Trump Spoiled the F-35, America's Most Popular Fighter Jet

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-f-35-fighter-jet-allies.html

by speckx • 1 year ago

19 12 1 year ago

alephnerd2• 1 year ago

If you were in a mission where an F35 can be replaced with a Rafale or Gripen, then you never actually needed an F35 - an MRCA would be more than enough.

If you expect to have the capacity to immobilize an S-300 array in Isfahan, Volgograd, or Pyongyang, then an F35 makes sense - and hence why the UAE, KSA, Qatar, Turkiye, Israel, Japan, and South Korea are trying to procure the F35.

firebaze• 1 year ago

The USP of an F35 is that it's a relatively cheap, "stealth" 5th gen fighter jet making use of integrated sensor input.

It also can be shut-off by a presidential order, and relies on cloud-based services, including security updates for its on-device Kubernetes cluster.

If something sounds like a fuck-up in the making, that's it, from the perspective of a country like Greenland.

alephnerd2• 1 year ago

it's a relatively cheap, "stealth" 5th gen fighter jet making use of integrated sensor input

Yes, and as I pointed out in my example, it's not something that existing MRCAs are able to provide (it's a bodyframe plus composites issue), but for most buyers (especially in Europe) it never made much sense for the threat landscape they are facing.

Portugal was already on the fence, as they were looking at replacing their legacy F16 Fighting Falcon fleet [0], and an F-35 would have been unneccesary spend for that kind of a use case anyhow - hence why South Korea (Borhame) and Turkiye (Kaan) decided to build their own comparable versions of the F-16, and others such as the UAE and KSA decided to go with the Rafale or Eurofighter.

relies on cloud-based services, including security updates for its on-device Kubernetes cluster

You don't need to use ALIS if you are using an F35.

For example, Israel chose to roll out their own interconnect (B-Net and IAI+Thales+BEL's Datalink) that they share with France and India, and are using a replacement in the F35 Adir. You never saw Israel complain despite Netanyahu's government publicly despising the Biden admin, because Israel began their own attempts at indigenization after the US-Iran talks began back in Obama 1.

The European countries that do use ALIS are those countries that do not have their own domestic interconnect (Netherlands) or don't want to buy from their French competitors (Germany)

[0] https://euro-sd.com/2024/03/articles/37091/portugals-compreh...

theultdev2• 1 year ago

Biased trash article w/ no substance.

wao0uuno3• 1 year ago

Could you point out which parts of the article were incorrect?

theultdev2• 1 year ago

Nothing had changed about the plane’s performance. It’s just that, in the eyes of some international customers, the F-35 can’t fully be trusted anymore because of who is the commander-in-chief. Donald Trump has an affinity for authoritarianism, has exhibited poor treatment of NATO (whose Article 5 obligates collective defense), and, in particular, has threatened to annex Greenland and Canada.

Ignoring the biased language (affinity for authoritarianism.. lol), those reasons are not supported by their sources.

The qualms have been from the trade wars in particular, so leaders are using purchases of the F35 as a negotiating tactic.

Then the article attempts to intertwine software updates as reasoning, which is true, but has nothing to with Trump, as nothing has changed regarding that since previous admins.

I am glad to see people concerned about US military sales overseas though. Very important we keep that up /s

Trump Spoiled the F-35, America's Most Popular Fighter Jet

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