This was predictable though. The markets have already rewarded those who saw this coming.
Or maybe Europeans, as "founding members", are able to support the planes on their own? I doubt it though. The engine alone is US made, ans that alone is probably unmaintainable without their support.
The other factor is the NATO nuclear sharing arrangement. The F-35A is the only new aircraft certified to carry the US nuclear weapons under that arrangement, so that impacts Belgium, Germany, Italy, and Netherlands. Germany looked into certifying the Eurofighter Typhoon for the nuclear strike mission but decided that they couldn't afford it, and bought the F-35A instead. Of course, if the US pulls back from NATO and ends nuclear sharing then that concern would become moot and some of those countries would be likely to develop their own nuclear weapons.
I remember the story rather like this:
US: "you want to certify your fighter for nuclear devices"
Germany: "yes"
US: "ooh, that will be expensive and takes a loooong time. Don't you want to just buy our F35 instead?"
And germany basically did. With the implicit understanding, to buy a piece of nuclear protection with that. Well, all gone ... so there are really only some voices left, wanting to keep buying the expensive, potentially useless bricks.
They may lack the scale, but perhaps that can be built up.
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/how-much-of-the-f-35-is-brit...
But right now the fact that there US citizens (apparently civil contractors, not military personell) stationed at austrian air bases to enable some functionality is a big deal. This is a big deal because the wish-wash Austrian Neutrality is crucial to Austrian Identity.
(Sadly, sanity of the opposite political party was / is also highly questionable.)
The problem is systemic: The US doesn't have a functioning democracy. FPTP, gerrymandering, unchecked campaign financing, the electoral college? It just isn't working, and the US is permanently stuck in a dysfunctional two-party system. If that doesn't get fixed (and let's be honest, it won't), the rest of the world won't be trusting the US until it can demonstrate a few decades of continuous trustworthy leadership after Trump is gone.
Quite apart from any sovereignty arguments, cash spent at home goes to purchase of hopefully local components, materials, all along paying for local salaries, which drives local economies. And this is taxed along the way too, as income tax, VAT and ultimate corporate tax.
I wonder if that's really true to a significant amount, and if so, how much does that matter. Eg if I can buy something for X abroad, or c*X locally, for what value of c is this overall breakeven?
I am not holding my breath that he will just walk away in 4 years, why would anybody be so naive? He thinks US constitution is an old toilet paper, its mememe. Look at what happened last time he was supposed to go out.
We have to assume that the US cannot be trusted as a military ally for at least the next 4 years. In fact, we have to be open to the possibility that they will be willing to be hostile. Including, but not limited to, extortion tactics. That's the hard baseline here.
We also have to be open to the possibility that the US either won't or can't have a proper election in 2028. And even if there is a proper election, that even a "sensible" president will not repair the damage.
What is already permanent is that Europe will never have the same level of trust in the US ever again. Perhaps some of it can grow back over a few decades, but the former level of trust will not return.
Because that is where most of the money ends up when the US "supports" other countries. The US unloads weapons from its stockpiles (that need to be replaced at some point anyway) and then replenish the US stockpiles. This is both a huge injection of funds into US defense industry, and it takes care of the expensive problem of dealing with old ordnance.
US defense industry is going to be busy restocking the US stockpiles for a while longer.
If revenue were to soften before that, the Trump administration can distract from this reality by pumping more money into the industry short term. This may actually push the problem forward in time to the next president if they can keep pumping in enough money to hide the problem. It looks as if they are doing exactly this.
Of course, a few years down the line the defense industry will be in trouble as "consumer trust" is gone, Europe have ramped up their production and revenues will start to plummet.
No one would ever trust China, not Vietnam, not anyone unwilling to take orders from them. The terms would be heavy.
We'd keep the frame, but Serge Dassault and Charles de Gaulle would probably smite any French mechanic coming within 20 feet of a F-35 to do anything but dismantle one for its secrets.
The only way Europe can match Russia/China is to keep buying american made weapons. Maybe in 20-30 years the situation will be different and Europe will have the same capabilities of the US, but until then... buy, baby, buy!
It seems to me Donald is beheld in some way to Vladimir; what's being done now to my eye is too specifically about setting up UA for second RU invasion.
Donald then I think, step by step, is going to ally with Vladimir.
