Norway's response to the Swedish defense minister's debate article published in Dagens Nyheter Thursday, Nov. 20th where it was alluded that the former would buy SAAB's Jas Gripen came a day after. The Norwegian government prefers the American Joint Strike Fighter, a decision that instantly raised eyebrows among Swedish politicians and airplane experts.
The four Nordic countries that have agreed to strengthen border security cooperation have chosen separate ways when it came to fighting planes: Finland has the heavy US F-18; Sweden, its light Jas Gripen; Denmark the older version of US F-16 and now Norway will buy the new American Joint Strike Fighter.
What has caused the eyebrow raising among Swedish experts is the fact that the price Norway has to pay for the US fighter planes is not commercially reasonable, reports said. According to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, DSCA in its September account, the 48 JSF planes would have cost around 58 billion Norwegian crowns and not NOK18 billion as now reported. It can only be deduced that the current state of US economy has plunged the price of its JSF.
Swedish experts say that the total cost for life maintenance of JSF planes, or what is referred to as life cycle cost, is three times the cost of Jas Gripen. Even Norwegian military experts in its cost analysis say that, " the cost picture for all identifiable cost elements is 20 to 30 billion higher for JSF (compared to Jas Gripen) over a 30-period life perspective"."
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