Post by exkiwiforces on Aug 23, 2013 18:35:24 GMT 12
Had a lazy morning at work due a back injury from force prep and I found this on the Jane's Defence Website while waiting for EKO. Have a read of the last para just as well it wasn't a payday yesterday as I would be thinking I had one to many blondes (Beers) at bar lastnight.
New Zealand may be a "small and isolated" nation but its strategic position in the South Pacific and a focus on niche capabilities valued by larger and more populous countries means it is very much part of the conversation on the Asia-Pacific region's 21st century shape.
"We are too small to exert any great military muscle and leverage, so the military side of it is part of a larger [diplomatic] package," Defence Minister Jonathan Coleman told IHS Jane's .
So instead of projecting its interests through purely military means, New Zealand is looking to develop "an alignment across the region in line with our broader values", said Coleman. The basis for this is a revitalised defence relationship with the United States, involvement in multinational forums, an awareness of the potent strategic threats such as cyber-warfare, and ongoing and future procurements to protect an exclusive economic zone that, at more than 4 million km 2 , is about 15 times the size of the country's land area.
US-New Zealand relations broke down in 1984 over the latter's non-nuclear policy, which the US responded to by excluding Wellington from the trilateral ANZUS treaty. The involvement of New Zealand special forces in Afghanistan and Washington's 'pivot to the Pacific', however, have provided an impetus to reset relations, which was recognised in the Washington Declaration signed by Coleman and then-US defence secretary Leon Panetta in June 2012.
The declaration means "it's much easier to have direct military-to-military talks", Coleman said. "But the real concrete proof of it is the ability to exercise together. The Washington Declaration tied a bow around what we are doing militarily. Basically you are now seeing a 'new normal' situation where there is a much higher tempo of defence engagement."
"We are not going to have marines stationed in New Zealand [unlike Australia], but we are keen to exploit those opportunities to work together as we have done in Afghanistan."
The recent arrival of US marines in northern Australia "is a great opportunity for us to do things together", Coleman added. "Over the past year we've had US people cycling in and out of New Zealand. They might be small groups but we've also had larger groups doing joint exercises." New Zealand troops also took part in June's Exercise 'Dawn Blitz' in California alongside US marines and soldiers from Canada and Japan.
"The one thing I have to caveat: we have a very clear, independent foreign policy," he said. "The one consistent thread on the New Zealand side has been that we can't change the nuclear stance, and so the US - or the majority of people in their system - now accepts that that is the reality, so both sides look to ways where we emphasise the 99% of things we do agree on."
Coleman acknowledged the US 'pivot' meant it "is obviously showing an interest in our region", but denied that this was going to force countries to take sides in a Sino-US standoff. "I very much doubt that anyone would want to embrace some sort of new Cold War construct. Everyone is trying to engage [with China] on every level. The US is trying to do stuff with China, trying to have engagement with their armed forces. We, in our own small way, do the same, just as we do with a whole lot of countries around the region," he explained.
"So I don't think it is going to get to a situation where you are either on team A or team B because I think that is a very outdated construct," he added. "People are thinking more widely than just defence. There's economic interests, there's developing infrastructure and capacity in the nations in our region. Defence is part of that reinforcing architecture, but if you get into a zero sum game it's not going to be constructive.
"If you look at the Shangri-La Dialogue, the ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] forums, the East Asian Summit, you get people in the room expressing their views; you have dialogue and engagement," Coleman added. "It's about getting to understand the opposite perspective, having people you can talk to, which ultimately means you are less likely to get into these either/or absolutist situations."
On the national level, Coleman identified cyber warfare as the greatest strategic challenge facing New Zealand. "I think New Zealand's unlikely to face a conventional military threat, but the cyber threat is real and it is happening and it is something that all nations are grappling with," he said.
As well as the cyber threat, the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) focuses on the "ability to defend our borders and to deploy internally to deal with natural disasters like the Christchurch earthquake; the ability to deploy into the southwest Pacific; and to make a global contribution", Coleman said.
"That's not to say that we are looking at aggressive military action; it is more to support states that are having difficulties, say in response to natural disasters, because in the end the chickens come home to roost for New Zealand and Australia. So we need to be able to use our military in a strategic way to shore up our part of the Pacific.
"Why we deploy ourselves internationally is because we see ourselves as part of a collective security effort," Coleman explained. "Our military engagement reinforces what we try to do with all nations. There is a certain reality around defence that you have to contribute collectively and that people expect nations - even as small and isolated as ours - to make a contribution."
