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The kill-switch weakness

The USA is heading for a conflict with European nations.

Right now, that conflict is a political one but, if the worst happens, it could ultimately become a military one.

It all revolves around the future of Greenland and the USA's stated objective of "owning" this land of ice and snow. Trump has stated that he would like to purchase the country but makes it clear that if that fails, he does not rule out the use of force.

Should that happen, where does it leave the rest of NATO and just how would any military conflict play out in this era of hi-tech weaponry?

Well if there's one worrying element to such a conflict, it is that many NATO countries are using US-made weapons systems.

Although many NATO countries have European-made Eurofighter Typhoon and Dassault Rafale combat jets, they are also heavily invested in US-made F16s and F35s as well as around 100 F18A Hornets.

Likewise, a fair proportion of the AAM and SAM missile capabilities are US-sourced, including the AIM-120 AMRAAM, AIM-9X Sidewinder, Patriot and Arrow 3 systems.

In the event of an actual military conflict between the USA and other NATO members it would be foolish for the Europeans to rely on any of this US-sourced weaponry.

Why?

Well it's pretty much guaranteed that these systems will have kill-switch capabilities built into them by the USA. This would enable them to be disabled remotely, by the press of a button, by US forces. Missiles would fail to launch or simply refuse to lock onto targets, aircraft would refuse to fly or only operate with significantly reduced capabilities when called on to go up against US forces in battle.

This is the risk associated with buying-in your defense technology. You always run the risk that today's ally is tomorrow's foe and that there is no way to guarantee that the weapons you've previously purchased from your former ally can't and won't be disabled or even used against you in the heat of battle.

When the primary weapon of war was a rifle, tank or field artilery this was never a problem. "Dumb" weapons will just continue to work come hell or high water. Modern hi-tech weapons however, can contain a myriad of hidden dependencies and controls that only the manufacturers of those weapons are aware of and are able to activate.

Things may not even be that covert. Note that in Ukraine, it appears as if the Ukraine military needs to get authorisation from the USA to approve its targeting of the ATACMS missiles it uses. From what I've been able to determine, the actual upload of targeting data to the missile is routed via the USA where approval and digital signing is required before it becomes valid.

From the USA's perspective, this is likely a sound policy. The USA isn't going to create the best weapons in the world and sell them without some kind of guarantee that they can't then be turned around and used against them.

Right now, Trump is relying on political and economic pressure to get his way over the future of Greenland but given just how crazy the world has become in recent times, there is always a very small but non-zero chance that the USA will be flipping those kill-switches as a key defense stratgegy, should it go to war with the rest of NATO.

Carpe Diem folks!

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