebvre, ‘Choosing Sides in the Horn of Africa’ (note 5), p. 706; Page and Spence, 2011, p. 237.

36. Quoted in ‘Saab slams Norway's Gripen rejection’, Local, 10 December 2008. The official statement is no longer retrievable. Importantly, the Swedish government confirmed the credibility of the competition outcome. Per Erlien Dalløkken, ‘Svensk innrømmelse: Gripen passer ikke Norge’, Teknisk Ukeblad, 19 January 2009.

37. Jens Ringsmose, ‘Investing in Fighters and Alliances: Norway, Denmark, and the Bumpy Road to the Joint Strike Fighter’, International Journal, Vol. 68, No. 1 (Winter 2012–2013), pp. 93–110.

38. Bargaining theories address these type situations, but to continue with the counterfactual, a Gripen but could downgrade Norway's status as an ‘inner circle’ NATO member, which could then put pressure on Oslo compensate Washington elsewhere or, conversely, effectuate a re-imagination of Norway ‘s place in the world. For a map of ‘alternative Norways’, see Lundestad, ‘The United States and Norway, 1905–2000'; Nina Graeger and Halvard Leira, ‘Norwegian Strategic Culture after World War II. From a Local to a Global Perspective', Cooperation and Conflict, Vol. 40, No. 1 (2005), pp. 45–66; Svein Vigeland Rottem, ‘The Ambivalent Ally: Norway in the New NATO', Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 28, No. 3 (2008), pp. 619–37. On why the USA and Europe might diverge over the long-term, also see Lundestad, The United States and Western Europe since 1945 (note 1), pp. 281–93, and Ibid., pp. 49–51, 193.

39. ‘Today, the missile is the pride of Norway's defence industry’, Press Release 34/2013 (Oslo: Ministry of Defence, 26 April 2013). But when Defence Minister Strøm-Erichsen opened the new ‘F-35 plant’ in November 2008, there was only ‘vague hope’ that a Norwegian firm would wrestle this contract away from American suppliers. Interview 01–2014. Kongsberg and is subsidiaries are also producing the plane's rudders and the engine shaft, while Kitron AS, the other big Norwegian participant in the F-35 supply chain, is slated to build smaller electronic equipment and airframe components in its Arendal and Billingstad sites.

40. Interview 1–2013; Interview 1–2014.

41. Endre Lunde, ‘Norway's Future Fighter Competition: A Norwegian View’, Defense Industry Daily, 11 May 2006.

42. Interview 1–2012.

43. One measure of Saab's success was the endorsement the Gripen received in a report comparing the industrial and regional benefits of the two competitors published in October 2008 by the Norwegian Defence and Security Industries Association (FSi), the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) and the Norwegian Society of Engineers and Technologists (NITO). http://www.fsi.no/sfiles/12/11/1/file/kampflyevaluering_-_sluttrapport.pdf (accessed January 21, 2011). Also see Ringsmose, ‘Investing in Fighters and Alliances' (note 37), p. 101.

44. Ringsmose, ‘Investing in Fighters and Alliances’ (note 37), pp. 100–1.

45. On ballooning JSF costs at the time, see David Fulghum, ‘Dueling Analyses; Questions Remain about the Fundamental Soundness of Top Pentagon Programs’, Aviation Week & Space Technology, 14 April 2008. As for the ‘offset free’ clause, this referred to the idea that JSF would provide positive return-on-investment to all partner countries by default given that the total amount of development and production contracts allocated to domestic industry would exceed the amount of public funds invested in the project. Interview 1–2012. Normally, in the arms business sellers are contractually obligated to invest portion of the sale proceeds into the economy of the importer. In 2008, Saab indeed promised a 100 per cent offset to Norway, with the Swedish government adding a commitment to buy a larger number of the Gripens for the Swedish Air Force as a way of helping Norway decrease acquisition costs for the same aircraft. Interview 1–2013. Note that offsets tend to be treated as a legitimate form of industrial policy despite evidence that they very rarely succeed in boosting economic development. See Jurgen Brauer and J. Paul Dunne, ‘Arms Trade Offsets: What do We Know?’, in Christopher J. Coyne and Rachel L. Mathers (eds), The Handbook on the Political Economy of War (Cheltenham: Elgar, 2011), pp. 243–65.

