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.

This is top of mind for all European countries that bought the F-35. They are painfully aware of this. So is the US defense industry which will notice softening sales kicking in a few years down the line as European countries are less inclined to buy US arms.

This was predictable though. The markets have already rewarded those who saw this coming.

But if the EU has no 5th gen fighters then they'd have a hard time maintaining Air Superiority against Russia if they manage to mass produce Su-57 or Su-75 and I am betting the Russian can do it before EU can have 5th gen fighters or FCAS.

I think Russian capabilities depends almost entirely on who the US and China are willing to sell weapons to — Russia has huge corruption problems, arguably this is why they were dumb enough to not only start a war but also why they weren't able to actually pull off a blitzkrieg against Ukraine, so I don't think Russia will be able to combine high volume and high quality for anything any time soon.

EU industrial capabilities may also have issues, but they are (mostly) different ones than Russia faces.

Yeah a lot of RU dismissing here.

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.

Where are you getting this from? There certainly has been some exaggeration online and in the media about the capabilities of western military hardware, especially tanks. But that doesn't mean they were bad, just that they are far from invulnerable. And there are quite a few examples where they saved the soldiers inside when a Russian tank would have tossed their turret.

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.

> 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.

I didn't say western hardware bad, but exaggeration leading to RU dismissal and thinking that EU would be able to stomp RU in unrestricted warefare... especially without US assistence in short/medium time frame.

>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.

"Hard to argue EU part of NATO has better military capability than 20 years ago."

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.

We are seeing improved _US_ ISR in last 20 years enables UKR to hit RU assets. What UKR is fully capable of doing is follow up predominantly US supplied intel, especially for longer range / standoff strikes.

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.

> 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

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.

> 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.

>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.

> aka everything EU military also hedged on

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.

"French doctrine" Is this a joke ?

Yes, France have multiple different doctrines. It's most known one is the "Force de Frappe" [0], but the Legion have one, and if you talk about "doctrine d'emploi" every bit of equipment have one (the AMX-10 necessitate a doctrine d'emploi so different than regular MBT than the whole French cavalry have a different general doctrine than any other mechanized troups)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_de_dissuasion

The ISR environment is pretty saturated. Practically there's not much you can do to avoid detection.

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

Have my upvote, good reasoning.

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.

Overall your points are valid, but:

> 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.

You really make the best point here. End of the day, the 1986-style WW2++ strategy is dead. Manned air superiority outside of the third world is dead.

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.

Aircraft carriers were always a joke in a US vs. Soviet conflict. A carrier will help with third-world enemies that cannot threaten it. However, the Soviet Union had capable submarine forces as well as ship-launched (e.g. from Kirov class cruisers) as well as air-launched anti-ship missiles which in numbers can overwhelm the carriers air defense screen.

In WW3 the role of an aircraft carrier is to launch its airplanes exactly once, before it is sunk.

if donkey are superior, then explain why only after 3 years Putin used them, was Putin keeping them in reserve for the Berlin attack?

Let's be fair here. If we rightly mock all the silly *pravda sites, the mules aren't exactly reported in the serious press either.

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.

One problem with the digital age is you can find news to support any view, regardless of how disconnected from reality it may be. And enough people to echo such that one may not realize how ridiculous they sound.

> 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)

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.

The biggest Russian fuckup in this war was to put their elite soldiers in one plane for Hostomel Airport without knowing that Ukraine had SAMs in position and enough intelligence to know this was coming.

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.

I don't know where you got this myth from. Extermination of elite VDV units was not just one plane shot down.

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_...

Real life isn’t a movie, one aircraft worth of people isn’t going to do that much.

It annihilated the VDV.

And? It also took out a useful aircraft which could have been more significant over the war.

Or, airborne in name only nowadays.

No, but them taking and holding the airport close to Ukraine's seat of government would have done a lot.

Now you’re assuming quite a bit more than just a handful of troupes surviving. Such as them being able to get to an airport when there’s air defenses in the way. Being able to reinforce those troupes quickly again through air defenses etc.

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.

The videos of the Russian troops at Hostomel are on Youtube. As a commenter above mentioned, they were there to allow troop transports to land and eventually be connected to the tank column coming south from Belarus.

Sure that was a plan, but it turns such movements of tanks proved very detrimental to Russia.

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.

My guy, the dismissive tone of "it's not an action movie" while backpedaling to "tut tut, sure that might have been their specific plan but have you considered unintended consequences" is too much for me.

I’m sorry if reality is too much for you.

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.

Have a good day.

Sure, have a good day.

Russia doesn’t have air superiority in Ukraine and they chose the time and place of the war.

That's the thing - having F-35s doesn't mean any more you actually have them, even though you paid through your teeth for them.

Sounds like Kindle books.

So, F-35 Kindle edition.

Russia already lost Su-57 in Ukraine when ukrainians didn't even had F-16.

The Russian aviation industry has a terrible track record on delivering new aircraft.

I'm willing to entertain the possibility that the Russian can improve the track record faster than the EU develops 5th gen fighters.

So far their 5th generation fighter program has been an even worse embarrassement than the T14 Armata.

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.

Sure, but that risk is just something Europe has to eat as punishment for buying F-35 instead of building their own, it doesn't affect the new reality that US aircraft cannot be trusted in wartime.

I'm highlighting more about EU conundrum here and I'm still amused that they still have energy to pick up fight with say China.

Thankfully, Russia doesn't really have 5th Gen either. Europe has a lot of solid 4+ gen planes: Rafale, Eurofighter, maybe Gripen. And I'm willing to guess that, especially with better trained pilots, these are potentially better than Russia's assortment.

But there remains a question of quantity and determination.

The surviving Russian pilots are pretty competent at this point.

The surviving Russian pilots fly towards the front line at a high altitude until they get close to the suspected range of Ukrainian air defences, drop glide bombs and then turn around. Sometimes the Ukrainians have snuck an air defence unit closer to the front lines without it being detected and the pilots exit the category of surviving Russian pilots.

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.

It's not like European pilots operated in even a mildly contested airspace since 2011.

5th gen fighters have not the best track record fighting 4th or even 3rd gen fighters in air to air combat.

Good, can we skip the 5th gen and move towards autonomous aerial systems faster?

> Russia if they manage to mass produce Su-57 or Su-75

They can only do that if US provides them with required components

oh wait...

