Dutch military cutbacks

Just in the news during the last few days: The Dutch minister of Defence
has announced (yet another) cutback.

The Air Force will loose 29 F-16s, leaving 108 in service. Twente air
base, which is one of three Dutch F-16 bases will be closed.
Six out of 30 virtually brand-new AH-64Ds are to be sold (to whom?).
The Bo-105 light observation helicopters will be retired without
replacement.
All helicopter operations will be consolidated on Gilze-Rijen airbase
allowing the closure of Soesterberg (formerly known as Camp New Amsterdam
with the USAFE)
The HAWK missile system will be retired and replaced by ex-German PATRIOTs.
Entry of PATRIOT PAC-III into Dutch service will be delayed by two years.

The Dutch navy will loose two minesweepers and four frigates (leaving
ten of each in service) and (aviation related) will have to retire all
remaining P-3s, leaving no
MARPAT aircraft in Dutch service. They (obviously) will also not
undergo an upgrade that was already underway on some aircraft. Their
base, NAS Valkenburg
will be closed and a previously planned relocation to De Kooy/Den Helder
is obviously cancelled.
The only remaining naval aviation assets will be a few dozen Lynx
helicopters at De Kooy.

In addition to retiring its MLRS rocket artillery and a number of
howitzers the army will have to retire their 'Pantserrups tegen
luchtdoelen' (PRTL), which is a mechanized anti-aircraft system based on
the Leopard I.

Personnel levels will be reduced by 9000.

Now, for those of you who are laughing about the small numbers, I have
to remind you that the Netherlands is a rather small country with 16
million inhabitants who (obviously) realise that they're not likely to be
considered a superpower.
As for the cut-backs:
I realise that in light of government cut-backs on just about anything
right now and the public's perceived lack of importance of military
spending compared with spending on things like health care, education
and law enforcement some of these decisions are inevitable. I generally
think that a little reform wouldn't hurt, since equipment wise
especially the army still seems to be stuck in the Cold War. They've
invested some in lighter vehicles and (together with the Air Force) have
formed an air mobile brigade, but they still have lots of heavy
mechanized stuff (tanks, APCs and artillery). I can also understand
retiring some of the F-16s, but retiring the P-3s and selling recently
bought AH-64s really doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense. The P-3s
have seen a lot of useful service in recent years and the Apaches were
bought specifically to support the air mobile brigade, which was formed
specifically to deal with post cold war situations.
Regards,
Ralph Savelsberg