46. Interview 1–2014.

47. According to the cable of 16 December, in 2008 the US government and Lockheed Martin agreed to rush the transfer the first C-130 J to Norway as a way of making ‘the (unstated) point that we are good allies and reliable partners.’ 08Oslo670.

48. Maj. General Olav Aamoth, ‘Nye jagerflyg må holde i 50 år’, Teknisk Ukeblad, 11 April 2008, http://www.tu.no/industri/2008/11/04/-nye-jagerfly-ma-holde-i-50-ar (accessed 5 January 2012).

49. Thomas Spence, ‘JSF ikke jagerfly, Jon Berg, forsvarsekspert’, Aftenposten, 4 May 2008. According to a book authored by the same expert, the RNoAF considered replacing part of its F-16 fleet with the Eurofighter in early 2000s, but the then-Minister of Defence Bjørn Tore Godal nixed this option, arguing that it would be more rational to wait for the F-35 to become available on the market. See Jon Berg, Kampflyene som bomber forsvarsevne (Oslo: Spartacus Forlag, 2012), p. 117 (cited in Ringsmose, ‘Investing in Fighters and Alliances’ (note 37), p. 99).

50. Lundestad, The United States and Western Europe since 1945 (note 1), p. 53.

51. 08Oslo585.

52. On the effect of the unpopularity of the Bush administration, see Ringsmose, ‘Investing in Fighters and Alliances’ (note 37), p. 106.

53. The Socialists were even threatening to leave the coalition should the F-35 be chosen. See ‘SV diskuterer sin reaksjon om jagerfly’, Verdens Gang, 11 November 2008. Note that no Stoltenberg government official went on record to argue against the Gripen. Interview 3–2014.

54. Jenne Haaland Matlary, ‘Norway: Militarily Able, But Politically Divided', in Matlary and Petersson, NATO's European Allies (note 25), p. 289.

55. Ibid., pp. 291–3. Also note that Norway had always cultivated a distinct ‘peace culture.’ Ibid., p. 289, and Graeger and Leira, 2005.

56. 08Oslo522.

57. Ibid. This point is made twice in fact: ‘Despite assurances from the MOD that they understand the truth, these myths matter as the GON will need to convince the public that it has made the right decision’.

58. For one theoretical framework for analysing public discourse in terms of ‘fit’ with the so-called background knowledge, see Srdjan Vucetic, The Anglosphere: A Genealogy of a Racialized Identity in International Relations (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2011), Ch. 1. We bracket the venerable ontological debate on whether communication constitutes rather than merely reflects reality, assuming only that communication and social always influence one another.

59. 08Oslo585 and 08Oslo670.

60. 08Oslo670.

61. Tom Bakkeli, Bjørn Haugan and Gunn Kari Hegvik, ‘Russisk superfly ga Gripen dødsstøtet’, Verdens Gang, 21 November 2008.

62. Ibid.

63. An online government bioblurb from 2011 described Barth Eide as the person ‘in charge of the political process that led to the recent choice of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter,’ whereby Norway was ‘the first country outside the US to make this choice’ Ministry of Defence, ‘Former State Secretary Espen Barth Eide’, Document Archive, http://www.regjeringen.no/en/archive/Stoltenbergs-2nd-Government/Ministry-of-Defence/personer-og-enheter/politisk-ledelse/2006/state-secretary-espen-barth-eide.html?id=1664 (accessed 2 December 2011). We refrain from speculating about individual-level motivations (for example, careerism) of brokers like Eide or Stoltenberg (cf. Sweetman, ‘WikiLeaks, Weaklings and Weasels’).

64. 08Oslo522.

65. Ibid. Despite rumours to the contrary, Lockheed Martin never hired a local public relations firm during Norway's competition. Interview 2–2012. An internationally networked and social media-savvy public relations campaign that the F-35 is known for today emerged in the early 2010s. David Axe, ‘Jet Fighter Influence: How Lockheed's Public Relations Efforts Keep the F-35 Sold,’ War is Boring, 5 March 2013.