That contribution has been seen most dramatically in Afghanistan, where New Zealand's special forces have deployed four times in the past decade and were thrust into the limelight in June 2011 when they led the response to a Taliban attack on the Hotel Inter-Continental in Kabul.
"What I've learnt in this job is that special forces are not a capability to be sniffed at," Coleman said. "Everyone has special forces, but ours seem to be held in very high regard and when they deploy it seems to deliver an exponential effect, reputationally, for New Zealand.
"And if you see what's happening in Afghanistan and the likely development of the mission in Mali, which we're not involved in, there is a big emphasis on counter-terrorism and special forces because you aren't dealing with conventional military threats."
As well as special forces, Wellington has developed other niche capabilities centred around the small island Amphibious Task Force: "the ability to deploy 800 troops in the South Pacific and having the transport and enablers that will support that". They include the strategic sealift ship HMNZS Canterbury , which, despite a number of problems with its sea handling, design and landing craft, was praised by Coleman as "enhanced sea lift ... that meshes well with what the Australians need to do; it's some real skin that we can put in the game".
Coleman said that Canterbury , along with the offshore patrol vessels acquired in the Project Protector programme, allows New Zealand to "bring some specific expertise around amphibious capability" to joint operations, whether with Australia or another country.
Meanwhile, New Zealand recently agreed to buy eight Kaman SH-2G Super Seasprite maritime helicopters to replace SH-2Gs that have been in service since the late 1990s. The newly acquired Seasprites were originally destined for Australia before being cancelled by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in 2007. "A lot of the technical faults that had surfaced during the time that the Australians were bringing them into service have been corrected," Coleman said, adding that four of eight NHIndustries NH90 helicopters to replace the NZDF's UH-1 Iroquois (Huey) helicopters had arrived in the country.
Coleman also acknowledged that airlift and maritime patrol will require future investment, despite ongoing upgrades to the New Zealand Air Force's five Lockheed Martin C-130H Hercules transports and the re-induction of six upgraded Lockheed Martin P-3K2 Orion maritime patrol aircraft in 2011.
"We will be replacing the C-130s eventually, but who knows?" he said. "You look at the [US] B-52 [strategic bomber] and that's nearly 80 years old." Meanwhile, an unmanned aerial capability is "not something we are focusing on currently, but if you were sitting down and saying 'What does the NZDF look like in 2030?', you'd have to say that, when we come around to replacing the P-3s, that is likely to be on the list".
James Hardy is the JDW Asia-Pacific Editor, based in London
New Zealand may be a "small and isolated" nation but its strategic position in the South Pacific and a focus on niche capabilities valued by larger and more populous countries means it is very much part of the conversation on the Asia-Pacific region's 21st century shape.
"We are too small to exert any great military muscle and leverage, so the military side of it is part of a larger [diplomatic] package," Defence Minister Jonathan Coleman told IHS Jane's .
So instead of projecting its interests through purely military means, New Zealand is looking to develop "an alignment across the region in line with our broader values", said Coleman. The basis for this is a revitalised defence relationship with the United States, involvement in multinational forums, an awareness of the potent strategic threats such as cyber-warfare, and ongoing and future procurements to protect an exclusive economic zone that, at more than 4 million km 2 , is about 15 times the size of the country's land area.
US-New Zealand relations broke down in 1984 over the latter's non-nuclear policy, which the US responded to by excluding Wellington from the trilateral ANZUS treaty. The involvement of New Zealand special forces in Afghanistan and Washington's 'pivot to the Pacific', however, have provided an impetus to reset relations, which was recognised in the Washington Declaration signed by Coleman and then-US defence secretary Leon Panetta in June 2012.
The declaration means "it's much easier to have direct military-to-military talks", Coleman said. "But the real concrete proof of it is the ability to exercise together. The Washington Declaration tied a bow around what we are doing militarily. Basically you are now seeing a 'new normal' situation where there is a much higher tempo of defence engagement."
"We are not going to have marines stationed in New Zealand [unlike Australia], but we are keen to exploit those opportunities to work together as we have done in Afghanistan."
The recent arrival of US marines in northern Australia "is a great opportunity for us to do things together", Coleman added. "Over the past year we've had US people cycling in and out of New Zealand. They might be small groups but we've also had larger groups doing joint exercises." New Zealand troops also took part in June's Exercise 'Dawn Blitz' in California alongside US marines and soldiers from Canada and Japan.
"The one thing I have to caveat: we have a very clear, independent foreign policy," he said. "The one consistent thread on the New Zealand side has been that we can't change the nuclear stance, and so the US - or the majority of people in their system - now accepts that that is the reality, so both sides look to ways where we emphasise the 99% of things we do agree on."
