مشكلة اخرى للمهتمين بالـ الاف35
The F-35's interconnectedness already gives the U.S. government or Lockheed Martin an unprecedented level of export control. ALIS offers a way to cut off the distribution of software updates and important mission data to foreign operators, as well as possibly serve as an entryway for an offensive cyber attack to completely disable certain jets. Since ALIS identifies maintenance issues and helps order spare parts, it could make maintaining
difficult, if not impossible. These are all things we at The War Zone discussed at length in the past
.
So far, only Israel has been able to secure the rights to operate its F-35I Adirs
if necessary and to add its own software on top of the system. Other Joint Strike Fighter users will remain dependent on the system even with the SDM.
These same issues could crop up if the U.S. government decides to allow additional countries to join the Joint Strike Fighter program. The
,
, and
have all expressed interest in the jets in the past and the
are
, as well.
There have also been separate concerns that allowing the UAE and Saudi Arabia to buy F-35s could threaten Israel’s qualitative military edge in the region, despite warming ties
. ALIS could give the U.S. government enhanced safeguards to curtail Emirati or Saudi Joint Strike Fighter operations should the geopolitical situation change.
