this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2025
1049 points (99.6% liked)

World News

43960 readers
3629 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

The Portuguese Air Force is no longer expected to acquire the 5th generation F-35 fighter from Lockheed Martin, all due to the review of the US position towards NATO.

(page 2) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] ByteJunk@lemmy.world 18 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

O mundo já mudou. Houve eleições nos EUA, houve uma posição em relação à NATO e ao mundo, afirmada pelo secretário para a Defesa e pelo próprio Presidente dos EUA, que tem que ser tida em conta também na Europa e no que tem a ver com Portugal.

E esse nosso aliado, que ao longo de décadas foi sempre previsível, poderá trazer limitações na utilização, na manutenção, nos componentes, em tudo aquilo que tem a ver com a garantia de que as aeronaves serão operacionais e serão utilizadas em todo o tipo de cenários.

Interview here, in Portuguese.

The world has already changed. There were elections in the USA, there was a position [change] regarding NATO and the world, stated by both the Defense Secretary and the President of the USA, that has to be taken into account in Europe and in Portugal.

Our ally, who through decades has always been predictable [as in steadfast], may bring limitations to using, to maintaining, to components, anything that relates to the assurance that the planes are operational and can be used in all types of scenarios.

For some context, Portugal has an aging fleet of F-16s. The national Air Force wants to replace these with F-35s, but that is no longer likely to happen.

He was asked if Portugal would instead purchase, for example, French aircraft, but he declined to answer.

[–] perestroika@lemm.ee 71 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

It's migration season, and this is only the first bird - I predict there's more of them.

I think we have an interesting conflict of interest on the US side of the ocean: "the US military industrial complex" vs. "Trump, driving away their customers".

[–] Delta_V@lemmy.world 40 points 2 days ago

US MIC: "I wish the Feds would buy more guns and less butter."

*monkey paw curls*

load more comments (1 replies)

Yeah I got a sneaking suspicion that LMC’s gonna see a ton of options getting dropped and orders cancelled. Our government is not to be trusted. We’ll use that shit as leverage at some point.

[–] Tuuktuuk@sopuli.xyz 49 points 2 days ago

Portugal was lucky to get quite late aboard the F35 ship, as they decided about it as late as April 2024. Finland, where I'm from, was one of the earliest ones, deciding about the procurement in late 2022. Some other ones, as told by Wikipedia:

Canada: Jan 2023 Czechia: Jan 2024 Germany: 2023 Greece: Delivery 2027, so ordered probably in late 2023 or so? Poland: 2020, apparently some already delivered? Romania: November 2024 Singapore: Early 2024 Switzerland: delivery from 2027, so probably ordered in late 2023?

The further the procurement process, the more money might get wasted if the order has to be cancelled. Would still make sense to cancel, though, because a weapon you are free to use as long as there is no war is just a heap of scrap metal. It does not matter how much money we've already spent on the scrap metal, we should not put a cent more.

[–] engene@lemmy.ca 30 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Let’s do this too! 🇨🇦

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] Gsus4@mander.xyz 27 points 2 days ago

Yea, imagine getting a brand-new fleet of F-35s and then king trump wakes up and has them bricked to blitz-annex the Azores.

[–] PNW_Doug@lemmy.world 20 points 2 days ago

Good for them. It's clear that we (the U.S.) can no longer be trusted to act in good faith.

load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›