1. US aid to UA stops (done).
2. USA leaves NATO (on the way).
3. US troops in Europe leave or move to Hungary (floated).
4. Hungary is ejected from EU due to Orban obstructing everything he can.
5. Hungary becomes RU satellite state (maybe with many tens of thousand of US troops).
6. USA lifts its sanctions, placing it directly in conflict with Europe.
7. Donald invokes Insurrection Act, military units can now be used for civil policing (this is why top military brass and specifically top military lawyers removed).
8. Europe puts boots on ground and air cover over UA.
9. To "encourage peace", Donald now disables support for US weapon systems being used by Europe in UA. At this point, F-35 is history whether or not EU has dropped them or not.
10. Protests in USA, military used, people die, Donald suspends Constitution "to restore order and combat subversive elements".
11. No more elections. All court cases underway made irrelevant.
Any suggestions on where in the world will remain relatively stable?
I think it's foolish to restrict operations to Ukraine though, and feel that the size of Russia is one of its main weaknesses. If there's to be a war, it should involve incursions into the US proper.
Given the size and battle experience of their armies I think that it's more probable that it's Ukraine that will cover Europe and not viceversa. And if they'll have to flee their country add a 12th point the UA army takes sanctuary in the EU that goes the way of Lebanon in the 70s when another army had to flee there.
The EU without the US can already produce 5th gen, the selling point of the F35 was 6th gen compatible with 7th gen (NGAD).
Russia is still flying more 4th then 5th gen fighters, because they can't get their bricks off the ground. Why would the EU want to copy the same mistakes of their enemy?
Just like any other military including the US, no?
I expect a crash program to reengineer them has already started if only unofficially.
Maybe we (as a Pole living in Norway) can't have state of the art jets, but in practice don't need them?
We (as the whole eastern block - Scands, Balts, Poland, Romania and Ukraine) should cancel our orders of F-35 and focus on developing our drone and strategic missile industry. And focus on investing, developing and buying from our closest allies - the eastern block.
Not on the countries that don't care because they are either too far from Russia (Spain, Italy) or have vested geopolitical interest in alllying with them (Germany). France and UK might want to join to balance out Germany.
At least that's what I understand from hearing smarter than me discuss the current situation.
The main reason that Ukraine and Russia have had to rely so heavily on drones is that they had no better alternative. The air forces on both sides are shit with zero (or effectively zero) 5th generation aircraft that can survive in a contested environment. The F-35 was designed for that mission and would at least have a chance.
If your threat model did include a war within former NATO members, the F-35 is the worst possible choice so another way of thinking about this is that they should pick the best option which is actually available. That would mean things like swarm attacks and strikes on the airfields where those stealthy but extremely fragile planes are housed. Even if the public range is significantly low, they’d need a base closer than Greenland to strike European targets.
BAE Systems along with other European arms/aerospace manufacturers are perfectly capable of making competing products.
They are more battle-tested than any other. America has been involved in a war or another pretty much continuously since the end of WWW2.
* correction: since 1776
There's no reason this can't be replicated by other rich nations but it won't be cheap or quick.
And there are high quality planes like the Rafale that aren't PaaS (Planes as a Service) where the owner can unilaterally stop you from using it.
America is currently doing everything for Russia! If we actually used the F35 against Russia right now Trump would probably immediately do everything in his power to stop that, just like he’s exerting pressure everywhere else he can in Russias favour
Honestly I’ll personally be buying as little American as possible going forwards
Putin has nukes, apart from that Russia is a pretty irrelevant country.
More like this: Two super powers, and a terror nukes nation.
The Ukraine war was "successful" in destroying the possibility of railways between the EU and China.
The EU, ever the good vassal, now ramps up the rhetoric against Russia which is exactly what Hegseth wanted in the open.
The EU is still playing the U.S. deep state script and it is very likely that all the Trump pressure and insults are carefully planned political theater.
If the above conjectures are wrong and Trump is serious about peace with Russia, then the EU needs to pivot quickly to China and at least maintain reasonable diplomatic relations with Russia.
BTW you don't seem to understand military well - F22 is much better plane than F35, but abysmally complex to do and expensive, thats why the low numbers. F35 has way too many compromises ie for us navy.
Also, as Ukraine war shows fighter jets are not that important for waging war if situation is more like peer vs peer, and not US blowing shepherds and weddings into pieces. Sure, they lob a bomb or two, sometimes launch a rocket but all from as much distance as possible. What wins such wars these days is artillery, massive amount of infantry and millions of various drones.
