That's the issue. Do you believe you need to be the first in or not, and are you willing to pay the money necessary to ensure that?
It's a similar issue with the subs. The underlying issue with the submarines is that you need to maintain a submarine capability in order to share in NATO's submarine intelligence. If you need to know what submarines are operating in your waters, then you need to have a submarine capability. Regardless of whether those submarines are operational on a regular basis, having them ensures that you know what other submarines are in your waters. That is the logic ultimately behind maintaining that capability, but again, I fear that the navy's point of view is simply as you say: they know that new funds for new boats are not going to arrive any time soon, so the hope and the aim is to maintain this capability until at some point new funding comes in. I'm sympathetic to that position.