Croatian Armed Forces

The Rafale purchase comes from years old fighter procurement program and its respective requirements, none of which concern competing with any of the neighbouring airforces.

Croatia needed to spend strategic amounts of money to integrate a new platform, so it was logical to go full political and rely on allies and not a sole business deal like it would be with Gripen.

Buying a better than average modern jet instead of value-for-money purchase was done in a wider context.
That context does not include Serbia at all. The political relations might seem strained but keep in mind that both sides use that setup to spin stuff around whenever it suits them. Whenever a local is caught with in some shit there goes the story about the bad neighbour, we have half-staged 'incidents' and so on. It's just folklore.

Rest assured if Croatia wanted to buy longer range land attack missiles they would buy them.
Also the fact that Serbia has them does not mean they're pointed at Croatia, which they aren't.

Comparisons with MiG-29/35 or potential Su-30 on the Serb side have been discarded from public discourse as irrelevant and trollish. Absolutely the most important topic at hand was whether Croatia wants to continue tradition of military aviation in today's very expensive age, and pay a price for it. We had Croatian demo pilots move to Qatar because their jobs were turning obsolete, and that story rang around the public which increased the acceptance of acquiring new planes.

To add something to the revamped debate about the Croatian Rafale, their impromptu adoption after a decade old debating is somewhat that show a definite aspect of Croatian mentality and their own self-representation.
Same happened with Euro adoption:while all other countries that entered it tried to extend the double currency cohabitation time to the maximum possible extent they made the switch in the shortest possible time, keeping just fifteen day of double circulation (they had the double billing already enabled by some time, so they didn't needed to convert the whole software from scratch).
Problem was that the scheduled introduction of the Euro, happened in the worst possible moment forcing them to be the only ones in the whole Union to be forced to keep a budget restriction in a moment all others (and Germany first) loosened them to face inflation rise.
Still, there was not any whining, no dilation request, no call for extra subsidies and so on...
Better to swallow the pill all at once that to keep hanging on and debase themselves by begging.
So, while all others drag their feet in order to gain short term advantages, they adopted, for national pride but also for a quite different evaluation of their own standing interests, the opposite approach.
In case of both the construction of a motorway network than in that of defence budget the results were worth the effort: they came first and got , in former case, a decisive lead, in the latter, the best deal available on the second hand market or the place of first buyer in the case of licensed production.
In case of Euro adoption, things were not so neat but I will wait Sezona for the final evaluation.

Quite good analysis. However it's not "their", eg. it's not some sort of national goal, it's down to how HDZ does stuff.

They can steal as much as they want as long as they keep the EU money coming in. In the process they are subservient to EU bureaucracy and also selling out the country bit by bit. Plenkovic government is just a Bruxelles proxy. So we adopted Euro the way EU wanted us to adopt Euro. We have no buffer of our own not because of some strategy but because we don't have a national government. He had to fire 10+ ministers due to corruption and his spot is not shaken even a bit. We had EU corruption officers incorporating directly into Croatia and then bringing up several high-profile cases. Doesn't concern him.

I don't think there is any pride involved in say, the new Peljesac bridge, HDZ may try to depict it that way for their own benefit, but everybody knows hard working Chinese built it in time, EU paid for it, and Croatia is late with connecting roads.

The way you can clearly see there is no national consensus or strategy of any sort is looking at the navy. The navy is non existent. I mean there is aviation tradition in Croatia but it's nothing compared to naval tradition. Since EU or NATO do not care about Croatian Navy HDZ does not have to care about it too.

zare wrote:Quite good analysis. However it's not "their", eg. it's not some sort of national goal, it's down to how HDZ does stuff.

They can steal as much as they want as long as they keep the EU money coming in. In the process they are subservient to EU bureaucracy and also selling out the country bit by bit. Plenkovic government is just a Bruxelles proxy. So we adopted Euro the way EU wanted us to adopt Euro. We have no buffer of our own not because of some strategy but because we don't have a national government. He had to fire 10+ ministers due to corruption and his spot is not shaken even a bit. We had EU corruption officers incorporating directly into Croatia and then bringing up several high-profile cases. Doesn't concern him.

I don't think there is any pride involved in say, the new Peljesac bridge, HDZ may try to depict it that way for their own benefit, but everybody knows hard working Chinese built it in time, EU paid for it, and Croatia is late with connecting roads.

The way you can clearly see there is no national consensus or strategy of any sort is looking at the navy. The navy is non existent. I mean there is aviation tradition in Croatia but it's nothing compared to naval tradition. Since EU or NATO do not care about Croatian Navy HDZ does not have to care about it too.

For what I have seen it is from the period of war that Croatian people complain about HDZ's corruption still they continue to win election after election and the few times they don't, the alternative coalition just doesn't keep on more than a term, somewhat even less usually because it is too divided and show about the same level of corruption anyway.
So, sorry but I always had that impression that you can't live "with or without you" with the HDZ really, like in the U2 song...
Or better that no one could get to Banski Dvori without making broad coalitions with a myriad of small parties (you know HSS, HNS, HSLS, IDS, Most and so on, without any ideas and that exist just to rob the cash).
I dunno... maybe try to change electoral laws?

The fight is futile.

There is a big and small issue. Smaller one is the absolute monotony of political platforms throughout the system. Opposition and HDZ basically agree to 80% of the stuff as far as political course is concerned. It is very alike United States where you have a single-mind political system and illusion of choice.

Big one is HDZ itself. They have 210.000 members. The members use party membership for personal gain, through means of nepotism in its exact Latin definition. These people got money to lose if their party don't stay in power. And they will use every means necessary to defame opponents if these reach power. Remember the story about veterans encamping in Zagreb threatening with terrorist attacks, even harassing prime minister on his home address. It is only possible if "HDZ isn't in power". This is the sad pragmatist mindset Croats have been cornered in to.

The Croatian court issued a final verdict declaring HDZ as an organization of crime because they as organization stole money. IRL this means nothing.

To not digress too much into politics I just wanted to show that we have no choices when it comes to things, the fighter jet included. There is a lot of back politics going into cancellation of F-16 order and issuing the final Rafale order. In essence US has cancelled this deal between Israel and Croatia from their side, compensating Croatia via "political offset" such as visa waiver program and pointing Croatia to France. France already had some favours to return because they were given Zagreb Airport and they have deals in transport infrastructure, so they "gave us opportunity" to buy their fighter jet.

There is absolutely no real-opponent requirements and contingencies going on.
Everything about the country is nepotism to the max, local pyramid and then their overlord buddies from the West.

The only thing that could turn the system around is if traditionalists figured out they're stupid and stopped voting for HDZ. Vrograc was flooded in last few days, fields of strawberries are gone, locals are ranting how "they" promised they'll make a drainage trench towards the sea, a project not so complicated, since 30 years ago. Same locals vote those people in every time. So good luck with that.

Croatia received the first Rafale fighter

On October 2, 2023, at the French airbase of Mont-de-Marsan, an official ceremony took place to transfer the first Dassault Rafale fighter, out of 12 ordered under the 2021 contract, to the Croatian Air Force. The two-seat Rafale B fighter with the Croatian tail number "170" is a former French Aerospace Forces aircraft with the tail number "315".

Croatia to buy eight M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS)

https://www.thedefensepost.com/2024/09/03/us-himars-sale-croatia/?utm_content=cmp-true