Seems most New Zealanders prefer a head in the sand approach to what it happening in the Solomon Islands with revelations of a not so secret agreement (still to be ratified by the Solomon Islands government) that would allow the stationing of Chinese troops in the Island nation and the construction of a naval base that would allow the Chinese government to project (naval) power into and over the South Pacific.
The Chinese have invested a ton of capital in a number of pacific island territories and now they are seeking to make good on their investment helped by the fact that the Solomon Islands are hardly a functioning democracy not helped by the ongoing enmity between the Malaitans and the Isatabus.
And ‘our’ response … a ritual wringing of hands because the reality is that there is nothing much we can do given that we are treading a tightrope in respect of our relations with China … and there’s nothing much the Pacific Forum can do either. The Chinese hold much of the cards in the form of debt owed.
Australia … a different story. They’re prepared to tackle China up front and accept the fall-out. Their military is undergoing a significant expansion which gives them muscle. And that brings me to my next point. The New Zealand military is contracting, beset by morale problems (don’t underestimate how much damage was done to morale using them as security guards in MIQ facilities) and a funding squeeze. The modernisation programme foreshadowed by National and given teeth by Ron Mark is on the back burner with only the Orion and C130 replacement programme a done deal.
I cannot in all honesty see Te Kaha and Te Mana (ANZAC frigates) being replaced. The two platforms are a quarter of a century old and while they have been upgraded the reality they are quickly becoming obsolescent. Across the ditch the Australians have already placed orders for nine Hunter Class frigates at a projected cost of AUD35b (sure to increase) with construction due to start this year. I don’t see any appetite here for that sort of expenditure. Rather I suspect the frigates will be replaced with a new generation of our existing Offshore Patrol Vessels (civilian spec ships without the combat redundancy of combat ships) which will effectively consign the RNZN to Coastguard status.
Our ability to contribute to offensive type operation will reduce to the five Poseidon Maritime Patrol aircraft and elements from the SAS Regiment. I do not count either 1 RNZIR or 2/1 RNZIR as capable of anything more than very low level combat/peacekeeping operations. Their ORBAT has them at between 400-500. The reality is (and always has been) that in order to deploy at that strength would require the virtual gutting of the second battalion and, consider this, Australian infantry battalions can comprise up to 700 personnel and so our ability to contribute effectively to sustained multi-national, mid to high intensity operations, is a moot.
Our neglect of the military is long standing and there is a price to be paid for that. Our ANZAC partners have long considered us to be freeloaders … that exasperation is likely to increase. I cannot imagine our Defence Minister had an overly comfortable meeting with his OZ counterpart in his trip across the ditch last week.
No Minister 
I sadly have to agree with you and for once I’m not going to slam either of our two main parties responsible for this.
You make reference to manpower losses but it’s also on the intake side. I have a mate in the NZDF who deals with the combat IT systems (and other IT) and who has often told me of the lack of younger people coming up the ranks to replace him as he heads for retirement. They’re just not interested in the NZ military. The ones who are that he personally knows of (varsity engineering grads) have bluntly said they’re heading for Australia because that’s where the advanced tech is and will be (F-35’s mean more than just a plane now).
That’s us. The People, the Voters, the culture. All these things have enabled an anti-military Labour Party that looks down upon “killing machines” and a National Party that refuses to either borrow the money or increase the taxes to spend on the military.
But in both cases the NZ voters have supported that and done so in more than just voting; there’s a cultural rejection of the military from both Left (anti-war) and Right (cost/benefit) in this country.
Looking at history I feel sure that this will change, but only in the way that Germany and others have recently changed their opinions on the military because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Suddenly that hairy old beast, history, has come shambling out of the shadows, big with memories.
I wonder when it will be our turn?
Tom are you saying the NZ Army needs young computer savvy people?
We have a 17 year old grandson who is very much computer focused but lacking motivation at present to better himself who my respond well to army discipline etc. Is he the type of young person they need?
