Ignorance is bliss isn't it Charon.
Lets see, what threats does New Zealand have....? none? oh ok.
So what role does its Armed Forces play? Oh? Peace Keepers, Civil emergency backup, coastal patrol... ok.
Now, NZ had a choice. Keep the sharp end of our Air Force, which, incidentally hasn't been in combat since the Brits were fighting communists in Malaysia. And keep our Army with its archaeic weaponry, which incidentally has played a major peacekeeping roles in many many actions, as well as active roles in other theatres including Afghanistan (NZ SAS is there!).
Or, we could ditch the totally unused sharp end of the RNZAF (all they really did was the odd airshow). And spend the extra money on bringing our grunts up to a decent level of equipment. And look at some newer transport choppers and aircraft (ie ditch the hueys and hercs).
Which is what some sharp cookie decided to do. Now what kind of moron would advocate spending millions of taxpayer dollars on the sharp end of the air force that is never used. AND... should it ever be used would last all of 5 seconds in combat (no disrespect to the RNZAF pilots... but Skyhawks in combat? LOL).
So Charon, crawl back under the rock from which your primitive mono-celled-brain crawled while more intelligent people than you make the right decisions. OK?
Originally posted by Charon
At least you still work to maintain an air force, unlike your commonwealth cousin New Zealand. Now that is a sad state of affairs.
Charon