> When we were there in spring of ‘01 the prime minister, Helen something, dis banned the NZ military, as I recall from radio reports.
Not quite as bad as that, Ditter. Helen Clark dis-established the fighter arm of our air force. Her view was that twenty-or-so expensive aircraft wouldn’t help much in a real shootin’ war, and that our limited funds were better spent beefing up our Army and Navy.
It is a decision that, to this day, hasn’t sat well with a large number of folks here. Whenuapai, where our air strike capability was based, is in the town where I live. Admittedly, tho’, Helen had a good point: if you are a tiny country with a tiny budget, it is best to do your military spend where it can best improve the military’s fighting capability. Unfortunately for our Air Force, that wasn’t going to be with new fighter aircraft.
The rest of our military remains intact. Our Army is in Afghanistan now, including two rotations of our elite NZ SAS.