Christophe Gomart Warns: European F-35s at Risk of US Control

That's what you get for buying highly complex equipment from allies so unreliable they might qualify as enemies.

never understood why the armies of the EU wouldn't bank on airframes produced locally, we have great technology with Eurofighter Typhoon, Dassault Rafale, Saab Gripen
- Looking at the reactions when Poland bought US planes taught me a lot about the lack of maturity / insights from Eastern European countries, still blinded by the shining lights from NATO and US while ignoring their EU neighbours.
- Corruption. Paying for the protection racket. All good reasons /s
  
  It's much simpler than that: the Americans are always in charge of international operations.
  The Dutch Air Force officers still get soggy about the prize for "the explosion of the year" that they received for bombing a Serbian powerplant. 🤮
  An occasional pat on the back is enough, they don't even need to bribe our leaders anymore.
- Perhaps because we technically correctly think that using money on warfare is a complete waste of money and resources of the worst kind.
  Until of course it isn't.
  In hindsight, Europe should've started getting on its feet starting from 1990.
- Aren't they all 4/4.5th generation and not capable of carrying nukes? I mean they are a great stopgap and I would prefer having plenty of them, but the F35 abilities are much needed on a tactical and strategic level.
  Too bad, it's off the table with this liability.
  
  the Rafale is used for nuclear deterrence and can carry medium range air launched cruise missiles. They are to be replaced with hypersonic cruise missiles with the Rafale F5 until 2035.
  
  The Rafale can carry the ASMP, a french nucular cruise missile and I wouldn't be surprised if the Gripen could be upgraded such that it can do so as well.
  
  Currently Germany uses Tornados as nuclear bombers (as part of US nuclear sharing), those are ancient and held in the air with panzer tape, so Germany urgently needed a replacement, and yes the F35 is certified for US nukes, of course it is. The Eurofighter isn't -- but could. Easily. If Eurofighter was ok with sending necessary data over to the Americans, which they aren't, because industrial espionage: When you give data to the Pentagon Lockheed-Martin etc. inexplicably somehow also have access to it.
  Eurofighter would be a-ok with getting Typhoons certified for French nukes, not that the French won't spy but they have all that data already anyways via Airbus. Which is why the general idea of switching over to French nuclear sharing was floated but at least at that time that was considered to be, if happening at all, quite a ways off so the F35 was ordered as a stop-gap. Only for the bomber Tornados, mind you, the EW ones are getting replaced by brand-new EW Typhoons.
  First ones are scheduled to arrive 2026, I'm very much in favour of cancelling that contract, if that's expensive well buy them but then sell them on.
- I would get of buying foreign products in order to appease them, but buying something you can't even use without their permission for every start is really stupid
- Because none of them have the capabilities of the F-35. And they are even more expensive than the F-35.
  
  If so, it must be because they don't have enough R&D money because we haven't been buying them. Own goal.
  
  But does Europe need anything like that? The European fighters could easily deal with the Russian ones, and that's basically all that counts unless they want to fight the US, in which case you still don't want the F-35 for obvious reasons.

Not doubting his general point. But it is a bit weird of Mr Gomart to pick the Rafale to prove it.
It is precisely what happened there (France leaving the Eurofighter Typhoon programme and doing their own model due to not being able to find a common compromise) that cripples European alternatives and enables American models to dominate our market.
Would we be able to agree on common standardised models, we could have far more for far less and it could be European.
- He is French.
  
  ..and there's nothing wrong with that. We just all (!) need to understand the errors from the past in order to not repeat them. I would have liked him making a slightly more deliberate statement more.

My grandma died because of understaffed hospital but the scummy right-wingers are discussing which fighter planes we should be buying lmao.
Hope the revolution comes soon

Imagine the US invading the EU (or don't play according their whims) and they can just boop disable all our advanced equipment.
- Spoiler: the Ukrainians who jailbroke John Deere tractors end up saving the day
  
  Oh shit, that happened?
- Just like the cylons. It's for the best, nobody wants European pilots to die, esp if we can just boop them and they can't fight.