I'm willing to bet they can do it with possible financial assistance from India (they need 5th gen fighters too) and generic chips from China.

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.

India already got burned.

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.

Not many options for India. F-35 is also very risky and unclear delivery date, not to mention they also got burned by delayed F414 engines delivery for their Tejas.

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.

If.

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.

I wonder if we'll see a coordinated wave of F-35 cancellations. They must all be aware they are potentially buying bricks. The time to do it, thus, is now - the situation isn't improving while time and money are wasted. But that's an enormous political escalation.

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.

Australia ought to start paying tribute to China instead of USA and invest in chinese subs rather than USA ones which will never be delivered anyway

The devil you know…

No one would ever trust China, not Vietnam, not anyone unwilling to take orders from them. The terms would be heavy.

Like all things it depends on the terms, in my mind though China would probably be incentivized to give us a good deal - Im sure they would be very amused delivering real hardware while the USA continues to demonstrate their incompetence at shipbuilding. It would also signal that Australia wants to sit out any USA/China war, which might be hard to do politically (which is maybe why Im not PM) but its certainly the position I hope Aus ends up taking should these 2 buffoons start a real blue

Let’s switch suppliers a second time?

We need to pay the money to USA as tribute so its a write-off anyway, but I have low confidence we will ever see working hardware from it. However I bet China would actually prioritise delivery of some new subs if we pivoted to using them as our naval supplier, and we set up the next 100 years of paying off bigger countries to leave us alone, which honestly worked well enough the last 100 years

Eh. They aren't meant to be delivered for at least 5 years by which point US politics will have swung the other direction again.

Why? They can buy subs from France who was the other option when Australia was last shopping around.

There are still doubts as to whether the new Trumpian reality is permanent. Politicians in Europe are still hoping that this is all a bad dream. So I guess the orders will somehow (by delaying payments, inventing some requirements, finding problems in deliveries that have to be endlessly discussed and fixed, ...) be delayed for 4 years. If the next president is still looking as anti-European as Trump, orders will for sure be cancelled.

"We are delaying our $N billion order until the administration ceases to act insane" would be quite a signal for big business elites in the US.

(Sadly, sanity of the opposite political party was / is also highly questionable.)

I doubt "until the administration ceases to act insane" is going to be enough. The current administration has proven to be untrustworthy, so nothing they say is going to restore trust in the US. On top of that, what guarantees could the US give that a future Trump 2.0 isn't going to break on their first day?

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.

Still. None of the desired 800B of investment in defense equipment and technology can have US suppliers after the last couple of weeks. Even if the US eventually gets rid of this cancerous development.

As a side thought: it is oft remarked in the defence industry circles how buying local might be more expensive but more of the money stays at home.

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 think this is overly optimistic. Countries around the world can't build strategies around the US that will only hold when the Democrats are in power. Trump and the Republican party as a whole have thrown reliability out the window. Even if the GOP come to their senses and reject the America First ideology and pop their disinformation bubble the damage has still be done to the character of state. The only option for the US is to hold on to its power by sheer muscle power, but that will only last so long.

Doubts? Maybe officially in PR statements, otherwise you would have to be mad to think this is temporary. Its as temporary as his lifespan. People with actual power are not that stupid anywhere.

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.

Trump has been here clearly signaling that a large portion of the US population does not support international military subsidies and Europe has done nearly nothing to prepare. Pushing forward a head-in-the-sand narrative is hugely detrimental to Europe’s independent future and requires a degree of blindness that is absurd

By "military subsidies" you mean US government money subsidizing US defense industry I assume?

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.

> There are still doubts as to whether the new Trumpian reality is permanent

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.

Europe can't even maintain some Eurofighter fleets without US support. The Austrian model for example needs a crypto key for secure communications from a US company for every flight.

The US cryptography key is only needed for NATO Link 16 communications, not for regular flight operations. This is totally normal because Austria isn't a full NATO member. They are part of the NATO Partnership for Peace program which allows for limited levels of cooperation.

All possible, I'm not familiar with the details.

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.

How is it a big deal? If Austria wanted full access to NATO technology then they should have joined NATO. They chose not to, and now they have to accept the consequences of that choice. Can't have your cake and eat it, too.

It's the usual hypocrisy. There never was money for the military, neutrality ever popular and nobody thought about it back when things seemed more stable. Now that things are changing, it's a big deal. Maybe we join Nato, maybe Europe get it's own shit together. We'll see.

The European country best suited to support the F-35 is France. Which also isn't a member of the program due to that reason.

Won't that go against their homegrown Rafale fighter jet?

Is there any other country in Europe that kept its own sovereignty like France? Maybe Sweden and Finland (if we do not consider nuclear cover)?

Sweden's Gripen is dependent on US engines...

Check where good percentage of europes (and for the record gloval as well) small arms ammo comes from. ;-)

(Sellier & Bellot and no, it is not French)

We're uniquely suited to not support the F-35. Not unless you swap out the engine for a Safran one, change the avionics for Dassault's, rip out the rest of the electronics for the Thalès stuff and replace the ordnance with MBDA's.

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.

Which is exactly the steps a European power needs to take in order to support an F-35 or similar aircraft. Remove the foreign made equipment you can't support and put your own domestic equipment, or at least put something sourced from the EU on it

It is not going to happen. There is no european manufacturer or a consortium that can build a similar airplane with comparable capabilities. They can't even match the F-22 which is more than two decades old.

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!

I suspect it is going to be done to them.

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.

Read something of a similar bent here https://theradicalfederalist.substack.com/p/the-regimes-next...

Any suggestions on where in the world will remain relatively stable?

South America. Was peaceful in WW1 and WW2. In US sphere, but far enough away not to be messed about with much.

Or it doesn't happen like that

How do you think it will play out?

Anyone with a working memory of a couple of years remembers people like you who said a variety of excuses to the tune of "it won't be that bad", "you're exaggerating" and "it won't happen like that".

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.

The result, and perhaps the definition, of the polarization problem is that every time something terrible happens, the responsible side would rather say "I love suffering, this feels great" than lose face in an imagined argument with the other side.

Not American, but provided US military has an oath towards the Constitution (and not to whatever the government claims), I doubt _all_ of US army would follow (either internally, either externally) such a brutal reversal of duty as well as alliances.

