Hence why Canada is now considering bailing on its purchase of F-35s.
The prospect of getting cut off is hardly theoretical: the US already partially halted support for Ukraine's F-16s (I'm not sure where this stands at this precise moment).
The US is clearly demonstrating it is an unreliable partner in defence. Western nations cannot buy into a platform when its supplier might go from being a democratic part of the West to aligning with dictators and autocrats literally overnight. This doesn't just mean that platforms like F-35 are vastly less desirable to Western militaries, it also means that other things we thought we could rely upon, like the nuclear umbrella, are also unreliable, which is likely to lead to nuclear proliferation.
The part I thought was interesting was how Israel “secured rights to modify” their F35 deliveries. Like… what kind of airplane that costs 100s of millions requires additional contracts for “replace component” rights? How insane is this contract? Its so unreasonable to assume that the value of the fighter to the manifacturers is only in the maintenance. Its like the BMW heater subscription, only for national defence.
The purchase didn't make much sense in the first place. The F-35 is intended to operate in contested airspace, which Canada is not. It cannot intercept serious supersonic threats or maintain a strategic advantage in WVR/VFR escorts. If Russia is the threat, the F-35 is not a real defense.
It's a cool jet, but there's something to be said about having the right tool for the job. Canada doesn't need a joint strike fighter, they need a cost-effective interceptor.
The US hasn't blocked other countries from transferring more old F-16s to Ukraine.
On or about 2025-03-07, the US apparently cut off intelligence support for the AN/ALQ-131 electronics countermeasures pods (jammers) carried on some F-16s. Those can still be used but will become less effective without constant software and configuration changes to adapt to changes in Russian radars. Some of that support might have at least partially resumed in recent days but the details haven't been publicly reported.
There will be other unintended outcomes from this. If the US can't be relied on as a military ally, then why should US clouds or the software it exports be trustworthy?
Couldn't the US government also kill all Windows workstations, iPhones or AWS servers? Of course they could.
Smaller companies or individuals may not care, but governments or bigger companies that are risk averse? Of course they'll care.
> The US is clearly demonstrating it is an unreliable partner in defence.
This feels like exaggeration to me. How is the US an ‘unreliable partner’? Has any country had parts for their existing defense purchases restricted? This type of reaction to the US choosing to not spend its own taxpayer money or military equipment on a far away conflict doesn’t make sense.
If anything, the truth is the opposite. The other countries in NATO have been unreliable partners that did not meet their spending requirements. For example, Germany, France, and Canada all underspent but benefited from the US taxpayer spending a lot.
> Western nations cannot buy into a platform when its supplier might go from being a democratic part of the West to aligning with dictators and autocrats literally overnight.
The US is not aligning with dictators. Pushing for a resolution to a conflict that is costing the world hundreds of billions, not to mention huge amounts of Ukrainian lives, is the only reasonable path. The EU has literally no solution for this conflict - just complaints that America is now seeking resolution and doesn’t want to keep wasting money or lives.
Because you're buying a plane and the phone is an analogy. Separately, both iPhone and Android have essentially their full functionality available without *paying* for a subscription.
I think it’s broader than that: the entire U.S. tech industry has broad global influence due to our past reputation as a mostly-democratic, law-abiding country. Now everyone has to ask what Microsoft, Google, AWS, Red Hat, etc. would do to avoid risking their government contracts or possible consequences for their executives. Even in the open source world we have the Jia Tan example as something which must be in everyone’s threat model.
Especially when co-president Musk is tweeting that the F-35 is a dud and the US should leave NATO.
That's a double whammy for European countries who signed on to spend hundreds of billions on these planes in the belief that they're part of a NATO security umbrella. Now it seems like NATO will soon be in shambles and the planes might not even fly if that one drunk frat guy with Nazi tattoos running the Pentagon says so.
Finland bought F-35's recently, and the Finnish government is saying that nothing should change because America will hopefully be back to normal before the fighters are delivered. I don't think that kind of ostrich strategy is going to pay off.
I can’t find the article I read earlier. But they are working toward outside alliances also for military manufacturing with Canada, the UK and Japan and are explicitly excluding any US components.
Honestly, the annoyance probably extends beyond Lockheed Martin corporate.
It does not appear to have sunken in that damage to the F-35 export market will affect the per-unit cost of the F-35 and its parts for the US military. Given the amounts of money involved, it seems likely a really big abandonment of F-35 overseas will do more damage to the federal budget than all the oddball firings they're doing could offset.
