This is a bit of old news by now, and I had hoped to post something immediately after these documents came out earlier this month. But sometimes I’m required to be away for extended periods of time, and the last couple of months have involved just that, as well as some family time. But now I’m back to a more even keel (again), so I’ve got some time to chew through the recently released (on 04 August) Defence Policy and Strategy Statement, 2023.
This work was kicked off by Peeni Henare during his ill-fated tenure as one of the worse Ministers of Defence since at least Mark Burton. He didn’t care much for the policies and statements of his predecessor, Ron Mark, nor did his Prime Minister. He set a very long timeframe for the Ministry of Defence to review everything, meanwhile he just sat on his hands as the NZ Defence Force deteriorated through record attrition and equipment obselence, amidst an ever-increasingly tense security environment in the Asia-Pacific (not to mention the world).
To his credit, Andrew Little saw how bad things were immediately upon becoming minister and he sped up the timeframe for the review. It wasn’t meant to be released until 2024!
Rumours are rife in the NZDF that the first draft of the Ministry’s efforts didn’t involve the word ‘combat’ at all. This fits with all of my interactions with the bureaucrats within the Ministry of Defence, who epitomise the left-wing, Green and Labour voting unproductive public servant who sees the NZDF as nothing more than a glorified Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Relief organisation.
Fortunately, CDF managed to influence things so that the final product was vastly different from the first draft. It actually talks about some important things, which have been obvious to our allies and partners in the Western World (and beyond) for many decades now: that amidst a worsening security environment, New Zealand needs a combat-credible force able to respond to a wide range of situations. The Aide Memoir provided to Cabinet actually spells this out for the peaceniks who dominate Cabinet, the MoD and the DPMC:
- New Zealand needs a Defence Force that is combat-capable;
- The NZDF needs to be able to operate across a range of tasks from humanitarian assistance to combat;
- that New Zealand’s preference is for collective approaches to common security problems, while retaining our independent policy and capacity for independent action; and
- the NZDF should be globally relevant and interoperable with our security partners.
This should not be a new concept to anyone in the security or political establishments. But thanks to the legacy of Helen Clark, it is a very foreign concept to lots of those people.
The Defence Policy has three parts to it. Part One describes New Zealand’s strategic environment, Part Two describes New Zealand’s Defence Policy, and Part Three describes New Zealand’s Defence Strategy.
I’ll briefly summarise each part.
Part One – the Security Environment. China. It’s about China. Let me quote – “Strategic Competition has returned to Centre Stage”. I think that’s a bit naïve – it never went away! I deployed to the Solomon Islands as part of RAMSI once upon a time (about 14 or 15 years ago). At that time, the Sollies recognised the Republic of China (Taiwan) and were pretty good friends with them (in return for a fair amount of aid, of course). Long before we got there as part of RAMSI though, there was a massive Peoples’ Republic of China ’embassy’, even though the two countries didn’t have diplomatic relations. PRC was laying the groundwork to buy up the corrupt politicians and businessmen in Honiara and establish the Solomon Islands as a hub of PRC activity in the South West Pacific. This has now borne fruit, PM Manasseh Sogovare being very much in the pocket of Beijing. I am giving this as just one small example of Commie China playing the long game in the region, and their desire to not just compete, but become dominant in the region.
Part Two – NZ’s Defence Policy. This spells out what policy is for people not familiar with defence matters (ie, most of the establishment in Wellington). It says:
Defence policy is one aspect of national security policy… The NZDF is the only tool of government equipped and mandated to apply military force. Its fundamental role is the generation and application of military capabilities and combat force to defend New Zealand and advance its defence and security interests.
And:
This new proactive, strategy-led approach still requires Defence to anticipate and respond to events and disruptions in the strategic environment, including through the employment of combat capabilities if required.
It also talks about Climate Change and that apparently that is the primary strategic threat to Pacific Island countries. I’m not sure about that, but if this is a means to get luvvies from the left on board with having a combat-capable defence force, I can’t be bothered fighting it.
Notably, the defence policy values international partnerships very highly. Australia is our only formal defence ally, and there are strong ties with Pacific countries and fora such as the Pacific Islands Forum etc. “The United States is a crucial defence partner for New Zealand”, as well as the UK and Canada. It mentions the Indo-Pacific Quad (US, India, Japan and Australia), and talks about partnerships with FPDA (UK, Aus, Malaysia and Singapore) as well as ASEAN. Wider afield, NZ has interests in NATO and the EU, noting the increasing stance which France and Germany are taking in the Indo-Pacific region.
