Especially F-35 where lack of American support means total brick.
Hey, at least Ukraine can use their S-300 systems and Sukhois against their maker.
Hey, at least Ukraine can use their S-300 systems and Sukhois against their maker.
This was predictable though. The markets have already rewarded those who saw this coming.
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.
With rumours of Pakistan getting J-35, 5th Gen fighters are necessity I guess.
Besides they can force Russian to manufacture them in India like Su-30 MKI.
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.
But there remains a question of quantity and determination.
I'm not sure how applicable this would be to a confrontation with European countries. Russian fighters will get getting lots of flight hours on CAP as well, but not much combat based on reporting. Both sides are keeping everything inside their own AD bubbles.
EU industrial capabilities may also have issues, but they are (mostly) different ones than Russia faces.
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.
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.
russia is weaker than they have been since 1991, possibly 1950.
There is a reason they are now delivering ammo using mules and actually attempting old school cavalry charges on horseback.
And it it's not because donkeys are better than the armoured, tracked towing tractors or because actual horses are better than tanks.
There's pics of UKR javalin calvary too. It's precisely because they're situationally better than tanks in certain combat conditions. For the same reason everyone is zipping around in dirt bikes and golf carts or UKR retiring M1 tanks from frontlines. Look up survivability onion, tanks/armor get detected and destroyed because they're too visible vs modern frontline battlefield recon. If you want to survive, have to move to smaller/more agile platforms to avoid detection in the first place. RU and UKR are both learning and adapting. It's reflection that last 50 years of doctorine is obsolete, aka everything EU military also hedged on. If shit ever hits the fan, NATO maybe donkeying as well.
Still sources like Covert Cabal and others do make me think it isn't only a tactical consideration the russians have made but also a reflection of the fact that they very much do see the end of their stockpile.
I don't think that's true. As an example, Finland and French doctrine are very different. It's easier to test all Euopean nations diffrent doctrine and choose what works best (especially if countries from the Balkans add their grain of salt)
Imho that's where European defense industry (as a whole) is interesting. Because you have 5 competing IFV designs (well, over 15, but really, 5 different design that does different things). You also have multiple tanks (and AMX-10s), as well as a bunch of different drone constructors. Even in gun design you have multiple choices, andh while optics and optrionics are Thales', overall equipements are extremely distributed. Europe might find itself on the backfoot in case of an engagement, but i'm pretty sure it would bounce back quickly.
> There's pics of UKR javalin calvary too. It's precisely because they're situationally better than tanks in certain combat conditions.
It's a war of attrition, both sides are using whatever they can lay their hands on at this point.
The Russian failure is the exemplar. They were re-waging WW2, and they have little more than a lot of cooked tankers to show for it. Now we’re rolling with throwing prisoners into trenches to stop the maneuver warfare, because they can’t maneuver.
The US is probably in as bad of a condition. Given the poor performance of air power in Ukraine and the Trump/Putin driven destruction of world alignment, US naval power is questionable. Aircraft carriers will become ineffective as modern SAMs are sold on the market. Our submarine platforms are old, manufacturing is barely operational, and we’ll probably fire key individuals if we haven’t already.
In WW3 the role of an aircraft carrier is to launch its airplanes exactly once, before it is sunk.
I agree that mules / horses are better in certain situations, and not even considering cost. I believe even US 10th Mountain division still uses them
It seems more likely that mules were used where they make sense: Supplying ammo to a trench deeply in the forest, where mules are the superior "technology". Then that observation was blown out of proportion.
Remember that "the Russians are fighting with shovels" was a slogan in 2022.
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.
Most likely because they did not have the specs or complete specs for them and how they looked like on radar. There was an article somewhere that I can't find right now where something like this was said: Once a new weapon system is employed against RU or by RU against UA, it takes about two weeks to create countermeasures for it.
>patriot works
With US ISR (i.e. AWACs) providing early warning, IIRC correctly UKR was salvoing full patriot battery to intercept single kinzhal/zircon tier hypersonics, i.e. entire supply of EU patriot launcher can be overwhelmed by handful of hypersonics.
