F-35 Crisis Puts Pressure on Europe To Develop Sixth-Gen Fighter Jets

Newsweek

03-05-2025

Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
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Doubts around advanced American F-35 fighter jets, spurred by President Donald Trump's biting criticism of NATO, is generating more interest in nascent, European-led sixth-generation fighter jet programs as part of a bid to distance the continent from the whims of Washington.
Many European members of NATO, and the U.S.' northern neighbor, Canada, have watched on with some horror at the foreign policy stance adopted by senior Trump officials, warming up relations with the Kremlin.
The U.S. administration has accused the rest of NATO for decades of slacking on defense spending, which has sucked Europe into a deep reliance on Washington for many key military capabilities and the all-important nuclear deterrent.
America's NATO allies have broadly pledged to rapidly increase defense spending, although there is no coherent road map marking out how Europe, the U.K. and Canada will fill in yawning capability gaps or replace assets currently supplied by the U.S., which is now swivelling to the Indo-Pacific.
A British F-35 takes off from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, on June 24, 2019.
A British F-35 takes off from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, on June 24, 2019.
Jacob King/ PA Wire via AP Images
Adjusting to hostile messaging from the White House, Canada put its planned procurement of 88 fifth-generation F-35 fighter jets under review. Portugal's outgoing government said in March that Lisbon needed to consider the new "geopolitical environment" when weighing up a recommendation to purchase F-35s, which cost roughly $100 million apiece.
Reports of a "kill switch" inbuilt into F-35s ran rampant earlier this year, suggesting Washington could effectively control the aircraft bought and operated by recipient countries as it pleased.
Experts and officials have downplayed these concerns, but concede that the U.S. could have a noticeable impact on how well these aircraft operate, should it choose to influence software upgrades or halt access to intelligence and mission data.
NATO observed the U.S. cut off its vital military aid deliveries to Ukraine, and choke Kyiv's access to American-derived intelligence in a bid to bend Ukraine to its will, namely to sit down at the negotiating table for ceasefire talks.
Ukraine, the U.S.' allies could see, was backed into a corner by its dependence on the U.S.
The Lockheed Martin-made F-35 is the only fifth-generation fighter aircraft available to Western militaries, and many of the 20 nations operating or buying F-35s are NATO members.
"If an F-35 user wanted to use the jets in a way that the United States was not happy with, then that would be a limited capability, because Lockheed Martin would be very soon able to turn off the support tap to the particular nation in question," said Andrew Curtis, a retired Air Commodore in Britain's Royal Air Force.
"So even though there might not necessarily be an actual 'kill switch,' the United States definitely has the capability to make things very difficult for F-35 users," Curtis told Newsweek.
But there are plans to build several different sixth-generation fighters, which could slowly come into service from the mid-2030s.
There is a "bigger incentive" now for European members of NATO to be involved in sixth-generation programs led by European countries, according to a central European official involved in defense planning.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they expected more countries to want to have a look-in at the development of next-generation aircraft, and particularly to have their domestic industry contribute to sixth-generation programs.
There will certainly be more interest in sixth-generation development on the continent now than before Trump was re-elected, said Gabrielius Landsbergis, who served as Lithuania's foreign minister until November 2024.
"There will be an increased pressure on pan-European projects, that is for sure," Landsbergis told Newsweek.
A joint British, Italian and Japanese sixth-generation program, known as the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP), currently in the works has always been designed to make sure the operating country can make its own military decisions without interference, Newsweek understands.
It is seen as increasingly important, politically speaking, for a country's military to be able to act as it sees fit and modify an aircraft.
The central European official said the countries operating F-35s in Europe had reassured one another their commitment to the fifth-generation stealth fighters was "ironclad." Dutch defense minister Ruben Brekelmans said in March it was in the "interest of all" for the F-35 to succeed, while British Armed Forces Minister Luke Pollard insisted the U.K. "maintains the freedom of action to operate the F-35 Lightning at a time and place of our choosing."
"I don't see any signs of the United States backtracking," Brekelmans added.
The Pentagon had not signaled any intention that the U.S. would restrict the use of partner nations' F-35s, the central European official said.
To do so would undermine the U.S.' defense exports across the world, they said, but added Europe's efforts to increase spending and production will gradually sideline all U.S. military imports.
What Are Sixth-Generation Jets?
London, Rome and Tokyo have banded together to create a sixth-generation fighter program, now referred to as GCAP, an industrial partnership underwritten by government treaties. In the U.K., the manned sixth-generation fighter jet expected to come into service in 2035 is called Tempest.
France, Germany and Spain are working on their FCAS project, although this is currently expected to produce a sixth-generation jet up to 10 years after GCAP.
