Sweden's Saab plans to manufacture air defense systems in Ukraine to support local defense production, potentially leading to Gripen fighter jet assembly.
Do countries and companies still license products for local manufacture? I mean, obviously in this case you’ll want the investment, but I remember situations in the early twentieth century where companies sold the plans and the right for militaries in other nations to make weapons in themselves.
I hope this isn’t a dumb question. If so, I apologize for my ignorance.
Regarding the Gripen E/F, SAAB doesn’t own the licences for all the details, so they’d need to get daddy USA to agree to it. Especially the engine, it being a GE F414 (and I think the same rules apply even on the F414 variant, being the Swedish RM16). Everyone’s too scared about committing ITAR violations and such.
So even if the USA said yes today, it’d still be several years away before we’d see Ukranian-produced Gripen in the air. But to answer your question, it’s not any real problem to have local manufacturing if all parties are on board; SAAB has worked with Embraer to produce Gripen E in Brazil since a couple years back for example.
I hate that my country has become an obstacle to sovereign nations having the freedom to defend themselves as they choose and as they need. I think with the way the United States is going, other countries are going to need to move away from using anything American, just for the sake of security and independence. How many times has Ukraine needed American permission to use a weapon? Does anybody have a really independent military industry other than France?
Do countries and companies still license products for local manufacture? I mean, obviously in this case you’ll want the investment, but I remember situations in the early twentieth century where companies sold the plans and the right for militaries in other nations to make weapons in themselves.
I hope this isn’t a dumb question. If so, I apologize for my ignorance.
Regarding the Gripen E/F, SAAB doesn’t own the licences for all the details, so they’d need to get daddy USA to agree to it. Especially the engine, it being a GE F414 (and I think the same rules apply even on the F414 variant, being the Swedish RM16). Everyone’s too scared about committing ITAR violations and such.
So even if the USA said yes today, it’d still be several years away before we’d see Ukranian-produced Gripen in the air. But to answer your question, it’s not any real problem to have local manufacturing if all parties are on board; SAAB has worked with Embraer to produce Gripen E in Brazil since a couple years back for example.
I hate that my country has become an obstacle to sovereign nations having the freedom to defend themselves as they choose and as they need. I think with the way the United States is going, other countries are going to need to move away from using anything American, just for the sake of security and independence. How many times has Ukraine needed American permission to use a weapon? Does anybody have a really independent military industry other than France?