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Curzon
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Curzon

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October 2nd, 2005

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Philippines loses its airforce

This via Murdoc Online:


Philippines To Decommission Last Fighter Jet

The Philippines will decommission the last of its 40-year-old F-5 fighter jets, leaving the country without any aerial defense aircraft, an Air Force spokesman said Sept. 29. Ceremonies for the decommissioning of the U.S.-made “Freedom Fighter”Â? jets will be held at Basa Air Base on Oct. 1, marking the last use of these aircraft.

They got their last planes second-second hand from the South Koreans (see the article for more details). I guess they figure it’s just not worth it, with their primary problems being a Muslim insurgency in the South.

Comments to this entry

mark safranski
October 2, 2005
4:56 pm
Smart in the short term. Any money spent on aerial warfighting by Manilla ought to be helicopters or A-10's for ground support. The Philippines isn't capable of fighting any regional power without U.S. support anyway. In fact, I'm dubious they can take on the Moros and Abu Sayyaf

It is amazing how many states are simply relegating their military establishments toward internal order and are just giving up on any power projection or even basic defense capability.
Curzon
October 2, 2005
5:04 pm
It is amazing how many states are simply relegating their military establishments toward internal order and are just giving up on any power projection or even basic defense capability.


Yeah, really. You could essentially divide the world into two categories in this regard -- countries who are DEmilitarizing to focus on the home front, and countries that are REmilitarizing to project their influence abroad.
IJ
October 2, 2005
5:20 pm
But the nations of the United Nations agreed last month there should be a Peacebuilding Commission for the world. Decreasing military budgets will probably oblige other nations to follow the Philippines and get rid of at least their air-forces - if so who's taxpayers will pay for the commission's ambitious work? Perhaps there'll be enough volunteers.
Mutantfrog
October 2, 2005
5:47 pm
The Philippines is battling both communist guerrillas in the hinterlands as well as various Muslim extremist groups in the south.


We all know about the crazy Muslims in the south-but what about these communist guerillas? I don't recall ever hearing much about then.
Dan
October 2, 2005
9:41 pm
A sign of very good things.

1975 saw a nadir of American influence and the the fall South Vietnam (to North Vietnam), Cambodia (to the Khmer Rouge) and East Timor (to Indonesia). No hegemon, no peace.

Now, safely protected by American power, the nations of South East Asia can disarm.
Jay
October 3, 2005
12:19 am
Mutantfrog, you could consider them one of the last of the Cold War guerilla wars; they're the New People's Army of the Communist Party of the Philippines--they began in the mid-1960s; unlike the Huks of the 1950s (yes, there was an earlier Communist insurgency), these people are China/Maoist oriented. They really took off during the years of the Marcos dictatorship (ironic, because this insurgency was one of the excuses Marcos had for declaring martial law seizing dicatorial power in the early 1970s), but seemed to have declined after democracy was restored (and also thanks in part to better help to the Filipino military and law enforcement from the US); they were supposed to have been on the verge of defeat in the early 1990s, but have managed to keep going due to the dysfunctional nature of Philippine society (much like the dysfunctional nature of your average 3rd World country keeps insurgencies/terrorism/rural banditry going).
Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace
October 3, 2005
1:05 am
They may be giving up fighter planes, but they seem to have some high-tech helicopters - http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/black_hawk/


and the Library of Congress believes they still have a sizable inventory of other planes and missiles
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/philippines/ph_appen.html#table21
IJ
October 3, 2005
9:23 am
Other countries might persuade the Philippines to beef up their defences. For example, the United States is trying to do this with "Taiwan":http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20050925-102114-3553r.htm - who only spend "an anemic 2.4 percent of gross domestic product" on defence.

2.4%? That's much more than the average in NATO .
Mutantfrog
October 3, 2005
9:53 am
Well, the average country in NATO has little chance of being invaded by a conventional military. Terrorism is a serious problem, but on the scale that it's occurred in the west, very minor compared to a genuine war. Taiwan has rather more to worry about.
IJ
October 3, 2005
10:21 am
The $18bn arms sale to Taiwan has been in the balance for a long time. At the US-Taiwan Business Council-Defense Industry Conference last month in San Diego, a defense department official is reported to have said that Singapore spends five percent of its GDP on defense - without having 700 ballistic missiles pointed at it.

Leaving aside Taiwan, the checks and balances for taxpayers in Singapore seem inadequate.