TBH Lockmart F35 SaaS has been fucking over US DoD long before articles concerned over US fucking over foreign F35 operators. TLDR F35 operators beholden to uncle sam, but uncle sam has been beholden to lockmart fuckarounditis for the past 15 years. I think DoD would rather LM figure out ~2500 F35s the US plans to buy (75% of total) than a few 100 units by others.
The Commander of the Finnish Air Force gave an interview on the matter (Finland recently purchased 64 F-35As). He dismissed any concerns, of course – what else could he officially say?
> He expressed confidence that the United States and Lockheed Martin would ensure the operational capability of Finland’s F-35 fleet in all circumstances, given the decades-long partnership. He also noted that all modern weapons systems, including those used in Europe, contain software components primarily originating from the United States.
These planes that we sell, not just the F-35, all come with a bevy of support from US folks. I have friends and family that travel that globe, visiting US allies, in order to support, train, and meet with counterparts in the respective countries to assist their use of US aircraft they purchase. These friends and fmaily also get flown around if there are any accidents or investigations involving these planes. The F-35 is just the next step in the "subscription service".
>Software Updates: The F-35 is driven by complex software systems that require constant updates to maintain operational effectiveness, security, and functionality. Without these updates, the jet's capabilities degrade over time.
It's hilarious (really borderline treasonous) as a "joint strike fighter" program, no none US partners thought maybe they could secure some sort of sole-source provider deal to at least have some leverage. Well I think Martin Baker does all ejection seats.
This is why Israelis wrote their own software for the F-35I
Defense vendors backdooring/degrading/IFF-ing their products when sold for export has been a thing for many decades. Heck the UK sold enigma machines to a bunch of countries after WW2, specifically because they could break its code.
This issue is why there is a French and UK and Swedish (and Russian) defense industry.
The UK is the only Level 1 partner on the F-35 program and they are the sole source providers for several essential components. They have significant leverage.
Could that become a problem with any electronic product made by US companies? If their government demands Apple, Google & Co. to remotely brick computers, phones, and tablets for whatever reason, why should I bother buying them in the first place?
The "issues" described here seem to me to be basically just run-of-the-mill aquisitions considerations. Is anyone out there buying any kind of enterprize-grade hardware in any industry and not doing the due dilligence to consider operating costs over the lifetime of the unit? All technology of sufficient complexity requires a supply chain to be in place to support it. Folks are not just waking up today and realising those F-35s they bought will need to be supported or maintained.
The only thing remotely newsworthy here may be a story around a loss in global confidence in the US "brand", but I think the actual implications of that (if any) still remain to be seen....
Let's hope Europe finally starts developing their own again. It will be good for jobs and technical knowledge. Globalization can be good but for critical things like weapons or also chips, it's better to have capability at home.
I think Trump may be miscalculating the situation. The Ukraine war already caused a shift of some countries away from the West towards Russia/China. With Trump being so openly hostile towards former allies, the US may lose influence world wide.
Europe has the Eurofighter Typhoon and is working collectively on its successor. France has the Rafale. Even if the F-35 is superior, Europe has plenty of fighter tech to continue developing as a comparable platform. This is true for virtually all American military tech: Patriot/SAMPT, Abrams/Leopard, etc.
What Europe doesn't currently have is the production capacity to match American capacity, but that's exactly what they're changing now.
which is highly capable but a particularly bad choice for a developing country, especially one that has bad relations with the U.S. Iran showed great ingenuity in maintaining and upgrading the planes as well as missiles for them.
It’s on the order of 10 million lines of code running some very specialized, very complex hardware. The reason everyone was buying them is because it’s even more expensive to develop that on your own but I’d be surprised if there isn’t a lot of reconsideration going on now.
As a simple question, some people say there isn’t a “kill switch” which I’d bet is true in the sense that there isn’t an admin panel somewhere you could just ground Finland with but … how could you be confident about anything in a codebase that large? That’s even before you consider whether, say, the chaotic DOGE cuts haven’t created an opening for Russia or China to find something exploitable even if the original designers didn’t intend it to be.
The purchase of the Saab Gripen by Brazil also included a technology transfer component so the planes can be serviced and kept in shape without being dependent on Sweden. The plane engine is American so apparently they are able to influence sales through this as well as the normal bully/soft power/shenanigans the US use.