Much of the U.S.' efforts to create a piloted, sixth-generation fighter have been part of its Next Generation Air Dominance, or NGAD, program.
Trump unveiled the F-47, the manned aircraft part of the program, during an Oval Office briefing in March, alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and U.S. Air Force General David Allvin.
The F-47 will be "the crown jewel in the Next Generation Air Dominance family of systems," Allvin said.
"We're confident that it massively overpowers the capabilities of any other nation," Trump insisted.
The U.S. Navy has its own sixth-generation program, currently known as the F/A-XX.
China is also developing a sixth-generation fighter jet, and an experimental version is thought to have been spotted flying over China from late last year.
Sixth-generation projects will develop manned fighter aircraft that are even harder to detect, more automated, and kitted out with more advanced avionics and weapons.
Trump has said he would sell the F-47 to America's allies. But the "most advanced, most capable, most lethal aircraft ever built" comes with an important caveat: it would be "toned down" by 10 percent, the president said.
U.S. partners weren't shocked by the sentiment—it is widely accepted that the U.S. has blunted its cutting-edge technology before it is shipped off abroad, experts and officials say. It was the overt acknowledgment of something that had for decades been expressed in private that threw American allies and prospective buyers, said the central European official.
"This is not a great selling point for the F-47," said retired Lieutenant General Yvan Blondin, who served as the commander of Canada's air force from 2012 until 2015.
"The risk that I see with the F-35, I see a lot more clearly with the F-47," Blondin told Newsweek.
This makes a stronger case for NATO countries like Canada to look toward one or two European-led next-generation programs, he said, rather than go down the route of an incredibly expensive, U.S.-controlled sixth-generation platform.
A Lockheed Martin spokesperson said the F-35 "is the cornerstone of the battlespace for 20 allied nations, enabling peace through strength in the 21st century."
"It is combat proven, offers the most advanced capability and technology, and is the most affordable option to ensure the U.S. and allies remain ahead of emerging threats," the spokesperson added.
Jumping on the Bandwagon
Sixth-generation development is still in its very early stages, although the U.S. Air Force has confirmed experimental aircraft have been flying for roughly five years.
It's not clear what the potential would be for other countries beyond the six currently in the midst of GCAP and the European FCAS initiative to jump on the bandwagon.
The GCAP program has had significant interest from across the world and would not necessarily exclude late entrants to the project, but there is an acknowledgment that the more parties involved, the slower the progress will be, Newsweek understands.
It's understood the workload has already been divvied up, meaning while it's not impossible for new countries to join GCAP, it is more likely nations coming in later would be involved in other parts of sixth-generation technology, not the jet itself.
A spokesperson for the British Ministry of Defense said GCAP nations "have always highlighted an openness to partnering with other nations through this program, while helping us deliver a next-generation fighter jet." More than 3,500 people are already involved in GCAP in the U.K., the spokesperson said.
European Distancing from the U.S.
Qualms over the F-35's reliance on the U.S. feed into deeper discussions of how reliant the rest of NATO became on U.S. defense exports in the wake of the Cold War.
Trump officials have demanded European nations dedicate 5 percent of GDP to defense—a target the U.S. itself doesn't hit. While there is little appetite to hit an arbitrary number, European nations agree defense spending has been too low, with NATO tasked with working out which capabilities need to be urgently filled.
The U.S. has shouldered expensive military burdens in Europe for years, including providing logistics, strategic lift, communication, intelligence and reconnaissance capabilities, as well as airborne electronic warfare and stockpiles of munitions.
Observers say the U.S. deliberately signaled in previous decades that Europe should swerve investing in often expensive capabilities America could provide, focusing instead on how to support U.S. efforts abroad, such as in the Middle East.
Air defense, space-based assets, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities are high up on this list, a serving U.S. military official said.
Air defense is Europe's "priority number one" for the next two decades, the central European official said.
A European military source said there was a desire to wean Europe off a reliance on the U.S. where possible, but not to broadly cut off access to American imports.
Decisions should be made on a "case-by-case" basis, they said. Europe is looking closely at alternatives for the vaunted Patriot air defense system, such as the IRIS-T, they added.
"The future of air defense will come out of Europe," the military source said.
"It would be irresponsible not to look closely at areas of military dependence on the United States, given the very, very sharp departure from a host of previously assumed ironclad U.S. positions," including on Russia and America's European presence, said Justin Bronk, a research fellow for airpower and military technology at the U.K.-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank.
But while the U.S. has several options to choose from to hinder the effectiveness of F-35s, American allies are so dependent on Washington in so many areas that most military capabilities would be severely hit if the U.S. wanted to prevent operations, Bronk said.