The F-35 Lightning II is not a fighter jet. It is a geopolitical leash.
For decades, French and German leaders dreamed of a “Sovereign Europe,” a third pole capable of saying “no” to Washington. But while they gave speeches, we sold them a weapon system that makes “no” operationally impossible. The F-35 is the single most effective instrument of American hegemony invented since the Marshall Plan
This is the Hegemon’s Dilemma resolved through engineering. We spent decades making concessions to our vassals, accepting their tariffs, subsidizing their defense, watching them grow strong enough to dream of independence. The F-35 is how we claw that back without firing a shot.
The Digital Tether
To understand why the F-35 kills sovereignty, look past the stealth coating and into the software.
Unlike the F-16s of the Cold War, which allied nations could maintain and modify themselves, the F-35 is a black box. It relies on a cloud-based logistics system (ODIN) that feeds data directly back to Lockheed Martin and the Pentagon. If a European nation wanted to use its F-35 fleet for a mission the United States opposed, Washington wouldn’t need to send a carrier to stop them. We could simply stop the data flow. We could decline to update the mission data files required to identify new threats.
Without US digital support, the most advanced fighter in Europe becomes a very expensive paperweight within days.
Sovereignty requires the ability to pull the trigger. The F-35 ensures the safety remains in American hands.
This extends beyond the aircraft itself. When Denmark integrated into the F-35 ecosystem, they didn’t just buy jets; they turned their Arctic territory into a US sensor node. Copenhagen cannot “see” or “hear” anything in its own airspace unless it’s filtered through US-controlled systems.
This is why the current Greenland negotiations are a formality. When Trump announced a “framework of a future deal” this week, claiming the US would have “total access” and “all the military access that we want,” Denmark had no real leverage to resist. Their entire defense posture already depends on us. The F-35 ecosystem made the outcome inevitable before the talks even began.
They own the ice. We own the skies above it.
The Russian Tell
For years, Russian state media ran endless segments mocking the F-35 as a “trillion-dollar disaster” and a “hangar queen.” Liberal defense analysts thought this was standard anti-American mockery.
It was a desperate psychological operation.
Moscow didn’t hate the F-35 because it was bad. They hated it because they knew it worked. They understood that if European nations adopted the F-35 en masse, two things would happen: the Russian Air Force would be rendered obsolete in a high-end conflict, and Europe would be permanently locked into the US logistical chain.
The “too costly” narrative was a feint designed to push Europeans toward cheaper, indigenous options like the Eurofighter or Gripen. They wanted a fragmented Europe flying inferior jets.
They failed. The F-35 now guards the Eastern Flank from the Netherlands to Poland. An iron curtain of stealth fighters descends across the continent, and every single one answers to a server in the United States.
Burden Sharing the American Reindustrialization
When American presidents thunder that Europe must spend 2% of GDP on defense, the European press interprets this as a demand for capability. It isn’t. It is a demand for a purchase order.
We do not actually want Germany to take that 2% and invest it in domestic industry. If they built their own factories, designed their own chips, wrote their own source code, they would create competitors to Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. They would achieve the one thing we cannot tolerate: industrial autonomy.
The genius of the F-35 program is that it redirects European defense budgets directly into the American industrial base. When we demand they “contribute to NATO,” we mean “buy American.” We want allies strong enough to fight, but too dependent to fight alone.
Killing the Alternative
The Future Combat Air System (FCAS) was supposed to be Europe’s answer: a Franco-German-Spanish 6th-generation fighter, the last serious attempt at Genuine Nationalism in European defense.
It is dying on the vine. Germany missed its January 2026 deadline. Chancellor Merz says the program is making “no progress.” Berlin is already talking to Saab about alternatives. French and German officials have discussed scrapping the fighter jet entirely.
Every F-35 sale accelerated this collapse. When Germany ordered F-35s to replace its Tornado fleet in 2022, it drained the budget and political will needed for FCAS. By 2040, Europe will have no sovereign option. They will buy American again because they will have no choice.
What remains is Faux-Nationalism: patriotic rhetoric, American hardware, the illusion of sovereignty.
Let the European editorial boards write angry op-eds about American “bullying.” Let them complain about tariffs and tone.
It doesn’t matter.
Listen to the engines on those NATO tarmacs. That’s the sound of pilots strapping into American cockpits, guided by American satellites, dependent on American code. Their sovereignty is a polite fiction maintained for domestic audiences.
They own the land. We own the skies.
