How is that useless or arrogant? Germany used to train with Phantoms and then Tornadoes in Arizona because they didn't want to fly combat training in their own airspace. Same with Italy, and many other countries. It's a wise decision since the Southwest of the US has wide open spaces where they can do elaborate training like Red Flag etc. What would be useless would be to pay a lot of money for fighters, then just have them sit on the tarmac collecting dust (like Germany has with Eurofighter).

Having a military costs money. Living up to treaty obligations like NATO costs money. Trying to have a military on the cheap just ends up with dead troops/pilots/sailors.