With the Trump regime in the US causing growing global instability, the government is banging the drum about increasing defence spending. And this morning we have a bunch of defence lobbyists pushing to double the size of the navy to four frigates, at a cost of $8 billion.
Which sounds like a great way of wasting billions of dollars. Lest anyone forget, the navy doesn't have enough staff to crew the ships it has got, let alone new ones. Half the navy's fleet of inshore patrol vessels were effectively mothballed just a few years after purchase, due to lack of crew (they were eventually sold to Ireland). The same then happened to the navy's offshore patrol vessels. And as the article itself pointed out, three of the navy's eight helicopters were grounded last year due to insufficient staff.
All of which suggests that unless the navy solves its staffing problem, exactly the same will happen to any new frigates: they'll be tied up and left to rot, hugely expensive white elephants. But that's what you get from performative defence spending. It would be an even bigger waste than the government's Cook Strait ferry fiasco, and if National is willing to throw billions down the drain on new war toys but baulked at iRex, then it shows there is something seriously wrong with their priorities. At least ferries are useful. War toys are pure waste.
(I do not know how to fix NZDF's staffing problem, and I honestly don't care. If people don't want to work as trained killers or support staff for trained killers, that seems great to me. But the people pushing for increased spending need to recognise it as a problem, and explain how they're going to solve it, because there's no point buying toys when there are no people to play with them).
But if the goal is to increase nominal spending to appease the Trump regime, then there are better things to spend it on than war toys. Defence housing is unfit for human habitation, and could be upgraded. That at least would be useful. But I guess that just doesn't benefit international arms companies...
