6 Packs and Fighter Aircraft: Canada, the F-35, and Lessons for Denmark

Canada and Denmark have a lot in common. Canada uses its military to participate in a limited, yet effective and internationally appreciated manner in overseas military engagements as a stalwart Western ally without endangering the economy and social programs. Its aging F-18 fighter aircraft were to be replaced by the F-35, but newly-elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau chose to reopen the decision process and delay the purchase. What does this mean for Canada's foreign policy? What lessons can Denmark learn from Canada's use of fighter aircraft and its decision processes?

Christian Leuprecht is an associate professor of political science at the Royal Military College of Canada and cross-appointed to the Department of Political Studies and the School of Policy Studies at Queen’s University. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Augsburg in Germany (2011), the Swedish National Defence College (recurring) and the European Academy (recurring), the Bicentennial Visiting Associate Professor in Canadian Studies at Yale University (2009–2010), and is a research fellow at the Austrian Institute for European and Security Policy (since 2010), the Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at the University of Pennsylvania and Bryn Mawr College (2003), the World Population Program at the International Institute for Advanced Systems Analysis in Vienna, Austria (2002), and held doctoral (2001–2003) and postdoctoral (2003–2005) fellowships from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

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