I really hope Canada goes with the Gripen.

LPT: don’t buy shit from the US. Especially not with any sort of contracts. Especially especially not if we’ve been threatening your country in any way. We clearly can’t be trusted not to have dangerous mood swings every 4-8 years.

And certainly don’t buy something with any sort of link back to its country of origin.

The worst part is, the rational deterrent to this isn’t available because the fucking decisionmakers in the US aren’t fucking rational.

I mean, under ordinary circumstances, the threat of simply handing over that kind of technology to whatever rivals of the US want to crack it open and get a good look inside would be more than enough to ensure at least a basic level of noninterference and cooperation from a rational regime. But if the emus invaded Aussieland tomorrow, and the Aussies failed to lick the orange’s shit-filled boots, his pants-pissing tantrum would end with demanding the maximum level of sabotage of American-made Australian military equipment, even if the Aussie military spelled out the threat for him in big, sharpie-printed letters.

To be entirely fair, though, the only known ‘kill switch’ in question is “We’re no longer updating the software or providing parts for you”, which is somewhat different than what’s generally thought of as a kill-switch. I mean, by that definition, the F-14 had a ‘kill-switch’ that we flipped on Iran, and they still kept the F-14 fleet going for a good 30 years.

Yes, and the F35 is a disaster of a project even if it didn’t have a kill switch, steer clear.