Despite the best efforts of our highly skilled engineers, the few remaining Skyhawks that form the front-line of our tactical air defense are really little more than relics from the middle of last century.

Sure, they've been retrofitted with new avionics and weapons systems -- but the fact is that the A4 design and its basic limitations are now 50 years old -- an F-16 it is not!

Even our military transport aircraft and helicopters represent a triumph of good Kiwi maintenance skills over designed service life -- with many 3rd-world nations having more modern, more highly spec'd planes than us.

Of course we are expecting a raft of new armored personnel carriers for the army -- but as the Gulf War showed us -- it's airpower that wins wars and APCs can be just a convenient way of packaging your troops so that the enemy doesn't have to use quite so many bombs or bullets to vanquish them.

So what's my point? What's this got to do with the Internet?

Simple -- most western nations have already acknowledged that future wars will rely very heavily on a country's ability to exploit weaknesses in an opponent's hi-tech systems.

Whether this involves hacking into their communications and computer systems, or simply coming up with damned clever ways to disrupt their weapons systems at a distance, the need for smart young cyber-fighters is clear.

So, should we, as a nation of many very bright people, that would presently have trouble raising the weapons and delivery platforms to fight off a dinghy filled with Chinese boat-people, instead be focusing on developing a new strategic military capability that is already in strong demand?

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Why not recruit, train and build teams of hi-tech warriors whose sole job, in case of conflict, is to breach the adversary's electronic security and disrupt their electronic systems?

If we developed this capability we could simply forget about throwing a new coat of paint on the Skyhawks and say to Australia "Oi, cobber, park a couple of your F16s over here and we'll lend ya a few of our boffins mate."

If, as the PM suggests, we can't afford a REAL deterrent force other than a few shiny new mobile spam-tins, then we really ought to develop a military talent that we can barter with our allies to ensure that we're not left totally defenseless against Indonesia, China or whatever country might decide to invite themselves for tea.

What do you think?

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