Yep! But my eldest is similar, plus being very interested in the military, both from a tech and history standpoint, and I did talk to him about a career in the Navy (the Army’s not in the frame and Air Force barely so, basically in coordinating with the Navy) but he told me that he’d looked at what they were offering in the varsity engineering forums and described it as “sad”.
Admittedly he’s got US citizenship so if he does ever want to play around with networked stealth combat platforms….
Tell me Vet who was the last remotely competent Defence Minister that New Zealand has had?
By that I mean a Defence Minister who recognised the need to fund and maintain our Defence Forces to the level that would allow New Zealand to at least defend itself until help from our allies arrive and do we have allies we can rely on now?
I think that’s a bit unfair to our defence ministers of the last three decades, whether competent or incompetent.
Even if they were the former they’d be pushing shit uphill in arguing for more and better frigates or aircraft or a truly combat-capable Army, whether they sat in a Labour or National caucus. What ambitious politician wants to put themselves out front on that? What politician in this country truly believes in such things anyway?
It’s why every government selects as Defence Minister a caretaker; some one who won’t rock the boat, will keep the slowly declining status quo spinning along, and avoid scandal.
Time to change that philosophy then.
Given the last fifty years of cultural change only events will do that.
I’m reminded of the education protests I used to see in the 1980’s where a common sign would have some theme along the lines of:
It’ll be a great day when the Air Force needs a cake sale to buy a fighter plane
And here we are.
Funnily enough we apparently still don’t have enough money for education, health, social welfare….
I’m not sure there is anything to be done.
Even if you enlisted every able-bodied New Zealander into a Defense Force China, Russia, USA or Indonesia (and probably the Philipines) would walk over them in days simply due to numbers.
Add to that New Zealand will be paying, massively, for the current clowns’ foibles for at least the next two generations, therefore there is no money for that exercise in the advent you’d get the will to attempt it.
From here it seems the best defence is to keep our heads down and offer only trade.
As an aside, the Ockers CAN stand against China financially, NZ couldn’t without doing even more damage to our VERY fragile economy.
As Minister I did the Defence Review of 2020, and in 2016 was a Ministerial Appointee for the 2016 Defence Review.
By 2010, it was obvious that New Zealand had no appetite to reconstitute the air combat force. In fact in the early 1990’s I had written an opinion piece that the air combat force had no real utility for New Zealand, but was costing over 20% of the defence force budget. They were a waste of money.
So the 2010 Defence Review (the first such review since 1997) was all about ensuring that New Zealand kept up to speed in maintaining and modernising the core assets and capabilities of the NZDF. These were seen as being able to provide a deployable battalion group (which we did in East Timor), providing special forces and providing high quality maritime surveillance and protection. The latter is particularly important to our allies and for the FPDA partners. Essentially it is the frigates and the P3 Orions.
What the 2010 and 2016 Defence Review’s did was foreshadow the replacement of all these core capabilities. New P8’s, new C130’s, new frigates and a network enabled defence force.
We also saw the political reality that no government could do more than one major procurement in each parliamentary term, but also that a major procurement in each parliamentary term could not be missed.
Unfortunately the first miss was in 2014 to 2017, when National failed to advance the P3 Orion replacement, though they did order HMZS Aotearoa, which is a very impressive ship. But it only cost 20% of what the P3 replacement would cost.
To his credit, Ron Mark did two major replacements in one term (2017 to 2020). These were the P8 Poseidon order at a cost of $2.5 billion and the C130J Hercules order at $1.5 billion. That got things back on track.
As The Veteran notes, the big issue now is the replacement ion the ANZAC frigates, which are the mostly costly of all the major assets. Combat ships cost not less than $1.5 billion each. National did the combat upgrade of the ANZAC frigates at a cost of $700 million, but that does not solve the fundamental problem of the ships being 25 years old. Even if new ships were ordered today, it would be 10 years before they actually arrived. The ANZAC ships will be then 35 years old.
