Germany concerned over F-35 'kill switch' amid US policy shifts | Hacker News Reader

Germany concerned over F-35 'kill switch' amid US policy shifts

eutoday.net

51 pointspseudolus37 comments

The F-35 is the biggest Trojan horse but this problem has been getting bigger and bigger over the years. Everything dependent on GPS and even cruise missiles with components from another nation requiring the other nation to agree on the targets ( in general terms ). I’m talking about hugely expensive equipment “owned” but a country, not the other country refusing a new order. Ironically this has also been a similar problem inside the branches of the US Military, aka weapon DRM where the soldiers/technicians can’t even do a basic repair, they have to call “customer support”. The more the time passes the more the old truths make more sense: Never, ever be dependent on somebody else to defend yourself. Who knew the fricking France were right.. ;)

I'm not sure I would put GPS so high on the list.

For one, there are many satellite navigation systems. US has GPS, Europe has Galileo, Russia has Glonass and China something else (I can't remember the name).

Second, GPS is easy to jam, so actually a lot of important military stuff doesn't depend on it. There are some lower-cost precision munitions that do, and indeed in Ukraine they are increasingly less and less effective. But everyone is aware of this, and so while incredibly useful, it's not that critical for this reason.

Well, that's one way to kill the U.S. military industrial complex.

Or the EU.

Care to elaborate? The European military industry is getting stronger and stronger, and given the current situation basically all European countries prefer European military supplies to American ones.

That was a talking point in French newspaper when Germany bought those. While they could have bough perfectly fine Rafales. Tss

Wouldn't Rafale just have its own, French kill switch? Especially given the history between the two countries?

It is the US that has suddenly become unreliable.

In 20th century France and Germany have been at each other's throats twice. That's what I'd call "unreliable". Merely telling Europe that the US can no longer fund its security, or entertain the EUs delusions of military grandeur (which is true - we're broke AF) is nothing in comparison to that. Do not think for a minute that anything is forgotten between the two countries - in Europe nothing is ever forgotten.

What nonsense is this? The friendship between Germany and France since the end of WWII is a resounding success story. There is no fundamental distrust between the two countries.

> in Europe nothing is ever forgotten.

"Not forgetting" and "harbouring a grudge" are two different things. It's precisely because we remember two devastating world wars that we're trying to foster cooperation in Europe.

Things change. And they will change. If history teaches us anything, it's that there's no such thing as permanent "trust" between countries.

It's more likely now for a European Federation to happen than another Franco-German war. Euroscepticism is on the backfoot now, thanks to Trump's America.

It's so much "on the backfoot" that the EU has to illegally ban opposition parties and candidates from elections in member states, and withdraw voting rights from Hungary. As people get poorer, the authoritarianism will accelerate. All I'm saying is, 4 weeks ago the US was the "best friend" of the EU. That has changed. The suggestion that nothing will change between France and Germany in perpetuity contradicts all historical evidence. And the suggestion that the EU is going to be there forever smells of "the USSR will be there forever" thinking from early 1991. History is not finished. It will continue.

> that the EU has to illegally ban opposition parties and candidates from elections in member states

did you just make this up?

Germany tried to ban AfD. Romania _canceled an election_ entirely, and then also banned the winning candidate.

You said "the EU". Are you aware of the difference between the EU and national governments?

> Germany tried to ban AfD

I wish we did, but we didn't.

Are you aware that the EU largely dictates what the national governments do?

How ?

Anything can always change. I'm talking about the status quo.

Oh for sure. It’s just a question of who own the kill switch. In the context of Russia grabbing land in Eastern Europe and the US aligning with Putin… a French or German kill switch sounds better.

The comparison is interesting. The Rafale is more expensive than the F-35 and the F-35 has better stealth, but it is known French passive radars can detect most if not all US Stealth planes. Anything else like speed, range, and climb rate and possibly missiles advantage is for the Rafale.

I think they went for the F-35 to carry US nuclear weapons. At the time, I read that planes need extensive certifications for this including giving US access to critical components. Obviously no european arms manufacturer should give these to the US.

Also the USA didn't want to certify European planes, in contrast to the Cold War when they certified the Tornado. That should be the first hint.

It was not a "kill switch". If you are able to service some military aircraft to such extent that you fly combat missions, you probably can identify any "kill switches" and work around them. Just look at Iran that is still flying the US made F-4s.

What the US is doing with the F-16s in Ukraine is refusing to update the software on a jammer. The pace of technological evolution in the war is so extreme, that these jammers are in danger of becoming obsolete [1]:

  > But the Russian air force could sidestep the jamming by reprogramming their radars to operate at slightly different frequencies. Under Biden, the USAF team might’ve kept pace with Russian adaptation by constantly adjusting the AN/ALQ-131s own frequencies. Under Trump, Ukrainian airmen are stuck with pods whose programming may soon be out of date.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2025/03/07/france-to-t...

> It was not a "kill switch".

Software is famously a munition, so maybe call it lack of ammunition…

Trying to use a >50 year old fighter jet as counter-example for "see, it's proven folks can maintain & keep their equipment running themselves" is a hilariously out-of-touch proposition to me. (65 year olds actually.)

