European nations and Canada are “pushing away” from the F-35, motivated by a desire for “strategic autonomy” and political friction with the Trump administration
Spain officially canceled its F-35 purchase in August 2025, opting for European-built alternatives. Switzerland is now also reviewing its 36-jet deal after being hit with a “shocking” $1.3 billion price hike and new 39% U.S. tariffs, and recent reports suggest that Portugal has not opted to purchase the U.S. jets
Instead of the F-35, they are increasingly looking to European alternatives, such as the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Future Combat Air System (FCAS).
Canada’s 88-jet deal is also in “limbo,” as PM Mark Carney, angered by Trump’s “51st state” comments and trade disputes, ordered a review of the 72 un-committed jets
Technological and industrial sovereignty are significant reasons why some countries are opting not to purchase the F-35. Some European nations prioritize developing their own defense industries and technological bases. Buying American-made F-35s would make them dependent on US supply chains and could suppress the development of their own next-generation aircraft programs. ...

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[+] Sunshine@piefed.social 49 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

[deleted]

[–] mintiefresh@piefed.social 26 points 4 weeks ago

I find it wild that we are still considering buying military planes from a country that is threatening our sovereignty lol. I'm sure it's more complex but ..... also, it doesn't have to be. Just buy from somewhere else.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 23 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (3 children)

I think as of now RCAF still wants them and the deal isn't off yet. I imagine it's also a card that's used in the negotiations with the US. I wouldn't be surprised if we end up staying with the F35s.

[–] HumanOnEarth@lemmy.ca 13 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I imagine they will stall as long as they can to see if MAGA loses their grip. 0% chance of agreeing to the rest of the F-35s if MAGA is still in power.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 9 points 4 weeks ago

I hope you're right and I do think that's likely what's happening but I'm not certain.

[–] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 10 points 4 weeks ago

I imagine it's also a card that's used in the negotiations with the US.

I have no doubt that it is.

A smart negotiator doesn't play all their cards at the start. They gradually bring out their various pressure points over time when it is strategic to do so. And they hold back the "nuclear option" until it becomes necessary.

[–] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 6 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (3 children)

It's understandable that the RCAF still wants it; There's literally no other option with the same capabilities. The Gripen is an excellent plane, but it's not a fifth gen fighter. Unless we want to start buying planes from China, we're SOL if we want another fifth gen option. I'm not personally advocating to continue with the purchase, I think we should go ahead and build the Gripen here in Canada and use that as a stopgap while we get on board with one of the European sixth gen fighter programs. But I can absolutely see why the RCAF doesn't feel the same way. They're a small air force and they need every advantage they can get. Based on its performance against F-16s I have no doubt the Gripen could shoot down Russian fighters at a ten to one rate, but I also have no doubt that the F-35 would be closer to a hundred to one rate (in Fermi approximation terms), and one could certainly argue that we need that if we end up on the front lines of a war with Russia.

I still lean towards the Gripen, but I'll admit I go back and forth on this. It's not a cut and dry decision either way.

[–] TheTimeKnife@lemmy.world 5 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Most people don't really understand the problem. It's either make a deal with an ally run by lunatics, or suffer a decade long capability gap that your military may not be able to overcome.

There are no other 5th gen options, and 4++ are becoming more vulnerable with the proliferation of effective air defense. The first available 6th gen outside of US export controls will be on the wrong side of 2030.

This is an incredibly difficult choice for Canada with no perfect options.

Both China and Russia are expanding their arctic presence. The US is electing nationalist demagogues on a platform of betraying our allies. It's possible Canada may have a peer to peer conflict in the next 5 to 10 years. Canada possibly can't afford that big of a capability gap if that's the case.

[–] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

You've hit the nail on the head here.

I don't know what the right answer is on this one. On balance, I lean towards getting the Gripen as a stopgap and prioritizing access to those European sixth gen projects. Select the one that looks the best suited for our needs and go in hard on collaborating on it.