From my understanding, Israel pretty much did exactly this; however, I remember listening to a British military expert on Deutsche Welle explaining that when a nation reverse engineers the F-35, it locks them out of a lot of intelligence sharing from the US that keeps the F-35 military hardware functioning versus their opponents (Russia, Iran, China, etc). Keep in mind that as a nation develops new military capabilities, its opponents will react to this and switch up their own hardware/tactics so these updates are incredibly important to keep the fighter jet effective over time. Not as much of a problem for Israel since they have well established and funded intelligence agencies and a local military industry that can do this themselves. Their main opponents are also not as militarily capable as Europe's (Russia) so that probably plays a role as well.
There was a time when an Ally used to mean something—to be clear, it still does for the most part, despite the US Administration's shift away from its allies toward Russia.
An "Alliance" used to be built on core principles, trust, and alignment, it's not just a fancy word.
So the question is, why would an Ally of yours need to spend resources to reverse engineer technology you're willing to exchange with him, and vice versa?
Looking back, maybe it's not such a bad idea when an Ally shows signs of shifting to an adversarial position against you.
The code was written by programmers working in shifts because LM was so late already. Probably easier to just rewrite than try to reverse engineer that crap.
I've read speculation about robocars that will drive themselves back to the dealership if you're late on a payment. An F-35 can operate as a big drone. They don't even have to send Maverick to repo it. On its next outing it can fly itself home at the administration's whim. Which may be inconvenient for the pilot, their wingman, their mission, etc.
[+] [-] adriand|1 year ago|reply
The prospect of getting cut off is hardly theoretical: the US already partially halted support for Ukraine's F-16s (I'm not sure where this stands at this precise moment).
The US is clearly demonstrating it is an unreliable partner in defence. Western nations cannot buy into a platform when its supplier might go from being a democratic part of the West to aligning with dictators and autocrats literally overnight. This doesn't just mean that platforms like F-35 are vastly less desirable to Western militaries, it also means that other things we thought we could rely upon, like the nuclear umbrella, are also unreliable, which is likely to lead to nuclear proliferation.
[+] [-] thinkingkong|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] bigyabai|1 year ago|reply
It's a cool jet, but there's something to be said about having the right tool for the job. Canada doesn't need a joint strike fighter, they need a cost-effective interceptor.
[+] [-] nradov|1 year ago|reply
On or about 2025-03-07, the US apparently cut off intelligence support for the AN/ALQ-131 electronics countermeasures pods (jammers) carried on some F-16s. Those can still be used but will become less effective without constant software and configuration changes to adapt to changes in Russian radars. Some of that support might have at least partially resumed in recent days but the details haven't been publicly reported.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2025/03/07/france-to-t...
[+] [-] FredPret|1 year ago|reply
- Ukraine exchanged nukes for beautiful promises.
- North Korea which has comically bad diplomacy, but also nukes; rendering them un-invade-able.
- Even Canada faces threats to its sovereignty from its closest ally. Nukes would render this concern moot.
[+] [-] bad_user|1 year ago|reply
Couldn't the US government also kill all Windows workstations, iPhones or AWS servers? Of course they could.
Smaller companies or individuals may not care, but governments or bigger companies that are risk averse? Of course they'll care.
[+] [-] lawn|1 year ago|reply
Many countries are now reevaluating their US dependence and I'm sure it's a very high priority throughout the world to reduce or eliminate it.
[+] [-] pjmlp|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] blackeyeblitzar|1 year ago|reply
This feels like exaggeration to me. How is the US an ‘unreliable partner’? Has any country had parts for their existing defense purchases restricted? This type of reaction to the US choosing to not spend its own taxpayer money or military equipment on a far away conflict doesn’t make sense.
If anything, the truth is the opposite. The other countries in NATO have been unreliable partners that did not meet their spending requirements. For example, Germany, France, and Canada all underspent but benefited from the US taxpayer spending a lot.
> Western nations cannot buy into a platform when its supplier might go from being a democratic part of the West to aligning with dictators and autocrats literally overnight.
The US is not aligning with dictators. Pushing for a resolution to a conflict that is costing the world hundreds of billions, not to mention huge amounts of Ukrainian lives, is the only reasonable path. The EU has literally no solution for this conflict - just complaints that America is now seeking resolution and doesn’t want to keep wasting money or lives.
[+] [-] readthenotes1|1 year ago|reply
Why is the word 'imagine' necessary?
--
Also, love the advert at the bottom "Hate subscriptions?"
