Another would be Lieutenant William Calley.

Ah……bringing up ol Calley. So its ok then to bring up some English soldiers that massacred people? Do we really want to go there?

The Japanese have blurred things even further with thier 17000 ton full length flight deck destroyers.

Good post!

They could just buy that new Japanese patrol plane, it has 4 engines and everything…..oh wait! Thats right, no money.

I cant see the UK having the money for any MPA for a long time.

Why don’t you provide me with an real answer.
And pls another than “its nice to have an oversized AF” for no reason at all..
There are a 1000 good reason to use those funding on other departments like health care for one.

While my cold war analoge may be a boring point, its rings true.
There are no good reason why European Nato AF should suddenly increase their AF proccurments.

While the focus are shifting towards Pacific and Asia, i fail to see what this has to do with Italy, Denmark, Norway, etc AF unit numbers..

Its old hat. NOBODY has an over sized air force right now. And the cold war has been over for 20 YEARS! NO European Air Force is increasing procurment……what many people are afraid of is that is that numbers will get so small that there will be a loss of necessary capability. NO ONE is advocating a return to cold war numbers, but rather the need to retain a viable capability. And bringing out the old “the cold war is over” argument just shows a certain lack of understanding the current situation.

thobbes@

Yes its true that most European Nato members contributed with small numbers of units in Libya.
Wich is exactly my point thank you..
In small conflict as Libya, Stan and the like which is 95% chances of future Nato missions.
So in view of this, its quite enough for Norway, Denmark etc to contribute with only 6 F-16/F-35 each.
Despite many countries contributed with such small numbers, the mission itself was a sucsess.

Lets not blow things out of proportion here.
The Cold war are long gone. There are not any reasons to maintain the Nato AF structure as it was in the 90’s.

aussienscale@

I would not be so sure about your assesment here.
There are no fact or sources of the current LM F-35 fly away price and the reduction of its procurments from each countries.

Norway have no eco recession at all. Yet we have fixed AF structure that include a large reduction from the 72 ordered F-16 to our current F-35 procurment plans.
If LM could somehow reduce the fly away price with say $ 20mil each, and keep up their promise that the F-35 would be cheaper to maintain than our F-16 fleet. There are no reason Norway would not order more F-35A units..

If you are going to bring up the old inane argument about the cold war being over (thats all you have?!) which EVERYBODY allready knows (its been 20 years) then at least get the decade right. The NATO force was rapidly downsizing in the 90s………you probably mean the 80s……..and it is a VERY tired and nonsensical argument.

The US supreme Court could do with that treatment!:D