This is part of why I think the Gripen makes sense; we can build it here, which opens up the possibility of being able to build a sixth gen later, instead of having to wait in line for our order to ship. The F-35 gives us better capabilities now, but doesn't solve the underlying problems down the road.

There is, I think, a version of events where we sign a deal with Saab to build Gripens in Canada to export to buyers like Ukraine, and then go ahead and take the F-35 order anyway. Most likely, we use this to extract concessions in other areas from the Americans, pointing at our new domestic fighter plane industry as a very credible threat to walk away from the F-35 deal. Then, if we're smart about this, we continue to build up our ability to domestically produce fighter craft, with an eye on that sixth gen project. This would make a lot of sense in the context of Carney's stated goal of making Canada a defence supplier to the EU, while still leaving us with an interim platform that can handle anything the Russians throw at us.

[–] TheTimeKnife@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

I agree, I think that's a likely route for Canada. A small F-35 order, supplemented by continually upgraded 4++ aircraft that can be built in country is a good strategy to mitigate all risk factors. It doesn't give Canada the best option for really any scenario, but it gives them a good option for every one. With loyal wingman aircraft, and drones proliferating in general. Its likely 4 gen aircraft will have more usable roles countering and supplementing new air tactics as nations adapt to technologies. So even if 4 gen aircraft lose the ability to be front line strike and intercepter aircraft, they likely can still be productive members of the system. Saab commitment to the Gripen platform likely means Canada can continue integrating high level electronics for a long time. With proper investment in air defense systems, I think this strategy could get Canada to a 6th gen replacement from Europe while still maintaining a credible deterrent posture.

[–] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

The F35 is primarily a air to ground strike aircraft. Gen 5 is mainly semi stealth benefits. It is disadvantaged relative to air to air specialized planes who are faster (lighter) and more maneuverable.

The only possible role for Canadian F35 is as force amplification to US bombing campaign. The kill switch, or permission to turn on switch, makes it a useless weapon against the US. It is an extremely overpriced plane with low reliability, and flight hours. If RCAF wants the plane it is because they are more loyal to US empire force amplification than Canadian defense needs, and anyone who holds that view needs to be convicted of treason. No trial whatsoever is needed, as long as they are proven to not be functionally full tropic thunder.

We need to not just cancel the contract first, and negotiate later, Demand refund for existing planes.

[–] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

The F35 is primarily a air to ground strike aircraft. Gen 5 is mainly semi stealth benefits. It is disadvantaged relative to air to air specialized planes who are faster (lighter) and more maneuverable.

This is something you'll hear a lot, often from seemingly respectable sources, but it represents a fundamental misunderstanding of how modern air combat works.

Manueverability is meaningless. Dog fighting is a thing of the past. Stealth is not a disadvantage in air-to-air combat, it's the only thing that matters in air-to-air combat. The model has fundamentally changed; it's submarine / tank combat now. The winner is the person who sees their opponent first.

The people who describe the F-35 as unsuited to air combat are speaking from an entirely outdated understanding of how air combat works. Some of those people are even experts in that model of air combat, but that's like being an expert on vacuum tubes in a world of microchips.

load more comments (2 replies)

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] puppinstuff@lemmy.ca 25 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

I won’t trust Carney to fully scrap the deal after his embarrassing apology for the Ford ad last week. Keeping it in the maybe pile is more helpful for negotiation even though we would be better off with Typhoons or Gripens.

[–] Revan343@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 weeks ago (6 children)

Ideally we would want a couple F-35s anyways, to dissect

[–] stringere@sh.itjust.works 7 points 4 weeks ago

Why spend the money? Just wait for a leak on the War Thunder forums.

[–] puppinstuff@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

I have an idea how Gripens could help with that.

load more comments (2 replies)

load more comments (4 replies)

[–] Wren@lemmy.today 15 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

The F-35s have been the kid in a toxic custody trial for fucking ever, already costing billions more than expected. The same shit happened over the F-22 and we're still using goddamn F-18s.

