I find some of the comments I’ve read today in this thread somewhat enlightening - there is intelligent conversation about the capabilities of the American hardware and its software.
The sophistication of the F-35 cannot be debated. But the rest of the world doesn’t trust the US anymore, so it doesn’t matter how good it is - people would gladly explore a worse product because they see it as lower risk.
That’s the reality of where America is at the moment. There are many Americans on Hacker News (if not the majority) and naturally the merits of the product that America produces are being discussed, and its superiority is front and center.
This viewpoint is not relevant to the rest of the world. We don’t want the US’ stuff anymore and the only thing that can save that relationship is full software control. If America wants to make sales it needs to adjust to that expectation, or buyers are going elsewhere.
The argument is missing the forest for the trees - the relationship is more important than the product itself. The sooner that is acknowledged the more likely a political course correction is possible. Otherwise, sure, you might see a few short term F-35 sales conclude. But the purchasing will stop as soon as it can.
1. The sale of planes like the F-35 is not just about the plane. It’s about the ability to be a nation with nuclear power by “renting” the US nuclear missile it can launch. People bought it mainly for that. The pilot and YouTuber ATE Chuet did a video talking about this if you want to dive into it.
2. The plane in itself is not as capable as say the Rafale. They tried to do way too many things with it. The vertical takeoff capability in particular made the plane worst in every other aspect and its own design is very questionable. A Dassault engineer talks about it in this video [1]
The F35 was an enormously expensive program only possible by increasing the production run through sales to partners/allies. It was predicated on a defense model currently burning down.
Absolutely. This isn’t just about the F16 and F35 either. It effectively ends or drastically changes the upcoming NGAD before they even get started. Any previous sales projections are irrelevant in a world where the USA has essentially remotely disabled an ally’s fighter jets without cause. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have to redesign major components of the NGAD in light of a budget that looks drastically different than it did a month ago.
Doubt it. The final decision hasn't been made yet but it appears the NGAD will be going ahead as planned despite the enormous cost. Like the F-22 Raptor, this will probably be an entirely US program with no exports allowed. The design is still in the early technology demonstrator stage, so all of the major components were going to be redesigned anyway.
The vast majority of the comments I am reading on this site are not stating this. The vast majority, even the Americans, are agreeing that this is a bad decision. Unsure where you got this from.
I think he is referring to the F-35 only here. On military discussion forums it is the consensus that the F-35 is superior to everything else out there with the only exception being that the F-22 has superior air to air combat capabilities.
I have seen interviews with Norwegian pilots responsible for integrating F-35 into Norway’s airforce. Reading between the lines was that it seemed “complex”. I’m not site it is buggy, or overly complicated or what.
There is currently no drone that can replace everything the F-35 does. There might be one in the future, and it will likely be the most expensive aircraft ever made (see the two NGAD programs' unmanned components)
No drone can take out a CRAM (aka: RADAR aimbot shooting bullets into the sky).
Meanwhile, a helicopter with an anti-radiation missile can take out CRAM, let alone a stealth F35. F35 (and F16) are the next step after helicopters: you send F35 when enemy antiair is good enough to threaten helis.
It's getting the point where people are actively avoiding USA made goods as a protest. To tell you the truth, it's not as hard to do as avoiding Chinese made goods so I think America is going to lose out massively. Right now as it stands today, I feel a lot less guilty about buying Chinese than I have in the past. Not because China is "better" but because supporting the current regime feels just as not, if not more morally bankrupt.
Sure "tech" is hard to avoid but all the rest is still a massive loss for US companies and I suppose we'll see Europe and Asia working even hard to avoid American tech dependency now.
If political change is going to happen swiftly back to something more sane, it's going to be because of poor economic policy, and right now, that's looking like a given.
Yes because only the USA has agency in this world. Russia didn't choose to invade and Ukrainians didn't choose to defend themselves. As someone from Europe this lack of perspective you showing here is exactly why we are tired of the US atm.
I’d say you lack perspective, this war started in 2014 not when Russia crossed the border. Russia’s agency isn’t going to extend to ignoring existential threats.
