New Zealand does not seem to have any of the home security problems that nearly everyone else has.
That NZ still maintains a military at all is commendable.
Well yeah actually that's a good point as maybe NZ could have thought about restructuring its defence force down to some sort of homeguard post ANZUS (i.e. purely self-defence/home defence & to keep out of other people's problems) but no, NZ stills wants to be a "good international citizen" and still is mostly structured towards operating/integrating with other larger forces from other countries. But maybe that's simply the reality of trade and foreign affairs, NZ cannot simply live in isolation to survive economically of course.
@ SteveoJH - that's my understanding too, the RNZAF were contracted to the RAN to conduct anti-ship training etc. Although I don't know whether the contract covered all costs incurred being based at Norwa ... but someone else here will know the details.
@ Kip - nice post. I think the 3/4% spending thing (that Mattyem mentioned originally) is bit confusing, when he first mentioned that I thought he meant perhaps 0.75% of gdp (and as Mr C says above, that's actually worse than it is now) but now what I think he meant was that perhaps the PM actually meant the defence budget (ideally) should be rising 3 to 4 per cent per year (which I think, is something similar that PM Rudd said of the Aussie defence budget in recent times i.e. their budget will rise 3 to 4% per year etc). If so, then at least defence spending isn't going down (unlike when National last came to power in the 90's), it may be increasing, slightly (and hopefully that's inflation adjusted etc). Incidentally according to
this source defence expenditure June 06 to June 07 was 1.3% gdp @ NZ$2B or 4% of govt spending @ NZ$52B.
Just to clear up a misconception about the "National Party support for the war in Iraq" - I presume that is a reference to National at the time saying "we should support our allies" (and by inference, support the invasion of Iraq) and was something Labour unsuccessfully tried to use as a bogeyman in last year's election. The reality of the situation was (i.e. back in 2003) that if National happened to have been in power, it is very unlikely that NZ would have sent combat troops to Iraq (perhaps excepting the SAS) because NZ was not in a position to do so. Eg the Regular Forces were spent after 3 years of consecutive tours in East Timor and when the ET deployment finally ended in Jan 2003, there was much media coverage at the time that the Army needed to a year or so to work back up and retrain themselves for warfighting skillsets etc (plus restructure/retrain for the impending introduction into service of the LAVIII's). So NZ would have sent little if anything, maybe logistics (a C130), doctors or maybe even a Frigate but certainly we wouldn't have been seeing bodybags coming back in.
@ Battlensign. Sorry mate, I should have realised you were taking the mickey! Long may your scarcasm about NZ continue (I'm serious)! Why cos your comments got me thinking and are actually helpful. One thing I was wanting to explore is that of having a capability or asset (eg I used the ACF as the example) whereby if it ain't be used then Treasury bean counters also will provide the financial costing of why such an asset isn't viable (and why should former PM Clark conduct another full review of maintaining an ACF when Treasury can simply give her a report outling the costs/savings involved for a so called marginal asset)? So I was trying to say, as an example with better linkages to exercies with other Air Forces these capabilities/assets are used more and politically it would be harder for NZ to reduce the capabilty despite the Treasury bean counters still doing the sums etc. (Eg if NZ was still in ANZUS, imagine any proposal by NZ to the ANZUS council in 2001 to disband the ACF - I just couldn't see NZ getting away with it, in fact possibly not even the cancellation of the F16 lease back in 99)?
But that's then and this is now, and Battlensign's comment (on NZ only having a small defence capability to be of any real value etc) has had me thinking. And this might be a useful concept to develop further if anyone here wishes to make a public submission to the NZ Defence Whitepaper.
* Firstly we should be "protecting" (ring-fencing) NZ's exisiting capabilities.
* Secondly NZ should have a long term goal of what its defence capabilities need to be (i.e. it needs to set a target, in this case of the review the NZ Govt has said to 2035) and strive towards it (say like what China would be saying).
On the first point then (sure one could submit a document to the White Paper saying that we need to protect existing capabilities, but that's merely words which can be ignored by the pollies, thus) is it possible to change aspects of the Defence Act to ensure it contains references to having appropriate defence/offence capabilities?
Eg remember the "
Save our Squadrons" campaign to save the ACF by commencing "proceedings in the High Court for a judicial review of the Minister's decision" to disband the ACF?
