

My point is that these F-16s are not European technology or Europe’s to send. They are European in name only. The only way to send these aircraft to Ukraine, provide long term support , and provide replacemens to the countries who have sent them to Ukraine, is with extensive United States involvement. The F-35s are also US jets, and the US has no intention to send them over to Ukraine. Europe does not have much of a say here, they are beholden to whatever decision the United States makes.
As for Gripens, Rafales, Eurofighters, the domestic European fighters Europe could give to Ukraine without US involvement, Europe can’t send these to Ukraine without reducing the readiness levels of their domestic air forces to unsatisfactory levels. Europe cannot maintain their own domestic defence and support another high intensity conflict in Ukraine simultaneously. Macron said as much. This is why only a dozen or two Mirage 2000s have been promised so far.
Outside of the Ukrainian context, most European nations want F-35s instead of domestic European fighters as replacements for their ageing 4th generation fleets, because F-35s have stealth capabilities and there is no domestic European fighter with stealth capabilities.
Yeah the IR SAM threat is not a new thing, 25 NATO coalition aircraft were damaged or downed by IR SAMs during the Gulf war, and that was three decades ago. The IR SAM threat has been understood since the SA-7/9K32 Strela-2. This is why IR signature reduction is so important to stealth/low observability technology.
What’s new are these frankenSAM systems in Yemen and Ukraine using advanced infrared guided air to air missiles with high off boresight capability like the R-73, ASRAAM and latest AIM-9s as SAMs, and advanced ground based infrared search and track systems that can connect to more traditional SAM, which extends the range of the IR threat considerably.
An F-35 is not going to be as good as something like the F-117, B-2, B-21 or YF-23 prototype at hiding it’s engine exhaust from ground based sensors, it’s not even as good as the F-22 at that, nevermind those previous aircraft where the engine exhaust isn’t even visible from below. Such was likely one of the compromises in the F-35s design, to allow for mass production and fulfilling all the different roles all 3 F-35 variants carry out.