I am reminded of North Africa in I think it was 1942.

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.

You mean the _Vichy_ French soldiers? that's quite a different situation than the allied French army :)

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.

They were French army, just as any other, only the part which was in North Africa when France fell.

My thought here was that armies can fight with the most brutal oppressors of their very own country, against those who would liberate it.

Duty is to the Constitution and the Commander in Chief. And alliances are at the discretion of the President. The military will do whatever they are told in terms of who the have to be friends with.

I know. That's the theory and mostly the practice.

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.

> 8. Europe puts boots on ground and air cover over UA.

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.

Yes. Right now it's the EU which needs UA, and EU knows it; EU military is weak and has no idea how to fight with drones. UA military is strong and knows how to fight with drones.

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.

> If UA goes down, then EU goes down, because RU will attack before EU is ready.

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.

While Russia certainly botched the invasion they probably would have taken all of Ukraine by now without so much western support. Ukraine would of course be in a much better position now if that support had been stronger and not been dribbled in.

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.

> While Russia certainly botched the invasion they probably would have taken all of Ukraine by now without so much western support.

But the western support was very small compared to actual western military capability.

I get that Trump is unpredictable from one moment to the next, and also that (at best) is strongly influenced when he speaks to Putin, but he's been consistently spoken and (just about) acted from anti-war and pro-peace-deal positions.

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?

The solution should probably be to go in and fight Russia immediately.

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.

Nah, Swedish aerotech already out matches both Russia in terms of production capacity, arguably 6th if you ignore stealth, weapons range and weapons reliability. And already beats China in terms of technology, they're just now producing 5th gen airframes with copied tech, where Sweden isn't just following.

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?

>Russia is still flying more 4th then 5th gen fighters

Just like any other military including the US, no?

No, because the US could fly them, (assumedly), but doesn't. Where my understanding is Russia can't keep their fleet maintained let alone produce more. You don't use gorilla air tactics and bomb civilian infrastructure if you have other options. Russia is smart enough to know the value of winning hearts and minds, but they don't. Why not? Because they can't is the only reasonable conclusion I've seen

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 the experts who confirm this analysis.

As far as I know the US military still has more 4gen jets than 5gen.

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.

Do you have any data to back this claim up? The Grippen looks awful.

If you look at the raw specs maybe. Grippen has a specific role which is starting and landing anywhere and being easy to support, both in manpower and materials. You can land a Grippen on any short stretch of paved ground, get it rearmed and ready to fly again in half an hour with 5 people. Whereas higher spec american jets like the F16 need very long, clean and straight runways, lots of support infrastructure, lots of personnel and have a long turnaround time. With the likes of F35 and F22 this is even worse.

Also, I believe reading raw plane specs these days is more like counting CPU GHz. It does not really matter anymore.

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.

As other poster said, Gripen is perfect for a defensive role as a missile launch platform. It's not supposed to go 1:1 with F-35:s, but to counter the Russian air capability - and mostly in a defensive role. F-35:s were really great when they came with larger techno-military-political ecosystem but now the trust in that ecosystem is shattered.

The grippen looks amazing what are you talking about? Are we looking at the same plane? The high off boresight capability and meteor are top of class.

It is single engine and it is an ugly looking plane. The F22 looks like a spaceship compared to it in terms of looks and capabilities.

For the same reason I consider the F35 a failure.

Who cares if it’s ugly. Your priorities are mind boggling. You doubling down on that argument is comical.

This is the internet. You get entertained for free.

Swedish griphen e/d variants use an American engine. Possibly other avionics idk. So those will be grounded after few months into a conflict.

I expect a crash program to reengineer them has already started if only unofficially.

Don't forget the F-35 is the best plane for the PREVIOUS war. The current and the NEXT war will be fought with drones. And Ukraine is one of the countries that has the best drone industry.

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.

Which next war? The type of small, short range drones currently being used in Ukraine and Russia won't be of much use in a major regional conflict with China. Ranges will be orders of magnitude longer and communication links for drone control won't be reliable.

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.

> The air forces on both sides are shit with zero (or effectively zero)

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 Russian air force is shit. They have zero capability to conduct close air support and have been reduced to launching stand-off weapons from within their own air defense coverage. This has some value but it's basically just another form of artillery. US tactical air capabilities are on an entirely different level.

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.

> The Russian air force is shit.

Define "shit".

The next war could be a EU-Russia war though.

The only way this happens is if the EU goes full retard and sends troops to Ukraine.

Personally I oppose sending troops to the front in Ukraine, but for a different reason than others who oppose it: I believe that to send them to already fortified Russian positions is wasteful.

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.

I believe Europe ends and the Dniester river on its southeastern-most side.

Unlike you, I don't think the EU had any business participating in this war.

I wouldn't dismiss a nuclear exchange quite easily.

I see no definite borders for EU expansion other than cultural.

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.

Have you seen that Chinese dragon made with drones they showed off during the NYE show? Now imagine them autonomous and every carrying a bomb. Even Phalanx will not help you. Bye bye aircraft carriers.

I've seen it. So what. How will those drones get to the aircraft carrier? Their batteries only last a few minutes, and they barely move much faster than a carrier.

> Their batteries only last a few minutes,

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.

You're really missing the point. Have you ever even been on a boat? The Pacific Ocean is a big place, and carriers don't move in predictable straight lines. Drones aren't going to be able to loiter in place indefinitely just on the hope that a carrier might wander into range.

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".

I was surely making things up on this one. I’m certainly missing many points.

Small DIY drones are only useful when no side has air superiority. Once you own the air, you can bomb and support ground troops a lot more efficiently.

The Rafale has claimed F-22 kills, but also consider that the competition here isn’t a straight up war against the United States but rather against Russia. As we’ve seen in the invasion of Ukraine, they don’t need advanced 6th generation fighters to handily best Russian forces using Soviet-era technology, and drones are FAR more significant in that kind of combat. Even if the F-35 was better at those types of missions, the high cost of the aircraft and support suggest that this might simply accelerate the shift away from human-piloted aircraft.

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.

Europe had no reason to spy on the US before, why shouldn't the EU produce a carbon copy of the F-35? There is already a plant making them in Germany. If the US is tearing up treaties then why can't the EU tear up their promise of not stealing military technology?

A good airplane from an unreliable supplier is not a good airplane.

