The article doesn't mention it, but there is an increasing worry that the USA could remotely disable some jet functionalities at will, or that any basic operation should be monitored and approved by them. So, this is not a reliable weapon that any country would like, unless the politicians agree to be vassals for life.
Even if there isn't a literal kill switch, there might as well be. Without a constant stream of maintenence and operations support from the USA there things are no good.
And the F-35 is very very high maintenance. Requires much more ground maintenance time that it's predecessors or competitors. That's a real problem in an active combat situation because it means less plans in the sky.
Yep, I think people arguing “there is no kill switch” miss this point. There doesn’t need to be if the lack of updates makes an F-35 an expensive, inferior version of a jet they could buy elsewhere!
Mission Data Files (MDFs), sometimes also referred to under the broader term Mission Data Packages (MDPs) or Mission Data Loads (MDLs) are required for every mission, and they have to come from facilities within the United States. Currently from the U.S. Reprogramming Laboratory (USRL) at Eglin.
Maybe if there was some political will for building stuff but there isn't. Canada should be an absolute AI and energy powerhouse, but our politicians are some of the most incompetent buffoons on the planet.
I don't know enough about Canada to know if this is a reasonable take or not, but I think you'd get downvoted less if you took a few sentences to articulate what the politicians' main failings are.
So the question becomes whether these countries truly want to move off of the platform, or if this is all more of a bargaining chip in the trade negotiations.
JD Vance pretty much single-handedly destroyed most trust in the US in with his speech at the Munich Security Conference. Europe (and probably Canada and Australia) were shaken for days after it and realized that the US is not a reliable ally (or even not an ally) anymore. This was confirmed by the disastrous meeting with Zelensky in the White House and the US stopping to provide intelligence to Ukraine and F-16 updates (F-16s which were provided by European countries, not the US).
The pathetic little show you saw at the White House last week (with Macron, Mertz, etc.) is just a strategy to appease the US as long as needed so that the Europe can speed up its own weapon's production, increase independence, etc. It's damage control. The reason countries have stopped buying the F-35 is because nobody trusts the US anymore. And one or two sane presidents are not going to fix it (the US elected Trump a second time after all).
It is interesting how it is basically an indictment on the ability of the american people to manage their hard and soft power and military capability. That being said, populist right wing movements are taking root in europe as well. This threatens long term strategic planning in general, not just with the US, when critical positions of world power are replaced every few years by a subset of the population increasingly liable to propaganda influence granted by technology. In some ways regimes like North Korea are the most stable on earth due to careful control of the reigns of power and lack of any possibility of inroads for third party influence.
It's crazy that you're acting like this is some kind of policy failure for the US, when this administration has been telling Europe it shouldn't rely on the United States at this level. This isn't some "gotcha" that you're describing, it's exactly what the administration wanted europe to do. Wake up and start innovating instead of being the Disneyland for American tourists.
In most European countries I have traveled to during the past months the popular opinion regarding the US is that we have to operate under the worst-case-assumption that the US won't assist or would even actively use their tech as leverage in the case of a conflict.
That was unthinkable a year ago, but it is now. Given that it is probably better to roll your own in the mid/long term and not rely overly on US tech.
Though technically France always worked on that assumption. Or rather, that the US would support France against a soviet invasion up to a certain level, but wouldn't risk a nuclear war for France's pretty eyes. Hence the will to have no other finger than the French president's finger on its red button.
And to be honest that's the only way it can ever be. I don't understand France's talk about extending its nuclear deterence to the rest of Europe. Those european countries can no more rely on France than France can rely on the US in those extreme scenarios. Nuclear deterence is like the bee's sting. It will die if it uses it, but it's because you know it will use it that you tread carefully.
I think it's very simple. France hinted at placing its own nuclear bombers closer to the Russian border. That does not require that other European countries trust France. It's just France shifting its nuclear posture a bit more to the East.
I always thought Trump missed an important concept with his 'who pays for NATO' rhetoric. A huge amount of NATO spending from Europe was going to US arms companies, so the US benefited massively. Now the US is an unreliable ally, that money will go back into Europe. And even when Trump is gone, governments will still remember that their sovereignty can't depend on the whims of the US. This damage will last a generation. Personally I think this will be an eventual benefit for Europe, who seem quite capable of making advanced weapons when they have to.