>storm shadow
Similarly UKR could sneak cruise missiles through RU IADs is because US info share helped plan missions/routes to circumvent RU defenses. Competent (not even super modern) air defense has like almost 100% interception on subsonic targets like cruise missiles, provided the are detected.
The TLDR is hard to say how EU hardware will perform without US force multiplier tier ISR. Which will effect everything from finding targets to hit, hitting targets, and avoid getting hit even with same/better hardware. Which again, is not to say EU is bad... but EU very unlikely to be US level great.
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.
EU part of NATO has improved ISR (helios, sarlupe, copernicus etc) but nothing rivalling US tactical and strategic capabilities, i.e. as far as I know, there's no EU system that provides all weather real time targetting.
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.
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.
Within a narrative such as loss of elite troops would definitely have some serious impact. In the context of a war the loss of the aircraft could easily be more significant.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking if only X, but war is complicated. It’s possible Russia would have been worse off because they tried to use those VDV soldiers in a plan that disastrously failed. It’s slightly more likely that they would have been a small net benefit, but chances are things would look more or less identical today with or without them.
Saying doing X wouldn’t have mattered is a perfectly reasonable rebuttal here. Ukraine not using a missile for attacking that aircraft means they could have used it to attack a different aircraft. Similarly Russia got to use all forces in that plan not destroyed with the aircraft in some other plan.
That’s not backpedaling that’s just the inherent complexities involved.
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_...
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.
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 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!
Putin has nukes, apart from that Russia is a pretty irrelevant country.
More like this: Two super powers, and a terror nukes nation.
However, any power able to incinerate large parts of the planet is a bit more than a regional power, in my eyes.
But yes, agree with you about China.
Putin wants people to think Russia is a super power, when it's instead a corrupted inefficient mafia state. Look at research or startups coming from there (not much) or it's economy - the country is not interesting any longer (Putin has damaged it that much). Except for Putin attacking Ukraine, and his nukes and troll farms.
If Pakistan starts threatening other countries with nuclear war, and tries to invade a neighbor but mostly fails, is it then suddenly a super power?
Maybe "terror power" could be a new word
Clearly, it's not irrelevant if it's been able to drive a wedge between the US and Europe like this.
However, any power able to incinerate large parts of the planet is a bit more than a regional power, in my eyes.
(Typing "sub" reminded me of the Kursk nuclear submarine that sank itself…)
Some of the P(weapon failure) is constant: from what I hear, a certain fraction of Soviet and US systems (and presumably everyone else's) just don't work.
If that was all it was, then you would be correct.
But: some failures come with age, and require ongoing maintenance to retain function. For example, I expect all the tritium has decayed, and also that in many cases the money that was supposed to get spent replacing the tritium was instead spent on a fancy yacht or a football team or a seat in the UK's House of Lords etc.
And I don't know how good modern anti-missile weapons are, but I would expect them to have improved; conversely, despite Russia's talk about new hypersonic missiles, what they've shown hasn't been very impressive, and they've even used up some of their old nuclear-capable missiles while attacking Ukraine.
I'm happy to be relaxed about this, but only because I have no power — 90% chance some attempted hot war is actually all duds is great for me personally, 10% chance everything burns is unacceptably high for someone running a country.
Russia and China are regional powers and can't project military power very far, excluding nukes. To do that you need a credible blue water navy. China is close though, and definitely projecting its economic strength.
Europe (lets just say EU + UK) could be a superpower. However they lack political unity. And still want big daddy US to do the heavy lifting.
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.
I find that becoming exceedingly unlikely. Trust has been destroyed, there is no easy recovery from that.
First, ex-neocon Rubio admitted on the Megyn Kelly show that the world is now multi-polar. Even if he believes that, why would he say so unless it's for show.