I am not quite as pessimistic as The Veteran. I don’t believe that the ANZAC ships will only be replaced by offshore patrol vessels. For reference the two current offshore vessels only cost $130 million each and are very modest military vessels.
However, we won’t buy the Type 26 frigates as Australia, Canada and the UK have done. This is a 7,000 tonne ship that costs $3 billion. Too costly for New Zealand.
What we should buy is the Type 31 frigate (also a new British design, they are getting a minimum of five, with export orders also happening). The Type 31 is about the same size as an ANZAC, and is 3,500 tonnes. It costs about $1.5 billion.
New Zealand could order not less than 2 such ships, ideally it should be 3. I don’t expect the current Minister to do so, but I could be surprised. If that doesn’t happen, it means ordering the ships in the next parliamentary term will be an imperative, with delivery around 2035.
Failure on this issue will be very negatively perceived by all our partners, particularly Australia. All western nations are stepping up their defence expenditure and are accelerating orders. If New Zealand wants to maintain pace with our partners, particularly Five Eyes and FPDA, then will will have do the same. Our partners all know that the frigate replacement is the key issue. This is not just an issue for the current government. it is also an issue for National. We will have to make our intentions clear before the next election.
Wow, only 1.5 to 3 billion per combat ship? Peanuts. We just ran up a couple of hundred billion on a COVID response that increased our medical capacity by a factor of zero so a few bil for some ships should be easy, with change left over for support vessels, helicopters, recruitment/training and base upgrades.
As the Russians are finding, operating without air superiority leads to major losses so any NZ military assets better hope like hell that if they ever find themselves in genuine combat that they are under air protection of our much neglected allies.
If you watch the Ukraine fighting there are a number of military lessons to be learnt.
I want exposit on them but leave it to the military minds here to post as a test on their observational skills.
But as clue I saw one group, 15 -20 men armed with 3 different types of launched weapons, Panzerfaust 3, Javeilin, and the UK variant, then Russian machine guns
Light motars was another
Drone recon machines, drone attack platforms.
Flexibility , speed, intelligence
So in other words not huge expensive capital items.
Buy a few containers of RPG’s from Somalia and use them for training. Simulator training for the expensive kit like Javelins etc.
Frustration levels are high in the NZDF.
A multitude of my peers (all rank levels) have departed during the last couple of years, incredibly frustrated with Op Protect and enticed by MASSIVE salaries in the expanding state sector (most notably MBIE, ironically often doing isolation jobs) with vastly reduced workloads.
NZ society looks down on us, ignorant of what we exist for and ignorant of the training we do for it.
In my opinion, three things need to happen:
NZDF and HQNZDF need to cease and reverse the trend of centralising everything, often under a civilian bureaucracy. Go back to single services. Service chiefs are now toothless figureheads, with personnel management, capability, logistics and training all resting with HQ. Scrap the MoD while we’re at it. Policy can come under CDF like the Brits do.
NZ government and NZ society to view the services as a national institution, expecting people to leave after 15 or so years and be rewarded with higher level positions reflecting their personal training and experience. I’ve been called a dumb grunt only experienced in advanced walking by ignorant civilians. Part of the solution world be upgrading officer cadet school to a Royal Military College of NZ – which can train both air force and army. Air Force officer training right now is a sick joke played on the rest of the NZDF.
Politicians to wake up to the power games being played in our back yard, and require NZDF to be able to field a deployable combat brigade, a combat navy well-geared against submarines, both supported by an air force for tactical airlift and aerial reconnaissance / surveillance. The rule of three to be applied – army needs to be at least three times as big as a brigade, to allow for training and respite posts, and the navy needs three frigates to be able to sustain the deployment of one at a time.