It's a real issue. The overall world reaction to Trump's policies has been to take steps to do without the US. That's just getting rolling, but it's happening. Canada exports oil to China now.[1] China's trade with Asia is up, and trade with the US is down.[2]
Supply chains are slowly changing to cut the US out of the loop. The US is seen as an unreliable trading partner.
It's hitting software. "Dutch Parliament Calls for End to Reliance on US Software".[3]
The irony is that if the countries that pull out of the F-35 program buy jets that actually function instead (and aren't just a $2 trillion piece of scrap metal), this trade war might be what saves democracy.
F-35 functions fine, lots of its problems relate to things like its logistical tail and associated IT system pain points that you'd have to solve with a different plane than F-35 either way, but I can't argue against the fact that a lot of countries are having to wake up to the reality of meeting their defense needs in much different ways than you'd have thought in 2015.
AFAIK, it's really unclear if the extravagantly high maintenance is a weakness that compensates for the capabilities the maintenance-heavy tech supplies.
It's only known to function fine when your supply chains are not under attack.
That's just not what's happening, at least for some of the countries. Spain is rejecting the F-35 for the EuroFigther (which is the plane they already operate) and Tempest (which doesn't exists yet). So in that case it's not that they are buying jets from competitors, they just aren't buying anything. In this case it feels much more like the Spanish government not really wanting to spend the money, or can't afford it, and Trump is just a convenient scapegoat.
Why would you transact with a country for defense infrastructure that will use force against you whenever they deem it necessary for leverage and power in a transaction? Better to replan and retool for sovereignty even if it means you lack some capability in the near term.
Super weird that our allies don’t want to do business with us after we enacted strong-arm trade war tactics. It’s almost like people will choose not to trade with a bully if they have the choice.
The F-35's Defining Characteristic Is Surviving Hostile Airspace
Most nations don't need an F-35. They want to protect their own airspace, intercept potential threats and minimize the cost-per-mission for their operations. The sort of power projection afforded by a Joint Strike Fighter just isn't worth the cost to most nations - unless you're intent on molesting hostile airspace it's kinda a waste of taxpayer money. The existence of the F-35 is a byproduct of imperial ambition that few peer powers can match.
I think you’re missing something huge: when you’re under attack, YOUR OWN AIRSPACE can become hostile if you don’t fight to gain air superiority. NATO doctrine prioritises air superiority for good reason.
No number of stealth planes will help you regain the advantage in that scenario if your ground assets can't support them. If your own airspace is hostile and your ground radars/SAM systems are disabled, then your CAP/supremacy mission has already failed.
I think this is the biggest factor. Comments about the USA potentially cutting access to software updates could have cooled interest. The UK is the only country that can operate F-35 semi-independently (our government bought the system to run our own updates).
I’ve seen people point out that the F-35 is still better than anything else you could buy but an inferior jet is probably better than an F-35 with no targeting information!
Insanely short sighted. If all you need to do is "intercept potential threats" instead of dealing with a real threat when it becomes apparent then just send a balloon.
While I'd generally say that the F-35 is probably the best (one of the best) option for countries like my own (Denmark), who need/want a plane that can do a bit of everything, we also need to see what's happening in Ukraine.
If you have a large country and can hide your airfields hundreds of kilometers from the front, the F-16, Rafale, EuroFigther and the F-35 are all fine, but you have more options with the F-35. If you're a small country, like the Baltics, or Denmark, they are a silly choices if you expect to fight a battle at home. You simply don't have anywhere to service the planes after missiles and drones take out your three airfield equipped for the F-35. In those cases the SAAB Gripen is a much better choice. You can service is straight of a highway with basic tools and conscripts. It's also a plane designed to fight Russia, so if that the enemy you expect, it's fine.
The F-16 is cheap, attritable, highly available, and occupies a similar multirole mission profile as the F-35. It should be able to launch the same standoff munitions, albeit from a slightly further distance to avoid detection. It's likely they can be bought secondhand for ~1/10th the price of an F-35 and equipped with MBDA Meteor/IRIS missiles for a mean air patrol payload.
More realistically though, I'd imagine many European nations are eying twin-engine multirole fighters like the Rafale and Eurofighter. These have a larger range and payload than the F-35, bigger radars and pylons and the all-important high top-speed (mach-2 intercepts are a must-have bordering Russia). These can be had cheaper than the F-35 and are generally better suited to a high intensity inland conflict.
> Which aircraft models would be more suitable for European countries to give a deterrent against potential threats like Russia?