Then there is Lindsey Graham. In 2016 he gave warlike speeches to the Azov Batallion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ4e1A-LZEA
In 2025 he throws Zelensky under the bus:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18oqMGLWcRA
Graham and probably Rubio are still neocons. Trump must be really powerful to keep all this under control.
Then there is the U.S. arms lobby, which is uncannily quiet even though they'll lose a ton of business when NATO becomes irrelevant. Then there are no reactions to Polish nuclear ambitions, which is weird unless the whole thing is scripted.
So there are two theories. Either Trump is carving up the world or he is acting.
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
To me it looked like Bezos put the boot there himself, he seemed pretty enthusiastic about it.
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.
Of course, all of them were wrong. Short of WW3 between Europe and the US, many awful things that were predicted have come true. DT has severely weakened the USA, weakened the stock market, damaged US reputation and trust in the US army, dismantled many departments, put useless shills in most important positions, pulled out of Ukraine, stopped aid to Ukraine, sucked up to Putin, and turned it all into a country that most people in Europe consider a hostile enemy (myself included).
So. For the sake of your fellow citizens, quit the excuses.
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.
If UA goes down, then EU goes down, because RU will attack before EU is ready.
This is why I think we see EU direct involvement in UA fighting; needed to keep UA up, and needed to get up to speed with drones.
Do you have any numbers or analysis to back this up, please?
A few counterpoints:
- Russia failed to 'take' a relatively unprepared Ukraine, and arguably has only managed the gains it has made because the support (from Biden US and EU) was drip-fed according to the Biden team's strategy.
- Russia is haemorraging fighters and modern fighting machinery in the current war in Ukraine. It's unknown how much longer the loss of life can be sustained without internal unrest. The absence of modern machinery would obviously make an invasion of Europe less likely to succeed.
- While Russia might now be a "war economy" I've seen reports that they can't economically sustain the war for too much longer.
- While the EU certainty needs to invest in defence, some countries are already strong, and would likely fight to protect the collective.
Overall, this suggests that Russia would fail against a united Europe, were they to extend beyond a defeated Ukraine.
Russia's economy is teetering and looks very weak now, but much of that is due to sanctions. Sanctions that trump will probably remove soon, for zero concessions. I'm not sure how effective EU sanctions will be on their own. Soon we will be seeing a much stronger Russia, already on a heavy war footing, start swallowing up a much weaker Ukraine. I don't like what might happen after that plays out.
But the western support was very small compared to actual western military capability.
Wouldn't freeing up Russia through removal of sanctions and a refusal to engage militarily resulting in an escalation in Ukraine and potentially beyond into Europe be seen as a big failure of his position?
Any suggestions on where in the world will remain relatively stable?
I will be going to UA, to fight with them.
France over-run by Germany. Gestapo at work, with all its horrors.
UK+US land in French North Africa, part of taking Africa from Germany, part in the long run of liberating France from horrors of occupation.
French soldiers fighting, killing and being killed by UK+US troops.
And, I was more thinking of the situation on American ground, within the USA and between the USA and Canada. I don't mean it wouldn't happen. I mean that I don't think that would happen with 100% engagement from all US army. The disconnect and reversal of strategy of the US, against its own allies, is too sudden.
My thought here was that armies can fight with the most brutal oppressors of their very own country, against those who would liberate it.
Only, ask your military to return against your just previous allies (at your own initiative) among which the one that helped your very nation to fight for its independence, with which you did cross-training and exercises, for the past 80 years... everyone is in for quite a bumpy road.
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.
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 don't have access to perfect information, but I find the reports that Russia is unable to maintain their entire fleet creditable, and believe and/or trust the experts who confirm this analysis.
Obviously Russia has no 5gen at all (or just a few 5gen Su-57, if we going to name them 5gen).
Anyway, my point is that as of now Russia has no need for gen5 and can't afford it anyway, just like about anyone else except for the US and a few countries that have them but at the same time have to rely on the US anyway.
What matters these days is the cost of buying/flying/maintenance, software platform and what missiles they can launch.