What exactly do you think are so special about American made products? The only reason that America’s allies have bought them in the past is because of Pax Americana. That’s about to end if not has ended already.

BAE Systems along with other European arms/aerospace manufacturers are perfectly capable of making competing products.

> What exactly do you think are so special about American made 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.

Alongside its allies, mostly. Thanks JD.

Not that they’re going to be allies much longer.

Which allies fought alongside in every conflict the US participated in? With the exception of the blunders in Iraq and Aghanistan where everybody jumped on the “lets conquer faraway countries” bandwagon.

In Syria the US bombs things at their will, same in Somalia. In all Latin America conflicts the US went at it alone.

Honestly, go and look it up yourself, you’re not engaging in this thread constructively. You’re simply parroting MAGA talking points. I didn’t say “every”, I said “mostly”.

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.

> America has been involved in a war or another pretty much continuously since the end of WWW2.

* correction: since 1776

Very large amounts of continuous investment and battlefield testing since 1941.

There's no reason this can't be replicated by other rich nations but it won't be cheap or quick.

In order to replicate this, you need to invade countries and conquer them to test out your equipment, soldiers discipline and whatnot.

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).

Absolutely every European country can make something better than a brick.

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.

You did read the article saying the US is not supplying "software updates" to the F16s and the planes themselves fly just fine, right?

I think the comment is in reaction to the F35 ones above it. Without activated software, these are bricks.

And no country wants to wake up to a set of bricks when they really need warplanes all of a sudden.

A plane without up to date countermeasures is not fit for purpose. They will be ineffective or even unusable in weeks.

Not to pile on but you say we should buy the F-35 to go toe to toe against Russia…

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

Euro companies need to be moving off companies like Amazon swiftly, they’re under the boot of the new leadership. There’s a few years before even the current Russian leadership can change us rhetoric to be actively hostile to Europe, but it’s coming.

> under the boot

To me it looked like Bezos put the boot there himself, he seemed pretty enthusiastic about it.

Maybe trumpism simply empowered him., same result though - relying on US companies is a danger

There are three superpowers, only one of which has shown no hostility towards Europe. Draw your conclusions.

US, China, who else are you calling a superpower? Cause Russia is not a superpower.

It does not really change my argument, if you exclude Russia from the group. It was about possible alignment options Europe now has.

However, any power able to incinerate large parts of the planet is a bit more than a regional power, in my eyes.

FWIW, given everything else that we've seen from Russia in this undeclared(!) war, I'm moderately confident the Russian nukes and delivery mechanisms are sub-par.

(Typing "sub" reminded me of the Kursk nuclear submarine that sank itself…)

It needs only a few to launch successfully to engulf Europe in flames. So, even with subpar equipment, out of all of the 1700+ launch vehicles a few will still launch.

Kinda.

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.

You are hopefully right but this is not a bet you ever want to have to make.

Quite.

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.

There is only one superpower - the US.

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.

There are two. Russia is not a super power.

Putin has nukes, apart from that Russia is a pretty irrelevant country.

More like this: Two super powers, and a terror nukes nation.

It does not really change my argument, if you exclude Russia from the group. It was about possible alignment options Europe now has.

However, any power able to incinerate large parts of the planet is a bit more than a regional power, in my eyes.

When Putin can't take back Kursk, it seems odd to call Russia a super power.

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

I wish the EU agreed with you. That would surely mean they would not want to go on a 800 billion Euro spend of my taxpayer money to deter an "irrelevant country".

Fundamentally, it's not just about Russia. It's about not being carved up by the US and China.

And you think a 1T EUR will move the needle significantly to maybe deter this?

If it's sustained, then yes. Again, it's mostly important to be less tempting than other areas if we're headed back to a world of great powers and spheres of influence.

We never left such world, it's just that the USA was the only great power for a few decades.

China is a economic superpower but not a military one, at least not yet. Their blue water navy is not credible.

Yes, that's why the U.S. wants to control Arctic trade routes from China to Europe.

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.

> 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.

I find that becoming exceedingly unlikely. Trust has been destroyed, there is no easy recovery from that.

So many odd things have been occurring in the past month that I don't know what to believe any longer.

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.

Elon Musk threatens to spend millions against any republican who deviates from Trump’s policies. Without that threat, the republicans would speak up against this assault on American interest and values. I wonder more if Elon has been compromised than Trump. Or if Russia threaten to trigger the Kessler syndrome, destroying all of Elon’s aspirations of getting off this rock (I’m still skeptical if he’s telling the truth about that), and instructed him to stop the war.

It may kill human piloted powered combat aircraft in favor of missiles and drones

Drones can't replace a human in the cockpit. Remote piloted are subject to EW. Autonomous are not quite there yet. May be in ten years, maybe not.

given the extreme 'benefits' of autonomous weapons (cheap, can be produced in arbitrary numbers, easier logistics, fewer parents mourning their children in your country, vastly easier production), we should expect them to be fielded before they are really ready.

Id agree with ten years to never for a 1:1 replacement - but Im not sure that is an actual requirement for drones to replace a development budget item for x-gen manned fighter.

That’s what I expect: long careers in NATO for Ukrainian veterans who can extrapolate from the high-point of USA and Russian arms.

Any warplane that _works_ has comparable, nay even better capabilities than a brick.

But the F-35 is functionally useless. If Russia, being the only threat to Europe invades, the US will shut down the F-35s.

I mean, if any other country spent 700+ billion a year on corporate welfare to defence contractors they’d have some impressive tech too.

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.

No, thank you we are not idiots. Out fighters are just fine, as long as we don't have to fight US.

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.

On the F-35 program, ability to perform local support isn't so much based on being a "founding member" but rather program partnership level. The only other Level 1 partner is the UK. As Level 2 we have Italy and the Netherlands. All other countries are down at Level 3 (most heavily dependent on US support), except for Israel which is sort of a special case with a unique variant and special rules about local control. Ultimately though, you're correct that the F-35 will quickly turn into a brick for every export customer without active US 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.

"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"

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.

Yes, that's basically accurate. Since the end of the Cold War, Germany has always taken the cheapest possible military option in order to fund their precious social programs and treated the military as just another government jobs program. While I think the current US administration's moves to cut off our allies are deeply stupid and the moral equivalent of treason, Germany has only itself to blame for creating such a dependency. Alliances are always temporary and now Germany will have to face reality.