Ironically, S300's from Russia. That's what Ukraine used to deny Russia air superiority. You can fight the orcs with orc weapons but you cannot fight them with American made airplanes because the US can stop support at any time.
Temporarily. At some point all the allies need world class kit. They just can’t buy it from the US exclusively. But they have committed to higher defence spending. That problem solves itself over time, especially when the world’s researchers are now looking for a safer home than under this administration.
TL;DR: you don’t need a world class jet when you trust your partner 100%. Anything less than 100, collaborate fast to overcome the limitation.
It’s kind of wild to watch the US squander its allies trust and therefore ability to project force globally as every other country that would’ve bought this weapons platform finds an alternative, leaving the US to shoulder the entire program cost burden.
Readit News
https://www.aviationtoday.com/2023/01/20/bae-systems-receive...
It's surprising any were sold outside the US at all.
Buy, make and domestically develop drones, lots and lots of drones.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ottawa-accused-of-axing-avr...
So the question becomes whether these countries truly want to move off of the platform, or if this is all more of a bargaining chip in the trade negotiations.
JD Vance pretty much single-handedly destroyed most trust in the US in with his speech at the Munich Security Conference. Europe (and probably Canada and Australia) were shaken for days after it and realized that the US is not a reliable ally (or even not an ally) anymore. This was confirmed by the disastrous meeting with Zelensky in the White House and the US stopping to provide intelligence to Ukraine and F-16 updates (F-16s which were provided by European countries, not the US).
The pathetic little show you saw at the White House last week (with Macron, Mertz, etc.) is just a strategy to appease the US as long as needed so that the Europe can speed up its own weapon's production, increase independence, etc. It's damage control. The reason countries have stopped buying the F-35 is because nobody trusts the US anymore. And one or two sane presidents are not going to fix it (the US elected Trump a second time after all).
That was unthinkable a year ago, but it is now. Given that it is probably better to roll your own in the mid/long term and not rely overly on US tech.
And to be honest that's the only way it can ever be. I don't understand France's talk about extending its nuclear deterence to the rest of Europe. Those european countries can no more rely on France than France can rely on the US in those extreme scenarios. Nuclear deterence is like the bee's sting. It will die if it uses it, but it's because you know it will use it that you tread carefully.
It's hitting software. "Dutch Parliament Calls for End to Reliance on US Software".[3]
[1] https://www.ualberta.ca/en/china-institute/research/analysis...
[2] https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/features/2025/canada-interna...
[3] https://www.usnews.com/news/technology/articles/2025-03-18/d...
https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/27/us/alaska-f-35-crash-accident...
It's only known to function fine when your supply chains are not under attack.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/27/us/alaska-f-35-crash-accident...
The F-35's Defining Characteristic Is Surviving Hostile Airspace
Most nations don't need an F-35. They want to protect their own airspace, intercept potential threats and minimize the cost-per-mission for their operations. The sort of power projection afforded by a Joint Strike Fighter just isn't worth the cost to most nations - unless you're intent on molesting hostile airspace it's kinda a waste of taxpayer money. The existence of the F-35 is a byproduct of imperial ambition that few peer powers can match.
I’ve seen people point out that the F-35 is still better than anything else you could buy but an inferior jet is probably better than an F-35 with no targeting information!
Deleted Comment
If you have a large country and can hide your airfields hundreds of kilometers from the front, the F-16, Rafale, EuroFigther and the F-35 are all fine, but you have more options with the F-35. If you're a small country, like the Baltics, or Denmark, they are a silly choices if you expect to fight a battle at home. You simply don't have anywhere to service the planes after missiles and drones take out your three airfield equipped for the F-35. In those cases the SAAB Gripen is a much better choice. You can service is straight of a highway with basic tools and conscripts. It's also a plane designed to fight Russia, so if that the enemy you expect, it's fine.
More realistically though, I'd imagine many European nations are eying twin-engine multirole fighters like the Rafale and Eurofighter. These have a larger range and payload than the F-35, bigger radars and pylons and the all-important high top-speed (mach-2 intercepts are a must-have bordering Russia). These can be had cheaper than the F-35 and are generally better suited to a high intensity inland conflict.
Ironically, S300's from Russia. That's what Ukraine used to deny Russia air superiority. You can fight the orcs with orc weapons but you cannot fight them with American made airplanes because the US can stop support at any time.
TL;DR: you don’t need a world class jet when you trust your partner 100%. Anything less than 100, collaborate fast to overcome the limitation.
Who could’ve ever foreseen these consequences? /s