Gripen has modular upgradable software, and supports modern Europe-made missiles such as Taurus and Meteor.
For the same reason I consider the F35 a failure.
I expect a crash program to reengineer them has already started if only unofficially.
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.
Not that they’re going to be allies much longer.
In Syria the US bombs things at their will, same in Somalia. In all Latin America conflicts the US went at it alone.
Maybe pay attention to Greece, Korea, Libya, Kosovo, Serbia, Yemen, Syria (1982), Iran, Iraq (twice), Afghanistan, WW1, WW2
The fact that even as we bicker on this forum British and American forces are in Yemen pretty much says everything.
* correction: since 1776
There's no reason this can't be replicated by other rich nations but it won't be cheap or quick.
I don't see EU countries starting to invade other countries around the globe to test out weapons systems and battlefield tactics. The US on the other hand, kind of did this continuously since WWW2 (to mention recent history).
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.
And no country wants to wake up to a set of bricks when they really need warplanes all of a sudden.
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.
I wouldn't call Russian AF "shit". The УМПК (JDAM) bombs crushed formidable defense of Avdeevka and now hit AFU hard in Sudja. Ka-52 helicopters stopped counteroffensive a year ago. Surely, sky is contested, but it's still important component that hurts Ukraine very hard.
> have had to rely so heavily on drones is that they had no better alternative
What would be an alternative to wing reconnaissance drones? What can hyper-equipped US armed forces offer as a replacement FPV and fiber-optics FPV attack drones? Yeah they have Reapers and other fancy expensive gear for the first 3-4 weeks of active war, then what?
The US has a variety of overlapping reconnaissance capabilities including not just large UAVs but also manned aircraft (including the F-35) and multiple satellite constellations. Over the next few years the priorities in that area should be to accelerate the B-21 Raider program (it will make an excellent recon platform) and develop some sort of prompt satellite launch capability to replace combat losses within hours. There is also a general recognition that we'll have to increase spending or shift budget priorities to build up the industrial capacity necessary to sustain longer conflicts.
Define "shit".
Consequently I believe that if the EU is to intervene, which I think is a very reasonable thing to do, it should be by imitiating the Russian approach of using aircraft as flying artillery-- i.e. to release missiles etc., against Russian positions in Ukraine, but I also believe that we should attack Russian natural gas pipelines, ammonia plants, nitric acid plants, ammunition plants with long-range weapons. I also believe that it's reasonable to send in ground troops to seize Russian and Belarusian territory in locations where it can be determined that Russia lacks artillery, tanks etc., and to in that way force troop movements, thus depleting the front in Ukraine and allowing Ukraine to basically roll it over.
I believe that this is possible for several reasons, among them that we Europeans are three times as many as the Russians. I believe that it is unlikely to lead to nuclear war because I believe that the Russians are rational and well aware that any nuclear use by them leads to a proportional nuclear use by 'us', whatever that means, and that the number of nuclear weapons in Russian control is irrelevant for the reason that they're gone after an exchange of a mere hundred or so, so that anything beyond that is superfluous.
Unlike you, I don't think the EU had any business participating in this war.
I wouldn't dismiss a nuclear exchange quite easily.
There are some problems with Ukraine, there might be if there's too much corruption and oligarchy type stuff, so I don't want to absorb them immediately-- they need huge reforms, but I don't find them objectionable per se. I think they need to get smarter, get rid of their mafia etc., but it might be possible.
It's critical for the EU to prevent this kind of expansionist warfare on its borders.
Today. So many things we have seen in the last couple of years have been pure sci-fi a decade ago. Switchblade 600, for example, has a loitering time of 40 minutes and a range of 24 minutes.
> and they barely move much faster than a carrier.
Fly in the direction bow to stern, low above the water. Or just ... loiter in the path of the carrier.
The Chinese are not stupid. Their A2/AD doctrine is based on large, expensive manned aircraft and fast missiles, not slow and weak little "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.
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.
No one would ever trust China, not Vietnam, not anyone unwilling to take orders from them. The terms would be heavy.
