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There are rumors of a "kill switch" on the U.S.-made F-35 jet fighter. Such a switch would allow Donald Trump to disable all European F-35s in the event Europe got into a war with Russia and Trump sided with Russia. If this were true, it would not be a selling point for Lockheed Martin trying to sell F-35s to European air forces.
It is probably not literally true (at least, Lockheed Martin is not admitting it), but it is kinda almost true. The F-35 has a vast amount of very complex software in it that connects it to GPS and networks in real time to manage its fighting ability. This software is updated constantly because Russia keeps coming up with ways of defeating the F-35, so updates are needed to win at this cat-and-mouse game. The U.S. could easily refuse to supply updates, thus degrading the fighting capacity of the planes quite easily and openly. Also, parts on these things wear out quickly and you can't order new ones on Amazon. Additionally, critical electronics (with their software) are sealed in black boxes that the customer air forces may not open. They need to be sent to authorized facilities regularly for maintenance and updates.
So are European countries stuck with the F-35 and continued dependence on the U.S.? Maybe not. Portugal is getting cold feet about buying F-35s on account of Donald Trump, and others may follow. The possibility of Trump degrading planes that cost about $90 million each is something that gives European air forces the jitters. This was not really true before Jan. 20.
But do they have alternatives? Yes. There are high-end European-made jet fighters for sale. One is the supersonic Typhoon, which can fly at Mach 2.35 and is especially maneuverable in dogfights. It can reach 65,000 ft. It is not as advanced as the F-35, but experience shows that older designs are sometimes less finicky than newer bleeding-edge ones. There have been 570 Typhoons produced and they are currently in use by the Austrian, British, German, Italian, Spanish, and other air forces. They are also popular in the Middle East. A big plus for the Typhoon is that it is already out there in volume and many air forces already know it well and have pilots trained on it.
Another supersonic jet fighter made in Europe is the Swedish Gripen. It has a smaller payload capacity than the Typhoon, can reach only Mach 2.0 and a ceiling of 50,000 feet, but it is cheaper than the Typhoon. There have been 247 planes produced and they are used by the air forces of the Czech Republic, Hungary, South Africa, Sweden, and the U.K.
Yet another alternative is the French Rafale. It can fly at Mach 1.8 but can't go as high as the Typhoon (52,000 ft). It is used by the Croatian, Egyptian, French, Greek, and Indian air forces.
None of these planes are as good as the F-35, and none of them have the stealth technology that makes the F-35 nearly invisible to current radars. But they don't have to be. They only have to be better than the Russian MiG-35, which is a repainted and rebranded MiG-29M chosen to match the F-35 name. It is quite fast (Mach 2.25) but has a lower ceiling than the Typhoon and is not nearly as state-of-the-art as the F-35. A more advanced fighter, the Su-57, is in development but not yet available to the Russian Air Force. Experience shows that actually getting a prototype to be reliable enough to use in war is easier said than done.
In the end, a lot also depends on pilot quality and training. A finicky very high-performance plane that depends on complex systems to get optimum performance may be harder to actually use in a war than a simpler but easier to control plane. For the F-35 to function well, a lot of things have to function perfectly. Also, World War I-style dogfights aren't really how wars are fought anymore, and having better $50,000 drones (or better anti-drone weapons) may ultimately be more important than having the highest-performance jet fighter. If a $5 million tank can be destroyed by a $100,000 Javelin or $30,000 Swedish NLAW anti-tank missile, future battlefield dominance may be determined by who has the cheapest weapons, not who has the most capable ones. In any event, if Europe decides it can't trust the U.S. anymore, it has several European options to use now and develop for the future, although the rivalry between the different manufacturers could make creating a single E.U. Air Force very difficult. Also, developing a plane as capable as the F-35 would take close cooperation and years to design and build.
Some European leaders, led by French President Emmanuel Macron, have got the message. They are urging other European leaders to stop buying American weapons and buy European weapons instead. Lockheed Martin is not going to like this and will complain to Trump. He will then put more pressure on Macron and the others, but they don't trust him, so we have no idea how this could play out. (V)