> They don’t. If the U.S. wants to sell 100 F-35s to European nations, it will happen.
How do you imagine that will work? The US may have to lower the price more than they can afford to. Some countries have already cancelled their F-35 orders. You can't force someone to buy what they don't want.
The F-35 was sold to us as an important multi billion business deal, with lots of European companies being promised to be subcontractors or technology partners; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning... has a good overview of how much was involved. Basically, you scratch my back, we'll scratch yours kind of deal.
In hindsight, the project was (as expected) over budget etc. I wish our government(s) had given that money to European fighter jets instead. There's a chance the US will remote disable the jets that have been put into service now, or withold service / spare parts.
If the US withholds parts or services to European countries, that would certainly be an interesting twist, considering the Dutch government used this arrangement as a reason why they couldn't withhold parts to Israel despite the ongoing genocide. Had Netherland decided otherwise, the US might use that as a precendent. Or maybe they'll just set the precedent regardless.
The United States using military force against the home territory of a NATO member basically guarantees Chinese troops and weapons in Canada and Mexico. We would (deservedly) force the world to ally against us as we’d have proven ourselves to be an expansionist menace.
Even serious discussion of Chinese soldiers in Canada or Mexico is clear casus belli and surefire way for those countries to be occupied. Chinese soldiers on the border is existential to US and when dealing with existential risks countries tend to put funny concepts such as UN charter or human rights aside.
Canada is absolutely indefensible with no strategic depth or ability to get new supplies. Mexico is harder to occupy but their military is a joke and again easy to block all external supplies. Very doable.
> Even serious discussion of Chinese soldiers in Canada or Mexico is clear casus belli and surefire way for those countries to be occupied
Which is why military alliance discussions aren’t conducted in public. The series of announcements would be e.g. Xi visiting Ottawa for trade talks and then announcing that Canada is under its nuclear umbrella.
> Canada is absolutely indefensible with no strategic depth or ability to get new supplies. Mexico is harder to occupy but their military is a joke and again easy to block all external supplies
Which is why they’ve sought external security guarantees. Now that America is threatening invasion, its security guarantees are diluted. So you need someone else; the only option is China (unless the EU beefs up).
I don't really think China is an option either. Maybe for the west coast, but I really don't think they can do much for the eastern half of Canada. Though EU+China might do it.
Problem is, China might be happy to see the US invade Canada, because then they can finally take Taiwan. And that's the real danger of Trump's foolish aggression: by weakening American's alliances, he's giving China more space to assert itself and take what they want.
> Even serious discussion of Chinese soldiers in Canada or Mexico is clear casus belli and surefire way for those countries to be occupied. Chinese soldiers on the border is existential to US and when dealing with existential risks countries tend to put funny concepts such as UN charter or human rights aside.
Talk of the Chinese being invited in by Canada or Mexico is precisely as much of a casus belli as Ukraine saying "please let us join NATO so Russia won't invade us!". Canada already has reason to fear invasion regardless, as Trump keeps talking about annexing them.
It didn't work out well for Russia, which is currently experiencing in Ukraine much what the US itself experienced in Vietnam. Or indeed in Cuba (Bay of Pigs) the year before the nuclear missiles which were much closer to a real casus belli.
How do you imagine that will work? The US may have to lower the price more than they can afford to. Some countries have already cancelled their F-35 orders. You can't force someone to buy what they don't want.