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Comment by credit_guy | Hacker News Reader

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 Under Trump, Ukrainian airmen are stuck with pods whose programming may soon be out of date.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...

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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...

> It was not a "kill switch".

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

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