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The F-35's Defining Characteristic Is Surviving Hostile Airspace

Most nations don't need an F-35. They want to protect their own airspace, intercept potential threats and minimize the cost-per-mission for their operations. The sort of power projection afforded by a Joint Strike Fighter just isn't worth the cost to most nations - unless you're intent on molesting hostile airspace it's kinda a waste of taxpayer money. The existence of the F-35 is a byproduct of imperial ambition that few peer powers can match.

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I think you’re missing something huge: when you’re under attack, YOUR OWN AIRSPACE can become hostile if you don’t fight to gain air superiority. NATO doctrine prioritises air superiority for good reason.

No number of stealth planes will help you regain the advantage in that scenario if your ground assets can't support them. If your own airspace is hostile and your ground radars/SAM systems are disabled, then your CAP/supremacy mission has already failed.

The two aren’t separate. If your jets can’t defend your ground assets then they’re likely to go boom. One way you can do this is to send your jets into enemy airspace and make their ground assets go boom, forcing them to keep jets in their own territory to stop that.

How can a jet protect ground assets in the age of hypersonic weapons systems and drones? Anyways, isn't that the job of ground air defense?

By for example destroying the enemy launch platforms. By intercepting enemy flights that would deploy those weapons. And specifically in case of F-35s, also by providing ELINT.

"Hypersonic" weapons used in current conflicts are nothing more than a glorified long range missiles that are useless if you can't launch them from the air. They're also currently statistically not significant due to their low amounts.

They seem to be taking out their targets (IRIS-T the other day went boom - was taken out by a sea based variant). We should probably consider getting some of those glorified systems going and to our allies as well. Ditto on the air defense side where we lag. While jet-planes are cool, pilotless systems are the future and that ranges from ML-enabled drones to faster arrows.

By supporting your bombers to blow up the launchers and kill the pilots. Iran had fleets of drones but still rolled over when Israel blew up their air defences. I think they might know something you and I don’t about the limitations of drones and missile launchers.

EDIT: replaced “boomers” with “bombers.” Not sure my grandmother is going to be blowing up much materiel…

This is closer to how things worked in WWII, but not the Cold War or especially modern (eg. India vs. Pakistan) air combat. The ground attack role has largely shifted towards precision artillery and guided standoff-range munitions. You don't need a jet to attack ground assets, and you most definitely can't rely on a jet to defend against rocket artillery or FPV drones.

In any case, you're really just proving my point. Yes, an F-35 can "win" a conflict in a day by flying into enemy airspace undetected and bombing their presidential convoy. That's the sort of interventionist politicking that sickens everyone who isn't American or Israeli.

Your assumption is that the only thing that stops someone from bombing the US or Israel is moral scruple? I'm not interested in arguing who-went-first or root causes, because that can go on all day, and we all already believe that we know the answer. But really? You don't think Iran would've bombed the US, or Israel in a heartbeat if it had the means? You don't think the Huthis would bomb the Saudis if they could? You don't think the IRA would mortar the hotel where the British Prime Minister was sleeping if they could? Ooops. Of course, they actually did that.

I don't actually know enough to hold an informed opinion on the F35 and all this other war-porn [though my inner 10 year old thinks it is kinda technically cool] but the politics you bring forth are sickening to anyone who tries to remember /all/ the bad things, not just the ones done by people we don't like.

> You don't need a jet to attack ground assets,

It makes things much easier and you can project much further than with artillery. Just ask Iran.

> and you most definitely can't rely on a jet to defend against rocket artillery or FPV drones.

You don’t need to. You use them to make the guns and pilots go boom.

It also compromises your sovereignty since you cannot operate them without US assistance. These days that is a deal breaker.

I think this is the biggest factor. Comments about the USA potentially cutting access to software updates could have cooled interest. The UK is the only country that can operate F-35 semi-independently (our government bought the system to run our own updates).

I’ve seen people point out that the F-35 is still better than anything else you could buy but an inferior jet is probably better than an F-35 with no targeting information!

Insanely short sighted. If all you need to do is "intercept potential threats" instead of dealing with a real threat when it becomes apparent then just send a balloon.

Which aircraft models would be more suitable for European countries to give a deterrent against potential threats like Russia?

The F-16 is cheap, attritable, highly available, and occupies a similar multirole mission profile as the F-35. It should be able to launch the same standoff munitions, albeit from a slightly further distance to avoid detection. It's likely they can be bought secondhand for ~1/10th the price of an F-35 and equipped with MBDA Meteor/IRIS missiles for a mean air patrol payload.

More realistically though, I'd imagine many European nations are eying twin-engine multirole fighters like the Rafale and Eurofighter. These have a larger range and payload than the F-35, bigger radars and pylons and the all-important high top-speed (mach-2 intercepts are a must-have bordering Russia). These can be had cheaper than the F-35 and are generally better suited to a high intensity inland conflict.

Thailand invested in Swedish Gripen recently.

While I'd generally say that the F-35 is probably the best (one of the best) option for countries like my own (Denmark), who need/want a plane that can do a bit of everything, we also need to see what's happening in Ukraine.

If you have a large country and can hide your airfields hundreds of kilometers from the front, the F-16, Rafale, EuroFigther and the F-35 are all fine, but you have more options with the F-35. If you're a small country, like the Baltics, or Denmark, they are a silly choices if you expect to fight a battle at home. You simply don't have anywhere to service the planes after missiles and drones take out your three airfield equipped for the F-35. In those cases the SAAB Gripen is a much better choice. You can service is straight of a highway with basic tools and conscripts. It's also a plane designed to fight Russia, so if that the enemy you expect, it's fine.

The Finnish Air force has nice videos on highway strip operation exercises with F-35A and Eurofighter Typhoon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fD6D4rjCPg

>after missiles and drones take out your three airfield equipped

It's not so simple to 'take out' an airfield. Actually it's very tough.

> Which aircraft models would be more suitable for European countries to give a deterrent against potential threats like Russia?

Ironically, S300's from Russia. That's what Ukraine used to deny Russia air superiority. You can fight the orcs with orc weapons but you cannot fight them with American made airplanes because the US can stop support at any time.

Can you explain this "don't need" concept?

Temporarily. At some point all the allies need world class kit. They just can’t buy it from the US exclusively. But they have committed to higher defence spending. That problem solves itself over time, especially when the world’s researchers are now looking for a safer home than under this administration.

TL;DR: you don’t need a world class jet when you trust your partner 100%. Anything less than 100, collaborate fast to overcome the limitation.

It’s kind of wild to watch the US squander its allies trust and therefore ability to project force globally as every other country that would’ve bought this weapons platform finds an alternative, leaving the US to shoulder the entire program cost burden.

Who could’ve ever foreseen these consequences? /s

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