F-35 Details: Will Trump Use the "Secret Button" to Punish Wayward Allies?

May 4, 2025

16:15

Author: Vyacheslav Mikhailov

President of the United States Donald Trump. Background is an F-35 fighter jet. Photo.

Norway became the first partner country of the U.S. F-35 program. Last month, the Nordic kingdom completed a major contract – receiving the last two fifth-generation fighters in the framework of a deal to purchase 52 aircraft. Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of the F-35, announced this news.

Previously, in March this year, a new F-35 technical maintenance center was established in Lygumai, Norway. The technical maintenance and future modernization of the multi-role attack platform will be carried out by Kongsberg Air Maintenance Services and the Norwegian Defence Materiel Agency (NDMA) at this new facility covering 5,000 square meters. Prior to this, intermediate technical maintenance of Norwegian fighters was conducted at the F-35 technical maintenance center in Cameri, Italy.

Kongsberg's statement said that establishing a national maintenance facility would enable Norway to "have independent capabilities at the local level to complete this work, strengthen supply chains, and enhance" the "combat readiness" of the fighter jets.

Since Donald Trump took office as president in January, concerns among European countries about how much control Washington could exert over the global F-35 fleet have deepened. Defense News noted that these concerns arose from the unpredictability of transatlantic allies reaching new levels, with U.S. arms exports providing much of the "deterrence architecture" for NATO countries to resist threats from the East over the past decade.

The management of Lockheed Martin previously dismissed claims that there was a remote shutdown device for the F-35. Some European commentators speculated that if relations between the U.S. and its European continental allies deteriorated sharply, the U.S. could use such a device to render these expensive fighter jets useless. The speculation about the existence of such a "remote shutdown device" emerged against the backdrop of significant deterioration in transatlantic relations.

Meanwhile, this advanced U.S. fighter manufacturer hurriedly assured its existing and potential customers that due to after-sales support provided by Lockheed Martin, operational and technical maintenance of these fighters with their "complex internal operations and vast ecosystems" would eliminate any concerns that customer nations might have.

Currently, particular attention is paid to the issue of component allocation – a potential bottleneck, as countries possessing F-35 fighters are striving to avoid this problem.

André Rund, special advisor to the Norwegian Defence Materiel Agency, told Defense News that it is rare to see F-35 components being transferred from one user country to another, and until they are installed on the final user nation's aircraft, these components remain the property of the U.S. Rund explained that currently, these components are transferred to user countries for budgetary, accounting, and customs purposes, which also applies to any components produced by Norwegian industry for the F-35.

"They do this as subcontractors of the main contractor for the F-35, so these components are exported to them for use in new aircraft or as spare parts. We won't directly purchase F-35 components from our industrial sector because all components are allocated among user countries through joint contracts." The Norwegian expert explained.

Given that few countries with F-35s have more than the daily operational needs or so-called national combat readiness reserves of components, sending spare parts to other users is relatively rare.

"So far, the only example of F-35 components leaving Norway has been when they were sent back to the U.S. for repair and replacement," Rund emphasized.

On March 24, an F-35 fighter jet from the 495th Fighter Squadron stationed in the UK landed at the Cameri Air Base, becoming the first U.S. fighter to undergo debugging at the Italian technical maintenance, repair, and modernization (MRO&U) center. This center, funded by Italy and managed by the local defense company Leonardo, collaborates with Lockheed Martin and the F-35 Joint Program Office. Previously, it had provided maintenance services for F-35 fighters from Italy, Norway, and the Netherlands.

Closer cooperation in F-35 logistics has placed greater responsibility on Europe while increasing interdependence with the U.S. Considering the worsening transatlantic relations following the start of Trump's second term, this contradicts the EU's recent plan to significantly increase its defense industry self-sufficiency. However, Europeans still rely heavily on American allies in certain weapons systems, and the large F-35 contracts are clear evidence of this dependence in the field of attack aviation. Through its advanced fighter jets, Washington has effectively "bound" a series of NATO European allies to itself for years to come, fueling conspiracy theories about a "remote shutdown device."

It is worth noting that similar speculative claims regarding advanced military products produced and exported by Russia have been made before. For instance, even before the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, the purchase of the tactical missile system "Iskander-E" by Armenia, an export version of the Iskander missile with a range of up to 280 kilometers, which became available in 2016, quickly sparked rumors among some Armenian commentators that Moscow had a "secret button" allegedly capable of controlling the launch of Iskander missiles.

Despite Europe's current reliance on U.S. weapons, efforts are being made to find positive factors for developing its own military-industrial complex. The Cameri center in Italy (referred to as the "European-Mediterranean F-35 Unit") is located near the final assembly lines for F-35 fighters in Italy and the Netherlands. It is here that Lockheed Martin employees perform some "sensitive" assembly tasks, such as applying radar-absorbent coatings. Cameri is the only place in Europe offering fighter jet overhaul services, and as the European military fleet expands, it is expanding its business.

