Canada

It wouldn't even have to be that. There's enough specialized US data communication and GPS microchips in there that any one of them could be compromised. There's more than enough history of this, people not willing to consider it are part of a bubble: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_backdoor#History

"The 'kill switch' in the F-35 is more than just a rumour," Joachim Schranzhofer, the head of communications at German defense company Hensoldt informed the local media outlet Bild. "But it's much easier to use the mission planning system - then the plane stays on the ground."

I'll take the word of the head of communication at a German defense company that has actually vetted the systems over armchair commenters any day.

Then there's the possibility of backdoors to access mission critical data by deliberately compromising their encryption: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/a-brief-history-of-the-nsa-attempting-to-insert-backdoors-into-encrypted-data

Then there's the chasm between "complete technical schematics" being available and actually being able to produce said equipment without resorting to a US controlled supply line. It's not just firmware, if they cut off access to maintenance supplies, you aren't going to have it easier than Russia is having it with their sanctions, it's still going to take its toll on your supply line.

They aren't idiots. You don't set up your entire military to be bricked by a hack.

You know, I did actually try to head off this line of reasoning by pointing out that a) we have the entire technical package, and b) there are no extraneous communications going into or out of a stealth fighter, of any kind.

Like, buddy, I really did try to give you all the pieces. I was like "Do I need to spoon feed ALL the conclusions? No, they're a smart enough person, they'll figure it out."

No, that is not a remotely practical idea. First, no one is just accepting whatever random signals they get sent while flying a stealth fighter, or indeed any kind of fighter. Electronic warfare has been a thing for as long as integrated circuits have, we're not idiots.

But more importantly, any capability you put in firmware has to ultimately talk to the hardware. There has to be an actual lever to pull, somewhere. It's not magic. And firmware isn't like the software on your phone; it's not a general purpose computer. You can't just run an app. There's no kernel to allocate resources. Every single component on the F-35 has its own firmware, that runs that component, and the ability for those components to communicate with each other is strictly limited to what can actually be communicated at a hardware level. At some point any kind of "killswitch" would ultimately require hardware capabilities that would be obvious to anyone with the technical package, because those are exactly the kind of cascade failures that you would want to make impossible in the event that there was, say, an entirely normal, non-malicious bug in the firmware. You build these things to be failure proof, which makes it very hard to then sneak in ways to deliberately make them fail.

And I think the part that, above all else, you really, really need to wrap your head around is that we're not idiots. Canada is an extremely technically capable nation. We didn't buy this thing without experts reading the specs. And those same specs were read by experts from every other country in NATO, and none of them believe this kill switch myth is real.

So basically your theory stands on the assertion that you - John or Jane Internet User from Fucking Wherever - have, with zero access to any of the technical data, spotted a danger that all of the experts from every country in NATO missed, throughout the entire thirty plus years of the F-35 program, through around five different US administrations, all of them working in concert to conceal these capabilities, with zero complaint from Lockheed Martin, one of their biggest defence contractors, who don't even mind that discovery of this capability would destroy their international sales forever.

That's flat earth levels of self-delusion.

Also the idea that there is no possible way to sabotage these planes via technology is comical.

Now this is a classic example of making a completely different claim than the person you're responding to, then countering that, and acting as if this means you've countered any of their claims. Peak bad faith argument. Well done.

JFC buddy....all they have to do is not send parts.

People who justfy CAF spending are delusional and don't know what a billion dollars even looks like.

There are no F-35 parts only sourced in the US. Every country in the F-35 program has the ability to manufacture parts. The only thing the US controls is the firmware. The US can't lock us out of buying or building replacement components, they can only lock us out of getting newer firmware updates (eg, we can still use the firmware we have, just can't get anything past the point where they decide to cut us off).

Now that's a completely valid concern; being cut off from firmware updates would seriously degrade the capability of that part of our fleet over a long enough time horizon, which is one of the reasons why we're considering taking on a large order of Gripens as well. But it's not a "Stop your planes from flying" scenario. Even without the latest firmware we'd still be able to put an F-35 in the air and have it engage and destroy targets.

Have you noticed the very large, very aggressive expansionist autocracy on the other side of the arctic circle from us? Do you consider that maybe they might also be a potential threat?

Having a plane that massively outclasses everything in Russia's fleet is not a bad idea, no matter what is happening to the south of us. A mixed fleet hedges our bets, giving us responses to both of the biggest threats we're facing right now.

It's a waste of money if your primary goal is defending against the US, yes. Which is another reason why all the handwringing about how the US could potentially compromise the F-35 is really kind of silly. Truth is, if they wanted to attack us, they wouldn't need any kind of magical "Kill switch", they could just rely on old fashioned air superiority.

I'm still a huge advocate for signing a deal for the Gripen anyway (as stated above, I like the mixed fleet idea the best), because it gives us a lot of economic advantages, allows us to become an exporter of fighter aircraft to the rest of NATO and numerous other countries, and starts building up domestic air production that can then be converted to putting out Saab's new 6th Gen fighter when that's finally ready for prime time.

But if we consider our biggest realistic air threat to be Russia - Note that I said "biggest", not "only", trust me I am in no way dismissing the threat of a potential US invasion (in such an eventuality I'm on the list of people who die or get arrested in the first 8 hours, I do not fucking need to hear it) - then yes we absolutely do need the ability to patrol our own skies, especially if we end up in what is still the more likely geopolitical scenario right now, which is that the US abandons any notion of defence obligations to their allies as they grow increasingly isolationist.

A contingent of, say, 40 F-35s doesn't sound like a lot, but when those 40 planes have the ability to shoot down anything Russia can field without even being seen, that actually makes a massive difference in their ability to operate in our airspace. Right now Russia barely has 4th gen craft. The Felon is a lie wrapped up in a cool video package; it's radar signature is fucking massive, and we've seen from Ukraine that Russia's own radar capabilities are mediocre at best. And they have, optimistically, 6 of them. Anything else they have is so far outclassed by the F-35 that it would be like Challenger 2s going up against T-55s in Iraq. That's a hell of a lot of deterrence for comparatively little cost really.

Its a long, long border, mostly undefended in the west. A lot of infrastructure undefended, and a very brittle supply chain when it comes to civilian logistics and power. A handful of fighter jets would be a nightmare for rail lines and oil depots.