Comment by Bratmon
The irony is that if the countries that pull out of the F-35 program buy jets that actually function instead (and aren't just a $2 trillion piece of scrap metal), this trade war might be what saves democracy.
The irony is that if the countries that pull out of the F-35 program buy jets that actually function instead (and aren't just a $2 trillion piece of scrap metal), this trade war might be what saves democracy.
AFAIK, it's really unclear if the extravagantly high maintenance is a weakness that compensates for the capabilities the maintenance-heavy tech supplies.
It's only known to function fine when your supply chains are not under attack.
F-35 freely fly in an airspace protected by best in class non NATO air defence.
That's just not what's happening, at least for some of the countries. Spain is rejecting the F-35 for the EuroFigther (which is the plane they already operate) and Tempest (which doesn't exists yet). So in that case it's not that they are buying jets from competitors, they just aren't buying anything. In this case it feels much more like the Spanish government not really wanting to spend the money, or can't afford it, and Trump is just a convenient scapegoat.
Why would you transact with a country for defense infrastructure that will use force against you whenever they deem it necessary for leverage and power in a transaction? Better to replan and retool for sovereignty even if it means you lack some capability in the near term.
F-35 functions fine, lots of its problems relate to things like its logistical tail and associated IT system pain points that you'd have to solve with a different plane than F-35 either way, but I can't argue against the fact that a lot of countries are having to wake up to the reality of meeting their defense needs in much different ways than you'd have thought in 2015.