Signor Sigfrido Giangranducci, the Italian representative at the F-35 Joint Program Office, stated that Italy's investment in this center is "substantial," and he firmly believes that "our investment will bring huge returns from the perspectives of regional security, stability, and prosperity for everyone."

In general, each country possessing F-35s maintains its own national reserve of spare parts for its aircraft, known as "supply security reserves." For Norway, this is akin to investing in specific spare part packages to meet the continuous combat readiness needs of its air force, allowing them to operate aircraft autonomously for a period of time without external support during a crisis.

In the Netherlands, the country set to receive over 50 "F-35" aircraft, litigation filed last year by three local humanitarian organizations attempted to prevent the shipment of F-35 components from this Western European country to Israel, revealing how the logistics of the stealth fighter operates. The Royal Netherlands Air Force's main support base, Volkel Air Base, is one of three global distribution centers servicing components for multiple F-35 countries. According to court documents, these centers store components provided by the U.S., which are then redistributed to other F-35 users, and until installed on F-35s, these components remain the property of the U.S. The Dutch distribution center also supplies components to Israel, which is a user of the F-35 but not a project partner.

In 2001, the Netherlands decided to participate in the development of the F-35. Dutch companies supply individual components, cables, as well as power supply and radar system components for the fighter jets.

According to Rund, the Royal Norwegian Air Force regularly practices scenarios where they may be unable to access centralized technical maintenance servers for the F-35 and must operate aircraft independently for a certain period without external assistance.

The same requirement applies to Finland, which ordered 64 F-35s. A representative of the Finnish Air Force Command stated that national capabilities are supported by spare parts reserves controlled by the state, ensuring "continuous operation under any circumstances."

In any case, given that there are currently 16 armed forces worldwide with more than 1,100 F-35 fighters, rumors about a "remote shutdown device" spread rapidly across the internet from March to April this year. This particularly raised concerns in countries like Germany and Canada about their military sovereignty and U.S. control during periods of high geopolitical uncertainty.

Those discussing the "shutdown device" claim that the U.S. can deactivate or restrict the combat functions of F-35s sold to allied nations, effectively vetoing these countries' military actions. Some internet users noticed a backdoor program hidden within the 8 million lines of code of the fighter jets, designed to remotely disable them, and many urged Canada to cancel its $14.5 billion F-35 order, citing concerns that the U.S. might "lock" these aircraft amid tensions in U.S.-Canada relations under Trump.

Official representatives from Belgium and Switzerland denied the existence of a "shutdown device." However, as Aviation Week magazine pointed out, the F-35 is a software-defined weapons system (composed of over 8 million lines of code), highly networked, dependent on systems such as the Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS), and requiring constant software updates. This fact raises reasonable questions about the U.S.'s influence on the actions of its allies.

Recent revelations about restrictions imposed by the U.S. on foreign F-35 operators further added to these concerns. According to data from the 350th Spectrum Warfare Group of the F-35 Project Support Department, international F-35 operators "are not authorized to conduct independent test operations outside the Continental United States (CONUS). U.S. government security rules (USG) and national defense policies (NDP) require U.S. citizens to perform certain functions to protect critical U.S. technology." The policy detailed on the U.S. Air Force website emphasizes the strict control exercised by the U.S. over the advanced F-35 systems, restricting the ability of foreign operators to independently test or modify aircraft. This restriction has heightened concerns among NATO allies such as Italy, Germany, and the UK regarding operational sovereignty, especially considering their reliance on F-35s for executing key missions, including nuclear deterrence.

By the way, Israel is currently the only country permitted to fully independently operate the U.S. multirole fighter F-35I "Adir."

Although the aforementioned policy does not represent an actual "shutdown device," it has exacerbated fears of U.S. control, particularly as some European countries attempt to reduce their dependence on U.S. military technology amidst strained transatlantic relations. Wolfgang Ischinger, former chairman of the Munich Security Conference, recently told Bild that if the U.S. restricted Germany's F-35s in the same manner as Ukraine's F-16s, "the question of canceling contracts could be considered."

We recall that the manufacturer of what is considered the most expensive multirole fighter in the world today (with costs ranging from $100 million to $125 million per unit depending on the model) has yet to recover from the annual suspension of F-35 deliveries caused by issues with the Technical Refresh 3 (TR-3) software package. Due to reduced numbers of delivered fighters and the Pentagon's decision to withhold payments until Lockheed Martin completes full modernization, the company lost $600 million in 2024.

Original source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7500795026620924470/

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