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.
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?
(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.
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.
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.
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.
(Sellier & Bellot and no, it is not French)
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 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.
Not in my understanding. Rather germany always went for the specialized and therefore expensive version (Goldrandlösung) of anything. But sure, parliament says, we are in peace, we don't need so many of those expensive toys. So they rather buyed only limited numbers and created another buerocratic controll gremium.
France could afford a nuclear programm and an aircraft carrier with an equal budget.
So yeah, there are many factors to blame, but I don't think it was because of too little money. Rather too much money with no one sane checking, if it serves really the purpose of defending the country.
They may lack the scale, but perhaps that can be built up.
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/how-much-of-the-f-35-is-brit...
“On 27 May 2006, President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair announced that "Both governments agree that the UK will have the ability to successfully operate, upgrade, employ, and maintain the Joint Strike Fighter such that the UK retains operational sovereignty over the aircraft." In December 2006, an agreement was signed which met the UK's demands for further participation, i.e., access to software source code and operational sovereignty. The agreement allows "an unbroken British chain of command" for operation of the aircraft.”
But I agree there's more than one way to view ownership and I can see your point, even if I don't think I agree so long as the UK can truly operate it in every way, including software that might need adapting (like how I might bend my fork's prong back into shape, or out of shape for adaptations)
https://www.czdefence.com/article/europeanisation-of-the-f-3...: “The F-35's manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, states that currently around 25% of the F-35's components are manufactured in Europe.”
That doesn’t say the USA cannot make every part, but I think it’s likely they will have trouble producing some of them.
For example, https://simpleflying.com/how-many-international-parts-us-f-3... states the F35 has Martin Baker ejection seats and the F35B has Rolls-Royce engines.
Again, not ideal, but the first F-35 have been delivered an need to be serviced and maintained until they can be replaced,... or maybe just until the next US election.
The original article suggests that Ukraine may end up having to replace the electronic countermeasures hardware to get around this in the future, so I'd expect any attempts to "un-brick"/work around the lack of support will eventually be along those lines, even if it results in some performance degradation.
No matter how they approach this, it's going to be a horrifically difficult and expensive task.
0. https://www.reuters.com/article/world/exclusive-us-to-withho...
See my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43307996#43309468 Replacing the jammers shouldn't be "horrifically difficult", might still be expensive though.
the UK made access to the source code a condition of purchase, and the technology transfer agreement was signed
in a hypothetical scenario where the US federal government falls under the direct control of a russian asset, I imagine this would end up in our allies hands reasonably quickly
Move a few flags around in a few registers and for all practical purposes it’s stuck.
We're talking about Europe being able to protect itself from a potential Russian invasion despite the US bricking their F35s, and your argument is that they'd have to bend or break an agreement?
I don't think that's a big hurdle, in that eventuality.
(Reminds me a touch of this, though: :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3EBs7sCOzo )
If the American people want to shift track they have the opportunity to actually elect a Congress which will do something.
If not it’s November 2028 for the next presidential election. Trump (if he’s still alive - he’s not exactly young or healthy) won’t be able to stand for a third term unless a constitutional ammendment is past
It is not just about Trump.
The question is will it happen soon enough to mitigate some of the damage.
You can fly the airframe but there is a significant reduction in capability unless you can also produce equivalent algorithms and data processing technology.
I’m not aware of any computer science breakthroughs required for the f35.
Almost by definition, any classified computer science research would be non-obvious.
I’m not sure your second point is true. The vast vast majority of classified information is very boring, or operational like frequencies of radar, etc.
Both sides know the basics, it’s what frequencies the radar comms and aircraft work at that is classified.
There’s very little “OMG this one algorithm changes everything!!”. Unless proven otherwise
The ability of someone to imagine the existence of things they are unaware of has no bearing on their existence. You could say the same of a lot of the classified materials science that underpins a lot of US weaponry hardware for which there is ample circumstantial evidence. No one is going to be talking about it on HN.