In this case it was “neighbors joining NATO” and “neighbors murdering ethnic Russian civilians for 8 years” after “neighbors violated Minsk accords which German chancellor admitted were signed in bad faith”
And you think that those neighbors have no agency themselves? Russia is a much bigger threat to all of them than NATO was ever to Russia. If you’re a country bordering Russia, you’re fucked, you’re almost guaranteed to be invaded every few decades or so (unless Russia is currently occupying you.. then you are safe). So you have to do whatever you can to survive.
“neighbors murdering ethnic Russian civilians”
Only “ethnic” Russians right? Russia citizens (e.g. like the Chechens) on the other hand don’t count and can be murdered at will with no repercussions by the Russian government.
Anyway if that’s what Russia truly cared about they could have easily solved this without resorting to war.
As a Ukrainian who lived through all this stuff right in the middle of the events (Luhansk region, 2014-2016, occupied territories), I tried to resist the urge to reply but could not.
The examples you provide are not an existential threat, but an excuse for an opportunistic expansion due to Ukraine being weak. There is a plethora of objective evidence without me providing any extra anecdotal information.
What I wanted is to give you a slice of my personal perspective. I lived through this shit, my classmates were raising “LPR” flags on my city’s admin buildings, I crossed the demarcation line multiple times during both hot and cold phases of the pre-2022 conflict and have seen a lot of stuff.
I guess the main issue was that Ukraine was bad at public relations and communication (still is btw, plenty of recent examples), and they just were not able to counter the information war at that crucial point, and then many times more. When the Russians started bringing in military equipment and training locals, a lot of local populace had their mental timeline already messed up by Russian propaganda because historically, nobody in that area really watched the Ukrainian media. In reality, they were the first to escalate the conflict while Ukraine was still too slow and incompetent and preparing to respond.
During the hot phase, where was A LOT of military incompetence that caused many civilian and military casualties. There were also certain instances of internal power struggle within “LPR” that is not talked much about, it also had civilian casualties.
But after the hot phase of 2014, the conflict literally froze. There was no shelling of cities, no casualties besides people stepping on mines. The whole 8 year genocide thing was fake, and everybody who actually lived there knew that. They were doing business across the demarcation line, huge numbers of people and cargo traveling, all while both sides were shooting their daily quotas of artillery shells into the field.
In 2020-2021 (!!!), while literally everyone was fine with status quo and busy with Covid, the “LPR” and “DPR” started preparing for draft, enlisting people (not drafting) etc. What happened in 2021-2022 was another Ukrainian loss from the information war perspective, where Russian propaganda switched to a new narrative and succeeded in reeducating the local population (including my relatives), where these “8 years” appeared. The whole thing was so comically rushed and staged that it felt surreal.
I guess, the mainland Russian audience was a-OK with this theatrical interpretation which was the main goal. Meanwhile, the borders of “DPR” and “LPR” were closed a week before the 2022 invasion and they already started grabbing literally every “ethnic Russian” on the streets to go to war.
And now you're back-tracking on it so yes, US is extremely unreliable as an ally. I mean nobody is surprised you had some ulterior motive and undermined your geo-political enemies. It's the abandonment of those you supported that hurts US image.
The sophistication of the F-35 cannot be debated. But the rest of the world doesn’t trust the US anymore, so it doesn’t matter how good it is - people would gladly explore a worse product because they see it as lower risk.
That’s the reality of where America is at the moment. There are many Americans on Hacker News (if not the majority) and naturally the merits of the product that America produces are being discussed, and its superiority is front and center.
This viewpoint is not relevant to the rest of the world. We don’t want the US’ stuff anymore and the only thing that can save that relationship is full software control. If America wants to make sales it needs to adjust to that expectation, or buyers are going elsewhere.
The argument is missing the forest for the trees - the relationship is more important than the product itself. The sooner that is acknowledged the more likely a political course correction is possible. Otherwise, sure, you might see a few short term F-35 sales conclude. But the purchasing will stop as soon as it can.