"Germany has always taken the cheapest possible military option "

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.

Could the UK thus be Europe's Trojan horse of support? If the US can't switch them off (allegedly), can they use their supply chains to support the rest of Europe?

They may lack the scale, but perhaps that can be built up.

The UK doesn't have the supply chains to support the rest of Europe. There are lots of parts on an F-35 that the UK can't make; despite being a Level 1 partner I don't think they have the full technical data package for everything. But neither does the US have the supply chains to support ourselves without the UK, especially for the F-35B model. That's why this whole dispute is so stupid, and hopefully cooler heads will prevail.

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/how-much-of-the-f-35-is-brit...

Canada’s largest newspaper published an opinion piece [0] calling for the cancellation of F-35 purchases. The article calls out source code availability in its argument.

[0] https://archive.is/2LLkO

Europe does not produce a 5th gen fighter. By the time they get one out, the big three will have 6th gen fighters.

Europe is developing 6th Gen fighter(s) already though. And yes, Europe produces a 5th Gen fighter. The f35 is made only in USA and Italy, although I share the worries on having a potentially brickable device

5th gen is a nonsense marketing term. It is far less about the plane itself and more about how it integrates into a force. This is why russian figthers are pretty useless: they are not integrated with the rest of the force and they lack coordination. The russians do not even have the ability to discriminate between their own planes and enemy planes when making decisions to launch AA missiles.

While I doubt that it solves all the issue, subcontractors, imported parts and so on, but the Italian F-35s are build be Leonardo in Cameri in Italy. How long would it take BAE, SAAB or Leonardo to un-brick an F-35?

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.

I'd expect the original agreements that were put in place--both the ones with the subcontractors as well as the purchase agreements--are quite strict on what you can do with the plane. Trying to reverse engineer software (the policy was that no one gets access to the original source code for the F-35[0], at least back in 2009) is probably a no-go under those agreements.

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...

> I'd expect the original agreements that were put in place--both the ones with the subcontractors as well as the purchase agreements--are quite strict on what you can do with the plane. Trying to reverse engineer software (the policy was that no one gets access to the original source code for the F-35[0], at least back in 2009) is probably a no-go under those agreements.

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 )

> Trying to reverse engineer software (the policy was that no one gets access to the original source code for the F-35[0], at least back in 2009) is probably a no-go under those agreements.

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

I expect knowing this new f35 deliveries will have hardware just different enough to need new software.

Move a few flags around in a few registers and for all practical purposes it’s stuck.

> The original article suggests that Ukraine may end up having to replace the electronic countermeasures hardware

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.

Depends on the used cryptography, could be months or decades.

I think there’s an interesting question about how important updates are: say they unbrick it, how often do you have before there’s some change you’d actually want to have but it’s no longer easily available? This feels like the much higher-stakes version of people trying to jailbreak phones without losing security updates.

It would very much so be a stopgap. Long term it's a security risk, but it's also a risk to not be able to fly your plane tomorrow.

Yeah, no good options in this scenario. I would be very worried that there’s a kill switch you haven’t uncovered.

Hardware is not the issue. The US strictly controls the software whence many differentiated capabilities of the aircraft come. This includes a lot of secret computer science R&D that no one has access to. Countries were buying it for the advanced software.

Can they reverse engineer it?

Will there be next US elections?

Next national elections are the midterms in November 2026 with a new house and senate taking over in Jan 2027, 22 months time.

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

> Trump (if he’s

It is not just about Trump.

MAGA is essentially a personality cult. There will be a massive power vacuum once Trump leaves the stage, and I doubt any fraction will be big enough to whip the kind of unwavering loyalty we're seeing today.

Typically in these situations you get infighting, splintering and general collapse of the movement.

The question is will it happen soon enough to mitigate some of the damage.

Would you have some examples from modern history of power vacuum not being filled in, say, 1 year?

UK and Israel have a deal where they can replace the software or some such.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKNPCk-fd8I

The Israelis weren’t given a choice in the matter. The challenge is that parts of the software required for some key capabilities use advanced computer science R&D that is not in the literature.

You can fly the airframe but there is a significant reduction in capability unless you can also produce equivalent algorithms and data processing technology.

The Mossad is great at industrial espionage, and as the US gov alienates and lets “big balls” exfiltrate critical information, they’ll probably see advancements.

Probably don't even need to work that hard. The Saudis got a bunch of nuclear secrets the first round so I am sure F35 info can be brought to Mar a lago.

I have a copy of the original cognitive radar papers. You can find most of them, the real work is doing a real world implementation.

I’m not aware of any computer science breakthroughs required for the f35.

The cognitive radar stuff is old tech. I don’t think that concept is really considered a differentiated capability beyond being a sophisticated implementation.

Almost by definition, any classified computer science research would be non-obvious.

If cr is old tech any keywords for what is new/current tech?

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

That is entirely the point, it is supposed to be surprising. There are fragments of circumstantial evidence for some interesting computer science problems e.g. systems that demonstrably imply transitive closure algorithm performance that can’t be remotely replicated by anything in literature.

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.

F-35 going off the menu means the two Brit aircraft carriers have no aircraft.

Lol Royal Navy would soon have more admirals than military hardwares.

"their S-300 systems and Sukhois against their maker" by "thier" you of course mean every single last operational legacy system from the former soviet block and customers.....so all of those ,ummmm, suppliers, are now realising the worth of the promesary "upgrades" they got for thier systems, plus knowing that even glancing east, is not going to go well, and that central europe now has them....."(insert unpleasant imagery here)" Trump been at this?, what 50 days? whole classes of sinecures getting shut down, no end in site

I don’t know how much it’s worth but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning...:

“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.”

If you can't make every part of the plane it's not really yours.

I can't forge metal but I feel like my forks in my kitchen are mine because I can operate and maintain them until they fundamentally break. I do think that's ownership

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)

For forks fine. But military equipment breaks all the time. And the maintenance requirements on things like jets are 4:1 or greater. So having a jet down because a part is missing and not able to be supplied is a real issue.

Can the USA make every part of the F35?

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.

When things get serious agreement is not going to help (case in point: Budapest Memorandum - from which ever angle).

