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The Portuguese Air Force is no longer expected to acquire the 5th generation F-35 fighter from Lockheed Martin, all due to the review of the US position towards NATO.
Asking stupid question… Isn’t this kinda shit that got Kennedy killed? Fucking w the military industrial complex? Have those barons diversified enough to not care about this line of business or something? I thought this was kind of a backbone of our economy. So many jobs too.
Killing Donny wouldn’t change much, tho.
America has shown it wants Donald or a Donald substitute.
Project 2025 is now Americas playbook.
Other countries changing military suppliers isn’t going to change back to america for 10-15 years (hell, maybe even longer, I dunno what the service life of a jet platform is).
The risk that has surfaced of “America has an off switch” - even just the potential risk of rumors of an off switch - means all those military assets are useless when America elects unhinged leaders that are willing to subvert democratic process in order to run their playbook.
And America has shown it is willing to do that. Even prefers to do that
Even if they don’t have an “off switch” they can just not update the software. Those jets require constant updates and without it the radars don’t work right and the stealth degrades.
State level actors are capable of providing those updates themselves… That update is the mythical off switch they talked about and it’s absolutely sensational bunk.
I don’t think it’s as simple as “upgrade it myself.” They need data to know how to upgrade it. That takes massive Sigint capabilities, etc. Other countries don’t have the capability.
Of course, with our intelligence allies withholding intelligence today and cooperating with each other, the playing field is much more level, so maybe.
The Intel here is primarily the specs and settings of enemy EW, radar, and weapons. The second they turn any of that on within detection range you have the intelligence on it. That’s why Turkey got dropped from the F-35 deal way back. They had Russian air defense systems and D.C. didn’t want them combining the two to give Russia a profile of the F-35 from their own systems.