Thread: Soldier shot in shoulder during Tekapo live firing training exercise

Originally Posted by vbull

Guys, I didn't want to cause offence. But seriously I don't see the need of having like 15000 people on a payroll for doing wargames and pretend missions. Just consider how much it could be spent on uplifting the plight of the poor people we see in places like tokoroa/ Gisborne etc. It'll keep these people happy so that we won't even need an army to put down unrest etc.

A lot of small countries have a protectorate agreement with large ones, for example if we had US, Australian, French and maybe even Chinese bases here, we could play them against each other and get significant payouts in terms of investment etc.


I'm just putting another point of view, devils advocate sort of, just to see what discussion points could be brought up.

Your being very naive and blind . There is more to any Defence force than playing bang bang games .
There is the Fisheries protection , and search and rescue which extends to foreign nationals which gives good press as to how far we will go , Security from external and even internal threats . Then the bangbang games with foreign countries leads to political capital ( and we play with many countries US / Poms / Asians etc ) , which can be used for Trade & such things as work permits ( as in the English ) ect . There are so many ways of things happening behind the scenes that are not seen or even acknowledged .