There is actually a psychiatric disorder (from an Oliver Sacks book) where the patient wakes up one day with a terrible conviction that their own healthy limbs are not theirs, and with an overwhelming urge to amputate them. Sometimes it's so distressing that amputation is actually done.

This kind of happened to the US.

Great analogy!

"Body integrity identity disorder (BIID), or body integrity dysphoria, is a mental health condition where you feel that a limb or healthy body part shouldn’t be part of your body."

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/body-integrit...

While I agree with you, I think the problem goes beyond military equipment. There’s a lot of risk now in doing business with America in every field, because it’s so unpredictable. Why get cloud or SaaS from the US if they’re one executive order away from being forced to break the GDPR — or shut off service completely, like Maxar in Ukraine. Why build supply chains through America if the price of raw materials can arbitrarily change with tariffs? Sure, it’s a huge market to sell to, but all of those risks have real costs.

Yes, I agree. There was a view that Trump is at least transactional - that so long as you pay (NATO defense spending target, US weapons etc) he'll have your back,.in a subscription basis. Likewise outside defense I guess.

But that's going up in smoke rather quickly.

Yes, exactly.

I'm beginning to think that being somewhat reined in by the Republican establishment in his first term, a weakness that the MAGA-crowd sought to correct, ultimately worked in his favor in protecting him from his poor instincts.

It's like he doesn't understand that trust and reliability have a real, tangible value. That's simply a misjudgment. Maybe he actually believes that America is so exceptionally strong that any sort of cooperation ultimately works against it?

It's terribly sad and depressing frankly. A small part of me still has hope that this is going to end badly, in that it turns into a useful lesson, but not badly enough to cause lasting damage. I might be naive.

We’re only seven weeks in, and the damage so far will probably take a decade to fix. I’m not as optimistic as you about the remaining 201 weeks — if that in fact is the number.

The word for what you describe is racketeering.

Trump is still transactional, but now the transaction is with Russia

I was thinking the same thing. Europe should build its own cloud. All purchased US goods and services are now a potential target for a match of arm wrestling.

It's not a matter of risk, it's done.

I work in IT. We already have several customers projects (various profiles) that paused all their ongoing projects to _start_ migrating their servers and hosted services away from US-based/owned ones towards EU-based ones.

>There’s a lot of risk now in doing business with America in every field, because it’s so unpredictable.

That's how the rest of the world has been doing business with America, Europe will get used to this too.

I think you need to reassess your instrumental subgoals, because this isn’t a game you can win by owning the libs: if Trump fucks the US hard enough, your life is still gonna suck even if everyone blames Biden and hates democrats.

More countries are already considering building nuclear deterrence for the past month or so.

Since when was the US in the European Union or even near Europe? How is it like Brexit in the slightest? Why is it the US's responsibility to finance and organize the majority of EU's defense?

PS: I'm from and in Europe. I don't get why it is a good or logical thing that the US should be responsible for the majority of "Western" defense on our territory.

The US is the largest arms dealer in the world and sells ass tons of equipment to the EU. Ain't nobody going to be buying US arms if they think they could be cut off on a whim. Large parts of the US economy are based on arms production and sales, and a large part of the US's non-arms trade is thanks to the US protecting its trade routes and partners. If the US stops protecting its trade, people will stop preferring trade with the US because it will now be vulnerable and near impossible to secure as a smaller nation because it has to cross the largest oceans in the world.

Brexit damaged the UK's economy and partnerships. The actions the US keep taking are like that but worse. They are pissing off allies in Europe by doing things like this, they are damaging their own economy and partnerships by threatening and placing tariffs on allies for no real reason.

Because it's been a really good deal for the US. 1. European countries have (for the most part) not had an incentive to build military might, which means they won't be adversaries to the US. 2. This dependency on the US has given the US a lot of soft power in terms of diplomatic pull. In the past, the US could just ask Europe to jump, and Europeans would ask how high. 3. In addition to Europe, it's also kept Russia in check, because it has prevented them from expanding to the west.

It was a win win arrangement of sorts. Europe got to spend less on defense. US won a reliable ally that would not challenge them much, and help enforce worldwide US dominance. Basically a near vassal situation.

How exactly was the US benefiting in this arrangement? Sounds very one sided if the American tax payer is doing the bulk of spending while Europe is freeloading

The US has allies in return for this spending. A block of people who stand against autocrats and with the US. It also bought a much more peaceful and free world. Not just nice because it is better for people, but also because it gives opportunity for trade.

Note that it might have been possible for the US to convince the rest of NATO to spend more on their defense without losing the faith of their allies. This sure isn't the way to do it.

They’re responsible for honoring their agreements and contracts. How can any European state now trust the F-35s that they’ve purchased or going to purchase? All the trans-Atlantic trust built since 1945. Flushed down the toilet in a few weeks. Trust is difficult to build but easy to destroy.

My real question as a European: why where we buying US fighter jets in the first place and not French/European ones (for example)?

Corruption. US MIC is good at forcing or enticing foreign purchasers.

To be fair, as a true fifth-gen fighter the F-35 absolutely does have capabilities no European one does. It is an impressive piece of hardware, and the US has been selling them for quite reasonable prices.

Without much background in the politics, the parallel I see is this:

Group A and Group B build an economic partnership under consensual terms generally favourable to both over a long period of time.

At one point, Group A decides to withdraw due to real or perceived inequality. The timeframe of withdrawal is faster than entering, and is insufficient to unearth the complex network of roots that took generations to plant.

When the trunk is pulled, the pain is felt in vast numbers of small ways that add up. These roots are what contain the vast majority of the surface area after all.

comparing war-mongering to a living tree is especially ugly language. Wolf-packs pissing on trees, more like it

The US administration agrees with you. It also decided it doesn't want to sell weapons to the Western world anymore, and that it wants to carry the cost of weapons development all itself without relying on exports.

It also wants to forcibly grow competing defense contractors in Europe.

Sweet sarcasm. Agree.

Brexit was about repealing long-term commitments for short-term gain, and a healthy does of FU to closest partners for domestic publicity. Oh and the short term gains never materialised, it was all costs in the end.

I see this as analogous. US is maybe reaping some short term benefits from flipping on its allies, but burning the bridges it very much relies on.

The US was never in the European Union, but has always been the leader of NATO and, since WWII, the "Western world". Trump bringing the US out of those positions is a bigger deal than Brexit, because the UK was never a leader in the EU (because of all the internal opposition to it).