National has only ever tinkered and gotten only one or two big things across the line when we’ve needed a dozen or so big things to be replaced. Ron Mark wanted to do much more but was hampered by Labour. The last minister to be respected by the NZDF was actually Phil Goff – he took an active interest and changed things for what he perceived was the better.
There’s a lot more to be said but these are the biggest three things in my very humble opinion.
M.S. :
So where do you see the option of an old Suisse style citizen armed force?
Pre-scheduled road and rail , airfield and port denial.
Dispersed fuel and tool reserves, autonomous decision responsibility within a pre-scheduled response.
Dispersed local tool fabrication and requirement for 5 yearly tool use competency ?
Something along the lines of the Rossco comment……….?
Personally; Given that our present governance totally distrusts the citizens to make any good decision for themselves; the centralised NZDF as a whole, is part of the dumbing-down of any ability for a NZ citizen to be part of a defence strategy.
NZDF could be maintained as a crew to standardise the training , as happened at Featherston.
My premise is that there are valid cause for NZ’ers to no longer trust each other to make good decisions; mainly because the definitions of what is ‘right’ and ‘true’ and ‘worthwhile’ and ‘good’ and ‘evil’ and ‘trustworthy’ have been so twisted and abused over the last 30 or 40 years. That is a basic problem within the whole of society which will take much more than a change of caretaker politicians to rectify.
Cheers,
Walnutter.
Walnutter
Swiss style defence works well for Switzerland and their context. It isn’t necessary for us – we need to be able to project out to the South Pacific or wherever the fight is going to be.
We’ll never be fighting in the north or south islands of NZ..
That requires a professional defence force, equipped and mandated to deploy something meaningful.
I’m sure Aotearoa is an asset but it’s not a warship. It’s vital (resupplying fuel) and very useful for providing humanitarian assistance to the Pacific but the deficiency for our navy is that it needs – the country needs – at least 3 replacement frigates. Even with 3 we will not always be able to deploy one – that’d mean 4 which really is the minimum. Ukraine has awakened the world. We know what Labour will do – kick the can down the road. The question is what will National do?
FYI … in the last five decades the high point of Defence spending (as a % of GDP) was in 1980 when it reached 3.023%. From thereon it was a slow trajectory downwards reaching just 1.111% in 2015 before starting to climb to reach 1.543% in 2020. You can’t have a credible defence force at that level of expenditure.
And then of that 1.543%, knock 15% of that off due to the capital charge, $440M worth (https://www.treasury.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2020-07/b20-t2020-151-4220801.pdf). When comparing to other countries, NZ needs to factor that in as (to the best of my knowledge) Aus, US and UK don’t charge their govt departments / militaries a capital charge.
Defence expenditure hasn’t increased since 2015, rather it has been calculated differently since 2018. We are now measuring expenditure using the NATO model. Effectively the 1% (or so) level of GDP that applied from 2000 to 2018 is the same as the current 1.5% of GDP. For the 20 years New Zealand used a capital charge measure rather than the actual capital expenditure, which is the standard NATO measure of defence spending.
The fact of the change in measuring expenditure can be seen from the fact that the NZDF of 2022 is no different to the NZDF of 2015. The change was the measuring system, not the size of the NZDF.
You can do a fair bit at 1.5% of GDP (NATO measure). For instance, it is enough to replace the ANZAC ships with Type 31’s. In fact failure to do so will result in a smaller defence budget, since there won’t be $3 billion capital spending that 2 Type 31’s would involve.
Thank you Wayne for the heads-up. I don’t think it changes the dynamic too much if at all. The Type 31 frigate at 5,700t is substantially larger than the ANZAC frigates (3,600t) and the $3b cost (for 2) is somewhat of a rubbery figure and likely to increase. On the plus side (if there is a plus side) I note both the Polish and Indonesian navies have placed orders for them alongside the RN orders. But I ask again .. do you really think there is the political will to go ahead with the purchase against a competing backdrop of increased debt and home grown imperatives … I see the NZL public as more interested and attuned to basic ‘hip pocket’ type spending secure in the false logic that we are surrounded by a very big moat.