Who even cares about the jet by itself? Command and control (c2), c3, c4, up through c6isr (command, control, communications, computers, cyber-defense and combat systems and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) is all part of what makes these tip of the spears useful. Theres a whole battlenet that has to be totally reconstituted for these jets to serve their role, if the US goes aggressor.

Which the US is repeatedly saying they might do. That they think it might be a good idea to just take over some former ally's land.

(These people are truly the most vile scum doing the worst they can to deface lady liberty, shame on this horrible era. Keep America Allied!)

I share some of your frustrations. I don't like what the current administration is doing. I would much rather the US gave plenty of support to Ukraine to allow them to finish the fight.

But it is a core of my system of thinking to give people the benefit of the doubt. Do I think Trump might be a Russian asset? He might be, and he certainly behaves like one. But it is also possible he is not. A lot of what Trump does can also be explained without the assumption that he is a Russian asset. The only assumption is that he really believes in the slogan "Make America Great Again" (even if that means, "and the allies be damned"). In any case, it's very unlikely he's surrounded only by Russian assets.

If you look at Trump this way, you see that the media has seriously exaggerated lots of his moves. The "rare earth deal", where supposedly the US is squeezing Ukraine out of 500 billion dollars, is nothing like that. Once you learn about one such exaggeration, you are on the lookout. And to me the "kill switch" thins seems like quite an exaggeration too.

Your view might differ. It's ok.

What is less ok is to use a tone that this forum considers to not be conducive to a healthy exchange of ideas. See for example [1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I have a different viewpoint. Trump likes to paint himself as a businessman who is a master of a deal and delivers. All these sudden moves with tariffs etc., even if they make no sense, show that he is active and "doing something", including fulfilling some promises he made during the elections.

Now, one of the major promises was that he would end the war in Ukraine. The problem is, this is a very heavy issue and can't be solved just because he wants. Russia is not interested in the slightest in stopping the war, and for sure they don't want to show they were stopped by an American president. So Trump's only chance to deliver is to push on Ukrainians to surrender. And this is what he is currently doing, day by day. Once he breaks them, he will be able to say "I introduced peace".

Neither Ukraine nor the EU wants this because the capitulation of Ukraine would only mean giving Putin more time to stock up supplies and attack again later (he doesn't need a good reason for that).

Did you mean F-14s?

And quick question for you, when were F-14s built, and when were F-35s built, and has anything changed between those times?

I meant F-4s, but you are right, Iran also has F-14s, and it turns out F-5s too [1].

> when were F-14s built, and when were F-35s built, and has anything changed between those times?

I'm guessing that you're trying to say that new technology is many time more complex than old technology, so it is easier to place kill switches. If, for example, the CPU in my computer has some sort of hidden fuse that one day blows, my computer is dead, and there's nothing I can do to fix it. But since the F-4s, F-5s and F-14s did not have chips, or if they did, they were much simpler, then it follows that they can't have kill switches, while the F-35 can.

There are two problems with this argument (maybe that's not the argument you are trying to make, but your question is a bit oblique, so I'll go with this interpretation).

The first problem is that the F-4s, F-5s and F-14s were extraordinarily cutting edge machines for their time. They continue to be even today. They are all supersonic, and they all exceed the top speed of F-35, two of them by a lot (Mach 2.2 vs Mach 1.6). The kill switch for such a machine is the engine itself. The turbine blades in an engine that can reach Mach 2 are some of the most advanced pieces of technology ever created. If one such blade develops a crack, it is probably as good as gone. Somehow Iran manages to maintain the jets in working condition.

The second problem is that you did not consider Israel. Israel operates F-35s. Their situation in the Middle East is so dangerous that they would not tolerate a kill switch. I am not privy to what they do, but I imagine the contract with Lockheed Martin and the US was that there should not be any kill switches, or if there are, they should be disclosed. I'm sure they did their due diligence and found whatever kill switches were placed in contravention of the contract, and they have contingency plans just in case they are activated. Germany can negotiate a similar contract, and develop similar contingency plans.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Republic_of_Iran_Air_F...

If this is real, surely it cannot be that hard to find and remove this kill switch?

It is not really a kill switch, just the ability to reprogram the jamming device to adapt to changing Russian radar frequencies. Not really something Ukrainians couldn't do themselves if given opportunity.

German pensioners, get ready. The government you've just voted in is about to bleed you white to create a poor replacement. This is, after all, why we "don't have free healthcare" in the US. Or pensions, for that matter.

German pensioners aren't silly enough to trust their protection to a belligerent and possibly compromised USA.

No, your military isn't the reason you don't have free healthcare in the USA. You don't have free healthcare in the USA because of an ongoing concerted effort to prevent it happening by people and companies who make a nice profit from it not happening.

This EP is from 1961, featuring the actor Ronald Reagan, and was played at coffee meetings of "concerned mothers" organised by the wives of American Medical Association members.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYrlDlrLDSQ

As part of "Operation Coffee Cup".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Coffee_Cup

These kind of things are why you don't have free healthcare, anything that provides social good but challenges private profit is immediately labelled socialism by vested interests who have sufficient money to propagate their falsehoods.

It always amazes me what a sufficient plurality of Americans label as socialism that other countries consider to be "a good investment in society".

The government just announced an increase in pension of 3.74%. I think they'll do ok.

Von Der Leyen: "We will turn the private savings into much needed investments." :-)

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