[+] [-] karamanolev|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] somanyphotons|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] acdha|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] pavlov|1 year ago|reply
That's a double whammy for European countries who signed on to spend hundreds of billions on these planes in the belief that they're part of a NATO security umbrella. Now it seems like NATO will soon be in shambles and the planes might not even fly if that one drunk frat guy with Nazi tattoos running the Pentagon says so.
Finland bought F-35's recently, and the Finnish government is saying that nothing should change because America will hopefully be back to normal before the fighters are delivered. I don't think that kind of ostrich strategy is going to pay off.
[+] [-] scarface_74|1 year ago|reply
https://www.stimson.org/2024/eu-defense-this-time-might-be-d...
I can’t find the article I read earlier. But they are working toward outside alliances also for military manufacturing with Canada, the UK and Japan and are explicitly excluding any US components.
[+] [-] justin66|1 year ago|reply
It does not appear to have sunken in that damage to the F-35 export market will affect the per-unit cost of the F-35 and its parts for the US military. Given the amounts of money involved, it seems likely a really big abandonment of F-35 overseas will do more damage to the federal budget than all the oddball firings they're doing could offset.
[+] [-] alienallys|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] TiredOfLife|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] libertine|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] maxglute|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Sharlin|1 year ago|reply
> He expressed confidence that the United States and Lockheed Martin would ensure the operational capability of Finland’s F-35 fleet in all circumstances, given the decades-long partnership. He also noted that all modern weapons systems, including those used in Europe, contain software components primarily originating from the United States.
https://yle.fi/a/74-20150575
[+] [-] wrs|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] bergie|1 year ago|reply
In hindsight, Gripen or Rafale would've been a much better option. But few saw how different US foreign policy would soon get.
[+] [-] hipsterstal1n|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] neilv|1 year ago|reply
(I'm going to start thinking of my big ThinkPad T520 as an F-15E.)
[+] [-] high_na_euv|1 year ago|reply
Why it degrades? Any examples of that?
[+] [-] TeaBrain|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] maxglute|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] dboreham|1 year ago|reply
Defense vendors backdooring/degrading/IFF-ing their products when sold for export has been a thing for many decades. Heck the UK sold enigma machines to a bunch of countries after WW2, specifically because they could break its code.
This issue is why there is a French and UK and Swedish (and Russian) defense industry.
[+] [-] nradov|1 year ago|reply
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/how-much-of-the-f-35-is-brit...
[+] [-] mwinatschek|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] nradov|1 year ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43329336
[+] [-] jlkuester7|1 year ago|reply
The only thing remotely newsworthy here may be a story around a loss in global confidence in the US "brand", but I think the actual implications of that (if any) still remain to be seen....
[+] [-] r0ckarong|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] rqtwteye|1 year ago|reply
I think Trump may be miscalculating the situation. The Ukraine war already caused a shift of some countries away from the West towards Russia/China. With Trump being so openly hostile towards former allies, the US may lose influence world wide.
[+] [-] fatbird|1 year ago|reply
What Europe doesn't currently have is the production capacity to match American capacity, but that's exactly what they're changing now.
[+] [-] ZeroTalent|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] oceanhaiyang|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] PaulHoule|1 year ago|reply
Iran got a large number of this plane
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_F-14_Tomcat
which is highly capable but a particularly bad choice for a developing country, especially one that has bad relations with the U.S. Iran showed great ingenuity in maintaining and upgrading the planes as well as missiles for them.
[+] [-] acdha|1 year ago|reply
As a simple question, some people say there isn’t a “kill switch” which I’d bet is true in the sense that there isn’t an admin panel somewhere you could just ground Finland with but … how could you be confident about anything in a codebase that large? That’s even before you consider whether, say, the chaotic DOGE cuts haven’t created an opening for Russia or China to find something exploitable even if the original designers didn’t intend it to be.
[+] [-] olelele|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] RhysabOweyn|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] cwillu|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] libertine|1 year ago|reply
An "Alliance" used to be built on core principles, trust, and alignment, it's not just a fancy word.
So the question is, why would an Ally of yours need to spend resources to reverse engineer technology you're willing to exchange with him, and vice versa?
Looking back, maybe it's not such a bad idea when an Ally shows signs of shifting to an adversarial position against you.
[+] [-] Jtsummers|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] sorokod|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] oceanhaiyang|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] markus_zhang|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] delichon|1 year ago|reply