It is now widely expected that Donald Trump will feed Ukraine to Russia. One can imagine how frightening this is for Ukraine. But European countries, as well as Ukraine, are deeply disturbed by the American isolation of Ukraine and themselves. Trump sees Europe as a burden and wants to throw it down hard. Europe, which has forgotten what war is like, is looking at Ukraine to see what is coming and trying to find solutions.
One solution is to end their dependence on America, which is the right step. The first step seems to be canceling F-35 orders. For example, Portugal is considering canceling its order for 28 F-35s and buying European jets instead. The Portuguese cite the unpredictability of the Trump administration as the reason. Canada is also considering canceling its previous order for 88 F-35s. The Canadians had paid for 16 of them in advance.
There is a more important reason why Canada, Portugal and many other ordering countries do not want to buy the F-35. The F-35s have a feature called Kill Switch (Remote Shutdown). This feature allows the aircraft to be stopped remotely. For example, while the plane is flying in the air, someone from the US can command the plane to stop, fire its missiles or prevent it from firing. Even though it looks like the pilot is piloting the plane, it is actually the person in America who is piloting the plane.
If you ask the Americans, they do not remotely control the F-35. However, they accept that the software in the aircraft is updated remotely. If you can update the software remotely, it means you can stop the engine. Therefore, they indirectly accept the existence of the Kill Switch feature.
Imagine that you buy the most advanced airplanes in the world for more than 100 million dollars each. You bring them home and boast about how strong your military has become. Then a war breaks out and you want to fire up your planes and bomb the enemy. But what do you do? Like in South Korea, you wait for the password from America. So you get the code and you fly the plane. The problems are not over again. The pilot of the plane in America can intervene if he wants.
For example, if Turkey and Greece or Israel were to go to war, the Americans would most likely not fly Turkish F-35s (assuming we have F-35s) or fight them. Not only would all the money we spent be wasted, but we would also be defeated by the seller of the aircraft. This is what it means to own an F-35.
The F-35s are good airplanes, but if the airplanes you pay for serve the enemy and not you, the better they are, the more damage they will do to you. Therefore, the refusal of the uncontrollable F-35s may seem like a bad thing on the surface, but it is actually a good thing. We can see this in the behavior of America’s close friends.
It is likely that other European countries will also reconsider their F-35 purchases. Either Trump will fall in line and stop insulting the Europeans, or he will lose billions of dollars. Trump’s defiance is actually a useful test of America’s superpower. America is no longer the power it once was. If Europe can stand up, we will have the opportunity to realize that this is so. But it seems like they don’t want to be bad with America either. It’s like they’re just playing a game of keep your tail up and we can take care of ourselves.
On the other hand, the Europeans seem sincere in approaching Turkey through America. For years, Turkish foreign policy was despised at home and abroad and mocked with absurd terms like “precious loneliness”. But time has shown that if you are valuable, loneliness is temporary. Gold does not lose its value if it falls in the mud. When the time comes, it is put on the centerpiece again.
