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.
Stuff like this might actually be what unravels the Trump administration. The military industrial complex is far more powerful than any of the people Orange Julius has surrounded himself with, and they will not like taking losses to appease his ego.
It might unravel America, which would have much longer lasting consequences.
Bravo to Portugal!!! Setting a solid example of what the rest of 1st Class Europe should do with US weapon contracts. The current US political situation is playing a dangerous game with the US MIC.
Have to be honest I’m not keen on the UK buying any more either I’d rather see Rafales on the new carriers or a tweaked eurofighter.
Got to speed up the European 6th gen fighter development
That’s how we get shitty aircraft. Need to speed up developing homebrew avionics for the F35s.
The F35 is trash anyways
Thank fucking god
It will be good for the USA to not be responsible for 70% of the NATO defense budget. We can close many military bases throughout Europe and pivot to Asia and form new alliances.
You think Asia will want to ally with you? Lol.
The only country which would do that is Russia.
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Why would anybody feel they can rely on American hardware anymore? Any country with any sense won’t be beholden to them as an ally now thanks to that idiotic mango.
Mmm… Pretty interesting article.
Mate I dislike JS as much as anyone but there’s no need to bring it in here.
They went to the fighter store and all the F-35s were turned upside down.
Why the hell does Portugal need an air force? Is Russia going to cross the entire continent to attack them? Is Morocco going to launch an invasion through the straight of Gibraltar?
Cool use of money.
Portugal has a massive maritime Exclusive Economic Area for the size of the country both because it mainly stands alone at the westermost tip of Europe (bar a small piece of Spain to the north of Portugal and then, way further North and more to the East, the Republic Of Ireland), and because of the Azores archipelago (which adds a massive circle in the middle of the Atlantic to Portugal’s maritime EEA) and the Madeira archipelago (which adds a semi-circle off the West coast of Africa).
Further, Portugal is expected to militarily cooperate with the rest of the EU in case of an attack on any EU country (the most likely of which would be Russia attacking an Eastern European member) and ditto for NATO, which is especially important for exactly fighter planes because they’re the most mobile military assets around.
It makes sense for the Portuguese Military to focus more on the Air Force, Navy, the local equivalent of Marines (Fuzileiros) and air-transported commandos and less on Armor, Artillery and Regular Infantry exactly because it’s land territory is far less likely to be directly invaded but it both has a massive sea “territory” and it belongs to very large military alliances or alliances with military treaty obligations containing far away members which have a real risk of being invaded.
Okay, but actually attacking them on the far western tip of the continent would require going past the rest of the EU/NATO bloc. That’s just not realistic. The most they might ever deal with is piracy, and they don’t need jets for that.
Fulfilling obligations is obviously necessary, but they don’t need new jets. This is obviously just military Keynesianism.
Russia has bases in São Tomé and Príncipe.
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Russian ships and submarines have passed along the Portuguese coast, only leaving with the intervention of our navy and even before this war, it was customary for Russian jets to violate the airspace of a random European country at least once a month, only leaving under the escort of the air forces to test their response time. We are not that protected from Russia as the geographical distance might erroneously lead us to believe.
In short, jets are needed for at least surveillance, deterrence and joint missions with our allies.
P.S.: I hope it doesn’t happen, but Trump has already threatened to violate the territorial integrity of Canada and Denmark. Who can guarantee that he won’t do the same to Portugal? The Azores archipelago, halfway between the US and Europe, is quite important strategically. He might consider claiming our islands.
I’m sorry but you’re just talking of your ass there.
Portuguese Air-force assets, including fighter jets, are constantly deployed to the Portuguese Economic Area for missions such following the naval assets of hostile nations passing through or near it or even investigating possible criminal activity. The maritime EEA of Portugal is way larger than the actual country and at times the only vehicles that can reach further out enough fast enough are fighter jets.
Furter, fighter jets are literally the only kind of significant help Portugal would be able to send within to its Eastern European partners in the EU and NATO if Russia invaded them (certainly neither the Leopard tanks or regular infantry would get there for a while).
By pointing out that the land territory of Portugal is at low risk of invasion you’re actually making the point in favor of fighter jets since those assets make a lot more sense than ground-based assets for a country whose main military demands are on a huge sea area off its territority including far-away parts (around Madeira and Azores) and its military obligations in the two large military alliances the country is part of.
