Fearing American ‘Kill Switches,’ European Militaries Are Buying Local

Fears of White House “kill switches” are pushing European and NATO allies to turn their backs on American arms. It was not supposed to work that way. Last year, President Trump browbeat NATO allies into raising defense spending. He assumed they would buy American this year.In the latest fallout from American fickleness, Ukraine and Finland announced a partnership last week to build their own satellite communications system. This comes after Ukraine’s military was jolted by radically slowed speeds of Elon Musk’s Starshield system. After 10 days of public uproar in the US — and fingerpointing between Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump — full service was restored last weekend to the military version of Starlink.One legacy is shattered confidence among Ukrainians and Europeans who pay for the encrypted service. On Thursday, one response came from Ukraine and Finland. Both countries have rock-solid interests in jamming-resistant communication: they have Europe’s longest land borders with Russia, a total of 2,060 miles.“Nations need communications they can rely on in every situation,” Finland’s Nokia Defense chairman Mikko Hautala said in a joint statement with Ukraine’s Defense Ministry and another Finnish company, satellite maker ICEYE. “Satellite networks extend and protect connectivity when networks on the ground are disrupted.”ICEYE cofounder and CEO Rafal Modrzewski said in the same statement: “Ukraine needs secure, sovereign and high-performance satellite communications systems that it controls.” As the Starshield imbroglio still unfolded, President Volodmyr Zelensky of Ukraine said: “Modern warfare has proven that reliable communications are a matter of national security. We must all rely on capabilities that we can control.”Inside NATO, allies are making surprising choices for arms purchases.After President Trump threatened to annex Canada, the Royal Canadian Army decided to buy its new fleet of submarines from Germany. Valued at $1 billion apiece, these 21st century U-boats will be built by Thyssen Krupp.Nearby, Denmark was shaken by Mr. Trump’s talk of taking over Greenland, an integral part of the Kingdom of Denmark. On the island continent, landing strips were mined and Danish soldiers were instructed to shoot soldiers invading from the United States, a fellow NATO nation. The crisis was resolved last month with an agreement that essentially reaffirms a 1951 deal allowing Washington the right to open and close bases on Greenland at will.But the damage was done. Shopping for air defense missiles, Denmark passed over American-made Patriots. Instead, Denmark placed a $9 billion order for a European alternative, the Franco-Italian SAMP-T long-range surface-to-air weapon system.Among NATO nations, Boeing’s E-7 Wedgetail has long been the alliance’s iconic AWACS, or early warning and command-and-control plane. But in July, a coalition of 11 NATO nations announced that they will spend $4.5 billion to replace the aging Boeing jets with up to 10 GlobalEye surveillance planes built by Sweden’s Saab AB. The world’s biggest fleet of GlobalEye surveillance jets will be based at NATO’s Geilenkirchen airbase in western Germany.Similarly, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that Canada will not buy Boeing AWACS, opting instead for Saab’s GlobalEye which is based on Bombardier’s Global 6500 jet. Seeking to soothe American feelings, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told an alliance summit: “Like its predecessor, GlobalEye is a transatlantic program, delivered by European and Canadian industries with essential contributions from US industries. It is a real success story, again, made in NATO.”Another blow to Boeing was small, but typical of the trend in Europe. Italy dropped a plan to buy six Boeing-made KC-46 Pegasus tanker transports. Instead, Italy’s Defense Ministry awarded a $1.6 billion contract to Airbus for a fleet of six A330 multi-role tanker transports. The jets will be made in France and Spain. Similarly, the Turkish Air Force, which long relied on American-made warjets, unexpectedly placed an $11 billion order with Britain for 20 Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets. Norway turned from buying American-made frigates to signing a $14 billion deal to buy at least five anti-submarine warfare frigates from Britain’s BAE Systems.As Portugal studies replacing its aging F-16 for mid-Atlantic patrolling from the Azores, Lisbon reviews competing bids from America’s Lockheed Martin, Italy’s Leonardo, France’s Dassault Aviation, Sweden’s Saab, and Europe’s Eurofighter consortium. Last summer, Britain’s Defense Ministry unveiled with press fanfarethree prototypes of long-range strike missiles designed without US components. Free of American parts, the missiles are to come without White House strings attached.Ukraine sees a reliable partner in Sweden, a nation whose wars with Russia go back to the 12th century. While second-hand American-made F-16s make up a major part of Ukraine’s Air Force, the future is with Saab’s Gripen fighter jets. Named after a mythical beast, a griffin has the head, wings, and talons of an eagle and the body and hind legs of a lion. Cheap and versatile, Sweden’s modern Gripen fighter jets can land on dirt roads and cane be serviced and rearmed in 10-minutes by five conscripts and a technician, all wearing cold weather gloves.Designed to combat Russian jets, Gripens are to be the backbone of Ukraine’s Air Force of the future. In a $3 billion deal signed last summer, Ukraine is buying 20 new Gripen E fighters, and receiving 16 older models as donations from Sweden. After meeting Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson at southern Sweden’s Uppsala airbase, President Zelenskiy said the relationship could grow to 150 war jets in the 2030s. He told reporters: “This is really a new page for Ukraine.”European reluctance to buy American sharpened last summer when the Trump Administration cited national security grounds to temporarily pause foreign access to Anthropic’s most advanced AI models, Mythos and Fable. Although the pause was lifted after three weeks, Secretary of State Marco Rubio asked American diplomats around the world to push back against talk of a “kill switch” in American technology products.In France, where the hard right National Rally leads in opinion polls, party leader Jordan Bardella warned on X: “This sudden decision reminds us that artificial intelligence is already a major issue of national sovereignty. Nations that do not quickly develop their own models will always depend more and more on the choices of other powers.”Conservative Dutch member of the European Parliament Bart Groothuis warned that Europe risks “digital colonization,” adding: “These restrictions are a clear example of the current American ‘nobody but us’ mentality.”After this month’s unexplained disruptions to Ukraine’s Starshield access, US software company Palantir hurried to reassure Europeans that its military AI system used by NATO has no “kill switch.” Last summer, Palantir’s Maven Smart System AI platform went fully operational at NATO headquarters in Brussels. But the militaries of several European nations, notably France and Germany, have not adopted Maven for fear of American interference. “As concerns Palantir, I can provide categorical reassurance that where customers have bought our software, they are in full operational control of that software,” Palantir’s executive vice president for the UK and Europe Louis Mosley told Reuters last week in Brussels. “There are no kill switches. There’s no ability for Palantir or the US government to reach in and switch it off.”

Fearing American ‘Kill Switches,’ European Militaries Are Buying Local

Fearing American ‘Kill Switches,’ European Militaries Are Buying Local

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