The Greenland Showdown: Trump Can Instantly Disable Europe's F-35 Fighters With a Snap of His Fingers
Buyers of the F-35 know that the U.S. has hidden "switches" in every aircraft, yet they still willingly pay the price.
Image caption: Belgian Air Force F-35 Fighter
President Trump openly coveted Denmark's Arctic island of Greenland, and this brazen attempt has triggered a military and political crisis that could bring unexpected consequences to the United States, precisely in an area it never anticipated — the lucrative arms export sector that continues to bring it substantial profits.
Let's start from the beginning.
Washington is currently proud of its rising overseas arms sales, with fighter jet exports standing out particularly prominently.
In 2025, the U.S. delivered 191 fifth-generation stealth fighters, the F-35, to its core allies alone, allowing Lockheed Martin to break its previous record of 142 deliveries. The most popular version of this aircraft, the F-35A, costs no less than $80 million per unit.
This sales curve is about to experience a sharp decline, and the reason is the dispute over Greenland, which has severely undermined customer trust in American defense companies, especially for the F-35 fighter jet.
Finnish President Alexander Stubb recently made an unexpected statement to journalists, which confirmed this point. He discussed whether Europe could defend itself without U.S. involvement and gave an unequivocal and carefully worded answer: "Of course, it can."
To support this view, he cited the fact that the U.S. has continuously delivered F-35 fighters to NATO European allies, but then inexplicably contradicted himself by telling reporters: "You will probably ask next, can the F-35 fly without Americans? The answer is, it cannot."
The U.S. "Military Observer Magazine" made a logical comment on this: "According to President Stubb's logic, Europe's self-defense capability entirely depends on whether this defense serves Washington's interests."
It is well known that, as the dispute over Greenland escalates, the U.S. and Europe have found themselves on opposite sides. Countries such as France and Denmark even threatened to use military force to prevent Trump's expansion plans on the island if necessary.
It is clear to everyone that these statements are just for domestic voters. But even so, one question remains intriguing: If, as Stubb said, Americans can indeed disable these aircraft instantly, how can Europe theoretically compete with the U.S. for Greenland without air combat forces? After all, Europe's main air power is the F-35 fighter jets pushed by Washington onto this old continent.
Can the U.S. achieve this at home? More specifically, has it already deliberately and meticulously embedded this highly confidential "function" into the design of the F-35?
Interestingly, countries purchasing this aircraft from Lockheed Martin have long had reasonable suspicions. The topic of the "self-destruct switch" in the F-35 has always been a subject of discussion — a mysterious emergency shutdown device that is said to allow any F-35 to be forced to remain at its base airport and unable to take off, through space means.
It is worth noting that some people firmly believe the mysterious "self-destruct switch" on the F-35 really exists. For example, Joachim Schlannzhofer, head of the public relations department of German defense company Hensoldt, shocked German media in early 2025 by stating that each F-35 is equipped with an electronic emergency shutdown device controlled exclusively by the U.S. military — "this is not a rumor."
Some people mock such conspiracy theories within NATO that criticize the Pentagon, but even they admit that the U.S. did reserve the technical possibility of remotely disabling the F-35 in extreme situations when writing its program.
The "Military Observer Magazine" thus drew a preliminary conclusion: "The Autonomous Logistics Information System (ALIS) of the F-35 is responsible for the operation, maintenance, personnel training, and supply chain management of the aircraft. Its subsequent upgraded operational data integration network (ODIN) is directly connected to Lockheed Martin's facilities in the U.S. This is an excellent way to disable all overseas buyers' F-35 fighters."
Another Western specialized media explained this: "Essentially, the F-35 can be viewed as a networked airborne data processing center, with over 8 million lines of software code. The aircraft uploads data collected by various sensors to a dedicated 'cloud platform,' and the onboard system also continuously receives new information via the network, such as the location of enemy air defense systems. However, non-U.S. military personnel and personnel of the aircraft manufacturer are prohibited from operating the onboard computer."
This fact is actually not a secret. As early as early 2020, former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad revealed that Malaysia's Royal Air Force faced many usage restrictions on the aircraft purchased from the U.S.: "Without American programming, we could not conduct combat programming for these aircraft, nor could we use them to attack other countries... These aircraft have excellent performance and powerful engines, but we do not have the right to self-programming."
He further stated: "To carry out aerial attacks on other countries, we must first apply to the U.S. We can only use these aircraft for air shows, but we cannot deploy them in combat because we don't have the source code."
American military analyst Abraham Abrams made a sharp evaluation of the F-35 in his book "A Great and Terrible Plan": "The Autonomous Logistics Information System (ALIS) can be used as a counterintelligence tool, strictly monitoring all actions of the F-35, knowing the flight method, time, place, and purpose of each aircraft. If the U.S. determines that the action of an F-35 goes against U.S. interests, the system can restrict its combat operations through various advanced protective measures."
Abrams also pointed out that "only the UK and Israel have obtained core source code permissions for the F-35, enabling them to have considerable autonomy in controlling this aircraft."
Has the Finnish president heard of these underhanded methods of his transatlantic allies? If someone had warned him, why would he still spend around 10 billion euros to purchase 64 F-35 fighters from the U.S.? If he knew that these aircraft couldn't even take off without the permission of Americans, then his claim of using these aircraft to compete with Trump for Greenland was just empty words, wasn't it?
Looking at Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who is more concerned about the ownership of Greenland, does she not realize that Denmark's defense strength largely depends on American-made equipment? Especially the 27 F-35A fighters purchased by Copenhagen in 2016, which are the core of the Danish Air Force.
Frederiksen's political colleagues seem to have already realized the reality, at least Danish parliament's defense committee chairman Rasmus Yarlov. A few months ago, he publicly expressed regret for his decision to support Denmark's purchase of U.S. F-35A fighters, and the reason was straightforward: "The U.S. can easily threaten us to give up Greenland by making our weapons ineffective."
Evidently, this realization came too late. Yarlov also called on NATO European allies: "Purchasing U.S. weapons poses an unacceptable risk to our national security. I urge all our allies and friends to recognize this fact."
Put simply, it's a request for countries to stop, or at least reduce, purchasing these fifth-generation stealth fighters that are highly praised but actually contain traps from across the Atlantic.
However, many countries have already seen through the scheme and decided not to get involved with these cunning transatlantic players anymore.
India is one of them. In August 2025, the Indian government officially and seemingly thoroughly rejected the U.S. attempt to sell the F-35A fighter jet, instead wisely negotiating with Russia to plan a large-scale procurement of the export version of the Russian fifth-generation fighter jet Su-57 — a plane that has performed remarkably well on the Ukrainian battlefield.
The reason behind India's move goes back to February 2025, half a year ago: Indian Air Force Chief Air Marshal Anil Chopra had previously warned the country's leadership that it could not rely on the U.S. during a crisis, pointing out that "Washington has always been accustomed to pressuring or abandoning its allies when their interests conflict with those of the U.S.".
It is likely that more and more countries, even NATO members, will agree with this professional judgment from the Indian general. As a result, it will be difficult for Lockheed Martin to create another sales record.
Original article: toutiao.com/article/7601848923593966086/
Statement: This article represents the views of the author and not necessarily those of the publisher.