[pjmlp]

That is only happening thanks to the way US view on the world has changed, and the remote kill switch used against Ukrainian jets.

US has killed the allies trust.

Had these two events not happened, and most likely sales would not have been cancelled regardless of the F-35 issues.

[maxglute]

My tinfoil hat theory is perversely US probably wants LESS foreign F35 orders. US accounts for 80% of long term F35 procurement (~2500/3100). Capitalization / replacement of airframes across US forces is at attrocious levels. If anything US better off absorbing 100% of next 20 years of LH production, and get full F35 buy years earlier, i.e. by late 2030 instead of projected 2045s sharing with partners. Especially now LH seems to have finally sorted out Tech Refresh 3. US probably wants LH to focus on upgrading/delivering US airframes and get as much US airframes to TR3 and then block4 standards. IIRC airforce general said he would not want take pre TR3 F35s to Pacific fight. If US is serious about countering PRC in decade of concern, they need all the airframes.

[pyrale]

If we follow your logic, they would still want the orders ; they would simply look for ways to avoid fulfilling them.

[maxglute]

For a 1-2 years, maybe, as seen with JP, but for 10+ years? That's ~200+ airframes. LH already have TR3 backlogs, and TBH if you follow the LH TR / F35 SaaS drama (LH contract essentially held DoD hostage), I'm would not be surprised if DoD doesn't want to slap LH with less global orders so they can solely focus on US program.

[daemoens]

No such kill switch exists, the US stopped providing electronic warfare intelligence that made the jets more survivable. The stoppage of all military aid was significantly more damaging.

[wongarsu]

They also refuse to update the electronic countermeasures systems installed in Ukraine's F16. Not a kill switch, but it is impacting the usefulness of the planes.

Whether actual kill switches exist is unknown. But if you were a European country, would you take the chance of buying fighters from a country threatening to invade multiple of your allies based on their assurance that the rumors about kill switches are nothing but unsubstantiated rumors?

[guappa]

Well denmark is going ahead to buy F-35 from their enemy that wants to invade them.

[zimpenfish]

Regretting it though[0] - "Rasmus Jarlov, chairman of the Danish Parliament’s Defence Committee, has expressed regret over the decision to purchase the F-35. [...] He now advocates for reassessing Denmark’s strategic dependency on the United States and calls on European allies to consider doing the same."

[0] https://www.armyrecognition.com/news/aerospace-news/2025/den...

[benterix]

The made that decision earlier and it's not sure they're going to follow though.

[guappa]

I guess my comment above is downvoted because stating easily verifiable factual truths is not welcome?

[XorNot]

Yeah this is both bad but also being heavily misreported: the US can't shutdown hardware remotely, but loss of access to proprietary software effectively disables critical functionality which can effectively render a platform useless.

Up till now, there was no demonstrated risk of this happening - but that's a broken trust which won't be repaired for generations, if ever.

[georgemcbay]

> the US can't shutdown hardware remotely

I agree with the assertion that there's no proof of a full killswitch based on known past events, but the above quoted statement is also a lot more definitive than I'm willing to be.

With a fighter jet as dependent upon electronic support systems as the F35 and which is sold around the world why wouldn't you put a highly classified backdoor killswitch into it just in case?

The idea that such a killswitch might exist is one that could have always reasonably been pondered, what's new is any/all non-US "Western" governments having to seriously entertain the idea that they would end up in a situation where the US would have a reason to use it against them.

[fc417fc802]

> can't shutdown hardware remotely, but loss of access to proprietary software

By what mechanism is this mediated? Because that sounds awfully similar to a kill switch in terms of the end result. Analogy by way of enterprise software: "We didn't remotely disable the software you purchased from us. Rather our server simply refuses to service your requests which happen to be required for the software to function." (Evil laugh from man with goatee immediately follows this statement obviously.)

[guappa]

> the US can't shutdown hardware remotely

And you know this because you've personally audited those planes?

[XorNot]

If people are going to declare there's definitely a kill switch, then the burdens on them to provide proof.

The story being reported as a "kill switch" does not include this capability existing or being used.

[guappa]

I think they're saying there might be one, and we no longer trust the USA to believe there isn't one (and I can't really understand why we ever did, USA has been an unreliable ally even before trump).

You made the extraordinary claim that the USA has no kill switch. Where's the proof to your claim?

[randomcarbloke]

What an absurd argument to justify the baseless idea.

American-made systems are present in most western developed military hardware, there might be backdoors or killswitches in any of it.

[libertine]

The kill switch first reported wasn't for jets, but was for HIMARS[0], which stopped receiving data for strikes.

But everyone viewed this kill switch as a way broader than HIMARS, and rightfully so.

It will be foolish to assume that the USA has the capacity to turn HIMARS targeting capacity off, literally incapacitating the system which was built in the 90s, but somehow won't be able to kill switch a F35... This is disingenuous.

No country should trust their national security on the whims of one guy sitting in the White House, that can decide to side with the enemy and make your jets stop working because of disabled services.

[0]https://x.com/olliecarroll/status/1897340316942000271

[jajko]

I find it curious that Israel managed to convince US that they can run their own firmware, (most probably) bypassing all this. I mean do get that region politics, oil and Iran and all, plus who sits in US power places but still.

Or why Europeans didn't insist to get same version (probably no leverage). Well any next armament purchase by Europe thats smarter than a lead bullet should have full code delivery with all build processes. Still not 100% perfect scenario but least minimum acceptable.

[libertine]

> Or why Europeans didn't insist to get same version (probably no leverage).

I don't think it was a matter of leverage, but more of a blind trust in US Institutions, and denying the reality of their collapse.

No one would have believed at any point in the last 80 years that the US would be threatening to invade and annex Canada or Greenland, all while having a group of protected billionaires promoting the collapse of the European Union, the rise of nazism and the protection of a Russian autocratic regime.

[Gud]

The smart European nations didn’t buy the F-35 to begin with.

[exe34]

> next armament purchase by Europe

Or buy European.

[pjmlp]

Tomato tomato, they disabled features the allies relied on, so in practice it is a kind of kill switch.

[exe34]

A system that has to call home to work and is no longer being replied to is by any functional definition under a kill switch. The orange buffoon pushed a switch in Amerikka Oblast and the weapon can no longer defend itself.

[BartjeD]

The USA commander in chief said otherwise; You're spreading disinformation ;)

[JumpCrisscross]

> only happening thanks to the way US view on the world has changed

Sure. My point is it does become small enough to fail if its effective price to taxpayers doubles due to allies cancelling orders.

> remote kill switch used against Ukrainian jets

Source?

[pjmlp]

https://www.zona-militar.com/en/2025/03/10/the-u-s-has-repor...

One of many.

[kelnos]

> the remote kill switch used against Ukrainian jets.

Could you provide some references to this? A quick search only turned up denials that such a kill switch exists.

[pjmlp]

https://www.zona-militar.com/en/2025/03/10/the-u-s-has-repor...

[benterix]

The name is imprecise and causes endless semantic discussions, what happened is lack of updates that render the aircraft vulnerable. Some will argue it's the same, some will disagree.