I’ve seen a few articles now that US fighter jets have kill switches in them, so the US could just render them useless for anyone they’ve sold them to.
Is this true? It sounds insane to me, I’ve always assumed that countries that buy these jets have full control over them. It’s a gaping hole in your defence if you don’t.
I am very sure that it is true.
Not only such primitve things as a kill switch - because nobody can make any profit directly from deactivating a device - but also lots of dependencies from the manufacturers and from the Usa, for the supply of ammunition, materials, spare parts etc. The same idea that we know as “vendor lock-in” in lots of consumer products.