> Many EU countries are falling over each-other to buy it

They are not buying it for its capabilities though, but to please their US ally/bully which would have retaliated economically otherwise.

See the very recent Swiss case were theirs pilots had chosen another aircraft (the french Rafale), only to be disavowed by their politics later on.

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blub 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Maybe the EU shouldn’t have transformed themselves into US vassals then.

Nobody respects weakness, not even an ally. Ironically showing a spine and decoupling from the US on some topics would have hurt more short term, but would have been healthier in the long term.

	▲	jack_tripper 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		>Maybe the EU shouldn’t have transformed themselves into US vassals then. I share the same opinion. If you're (on paper) the biggest economic block in the world, but you can be so easily bullied, then you've already failed >20 years ago. But I don't think it was bullying, but the other way around. EU countries were just buying favoritism for US military protection, because it was still way cheaper than ripping the bandaid and building its own domestic military industry of similar power and scale. Most defense spending uses the same motivation. You're not seeking to buying the best or cheapest hardware, you seek to buy powerful friends.

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varjag 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Much of existing European F-35 fleet predates Trump's first term. In fact now quite the opposite happens: other options being eyed from reliable partners, even if technically inferior.

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gghffguhvc 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The pilots might have reassessed after Pakistan seemed to have shot three of them down from over 200km range. Intel failure blamed but likely many factors of which some presumably may be attributed to the planes.

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psunavy03 2 days ago | parent [-]

Pakistan has never downed an F-35.

	▲	KolmogorovComp 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		They were talking about the Rafales. But I think the comment is irrelevant anyway as the scandal happened before that iirc.
	▲	gghffguhvc 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I poorly worded it. Rafales allegedly shot down. After that happened, perhaps the pilots wanting them over F35s might have a different opinion. F35s might be harder to get a lock on at that distance and might have better situational awareness capabilities.