66. 08Oslo670.

67. 08Oslo522.

68. 08Olso585.

69. Ibid.

70. Ringsmose, ‘Investing in Fighters and Alliances’ (note 37), p. 105; also see pp. 99, 110.

71. 08Oslo629.

72. 08Olso585.

73. The sample consists of newspaper interviews, news articles, opinion-editorials, and comments in the main Norwegian dailies Aftenposten (11 items), Verdens Gang (7) and Dagbladet (3); the leading online newspaper Nettavisen (4); the business daily Finansavisen (2); and Teknisk Ukeblad (2), the country's largest engineering and technology weekly. Letters to the editor and political cartoons were not included.

74. One of the cables suggests Barth Eide noted that Aftenposten ‘had gone off the deep end with its open anti-JSF campaign of disinformation' (08Oslo670), but our sample was too small to examine biases within specific media sources. Some authors, however, consistently favoured one option (Kjell Dragnes and Jon Berg in the case of the Gripen, for example).

75. ‘Her «frir» den svenske ministeren til Norge’, Verdens Gang, 8 April 2008.

76. Neither the government nor the media ever argued that the Gripen deal would somehow upset the country's commitment to the collective defence in the Euro-Atlantic area. However, the government's communications consistently emphasized homeland defence over overseas missions. For example: The Prime Minister's Office, ‘Press Release 180/2009: Går inn for Joint Strike Fighter’, 20 November 2008.

77. Ethan B. Kapstein, ‘Capturing Fortress Europe: International Collaboration and the Joint Strike Fighter', Survival, Vol. 46, No. 3 (2004), p. 144. Little suggests that the Gripen would have major difficulty inter-operating with NATO fighter jets in out-of-area missions. See Robert Egnell, ‘The Swedish Experience in Operation Unified Protector: Overcoming the Non-NATO Member Conundrum', in Karl Mueller (ed.), Precision and Purpose: Airpower in the Libyan Civil War (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, forthcoming).

78. Remarkably, not a single article in our sample framed the ongoing fighter jet deal in terms of the five day-long Russo-Georgian clash in August 2008.

79. The Norwegian case would be relevant for this discussion given that the WikiLeaks revelations about the F-35 deal did not cause observable damage to either Norway-Sweden relations or the Stoltenberg government. Indeed, while some media outlets did their best to scandalize ‘Norway's fake competition’, the political fallout proved to be minimal. Officials in Stockholm generally declined to comment on the affair, save for a parliamentary committee chair who stated that the Swedish proved ‘naïve' (while adding that he personally ‘always' had suspicions about the rectitude of Norway's competition). Håkan Juholt, interviewed by TT newsservice. December 2010. ‘Sweden ‘tricked' in failed Norway Gripen bid', Local, 3. Had the Socialist Left Party remained as powerful in the Stoltenberg government then as it was in the 2005–2009 period, the fallout would have likely been less manageable.

80. For the next four years, more than 40 per cent of annual buys are expected to be international. For updates, visit the programme's official website https://www.f35.com/, in conjunction with Defense Industry Daily and Aviation Week & Space Technology.

81. In Denmark, the F-35 is competing against the Gripen once again, and the same face-off is likely to take place in Finland's upcoming new fighter jet acquisition. The Canadian government, mired in ongoing political controversies over the Lockheed Martin plane, is pursuing a wait-and-see policy. Atsushi Tago and Srdjan Vucetic, ‘The ‘Only Choice’: Canadian and Japanese F-35 Decisions Compared’, International Journal, Vol. 68, No. 1 (2012–2013), pp. 131–50. In November 2014, a leaked Pentagon brief implied that ‘Canada’ was secretly negotiating an order with the Joint Program Office. Bill Sweetman, ‘JSF Program Office Looks At Canada F-35 Swap', Aviation Week & Space Technology, November 7, 2014. Ottawa officials denied these insinuations, but a month later another story came out suggesting that the Royal Canadian Air Force was looking into a new aircrew training system that would meet the demands of an F-35 fleet. David Pugliese, ‘RCAF Brigadier General to discuss Canada's plans to buy a flight trainer for the F-35', Ottawa Citizen, December 5, 2014.