Opinion
Europe’s F-35 dilemma: Can it get America out of the pilot’s seat?
Summary
- The EU’s quest for defence autonomy in the post-Trump era won’t prove easy. And the debate goes beyond a suspected ‘kill switch’ held remotely by the White House in the F-35 fighter jets that the US sells its allies.
Can Europe re-arm without America? This is a question that nobody was asking a few years ago, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine prompted a €100 billion German splurge on US-made F-35 fighter jets and Boeing helicopters. Between 2020 and 2024, the US accounted for almost two-thirds of European arms imports; France, with its pride in home-made platforms like Dassault Aviation’s Rafale plane, has been a Gaullist outlier.
US President Donald Trump’s antics have since made French President Emmanuel Macron’s approach—which includes buying more Rafales—look good. Trump has insulted Nato allies in Europe. He has imposed tariffs and threatened to tear up defence commitments while scrambling to seal a Ukraine deal.
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Several countries are now reviewing F-35 orders, both because of optics and deeper concerns about reliance on an unpredictable hegemon. The idea that Trump could de-activate allies’ weapons systems is no longer impossible, think-tank EUISS recently said, giving added urgency to EU plans to reduce ‘excessive’ import dependencies.
Even Brussels technocrats know the brutal reality is that going it alone is impossible today. Decades of outsourcing mean Europe’s defence industrial base is one-third the size of its US counterpart’s, while its research budget is one-tenth the Pentagon’s.
European pending orders of US kit amount to 472 aircraft and 150 helicopters; meanwhile, Dassault delivered 21 Rafales last year and its next-generation jet project with Airbus isn’t due until 2040. Peter Merz, head of the Swiss Air Force, says that cancelling F-35s today would amount to self-harm—after all, this is objectively a very good plane produced by a highly intertwined aerospace supply chain, as Canada’s Bombardier warns.
Yet, longer term, the goal of becoming more independent is absolutely the right one—especially with €800 billion of future defence spending at stake.
The controversy around the F-35 goes beyond the narrow debate over whether a ‘kill switch’ exists that could be flicked at any moment by the White House. Former fighter pilot Philippe Steininger’s 2020 book on air power describes the F-35 as modern feudalism writ large: Its pricey development partnerships with export customers and its real-time sharing of data serve as a geopolitical lock-in that trades autonomy for US protection.
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While Trump’s 2019 ban on Turkey’s ability to buy F-35s is one unsubtle example of what that means, there are others—such as access to proprietary data-sharing systems that are critical to hitting the right targets. Call it a switch or not, there’s a lot of trust required that goes beyond the plane itself. “The F-35 represents cooperation, and this gets to the heart of what cooperation means," says Richard Aboulafia, managing director of AeroDynamic Advisory. “The US military might stay professional and apolitical, or it might not. We just don’t know."
If switching the US off isn’t an option—and neither is the status quo—what can Europe do to Trump-proof its re-armament drive? One approach similar to Poland’s is to fill capability gaps domestically over time while accepting foreign suppliers in the immediate term. Europeanization of supply is less quixotic than it sounds: A recent survey by Defense News found that military satellite communications and unmanned intelligence and reconnaissance are areas where Europe is three years or fewer from having sufficient capability. Space-based alternatives to Elon Musk’s Starlink will take longer, though, perhaps a decade.
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At the same time, more partnerships will be needed to diversify supply and share knowledge. That should include closer ties with Ukraine, which has by necessity become a forerunner in drone warfare. It should also include the UK, which left the EU in 2020 but will be key when it comes to building a credible deterrent to Russia.
And finally, the EU’s ability to wield financial incentives should promote more orders for collaborative cross-border projects like the Eurofighter—a joint venture between Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonardo—according to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Francois Duflot. Macron’s beloved Rafale may also do well beyond Europe in a world less reliant on the US, particularly given its current customer base in regions like West Asia.
This all depends on whether Europe is truly willing to break with entrenched habits on budgets, procurement and politics. Germany is currently taking big steps to a landmark end to austerity, but it can’t do everything alone.
The European bloc is asking the right questions about defending itself on its own, but getting the US out of the pilot’s seat will be a hard task. ©Bloomberg