The Veteran
Good question as to whether there is the will to buy the Type 31, let’s say 2 of them.
Yes, you are right, it is a little larger than the ANZAC, for instance 140 meters compared to 125 meters.
Maybe the price might be closer to $2 billion, especially with new naval helicopters.
Would a NZ government outlay $4 billion?
Well, Ron Mark paid $4 billion for the P8’s and the C130J’s. So if the will is there, then it can be done.
Wayne … the problem with just two is that you cannot guarantee one will be available 24/7. In my lifetime we have gone from a six frigate Navy to a four frigate Navy and now a two frigate Navy. I guess two is better than none but really its another example of politicians talking the talk but not walking the walk.
I agree with Wayne that the Type 26 is not required and is way overpriced for its capability – you literally can buy an USN Arleigh Burke Destroyer for that money. NZ could do much better for it’s money.
The Type 31 that Wayne mentions is a design variant of the Danish Iver Huitfeld Class and is a well regarded surface combatant. However, in its initial stripped down low price Royal Navy configuration the Type 31’s combat capability is slightly less than what the upgraded ANZAC’s will be. Note the RN’s Type 31 austere level of CMS, sensor and weapons fit-out will only engage in the peripheral zones per the MENA and Caribbean. Not in what will be in the more intensive maritime shatter zones of the Indo-Pacific over the next 10 – 20 years where NZ lives and cannot pretend to ignore because the PLA(N) certainly wont!)
Though I suspect that Wayne has cost factored in the likely additional capabilities per Combat Management, Sensors and Weapons fit-out, as well as the rafting of engine room machinery required for an ASW platform that the RNZN would need to have any long term utility in RNZN service. Thus any Type 31 (or indeed the Type 32 which is the next production block) will have to be of similar or better capability level than what the Danes configured their Iver Huitfeld fit-out.
The Polish Navy have just ordered three Type 31’s to be built locally and thus it will be interesting to see their level of combat fit-out and price. Babcock have also entered a licensing agreement with DMSE of South Korea – another space to watch. (Babcock design, a Korean builder, and Lockheed Martin as the prime systems, sensors and weapons integrator – is indeed compelling from an NZ perspective noting the previous naval build partnerships – if the cost is favourable).
My take is that for a Kiwi Type 31/32 to work in the context of the Indo-Pacific and where the RNZN will find itself it will need to be fully interoperable within the Air-Space-Maritime domain of its close partners – principally Australia, the USN, Canada and the JMSDF. This means the essential inclusion of Cooperative Engagement Capability, Aegis Baseline 10 software and very capable radar and sensors with solid Electronic Warfare capability.
As for numbers I agree that three is the absolute minimum number of Frigates the Kiwi Navy requires for the time being – a fourth though optimal – can be added later. But the RNZN must also have what is called a “Zero Ship” or in other words a land based frigate training centre that replicates all functional offshore tasks onshore of those three sea going frigates and allows the fleet to spend longer at sea. This means a 4th crew rotating through the Zero Ship under training whilst the other ships are deployed. The plug and play nature of modern modular frigate designs and shore maintenance management systems also mean that 9 month long refits every 5 years can be greatly reduced getting the ship and crew out on to the Ocean with greater frequency.
However, the British Type 31/32 is not the only option to focus on. There is the new USN FFG62 Constellation Class, which is the peer of the Type 26 in a combat capability sense, but at only slightly more money than what a Type 31/32 needs to be configured to in being able to safely operate in the Indo-Pacific post 2030. The USN’s proposed FY2022 budget requested US$1,087.9 million (NZD$1565m) for the procurement of the third FFG-62. There are Korean and Japanese options but they wont be any cheaper and have some significant ITARS and integration hurdles for what is a FVEY navy.
