Summary
European nations refute claims that the U.S. has a “kill switch” for F-35 fighter jets, despite concerns raised after Trump suspended military aid and intelligence support to Ukraine.
While no evidence confirms such a switch, experts warn the U.S. could limit access to crucial software updates.
Belgium and Switzerland assert their F-35s remain autonomous but acknowledge reliance on U.S. data systems.
Set to receive 35 F-35s in 2026, some German politicians are questioning whether the purchase should have been made amid these concerns.
Whether or not a “kill switch” exists is frankly rather immaterial. The fact remains that we control a LOT of the essential tech that goes into those things, and considering we’re basically turning into an adversary towards most of our former allies, it’s not a super great idea to have us be a core part of your logistics pipeline - especially when it comes to one of your most advanced strike fighter.
Sure, it’s great tech… but what happens when Trump decides in 6 months to stop shipping engines and engine parts and software updates and encryption keys and the myriad of little doodads that go into the thing? That’s right: it’ll stop working quite as well as it’s designed to, and ultimately will need to be grounded until operators can find a side-channel to get the things it needs (or replacement/aftermarket parts + software, though frankly I don’t think the second part is feasible, knowing the ludicrous size of the codebase that is absolutely for sure NOT something that can be easily or quickly replicated).
That goes both ways though. Not every part of an F35 is made in the US. In fact, the supply chain is pretty spread out over a dozen countries.
Oh, I know. That’s the funny part.
And it’s deeper than that. Our military industrial complex has a SHITLOAD of customers in Europe by virtue of NATO system integration. I predict that American defense companies aren’t going to be winning any contracts amongst our (former?) allies for the foreseeable future. I furthermore predict that more than a few nations will eventually drop existing deals if we continue to be a massive dick to everyone - and we will, unfortunately, continue to be a massive dick to everyone.
Idk maybe we’ll start selling shit to Russia…? That would be fucking wild. But I honestly wouldn’t put it past Trump, and congress is some combination of enthusiastically fascistic, abysmally stupid, or deeply, fundamentally, fecklessly useless, so I don’t expect they’ll actually stand up to pressure from our new dictator once push comes to shove.
F35 is a major maintenance time sink. Something on the order of 10 mechanic-hours of maintenance for every flight hour. I’ve heard it costs something like 12k USD in maintenance just to start the engine and bring it to low idle.
I suspect it would take a lot less than six months to ground a fleet when the spare parts get cut off.
My understanding is that it’s because it’s new and they haven’t optimized repair workflows yet (or hadn’t at the time all that reporting was being done).
Spare parts are being manufactured in Europe too though. There’s a big maintenance hub in The Netherlands and Italy is producing complete F35s. I’m sure Europe can figure it out
ifwhen the US goes completely off the rails.