Export customer does not have that kind of assets until now because they couldn’t afford them. it does not means that the need was not there.
Previously there was much less need for such capabilities because the doctrine was an eminently defensive one.
Now that the threat is much reduced, and expenditure (and aircraft inventories) have been correspondingly much reduced, along comes the F-35 to reduce numbers by a further 50-75% across the board, narrowing national defence capabilities to dangerously low levels (in the case of some nations, to a single air base!) whilst vastly increasing the capacity of those nations to provide purely symbolic support to US adventures around the world, and all whilst providing nice support facilities for US F-35s to use in the unlikely event that they’re ever needed. A conspiracy minded person might suspect that was the plan all along, but — as is the chief flaw with 9/11 conspiracy theories — such a conspiracy would require a much greater level of foresight than evidence would suggest the United States actually has.
Do we see any other export nation buying Growler in par with F35? No.
No other nation was stupid enough to first predicate the F-35 buy-in on the premise that it would reduce RAAF from two combat types to one, and then persist with it even after it became clear that this would not be the case. That requires ongoing politico-military failure of the kind that only a nation that has committed itself to capabilities costing 100% in excess of anticipated funding levels, all whilst investing in strategically irrelevant capabilities like C-17 in support of strategically irrelevant conflicts like Afghanistan can muster.
It’s the same story all throughout the west, really. The greatest threat to US national security is the US national security establishment. The greatest threat facing NATO nations is NATO. The greatest threat to Australian national security is a recklessly irresponsible ADF granted carte blanche by successive governments that never saw a shiny American platform or a shiny American war that it didn’t like, and is only now beginning to panic as the chickens start coming home to roost.
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