A widespread concern is what would happen to Dutch weapon systems if the Americans were to withdraw completely as an ally. For example, Dutch F-35 aircraft are dependent on American software updates. Yet, Tuinman isn’t particularly worried about this.
“The F-35 is truly a shared product. The British make the Rolls-Royce engines, and the Americans simply need them too.” And even if this mutual dependency doesn’t result in software updates, the F-35, in its current state, is still a better aircraft than other types of fighters.
If you still want to upgrade despite everything, I’m going to say something I should never say, but I will anyway: you can jailbreak an F-35 just like an iPhone. (Crack it with your own software, ed.)
I’ve been working in the Dutch tech sector for decades. My general opinion about the culture of Dutch governmental institutions, including Defense, is one of neoliberalism and technological opportunism. Public officials are completely ignorant about technology, yet misuse technology to advance their careers by by starting megalomanic IT-projects that never realized.
All of this has caused governments to become highly digitized, with large pools of IT-‘professionals’, yet barely able to maintain and develop the digital infrastructure they built up since the 2000’s, because of a catastrophic shortage of tech-savy leaders and professionals.
The reason I mention this, is because Dutch public officials are generally both highly techno-optimistic as well as highly techno-ignorant.
Tuinman likely shared this comment in an attempt to comfort the public, but it betrays his fundamental lack of understanding about the digital infrastructure that makes up the F35. And if Tuinman is being fed this sort of information by his subordinates, then I’m worried that the experts at Defense might not actually understand the infrastructure either.
The risk in all of this, is that Defense and the political establishment might be lulling themselves into a false sense of security, by underestimating the risks.
the risks involved.
Worked as an American consultant for the Dutch government in IT, can confirm this absolutely. It’s a case of finding private companies to funnel money to instead of actually creating capacity, all because of the incorrect illusion that the private sector is magically efficient.