All up, the policy objectives of NZ’s defence policy are as follows:
- Promote and protect NZ’s defence interests in our region, particularly in the Pacific;
- Contribute globally to collective security efforts that promte and protect New Zealand’s interests and values; and
- Respond to events in New Zealand, in our region, and globally where required.
The highest priority is being able to deter and act against malignant actors in our region. We must be able to be highly interoperable with Australia, including being valued by them (my summary).
Part Three – NZ’s Defence Strategy. Giving effect to the policy, the strategy requires three themes to guide operational planning, capability development, enterprise management and investment. Defence must understand our environment, partner with the countries listed above (particularly Australia), and act, being more ready and able to protect NZ’s interests with “a credible, combat-capable, deployable force able to operate across the spectrum of operations (from humanitarian assistance through to combat).
This is all good stuff, but the details are lacking. These are details such as how big the NZDF must be, what deployable outputs must be expected of it, what equipment it has, and how we can train and sustain our people. Those details are under development for now, with the Future Force Design Principles and the Defence Capability Plan being worked on.
If National had a policy, they would be able to spell out those details for themselves. ACT have simply said “funding up to 2% of GDP” without fully articulating the outputs or desired force structure. Labour are waiting for the Ministry of Defence and NZDF to provide the advice first. The Greens want NZDF to be an HA/DR organisation. TPM are insane. Such is the state of defence policy across teh aparties in an election year.
I’ll cobble together what I reckon the force structure for NZDF should be, with a view to it being combat-capable and credible, valued by our partners (and interoperable with them), affordable and sustainable.
But for now, I have to say it’s pleasing to see Andrew Little kick a goal and get a well-articulated defence policy which even the luvvies in Wellington can agree to. Saying in black and white that the NZDF needs to be a combat force is a giant step forward. Now the challenge is to make it happen!
No Minister 
Up until very recently the fear was backed not just by China’s actions but also the power of it’s growing economy feeding a growing military.
But has any thought been given to asking what China might do if it’s economy is not growing and if things are looking bleak not just for a year or two but a decade or more?
I’ve raised some of those points in three posts:
How the China links developed
Cutting the China Links
Your first loss is your best loss
This latest piece from Issues & Insights is concise and blunt, The China Century is Over:
The rise in prosperity and sino-centric nationalism within China has lent both primacy and legitimacy to the CCP regime. If under Xi or his eventual replacement prosperity collapses it does not mean that the primacy of the CCP will collapse with it nor will their legitimacy and ideological desire (including the ruling elites personal self-interest) to continue to rule China. Increased authoritarianism is likely.
Thus Xi’s principles of the “Two Safeguards” and “Two Establishes” will likely continue, but with more emphasis. It pronounces that any threats to China (CCP/Xi) may originate from any field in the both the domestic or international arenas and that these threats must require coordinated, proactive efforts to manage. It emphasises the importance of neutralising these threats before they cause lasting damage.
The threats against China (Xi / CCP) deemed by the “Two Safeguards” and “Two Establishes” include ideological and political security, military security, territorial security, economic security, cultural security, societal security, scientific security, internet and cyber security, environmental security, resource security, supply chain security, nuclear security, the security of overseas interests, space security, deep sea security, polar security, and biological security.
In other words the economic decline of China including the collapse of prosperity amongst the 400 million “middle class” Chinese citizenry seen over the last 30 years, will not see any decline in the short to medium term of China’s (CCP/Xi’s) geo-strategic posture and potentially means that all those above security subsets that China will react to will in due course become threats to New Zealand’s interests.
There is also a chance that sharp power tactics which the CCP uses could escalate to the use of hard power tactics by the CCP as both a distraction to bolster domestic sino-centric nationalism and the maintenance of public order and control.
Tom, for your and the NYT’s enlightenment: India’s boom – although I expect reports of China’s economic demise may be slightly premature.
China have, of course, terrified the Asia/Pacific region for years by their aggressive and violent attacks on …………………………….
Thanks MS interesting read and summary.
I guess it told us nothing new except adding the supposed climate threat crap. And even if it were true what could puny nz do but let even more useless mouths into the country.
Looking forward to your structure document , though.
Don’t over do the frigates, now, there are better value solutions built around asw from the air.
Remember Rossco that a frigate is essentially a class of defensive vessel, which provides a protection screen for merchant ships plying their trade through our sea lanes of communications and for our deployed naval support ships with embarked personnel, against a range of threats above, below and on the oceans surface. They are not just about ASW and in fact the modern frigates designs now emerging are acting as the mothership to a range of autonomous unmanned surface, subsurface and air based systems. They are also an important EW, comms and ISR node within the maritime domain. I would argue that we actually need an increase in frigate capability in the years ahead and additional ASW systems are simply capability enablers.