In the year 2125 we'll finally welcome in a new fleet of F-69's to retire a squadron of Hornets being held together by spit and glue.

[–] Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

News about the kill switch hidden in Chinese built electric buses must've been a wake-up call.

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

US military sales, by law, all have to have US controlled kill switches. This has been true since the 80s.

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] nosuchanon@lemmy.world 9 points 4 weeks ago

Definitely didn’t have that on my bingo card. “Trump kills military industrial complex”

[–] mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca 7 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

c'mon Canada, you can do better than "a review"

[–] bookmeat@lemmynsfw.com 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

They're trying, but there are already certain commitments.

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 7 points 4 weeks ago

Can you blame them? When the country that produces it elected someone so profoundly dumb, you need to be able to trust at that level.

[–] mercano@lemmy.world 7 points 4 weeks ago (4 children)

I’m curious what countries like Spain, Italy, and the UK will do. They all have smaller aircraft carriers that require short takeoff / vertical landing planes, a role currently being filled by the F-35B. I’m unaware of anything similar from other western aircraft manufacturers.

[–] cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 4 weeks ago (18 children)

Well, there's the very real possibility of having to fight the americans, who install kill switches and make everything proprietary so you can't make your own parts.

So, go without planes, or pay your most likely military enemy for the privilege of going without planes?

load more comments (18 replies)

[–] FrederikNJS@lemmy.zip 6 points 4 weeks ago

The Saab Gripen has had some studies around whether it would be possible to adapt to carrier operation. Several countries seem to have expressed interest, but no commitments have been made yet. From wikipedia:

Saab studied a variant of the Gripen capable of operating from aircraft carriers in the 1990s. In 2009, it launched the Sea Gripen project in response to India's request for information on a carrier-based aircraft. Brazil may also require new carrier aircraft.[74][75] Following a meeting with Ministry of Defence (MoD) officials in May 2011, Saab agreed to establish a development center in the UK to expand on the Sea Gripen concept.[76]... ; further development of optionally manned and carrier versions would require customer commitment.[77][78] On 6 November 2014, the Brazilian Navy expressed interest in a carrier-based Gripen.[79]

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (3 children)

There's nothing similar stealth-wise, either, at least for that kind of aircraft.

It's a really really good plane, like you'd expect from however many trillions spent in project money. It's just that the Americans control the software running on it.

[–] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

It's a huge problem. There is no other fifth gen option available to NATO. The Gripen is one of the best choices out there, and it does have a lot of stealth and EWAR capabilities that other fighters lack, as well as really impressive radar, but that's not the same thing as the kind of stealth that the F-35 and F-22 have.

On the other hand, I can absolutely see how the F-35 now presents an unacceptable security risk.

The good news is that Russia has nothing even close to the F-35, and its honestly unlikely that most of their stuff can even stand up to the Gripen. Their purported fifth gen fighter just isn't. It has a radar cross section over a thousand times larger than that of any US fifth gen, that's according to Russia's bullshit propaganda numbers. And they've only made about 6 of those. The rest of their fleet is slightly upgraded cold war surplus, maybe at the level of the F-16 if you're being really generous, and the Gripen wipes the floor with the F-16 in combat testing (Gripen pilots shoot down F-16s at a ten to one ratio IIRC).

If we assume that Russia is the main threat, then the Gripen will serve very well for now (at least for Canada, with no need for a carrier launch capability) until we can get a sixth gen fighter; Europe has two such projects in the works. If we assume the main threat is the US, then the F-35 would still be a bad idea, since even putting aside any issues with supply of firmware, they would know its capabilities and weaknesses intimately. China is the wildcard and we just don't know what the capabilities of their craft are. OTOH its extremely unlikely that there would be a conflict with China that didn't involve the US as the primary combatant, so I think that's less of a concern for the rest of NATO.

