If we assume that Portugal would have ordered the same number as Czechia (a fellow European country with a pretty close GDP, population, and military budget that already bought F-35s) and take the flyaway cost on wikipedia of $82.500,000 as the price Portugal would have paid per plane, that's $2 billion in sales that Lockheed Martin doesn't get
this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2025
1046 points (99.6% liked)
World News
43954 readers
6178 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
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.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
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/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
that's $2 billion in sales that Lockheed Martin doesn't get
And that's just the beginning.
I feel like billionaires might resolve the Trump/musk issue for us. Fucking with a defense contractor's bottom line is pretty dangerous, especially when you have private security (Musk)
I feel like billionaires might resolve the Trump/musk issue for us. Fucking with a defense contractor’s bottom line is pretty dangerous, especially when you have private security (Musk)
Honestly, I feel it's more likely to display how much the defense industry is just another ordinary industry. They'll whinge and wring their hands, maybe openly support the limpdick opposition if they're feeling particularly pressured, but all that experience in making killing machines is just engineering and marketing. They're not more likely to have clout or death squads (of their own, at least) than other major industries of comparable size and importance, and everything is structured in such a compartmentalized way that they couldn't really leverage that against the government if they actually wanted to throw down.
The defense industry is more like the oil industry than a cyberpunk future. Influential, not independent.
They’re not more likely to have clout or death squads (of their own, at least) than other major industries of comparable size and importance, and everything is structured in such a compartmentalized way that they couldn’t really leverage that against the government if they actually wanted to throw down.
now if they have influence over the military... That's what starts coups.
The funniest possible outcome of this would be Lockheed Martin starting up a Tesla competitor
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(4 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(10 replies)
Love to see it
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.
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.
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".
US MIC: "I wish the Feds would buy more guns and less butter."
*monkey paw curls*
load more comments
(1 replies)
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! 🇨🇦
There has been talk. Apparently will cost about 500 million to cancel the contract.
Money well spent. But, frankly, who is that 500 million to? What happens if... They just don't pay? I mean, Trump is very familiar with just not paying bills owed, maybe Canada should just... Return in kind?
load more comments
(2 replies)
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.
Good for them. It's clear that we (the U.S.) can no longer be trusted to act in good faith.
As they should. I'll tell you that as an American you shouldn't trust the US government.