The other consideration is that a relevant frigate capability might have to be considered earlier than the expected ANZAC replacement drumbeat of 2033 to 2035. This may mean NZ will have to turn to the off the shelf hot production USN Constellation design in any case. The USN are building up to two a year and looking for three per year capacity from around 2025/26 and seems likely that they will extend their build programme beyond 20 to 32 hulls.
In some respects this is the keep it simple stupid approach in going down the USN FFG-62 route is definitely worth serious consideration. The US support and sustainment chain is better (the Brits and Europeans are pretty rubbish at that) and it us geographically and operationally closer, the product in terms of survivability is better as it being built to US Naval construction standards, there would be no question of its interoperability with our close partners as well as other NZDF assets per the P-8A and the MH-60R, and of course the Washington DC welcome mat is much much bigger for NZ opportunity wise than Number 10 Downing Street. Defence-Diplomacy-Intelligence-Trade are not silo’s but interdependent with each other and it may well be the final puzzle that gets NZ the US FTA bi-lateral it has desired for the last 25 years. I have never been able to understand why that golden penny hadn’t dropped in Wellington much earlier. Then again the Idealist School of penny pinching has dominated Kiwi international relations discourse and not the Realist School.
Wayne, not that I am picking on you because up until around eight or nine years ago I still held those views, but though you might have undertaken a review 30 years ago, even 13 years ago on the utility of an air combat platform, like with the Anzac replacement issue, in which you have recently changed your mind – as a year or two back you were still advocating in OpEd’s the Canadian Arctic Patrol Vessel as our future Anzac replacement, you will, I believe on the balance of evidence surrounding the emerging Indo-Pacific threat spectrum, change your view with respect to air combat capability as well.
The Conops lens has changed greatly in that air combat capability requirements in the Kiwi context over the next 30 years are greatly different to the value judgments you once used to decide that it was a capability set that had no relevancy for the expense outlay.
We have already entered a new era of strategic dissonance in the South Pacific of increasing A2AD strategies, hybrid warfare and grey zone conflict. This has led to the re-orientation towards a revised pallete of air combat capabilities that are contained within Gen 4 ++ / 5 platforms like the EA-18G Growler, F/A-18F Super Hornet Block III and the F-35A platforms that the RAAF and US operate. The reality is that air-maritime-space domain operations in the South Pacific in the era of Cold War 2.0 are going to be very much different to the old Cold War 1.0 bomb truck support roles of the A-4’s or early generation F-16’s you have likely formulated your Air Combat opinions on.
The NZDF will need the ability to deliver not just standoff airborne weapons as the traditional anti-ship role has not died out but will become more dominant, but the NZDF will also need to tactically deploy electronic warfare support and ISR pods into those zones of uncertainty that one would never risk sending an unescorted P-8A.
Or indeed the capability to EMS “sanitise” airspace or be a forward tactical comms node for deploying C-130J or in-situ ground force even on a fairly humble UNSC Chp VII mission are just one mission set of many, that these Gen 4 ++ / 5 platforms provide. It is fair enough to argue that an A-4 air combat capability in the context of a quarter of a century ago and the then threat level was extravagant, but that argument does not extrapolate to a post 2025 context and the spectrum of security challenges that lie ahead.
Moreover, the fact a PLA(AF) EA-03 Soar Dragon HALE UAV with an electronic attack payload could now potentially forward deploy and operate from Honiara airport and “dirty” critical communications and signals infrastructure sites over lets say Warkworth, Auckland, Tangimoana, Wellington and Waihopai all in one sortie and happily return to Honiara in time for tea and medals will require an airborne reactive counter EW asset that can meet and greet and electro-magnetically blind it. This vignette of passive – aggressive grey zone operations may happen sooner in our back yard than people think.