I’d also happily argue against ground-based assets, they don’t need tanks either! They need tools for enforcing their naval sovereignty and fighting pirates and such, but fighter jets aren’t really the best tools for those jobs.
Also, I acknowledged that fulfilling obligations is necessary. They don’t need new fighter jets for that. Besides, if we reach the point where Russia invades NATO it’s just going to rapidly escalate to nukes and then we’ll all die anyway so 🤷♀️
This is just Portugal giving away their own people’s money to businesses in other countries.
Well, the best time to build up a military defensive force is in times of peace, so it’s there in times of invasion.
See: Ukraine.
Ukraine was surrounded by conflcits long before it was invaded. Portugal hasn’t seen conflict for almost a hundred years.
They are not comparable.
In your ignorance you’re forgetting the “Colonial Wars” until 74 that were bad enough that directly caused the fall of the Fascist Regime in Portugal.
I said “continental” for a reason, don’t talk down to me. I’m also pretty sure Portugal didn’t face any danger at all during those wars. In fact, those wars are actually an argument for not allowing Portugal to have jets!
First
Portugal hasn’t seen conflict for almost a hundred years.
then
I said “continental” for a reason
So you’re simply lying.
I’ll absolutelly talk down to people outright lying about things I know better because I was born in the bloody place, members of my family were involved in it and I grew up hearing about it: shameless liars coming here to parrot propaganda do not deserve respect.
Ah shit, I said “continental” in a different comment. I mispoke here, you’re right.
I still don’t see how the colonial wars are an argument for Portugal having jets. Those wars were unjustified and Portugal deserved to lose every single one.
You claimed that Portugal not having been involved in major wars for almost a century (which was a false claim) was a reason for the country to not need jets, an argument which literally links the need for jets to being involved in major wars.
Now you’ve moved the goalposts and it’s only “some” major wars that justify having jets, not “other” major wars, and which are the “jet requiring wars and which aren’t” being entirelly up to you to define.
(FYI, Portugal used fighter jets in its Colonial Wars)
In summary, you’ve literally talked yourself into a “it’s so because i say it’s so argumentative corner”.
The feeling that your discourse in all your posts here leaves is that you do not want Portugal to have jets, for reasons that have nothing at all to do with the geostrategical and defense needs and objectives of Portugal and is in fact related to the imperialistic objectives of certain, completelly different and non-friendly, countries being better served by a less well armed Europe, only you can’t just outright come out and say it because that would severely damage the “opinion making” ability of your comments, hence the half-arsed circular argumentation balanced on top of nothing more than misinformation and unfundamented opinion.
Hey, maybe I’m wrong, so I’ll leave it to others in this thread to make up their own minds about it.
Why the hell does a sovereign country need an air force ? Really ? (Hint : to stay sovereign, for starter)
To stay sovereign from who? Who’s coming for Portugal?
Doesn’t matter. Every sovereign country has the right to enforce their rules in their airspace (in accordance with international law) at the very least
Okay, but every People have a right to demand their government spend money on social programs and not military boondoggles. Ultimately, what do the Portuguese want? Do they want more jets?
We already have good social programs, but honestly they have been declining in quality over the last decade and a half. We still are much better than countries like America in this aspect. We have a number of defense companies, including a drone company, that could grow significantly with the expected European defense investments, which will generate jobs and more tax revenue to, if we are smart, improve our social welfare system.
Of course. But they don’t have to go full MIC and could still keep a small fleet of jets that will be good for a few decades but at some point they’ve gotta modernize.
They could also not have a fleet of jets and they’d be fine.
Give it time, and the US will. Or Russia. The two worst offenders in the “Colonial and imperialist empires”. Both of which are hard up on the sabre rattling at this time.
Portugal could never buy enough jets to stop the US. They need nukes. Not a ton! Just a few is enough to scare away other powers.
As for Russia, they’re literally the farthest country in Europe from them! Getting to Portugal would mean Europe has collapsed and can’t stop Russia, and once again, the only defense here would be nukes.
Portugal could never buy enough jets to stop the US
No, but Spain is right next to it and France isn’t that far. Both likely to help. But why would they help Portugal if Portugal itself doesn’t take meaningful steps to protect itself? You use a lot of exclamation points in your comments! That doesn’t magically mean you’re right.
So, in solidarity, with the rest of Europe, all arms equally, to defend.
United we stand, divided we fall.
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.
Very smart move.
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.
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.
Let’s do this too! 🇨🇦
