Ukraine signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) to potentially procure 100-150 Saab JAS-39E/F Gripen fighter aircraft. While not a binding sale, the LoI signals the direction of the Ukrainian Air Force’s future air warfare plans, one that envisions building a hi-and-lo combination comprising a lightweight tactical fighter as the primary workhorse, spearheaded by a twin-engine, medium-weight asset in the Dassault Rafale.
What makes this important — and what ties directly back to Pakistan — is why this category is resurging. Lightweight fighters were originally meant for air arms that assumed they would fight alone, sustain their own fleets, and generate sortie volume without external guarantees. That doctrinal logic has always underpinned Pakistan’s airpower model.
The shock is that Ukraine and others are now converging on this same idea: alliances may help, but they cannot be relied upon for real-time warfighting. In a strategic sense, much of the world is drifting toward the requirements that Pakistan adopted, even if unintentionally.
The Russia-Ukraine War has been a wellspring of lessons about the evolving nature of modern warfare, especially with the rise of drones, loitering munitions, guided rockets, and cruise missiles, among many ‘connective’ elements binding these systems together (e.g., satellite imagery, multi-modal intelligence systems, and combined arms). But despite these shifts, some fundamentals remain entrenched, and the Ukrainians – having experienced these changes first-hand – see that modern crewed fighter aircraft will be critical to both their current and future needs.
However, the story for this analysis is the renewed and growing adoption of lightweight multirole fighters such as the Gripen, among many others. Be it Ukraine committing to a large-scale Gripen order, Canada seemingly showing interest in the same platform, and yet another country signing onto the JF-17 Thunder from Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC), the interest in tactical fighters, which an earlier article of ours framed as perfect solutions for (at the time) a niche problem, is surging.
Interestingly, nothing about these lightweight multirole fighters changed in their inherent technical merits or limitations. Instead, the problems they were meant to solve have suddenly become more prevalent.
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Related Reads
- 22 Years On, The Sanction-Proof JF-17 is More Important Than Ever
- Beyond Block-3: Why the JF-17 Thunder Remains Crucial to the PAF’s Future
- JF-17 to Azerbaijan: Pakistan’s Biggest Defence Export Deal
Spain also bought the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) Hürjet, which can be developed further into a lightweight multirole fighter. Likewise, the JF-17 has also captured some of the growth through Azerbaijan and an undisclosed country. The Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) Tejas has not yet captured exports, but it will still see growth through Indian Air Force (IAF) procurement.
The point is that there are certain problems that absolutely require lower-cost workhorse fighter platforms. These problems were far more prevalent throughout the Cold War, which is when there had been many tactical fighter options, most notably the MiG-21, F-5, Mirage III/5 and F-1. Outside of the U.S., most air arms built their backbones through lightweight platforms that delivered the bulk of air-to-air and air-to-surface capability at low-cost.
However, since the 1980s, the tactical fighter market had steered into this situation where each of the biggest customers somehow acquired their own individual solutions. Not only that, but most arms bifurcated to two polar ends of the spectrum: they would either, as noted above, view themselves as part of a coalition framework and prioritize deep interoperability and assumption of pooling resources (thus leading to the procurement of a few high-cost fighters like the F-35) or basically deprioritize conventional airpower in favour of light attack capabilities, hence leading the growth of turboprop-powered combat aircraft.
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