I cannot underline further the importance of the whole EW domain whether it is in the subset of EP (Electronic Protection) or EA (Electronic Attack) in the defensive context of Kiwi air and sea lines of communications from now on. That the ability to defensively deploy EW and tactical ISR is via is most cost effective, responsive and flexible platform – a modern multi-role strike platform like an F/A-18F – particularly into contestable zones that only a fool would send a P-8A or C-130J with an NZSAS troop on board. Things will be very different to Timor Leste in 1999 and they will likely be distributed and diverse!
You will remember the Quigley Report of 2000 which did recognize that a 40 aircraft, three Squadron Air Combat Wing of F-16’s and MB-339C’s was over the top and recommended just single squadron of 14 strike aircraft. Possibly that is where the sweet spot still lies in my view in terms of cost versus capability.
So yes Wayne a rehash to the old days of three Squadron air combat capability is a no goer in terms of the resource it will use up in both personnel and cash – however a single NZ based squadron of a current RAAF / USN multi-role air combat platform like the F/A-18F Block III with the ability to plug and play under-wing EW, ISR and maritime strike capabilities. As well as the necessary joint integration with the training and sustainment pipeline of the ADF/RAAF.
We could start immediately by sharing some of the cost of the RAAF operating their 24 F/A-18F’s pooled in 1 Squadron and sending through post wings course Kiwi pilots and crew to train and fly them via the Hawk course at 76 Sqd. The RAAF are likely to convert 12 of their 24 F/A-18F’s into EA-18G Growlers in a few years to form a second Growler Squadron and as well as buy another tranche of F-35A’s as they have an option for 28 more. The 12 remaining F/A-18F’s will likely need a home and the opportunity therefore exists for the RNZAF to simply grow and transition into operating the F/A-18F capability and relocating it to Ohakea, thus truncating the cost and time of rebuilding a fresh new air combat capability from scratch, whilst still leveraging the sustainment and training pipeline within the ADF under contractual rollover.
Finally, I note that the two other countries that abandoned an air combat capability 20 years ago when NZ did, using the same excuses, the Republic of Ireland and the Philippines, are now both committing themselves to rebuilding that capability. Yes, Ireland are now doubling defence expenditure enlarging their Navy to 12 ships and considering 24 strike aircraft.
https://www.thesun.ie/news/8567563/defence-forces-budget-army-military-neutrality-russia/?utm_campaign=native_share&utm_source=sharebar_native&utm_medium=sharebar_native
US … appreciate your thoughtful (and detailed) contribution but again, I ask the simple question … does there exist the political will to do what you suggest. My fear is that we are moving away from being seen as an allied partner in ‘good standing’? to more that of a friendship model based on a certain underlying neutrality and hoping to walk a tightrope in pursuit of trade opportunities. It’s a model with many inherent dangers.
I have seen zero indication that there is the political will for anything remotely approaching something like US’s proposed approach.
See for example – complete lack of mention of anything defence related last election by any party, the lack of any serious defence coverage by the media (other than to repeat various Nicky Hagar smears), the lack of serious analysis by NZ academia, the continued attitude of giving Defence as an additional portfolio to a mid ranking Cabinet minister, lack of representation by any lobby or pressure group, and numerous own goals by the NZDF such as going super-woke.
Political will? To give you an answer yes. But not in the short term because Wellington is utterly confused by the fact that the way it wishes the world to be is fast becoming not what it actually is. The sheer weight of strategic challenge in our close region will literally force it upon us from the outside by both friend and foe.
Interesting you mentioned trade opportunities. Trade and Defence are increasingly intertwined, particularly through out the Indo-Pacific region, where defence and security has long been a significant determinant in the International Relations of many of the Foreign capitals. Our failure to recognise this has been one of the reasons why progression with trade has not being as good as Australia’s in recent times such as AUKUS and the India connection through QUAD.
You are right that their are inherent dangers – because to pivot and create a diversity of new trade opportunities will be one of those push factors from the outside that will force change in an area like Defence. Actually back to the eyes wide open realism and maturity displayed in the 1997 Defence White Paper and the over-arching principal of self reliance in partnership.