> Why is it the US's responsibility to finance and organize the majority of EU's defense?

This is a common talking point, but I think it is totally wrong. The US didn't finance and organize Europe's defense.

They did spend money on their own defense forces which happen to be best positioned in Europe near the best interest as a superpower.

America spent money against their Russian adversary. This money was always well spent as far as I can see it.

> I don't get why it is a good or logical thing that the US should be responsible for the majority of "Western" defense on our territory.

Read some history (everything geopolitics after the second world war), you should ask yourself why for 76 years that's exactly what the US did (and perhaps why this is the first time that question occurred to you).

It's because the relationship between Europe and the US is not a mutually beneficial one, the US benefited the most from its power and influence over western Europe, and that doesn't just apply to Europe. NATO and the roughly 128 military bases in 58 different countries don't exist because the US somehow likes to subsidize the military spending of these countries for some altruistic purpose, it exists because it strengthens US influence across the world.

That's soft power, and if it fails, it means war (in total 123 military conflicts since WW2). It's a less bloody alternative to make sure the US gets what it wants because its the stronger party in any geopolitical relationship.

That's the logic behind it. The same logic applies to military aid it gives to Egypt and Israel (that Trump continues to give).

I have friends working on the French Rafale. Really expensive plane, mildly successful so far.

They are really busy right now.

Ironically India's decision to go with Rafale looks great in the current circumstances.

And you know who we call that lone vessel on the ocean of prosperity?

Bob.

Ukraine wasn’t a buyer. They were given those F16s. Be careful when something is given for “free”.

The Netherlands for instance, who gave Ukraine a batch of F16s _was_ a buyer. Logic still stands, US made anything is worthless if it includes a kill switch that can be toggled any time post-purchase.

Good point, but I wonder if there was something in the agreement between the US and the Netherlands when those were originally sold.

They all create export agreements where countries have to seek permission to reexport and more. Usually for political plays.

It's also the same reason the Swiss defense industry is now in collapse. Because they refused to allow re-export of ammo to Ukraine citing Swiss neutrality.

It immediately made all Swiss made ammo worthless for all european countries in event of war. Lol

Apparently the Swiss are still talking of revising their law while their defense industry is crying because nobody wants to buy their shit as European countries want to be able to help other European countries. Especially circles like the Nordic or Baltic regions where the countries are extremely buddy buddy.

Some sources on this:

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/foreign-affairs/is-the-swiss-we...

https://breakingdefense.com/2023/03/the-cost-of-neutrality-s...

How does that even work? Like you can't use Swiss ammo against European nations or what? It just seems to make it literally(not figuratively) worthless.

Wasn't US' F16s.

Sounds like the statement that if an online service is free, you are the product, when in reality the same applies to paying customers as well. You are only exempt if you have full control over it.

It doesn’t matter who owns these planes, the US have shown that they have the power to make them useless and that they cannot be trusted, and that is a dealbreaker when it comes to expensive & important equipment.

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Post the rest of the quote. If I recall he was warning against alienating an ally. He didn't want the quote to become true.

Yes, he was basically warning that short termism, and constantly throwing people under the bus, will be bad for American imperialism in the long term.

"Word should be gotten to Nixon that if Thieu meets the same fate as Diem, the word will go out to the nations of the world that it may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."

Thieu did meet the same fate, well, he wasn't killed, but he was overthrown and lived life in exile as a recluse.

Zelenskyy will almost certainly suffer the same fate.

The agenda that Trump advanced during campaigns was not "cut ourselves off from the rest of the world". Do his supporters really want this? What's the rationale he advances for this stance and the tarrifs?

What would a president who was beholden to Russians do once elected? I mean -- what's the point of provoking Canada, of all countries? Canada as the 51st US state would be the new most populous state and would cause a huge change in US politics. Not to mention it could only arrive through conquest. So why even propose it if not merely to cause a rift?

> Do his supporters really want this?

After many long discussions, I can only conclude it less about the values of the supporters and more about their psychology.

His supporters want whatever he wants, as long as it means that the right people get bullied. There's not much deeper thought than that.

It's very sad to see people that I respected debase their own principles so that they can remain proud Trump supporters. Their identity appears tied to the decision, and I know only one person who had the principles to to respond to any of Trump's actions with "OK these people actually have no clue what they are doing." (Which was in response to their treatment of Zelensky in the Oval Office).

>His supporters want whatever he wants, as long as it means that the right people get bullied.

Yeah, pretty much. Everyone in this thread should be able to craft a Trump line that's easily digestible by his base on this point by now. In this specific case it's "I don't want to give US weapons to anyone who won't act in our (my) national interest on every issue." Once you empower him to decide what is or is not in the US national interest, there's not much you need in the way of convincing. It's only when his policies start hurting his voters individually that they'll maybe start questioning whether what Trump claims is American national interest is actually in their own interest or not.

> Do his supporters really want this?

That's like asking whether a child wants the sugar crash that will come after eating the candy bar. They're not able to see that far ahead. They'll only "get it" when their lives have been made significantly harder, and even then it's not likely they'll be able to attribute their misery to the administration's policies--they could very easily be convinced to blame some minority group or foreign nation.

The supporters are just a rabble bought into a cult of personality. If they know what they think, it doesn’t matter.

The point of all of this is the chaos and destruction of trust in the system. A concept in the early stages of the Russian revolution was that the stage had to be set for a “spark” to light the tinder of the proletariat. Here the Russians had RT, probably fed talking points and material to talk radio and podcast people. Had honeypots seducing strategic politicans and special interests (See Maria Butina and the NRA). Obviously wields influence over Trump.

Once that tinder has been set, the sparks some in the chaos. You have the religious weirdos who think dinosaurs are fake, Elon who believes he’s the protagonist in a sci-fi fantasy, some war-hawks pushing the Artic Dominance thing, and whatever fuckery the gang of oligarchs like Theil, etc have in mind.

Not sure about Canada, but Trump's actions will make a lot more sense if you consider that to American rightists, American leftists are a much bigger enemy than Russians. I think the same is true in the opposite direction. These 2 groups can't stand each other and often sabotage the other's efforts. We can put that aside and ask what's best for the world or America, but as long as there is this hatred between the parties in the US, both sides will act primarily against the other.

