Defense?

[imported_watchmanz]

The new labour Government of New Zealand has now scrapped the deal with the US to purchase F-16 jet fighters at a bargain baement price. Now they question whether New Zealand should even have an air strke capability. I find it incredible that there is not one of the Government members making this potentially catastrophic decision that have armed forces services of any note. New Zealand is a set of isolated islands. No air force effectively means we would be unable to patrol our shores and unable to participate in our regional defense requirements. This is a serious departure from our history of participation and "pulling our weight" in regards to our region of the world. The current RNZAF Skyhawk jet fighters will reach the end of their useful life in 2007 and yet the Government may sell them off erlier than that, and not replace them. To those who ask why an offensive capability is needed, particularly by a country such as New Zealand, look to recent past events in East Timor. NZ and Australian jet fighters operated out of northern Australia during the conflict to protect the troop movements on the humanitarian rescue mission. Without those jets soldiers lives would be in greater peril. Views? Thoughts?

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Watchmanz
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"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom is courage"
- Thucydides

[malc]

I am of two minds on this issue , but I probally lean more towards the scrapping of the deal than sticking with it .
I realise we have responsibilities to our troops and our allies . Lets face it in the event of a serious attack from some of the countries with the military hardware at their disposal we would only be giving a realistic defense in the initial stages .
We live in a country that has a total population of less than many major world cities. Do these cities each have an Army , Navy and Airforce ?
During the war our troops were fighting a war in Europe and when the Japanese threat came closer to our doorstep our troops were not sent home to defend our own.
We did have co-operation thought and it was the American forces that were more dominant in the South Pacific.
Our role in more recent years has been peacekeeping and we have been proven good at it . Upgrading our airforce does not solve the embarrassing problem of transporting our troops . We do need to look at adequate troop carriers , army transportation , etc .
Can we really be expected to be an all round high tech military country with our population and budget ?
We need to do our best in co-operation with Australia and hopefully America .

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[KATNZ]

Can we really rely on US to come to our aid in the event of an attack on NZ? Australia, yes, as we are close to them. As you say, our population is less than that of most major cities - so it won't be a big deal if something happens to us. I think we do need to protect ourselves and not rely on other countries to come to our aid. Gallipoli is a perfect example of NZ going to help out and being exploited - NZ soldiers were put out to pasture in the worst areas before they thought about putting their own in harms way. I think we are being naive to think that just because we are minutely involved in helping out in places of war across the world, that the big countries would risk a world war to save our kiwi heinies.

Kat