Coleman acknowledged the US 'pivot' meant it "is obviously showing an interest in our region", but denied that this was going to force countries to take sides in a Sino-US standoff. "I very much doubt that anyone would want to embrace some sort of new Cold War construct. Everyone is trying to engage [with China] on every level. The US is trying to do stuff with China, trying to have engagement with their armed forces. We, in our own small way, do the same, just as we do with a whole lot of countries around the region," he explained.
"So I don't think it is going to get to a situation where you are either on team A or team B because I think that is a very outdated construct," he added. "People are thinking more widely than just defence. There's economic interests, there's developing infrastructure and capacity in the nations in our region. Defence is part of that reinforcing architecture, but if you get into a zero sum game it's not going to be constructive.
"If you look at the Shangri-La Dialogue, the ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] forums, the East Asian Summit, you get people in the room expressing their views; you have dialogue and engagement," Coleman added. "It's about getting to understand the opposite perspective, having people you can talk to, which ultimately means you are less likely to get into these either/or absolutist situations."
On the national level, Coleman identified cyber warfare as the greatest strategic challenge facing New Zealand. "I think New Zealand's unlikely to face a conventional military threat, but the cyber threat is real and it is happening and it is something that all nations are grappling with," he said.
As well as the cyber threat, the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) focuses on the "ability to defend our borders and to deploy internally to deal with natural disasters like the Christchurch earthquake; the ability to deploy into the southwest Pacific; and to make a global contribution", Coleman said.
"That's not to say that we are looking at aggressive military action; it is more to support states that are having difficulties, say in response to natural disasters, because in the end the chickens come home to roost for New Zealand and Australia. So we need to be able to use our military in a strategic way to shore up our part of the Pacific.
"Why we deploy ourselves internationally is because we see ourselves as part of a collective security effort," Coleman explained. "Our military engagement reinforces what we try to do with all nations. There is a certain reality around defence that you have to contribute collectively and that people expect nations - even as small and isolated as ours - to make a contribution."
That contribution has been seen most dramatically in Afghanistan, where New Zealand's special forces have deployed four times in the past decade and were thrust into the limelight in June 2011 when they led the response to a Taliban attack on the Hotel Inter-Continental in Kabul.
"What I've learnt in this job is that special forces are not a capability to be sniffed at," Coleman said. "Everyone has special forces, but ours seem to be held in very high regard and when they deploy it seems to deliver an exponential effect, reputationally, for New Zealand.
"And if you see what's happening in Afghanistan and the likely development of the mission in Mali, which we're not involved in, there is a big emphasis on counter-terrorism and special forces because you aren't dealing with conventional military threats."
As well as special forces, Wellington has developed other niche capabilities centred around the small island Amphibious Task Force: "the ability to deploy 800 troops in the South Pacific and having the transport and enablers that will support that". They include the strategic sealift ship HMNZS Canterbury , which, despite a number of problems with its sea handling, design and landing craft, was praised by Coleman as "enhanced sea lift ... that meshes well with what the Australians need to do; it's some real skin that we can put in the game".
Coleman said that Canterbury , along with the offshore patrol vessels acquired in the Project Protector programme, allows New Zealand to "bring some specific expertise around amphibious capability" to joint operations, whether with Australia or another country.
Meanwhile, New Zealand recently agreed to buy eight Kaman SH-2G Super Seasprite maritime helicopters to replace SH-2Gs that have been in service since the late 1990s. The newly acquired Seasprites were originally destined for Australia before being cancelled by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in 2007. "A lot of the technical faults that had surfaced during the time that the Australians were bringing them into service have been corrected," Coleman said, adding that four of eight NHIndustries NH90 helicopters to replace the NZDF's UH-1 Iroquois (Huey) helicopters had arrived in the country.
Coleman also acknowledged that airlift and maritime patrol will require future investment, despite ongoing upgrades to the New Zealand Air Force's five Lockheed Martin C-130H Hercules transports and the re-induction of six upgraded Lockheed Martin P-3K2 Orion maritime patrol aircraft in 2011.
"We will be replacing the C-130s eventually, but who knows?" he said. "You look at the [US] B-52 [strategic bomber] and that's nearly 80 years old." Meanwhile, an unmanned aerial capability is "not something we are focusing on currently, but if you were sitting down and saying 'What does the NZDF look like in 2030?', you'd have to say that, when we come around to replacing the P-3s, that is likely to be on the list".
James Hardy is the JDW Asia-Pacific Editor, based in London