If nobody wants to buy any of that shit because of the knock-on effects of Trump’s self-sabotage and they start investing elsewhere, then those defence companies will sooner distance themselves from the US as well. Unless they’re in on whatever the administration is cooking up the money is still going to speak louder.
EU industrial capabilities may also have issues, but they are (mostly) different ones than Russia faces.
After that the Russian "elite" units were elite in name only.
This was in hour 8 of the war and it's worth bearing in mind that this war could have gone very, very differently.
There were many russian helicopters successfully landing at Hostomel, the area saw heavy fighting for several days until it was under Ukrainian control.
> The Russian Il-76s carrying reinforcements could not land; they were possibly forced to return to Russia.[35]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Antonov_Airport
Rumors of an Il-76 downed close to Vasylkiv did not prove to be true:
> Claims have been made that Ukrainian aircraft shot down two Russian Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft transporting assault troops.[33][124][34] However, The Guardian reports "no convincing public evidence has surfaced about the two downed planes, or about a drop of paratroopers in Vasylkiv".[125]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_front_of_the_Russian_...
Whatever shit tier RU MIC/performance has been, it has manage to consistently defeat or mitigate what US+EU has thrown against her. Which includes highend gear like PAC3 MSE. Meanwhile half the reason RU had a hard time was due to facing UKR's abundant legacy USSR systems. At this point it's not unreasonable to dismiss everything in EU arsenal as wunderwaffe tier especially without US support. Including F35... which even if US doesn't restrict usage against EU-RU scenario, could still be borderline paperweight without US tier ISR.
People also forget NATO fought a much shitter/temu RU in Yugoslavia where NATO threw everything at even more legacy soviet systems. All of the awacs, prowlers, F117 barely chiped away at 20% of Yugoslav anti air, something like 700 harms were fired and destroyed less than handful of SA6 batteries. Hard to argue EU part of NATO has better military capability than 20 years ago.
IMO there's a strong chance US would heavily restrict/limit F35 operations against RU. Because one shot down F35 by S400 let alone anything shittier completely evaporates narrative around 5th gen (and what that entails for IndoPac). They'd rather see RU hit F35s in hangers with standoff munitions because at least they can point to JP and SKR and say, see, you need to build harden air shelters.
Patriot works in Ukraine, they even got a few Khinzal. But of course any air defense is limited by available ammo and you need enough of the right kind of air defense in the right places for this to work well. The Ukraine is really limited by the number of available systems and ammunition. And for something like the Shahed drones you need other ways to defend yourself to avoid exhausting your precious ammunition for advanced air defense systems.
Russia also was shown to be nearly unable to intercept Storm Shadow/SCALP EG at the beginning. So the somewhat aging European cruise missiles were able to easily penetrate current Russian air defenses.
We are seeing Ukrainians regularly hitting russian redars and air defence. Whatever nato wasn't able to do in hte 90s the Ukrainians are fully capable of doing today, because they are doing it. And with lots of european help. So this is just outdated speculation you're doing.
Likewise the reason why Russia couldn't steamroll Ukraine swiftly is because Ukraine anti air is very formidable (using Soviet hardware no less). That is why it is wrong to simply assume Russia is weak.
Israel's F-35 have being going in and out of Iran's airspace with impunity, so no, I don't think that is going to be an issue.
But there remains a question of quantity and determination.
Their own press photos shows uncovered Philips screws on a supposedly stealth aircraft, and their "loyal wingman" drone used the first opportunity near the frontlines to try to defect.
They have less than 30 airframes, probably 30-40% have some level of operational airworthiness.
The Russians get a lot of glazing on social media about military prowess. The reality is they’re fighting a tiny, poor country, got their asses kicked early on when nobody was really helping Ukraine substantially, mostly by virtue of their own incompetence.
The Russians version of the USAF is their information operations. They’ve helped to nurture right wing shitheads in the US for decades culminating in two freakshow presidential administrations. They’ve done the same in Germany in the former GDR and in the UK with the leave wankers.
They can only do that if US provides them with required components
oh wait...
P.S. Many mocked Russian munitions came with chips made by Texas Instruments among others, but thing is those chips are so damn generic you can get that from random shops in Shenzhen.
Their previous orders have still not been delivered since they were sent to the frontlines in Ukraine.
I doubt India will want to repeat that.