> to American rightists, American leftists are a much bigger enemy than Russians.

This reminds me of France in the Second World War. My (questionable) understanding is that they were more worried about the enemies at home than the ones across the border.

This has been the Democratic leadership message for 12 years - Trump is some kind of KGB agent. Americans just voted for Trump, who campaigned on doing this. It is a message that does not resonate beyond some MSNBC professional/managerial circle jerk.

I voted for Jill Stein, but she and Trump were aligned on this and I am happy screwy old Trump is doing this. One less forever war on the other side of the ocean this US taxpayer has to bankroll.

Assuming you are a not a bot, you are the example of the kind of useful idiot that is a part of what you try to brush off.

You probably can’t name 5 things that the Green Party stands for and how they align with Jill Stein.

Well the majority of US voters voted against the forever war in the Ukraine. Trump, Stein, Kennedy and Oliver were all critical of it. Only Kamala supported it and the "useful idiots" of the US voted for the alternative.

Like the forever war in the middle east?

Do you really expect that Putin will not expand the war if a cease fire is signed?

The agenda was to leave Ukraine and to have Europe pay for its own defence which is what’s happening here. Nothing more, nothing less. Don’t let yourself get manipulated by Reddit-tier arguments.

It goes beyond that:

- https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7435pnle0go US sides with Russia in UN resolutions on Ukraine (the US rejected a resolution that named Russia as the aggressor).

- https://news.online.ua/en/the-us-is-ending-support-for-ukrai... The US is ending support for Ukrainian F-16

- https://www.reuters.com/world/us-cuts-off-intelligence-shari... US cuts intelligence sharing for Ukraine, adding pressure for Russia peace deal

- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-08/us-vetoes... US Vetoes G-7 Shadow Fleet Task Force Plan

There's a pattern: Trump wants to force a capitulation of Ukraine.

The agenda is to abandon US allies and let Russia expand however it wants, because that's what Putin wants. Putin wants to erase the Ukrainian cultural identity, which is what Russia has tried to do for centuries.

This is actually true, no need for political downvoting.

It's just the way it's done, quite childish and not ally-like. Pulling out from EU and UA could've been done in much less 'rug-pulling' style.

> leave Ukraine

The United States was never "in Ukraine" in at all the same way it was in Iraq or Afghanistan. There were never American combat boots on the ground.

> Right now every buyer of American kit is feverishly evaluating non-US alternatives.

they are doing what they should've been doing this whole time?

Does Europe lessening their desire to buy US-designed and US-made military hardware benefit or harm the US?

Extend this to other areas of commerce. If the US is no longer a reliable trade partner and its allies lessen their economic ties, is that a positive outcome for the US?

It's a big advantage if allies use compatible or identical kit.

A week ago Trump killed the western alliance when he made it clear that allies could not rely on the US. This week he has killed the US weapons export business. Not a single country will trust them now. It would be quite an interesting thing to watch if we didn't have to live here.

He also may have killed US agriculture, we'll find out in the next few months.

*They can’t rely on USA and the American tax payer for the defense of their country. Finally some defense spending will have to take place

Spending among NATO member nations had already started growing considerably since Trump's first term. And a lot of that spending went towards buying US made weapons, though not exclusively.

With this move, any nation will think twice about buying US made weapons. Trump effectively kneecapped the US arms industry by this move.

The spending that happens, though, will not be flowing to the US like a very large share has in the past.

Europe has spent trillions on defence since the fall of the Berlin Wall, most of which went to US weapons manufacturers.

What the last decade has shows is relying on external oligarchs for energy and defence is not sensible. The us has encouraged this for a long time. I just hope that Europe actually steps up quickly enough.

It will hurt the us a lot more than Europe, and China will be massively emboldened in the Pacific. It’s a new world order.

Even accepting that as true (it’s not — it’s the cost of having soft-power in Europe.) it means that no European, and probably Turkish, Korean, Japanese and Canadian cash will be flowing to the USA defence industry.

They can't rely on weapons that they have bought from US defense manufacturers

It’s “great” in the sense that this will decimate the US military industry (great or “great” depending on your view of American hegemony). China and Europe will be stronger, and America is absolutely finished as a world power.

So much winning, eh?

Europe has had 20 summits and talks about what they plan to plan to plan to do… eventually. USA will be fine.

Weapons procurement expenses has been shooting up in Europe, I do not get why you only talk about the spoken plans and not the actual things that eventually happens after these plan are designed.

Just a few days ago, Leonardo signed a treaty to develop uavs together with Baykar. A month or so ago, Italian government announced the creation of a joint venture between rheinmetall and Leonardo, sharing technologies to Leonardo and producing some of the >1000 ifvs to buy for the italian army in italy and some in Germany

Remember those Iranian F-14s?

Yeah. What you said has zero relevance. It's not like US is taking away the jets. They are just reducing proactive support because it's a democracy and the people don't want the country to be on the leash of anyone.

It's time for Europe to do its own work on this. As a Finnish guy I know plenty of that, and don't view other European nations as acting very responsible having had their self defense capabilities and believability wither.

> Right now every buyer of American kit is feverishly evaluating non-US alternatives.

I don't know anything about fighter jets but for a lot of other things, Trump could not have done a nicer thing for China. Whatever issues many countries had with China, they are not actively beating most of them in the face. Probably the best years for Xi these are going to be.

> this is like Brexit but 1000x

This sums up what I've been thinking too - it looks like the USA is sick of being the center of the world and is stepping down from the position right now.

I guess this means it's China's moment. :/

Warehouse 14 time

What's warehouse 14?

TV series warehouse 13, which houses all the world’s “odd” artifacts. The warehouse was always in the strongest empire through history, it moved itself when world order changes - warehouse 12 was in the U.K. up until the 20th century for example.

The finale had it trying to love itself to China and becoming warehouse 14, but that eventually stopped and American Superiority won over.

Those days seem at an end. The actions Trump had made over the last two months will reverberate for the next two decades at least.

On the heels of 40-year old American kit demonstrating its capability against their biggest arms export competitor. What a reversal.

The best era ever to be selling French of German arms.

That is good. Don't know why you are saying in mocking way. We should move away from unipolar world. There should be stronger US, Europe, Asia, Africa like everyone. Monopoly is bad.

I cant wait for the inevitable EU sanctions against the US.