'Your Air Force' ?
Raamjet, let me give you an example of how I feel, in the hopes you'll understand.
Say I work for BA, as a Yank who married a lovely English girl and got UK citizenship, and live in the beautiful countryside south of Gatwick, say in Brighton or the Hove coast area. I fly wide-bodies at BA, and you are a fairly senior, experienced pilot at British Midland, flying the Airbus 330. Say for example, BA buys BMI, and integrates them the way AA did with TWA, putting 75% of their total workforce at the bottom of BA's seniority lists. Say you lose your wide-body seat, then go to the 737, or even worse, the ERJ. Then, because of your lack of seniority in the unfair integration, you get furloughed/laid-off, then essentially replaced by junior, newly-hired BA pilots much younger and less experienced than yourself. Then I meet you in a pub, or here on PPRune, and tell you it was 'fair and equitable' and 'BMI was a small airline' or 'BMI would have been bankrupt soon anyway'; I frequently justify, or try to justify, my position as a naturalized UK citizen flying for Britain's largest flag carrier, while UK-born-and-bred pilots at BMI, with many more years of seniority/service, get furloughed/laid-off.
How would you feel?
PS I do think you meant "OUR Air Force", right? By the way, I love, and always have loved, the RAF. Just picked up a book passing thru LHR entitled "The Battle" by Richard Overy, about their finest hour in WWII. "Evening Standard" gives it a thumbs up! Send me a PM with your number, if you wish to chat.