[–] sirspate@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 weeks ago (4 children)

I would be surprised if China doesn't have an F-35 equivalent at this point, though realistically I think they're betting on their ability to backdoor and take down adversary electronics as being part of that 'stealth' solution.

load more comments (4 replies)

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

There is no other fifth gen option available to NATO.

I'm nitpicking a bit, but like you mentioned, China and Russia have limitations. I don't really buy that the J-20 is on the same level, and the Russian thing is an actual joke. So, "to anyone".

The Gripen is one of the best choices out there, and it does have a lot of stealth and EWAR capabilities that other fighters lack

EWAR sure, but it's totally unstealthy AFAIK. Survivability would depend on hitting something, landing in a field and getting back onto a truck before a counterattack can arrive. Which works for SAM units and artillery, I guess.

Which, maybe we should just invest in SAM units and sensors, honestly, if we're worried about a hostile US. I'm guessing it's a lot more cost effective, and would be nearly as effective early in a defencive conflict. The other medium-term option would be a jailbroken F-35 of some kind, but that's only possible once the alliance is well and truly dead (all the physical parts are available from somewhere else).

load more comments (1 replies)

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] decipher_jeanne@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

No other aircraft can do it as of now. A potential VSTOL derivative of the Tempest?

The royal navy doesn't even have the aircrafts for its 2 carriers. The entire UK military is notoriously underfunded even in critical aspects like SSBN. Not likely to fund a new aircraft.

Italy and Japan both already have their F-35Bs for their carriers. It's hard to see them ditch multi billion investments.

Korea might get a STVOL Carrier eventually but they are involved with lockeed on other projects, and operate F-35A already. so they are likely to get F-35B as well.

I mean outside of Spain I don't see who needs an F-35B alternative. Spain lacks a proper aviation industry but maybe they could keep on getting upgrade packages for their Harrier II for a few more decades. Who knows? Maybe in 20 years strategic alliances will have shifted and Chinese airframes will be on the table.

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

People who criticize lack of military spending don't get math.

You want a well funded military? Easy, drive the country into $38T debt and take all the tax money for it while letting people starve or die from lack of health care. So you end up defending a sick shit hole country.

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 4 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

If only we hadn't shit-canned the Arrow half a century ago.

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 weeks ago

The Arrow was just the 60s version of the F35. It was proper to cancel it. Tories killed off Avro because the US told them to. Then Mulroney killed off a lot of CDN industry, again, because the US told him to. Then Stephen Harper...you get the point.

[–] EtAl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)

I'm no expert, but I've heard that the reputation of the Arrow has been pumped up over the years. But we would have had our own military aeronautics industry in some way shape or form.

Really it's a moot point though. Drones do a lot of what jets used to do. We should take the money that would have been spent on those and use it to develop a homegrown drone industry right now.

[–] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I understand that, but the point is we could have had a home-grown aerospace industry a bit more robust than now. Some Arrow engineers ended up at NASA after all. And the engines!

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 weeks ago

Some Arrow engineers ended up at NASA after all.

The rest ended up at Lougheed and McDonnell Douglas. We pissed away 50,000 of the best engineers this country has ever seen, and all the spin off industries they would have developed. This was the beginning of the end for innovation in Ontario industry.

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] Glytch@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Smart. Those planes come with so many strings attached they may as well be fly-by-wire.

[–] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 7 points 4 weeks ago

Fly by subscription.

[–] resipsaloquitur@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago

Stable genius.

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 weeks ago

Just to give you an idea of how FUCKED our national priorities are: If we actually buy these lemons, it will cost more to just keep them unused in hangars per year than all the biomedical research in all diseases supported by federal grants.

The fact that we are wasting tens of billions on fighter jets with foreign controlled kill switches is just proof CAF spending has nothing to do with actual defence of Canada.

load more comments