From the beginning of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II multinational development program, partner nations have expressed concern about US dominance over the control of certain key systems. Primarily, that discomfort stems from the fact that crucial software updates can only be performed at the Eglin Air Force Base in Florida by the US Air Force. Not all the jets are vulnerable to being ‘bricked’ or rendered useless by some sort of ‘kill switch,’ which has prompted controversy.

The Secretary of Defense in the Netherlands, Gjis Tuinman, has recently become viral on the internet for claiming that the F-35 can be hacked ‘like an iPhone,’ according to the Aviationist. He stated that it was possible to ‘jailbreak’ the stealth, 5th generation fighter jet, although he did not provide details on the means to do so.

Secretary Tuinman is simply the most outspoken of the leaders of many US allied forces, which are now reliant on the American-made F-35. The Air Force of the Netherlands, in particular, after liquidating its General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcons, now flies only the F-35 as its sole fighter jet. Tuinman’s comments are widely viewed as a political message aimed at the US regarding European strategic autonomy and software sovereignty rather than a confirmed technical reality.

Trump Makes America Weaker Again

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The instability of President Donald Trump and his mercurial threats toward allies of the once-thought ironclad and invulnerable North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has shaken the foundation and is eroding confidence in American arms exports. Once seen as the leader of the Free World, Trump’s unreconcilable fondness for adversaries like Vladimir Putin of Russia and vitriol directed at close allies like Denmark and Greenland has only worsened doubts about the F-35 program.

Overinflated fears that the United States and Lockheed Martin had some ‘kill switch’ that would allow them to turn off an F-35 anywhere around the world have largely been dispelled by industry experts. At the same time, it is absolutely true that the United States remains dominant as the controller of the program. There are final assembly lines in both Italy and Japan, yet much of the most sensitive equipment can only be handled by Lockheed Martin or American military personnel.

The F-35 is also known as the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) because it was built on the legacy of the F-16 and the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II, the most mass-produced supersonic fighter jet in history. Unlike those jets that were simply delivered to their rightful owners who paid for them, the F-35 comes with a number of caveats and ‘catch 22s’ that are reminiscent of the subscription model being pushed onto every possible product by corporate America.

The Napster Variant F-35

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The F-35’s combat capabilities (threat recognition, sensors, stealth) depend on MDFs generated by a specialized US Air Force unit. Without these regular updates from Washington, the jet loses its combat effectiveness. As a Level 2 partner, the Netherlands has far less access to the jet’s encrypted source code than Level 1 partners like the United Kingdom or special cases like Israel.

Yet, like any software-driven device, the F-35’s eight million lines of code likely contain undiscovered flaws or structural vulnerabilities. Unlike a remote hack, the Dutch have direct physical access to the airframes, allowing them to plug into the hardware to attempt to subvert the Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS) or its successor, ODIN. Finding a privilege escalation bug could allow a nation with physical access to the aircraft to bypass the security model and run unauthorized code.

Israel is the only nation to have successfully negotiated the legal and technical rights to customize the F-35’s software and hardware. Unlike other partners who must wait for US-controlled updates, Israel operates a unique variant known as the F-35I ‘Adir.’ This is because in 2003, Israel joined as a Security Cooperative Participant rather than a Tier 1 or 2 development partner.

Jailbreaking would involve bypassing the authentication required to connect to these servers or tricking the aircraft’s computer into accepting third-party software updates not signed by Lockheed Martin. This would allow the Dutch to upload their own weapon configurations or sensor libraries if Washington withheld them. Gaining root access would, in theory, let them modify the operating system to prevent the US from remotely locking or grounding the fleet.

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The Price of Security

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As the most expensive defense project in the history of the world, the F-35 is projected to consume over 2 trillion dollars by the completion of the program sometime at the end of the 21st century. Albeit that number includes decades of research and development preceding the first jet that rolled off the line, as well as the enormous sustainment cost that the $3,000 or so stealth fighters are projected to require for their service life.

The average price of an F-35 fighter jet starts at $80 million for the land-based conventional variant, the F-35A. Should you be one of the nations that flies the ‘jump jet,’ F-35B model, then that number climbs to over $100 million. The US Navy pays even more for its ruggedized carrier version, the F-35C. Yet these are simply base prices for airframes that do not include engines or any of the ‘all-inclusive packages’ under the umbrella of foreign military sales (FMS).

A country like the Netherlands or Denmark pays significantly more for each airframe as they also have to purchase infrastructure, specialized equipment, service contracts, training, and training equipment with each aircraft they procure. On top of that, a number of allied nations in Europe send their pilots to the US, like Germany, which is only expected to receive its first F-35As in the near future, through the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training (ENJJPT).

The F-35’s power is derived from economies of scale. By threatening to annex Greenland or treating Canada as a trade adversary, the administration has turned the F-35 from a security shield into a political shackle. If partner nations leave the program, the universal nature of the F-35 dies. Interoperability is lost, meaning in a war with China, allied jets won’t be able to share data seamlessly, reverting the technology back to the blind era of Vietnam.

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The Demise of American Trust

Credit: US Air Force

So with the allies of America paying an exceptionally high premium for what is already one of the most expensive aircraft ever constructed in the history of manned flight, it is absolutely understandable for there to be fear and discontent. It is reasonable to assume that no military leader could truly be satisfied with a jet that comes with a ‘back door’ pre-installed and non-optional.

While it may never have been a concern before, with the United States viewed as the champion of the Western Bloc’s defense, the events that have taken place under Donald Trump’s leadership are rapidly undoing nearly a century of trust-building and defense partnerships.

Following tensions over NATO and Ukraine, nations like Canada and Portugal have publicly hinted at reconsidering their planned F-35 acquisitions. Canada’s new Prime Minister recently called for a review of their 88-jet contract, citing a strained relationship with Trump, specifically.

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The Sacrifice of America’s Allies

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The United States of America remains the only nation in NATO to invoke Article 5. In its entire history, NATO’s Article 5 has been invoked only once: in response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. The North Atlantic Council (NAC) symbolically invoked the article to show solidarity with America, and when it was proven that the attacks were directed from a foreign nation, NATO operations commenced in support of the US Armed Forces.

After the invocation of NATO Article 5 following the September 11 attacks, more than 1,000 non-US coalition soldiers died in Afghanistan. The Afghanistan conflict saw the involvement of 42 NATO countries, with 31 of those suffering military casualties, according to El País. Unlike Afghanistan, the Iraq War was led by a ‘coalition of the willing’ and was not an Article 5 operation. Between March 2003 and August 2021, there were 318 deaths among non-US coalition members.

After the 9/11 attacks, European nations felt a moral and legal obligation to support America to ensure that if they were ever attacked, for example by Russia, the US would return the favor. Donald Trump’s leadership has shown contempt for America’s closest allies and repeatedly cast a dishonest perspective on Ukraine as an aggressor or, in the very least, resistant to peace, during the Russian invasion. His choice to align more closely with America’s historic enemy, Russia, and Vladimir Putin, has illustrated that America may not be a reliable ally in a future conflict.