See
Hunn Review Appendix G for a quick overview but basically SOS lost out. From this MoD Link:
The Minister's Powers under s. 7 of the Defence Act
In respect of the first issue, Mr Curtis contended that the Minister had exceeded his powers when making the decision to disband the Air Combat Force, because that decision involved the abolition of an essential ingredient of the RNZAF which is itself part of New Zealand Defence Force. Mr Curtis contended that sub absolution went beyond the scope of the Minister's legitimate control. Experts for the Applicant contended that with the abolition of the Air Combat Force, the Air Force can no longer be described validly as an armed force able to satisfy the purposes specified in the Defence Act.
After reviewing the Long Title, and Sections 2, 5, 7 and 11 of the Act Justice Heron accepted the Crown's argument that other than prescribing that the Royal New Zealand Air Force must exist, the Act does not prescribe how that force is to be made up. In particular it does not provide for an Air Combat Force. The Minister's power of control of the New Zealand Defence Force under s7 does not allow the Executive to abolish the RNZAF. Justice Heron and the Court of Appeal noted that since the RNZAF undoubtedly still exists, it can not be contended that the Minister has exceeded his authority. As the Court of Appeal judgement noted:
Although, in terms of the Minister's decision, New Zealand will have less of an air force than it had before, we consider that in law it is impossible to contend that New Zealand no longer has an Air Force as part of the New Zealand Defence Force. While as a matter of opinion it may be possible to say that without air combat capability an Air Force can no longer be called an Air Force, we regard it as impossible to come to that view as a matter of law. (para 16, p.9).
So could we say that the law should be something like (using the RNZAF as an example) that the Air Force needs to have a credible capability to defend NZ and its interests? What that credible capability would be could be a number of options and not neccessarily including an ACF but it could be maritime patrol aircraft with stand-off missiles or shore based transportable anti-air or anti-ship systems (but anyone arguing that the current situation of Hueys with MG's or P-3's with obsolescent drag bombs and torpedoes, all of which would be in range of a typical warship's self-defence systems would look rather silly trying to defend the current setup as being credible etc). Similarily for the Navy, Frigate capabilities would be more credible than a Navy consisting of simply Patrol Vessels (if that ever arose etc).
Onto the second point of having a defence plan, defence and political analysts and commentators tend to say NZ has no coherent plan or aim of what it wishes to be achivieving and when (sure Govt planning is improving with the equipment LTDP's) but here's an example of my thinking (and I'm not saying that this is how things should be). From
2009 Defence Review - Terms of Reference "Due to the long service life of major acquisitions, the Review will consider the period from 2009 until at least 2035".
How about then something like ... the Asia-Pacific region is becoming more important economically and militarily. Although NZ enjoys friendly relations with most countries and the emerging super-powers in the region, the future is uncertain due to geo-political re-alignments which are all not apparent, nor will be for some time however it is clear to see that the current model of the US acting as the primary economic and military guarantor of the A-P region may possibly not remain viable long term. Australia has recognised this and is planning on expanding its economic, diplomatic and defence arragements accordingly to ensure it remains a major player in the region etc.
In terms of NZ's defence planning to the year 2035, NZ recognises that the changing geo-political landscape will see more international interest in economic, mineral and energy resources (etc) in this region and in terms of NZ's immediate sphere of interest that of the NZ EEZ, the Southern Ocean and the Ross Sea, South Pacific EEZ's and west towards Australia, NZ's aim will be to co-ordinate survellience and patrols in this region.
To do so, NZ will require a maritime military and patrol force consisting of:
* 4 Frigates (eg the present 2 Frigate fleet will be joined with a 3rd Frigate in 2020 and 4th Frigate in 2025).
* 8 OPV's/OCV's (eg the present 2 OPV fleet will expand to 4 OPV's by 2015 and an additional 4 OCV's will be purchased in association with the Australian programme from 2020 onwards).
* The 6 P-3's will be replaced with initally 3 P-8's and 3 UAV's from 2015 onwards and from 2020 another 2 P-8's and 7 UAV's etc.
Etc Etc (of course justifications will be needed for the numbers of such and such) and this also gives Govt a timeframe to plan ahead for the funding when required as well as build-up the personnel numbers.
No doubt Defence Planners do these scenario plannings all the time but Govt(s) don't articulate any such plans to the public whom are mystified etc. At least an open long term plan would invite (hopefully) consistency and a greater degree of bi-partisanship between Labour and National (and give the minor Parties and public pressure groups - both pro and anti defence - a greater involvement in the public discussion process etc). Also hopefully such planning would eliminate unexpected decisions (eg like the ACF cuts etc) that can arise when political agendas (or wheeling and dealing) come into play.
Just like the last Labour Govt whom took the previous National's LTDP initiatives and made the process work better, as Kip says, now that this new National administration is in power ("It is on you. Your turn. No more excuses"), National can setup the framework this debate (and present a few more options than say Labour would)!
