New Zealand’s Future Defence Force: Change or Stagnation? Part One.
This is a two part post. Part one of two.
I finally have read an article
New Zealand’s Future Defence Force: Change or Stagnation? by Zhivan Alach (in Security Challenges, Vol 2 No 3 (Oct 2006) pp 63 - 76) which I found in July 2013. When he wrote this Alach was a Ph.D candidate in Political Studies at the University of Auckland researching Australian and NZ defence policy in the post Cold War world.
When a nations defence forces and policy, in this case New Zealand, are being assessed or critiqued as is the case of Alachs article, an macro view must first be taken to determine what threats may be pertinent to that country. Hence one must look at its geographical location relative to nations around it, any strengths or weaknesses that its spatial location may present, the political and foreign relations landscape including geographical areas of interest or concern as well as allies and friends etc., its security and defence structure, its internal political stability, its financial and economic stability etc., and so on. One then looks at the region it is located in and then global security and military concerns as well as military equipment, technological advances etc.
In an article one cannot delve deeply into all these topics however, they should at least be acknowledged and where possible commented upon. Alach has not done this and in doing so has ignored what was once New Zealands greatest strength, but now its Achilles heel - a nation that is the most isolated in the world and dependant for 99.5% of its trade by volume to be transported by sea. One ignores that geographical fact at ones peril.
First, conventional warfare will not disappear, but it will become extremely rare. When it does occur, it will likely be asymmetric, and involve a transformed Western force against an overall less advanced opponent.
"Extremely rare" is a somewhat emotive statement and whilst state on state warfare has occurred less frequently since 1945 it has not diminished to the extent that one could claim that it is extremely rare. Secondly, what is Alachs definition of conventional warfare? In this context, it could mean state on state warfare, but that is just a presumption and unsupported presumptions lead to flaws.
Second, the majority of conflicts will be fought between non-state actors. These will often be ethnic conflicts, and will often be fought in urban environments. Political manoeuvring will likely be as important as battlefield manoeuvre.
It may be possible that a majority of conflicts will be between state and non-state actors. Recent history supports that proposition. Some will be ethnic conflicts but more appear to be sectarian in nature with participants availing themselves of the opportunity to indulge in some ethnic cleansing. “The guerilla,” Mao Tse Tung wrote, “must move among people as a fish swims in the sea.”, hence any insurgent with some sense will immerse themselves within the local populace. Sun Tzu teaches that political manoeuvring is as important as manoeuvring upon the battlefield, and history has shown that wars are won both by force of arms and by political will.
Third, the scale of conflict will likely remain low, bar the few conventional wars mentioned earlier. The lines between military and civil operations will blur even further, and the roles of the defence force and police may become increasingly intertwined.
Fourth, land forces will be the dominant force. This is largely due to the likely intensity and nature of future conflicts. It is also due to the inherent flexibility of land forces in responding to changing circumstances. Air and naval combat forces will have reduced utility except in major conventional conflicts.
This argument has an inherently fatal flaw in it and it shows Alachs lack of knowledge regarding military matters. If one looks at the war in Afghanistan one will see that airpower in all its forms was required to support the land forces. Naval forces are also required to support and sustain land forces especially if oceans have to be crossed.
Fifth, domestic restraints on military forces will increase. There will be little acceptance of misbehaviour or casualties, and reduced military autonomy.
This is nation dependant and in recent years with the rise of technology and the internet, media scrutiny of combat zones has increased leading too combat being beamed into people's homes albeit it being edited and slanted to a particular bias. This does have both positive and negative impacts for defence forces. If a population sees a war as being just it will accept casualties as being a cost worth paying as long as the political elite are being honest with the population. Secondly, the media must accept whilst it does have a right and a duty to tell a story it must accept that at the same time it has responsibilities as well with regard to operational security. Misbehaviour in a military is something that is quite broad from sailors having a run ashore to serious crimes like Abu Graib or war crimes, but here Alach needs to define that misbehaviour.
Finally, there will be increased number of interventions by the international community. Sovereignty will further decline in importance, and the frequency of peace support and humanitarian operations will increase.
Nations have too much to lose for sovereignty to decline in importance. There may be increased interventions by the international community but the big question will always be who is going to pay for it? Will peace support increase? That depends on whose interests are involved and again who is willing to pay for it. There is no argument that Humanitarian and Disaster Relief (HADR) operations will in all likelihood increase because nations see this as soft policy options.
Alach goes on to state that there has been an increase in civil disturbance in the South Pacific with the possibly of further problems especially if Island economies decline. Furthermore, Alach cites Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and East Timor as areas that have a likelihood of being increasingly problematic necessitating outside intervention, most likely by Australia and New Zealand. Finally, Alach states that Chinese power is likely to increase which will also raise its assertiveness. Alach points out that this may cause New Zealand to be pressured by Australia and the United States to rebuild the ANZUS alliance. However, ANZUS as it was pre 1985 will not be reincarnated because of New Zealands political reality and the United States neither confirm nor deny policy regarding nuclear weapons.
Since the end of the Cold War, relatively little has changed in the NZDF’s force structure, despite the major changes in the security environment. It has lost its Air Combat Wing, and two of its four frigates, but these cuts were motivated by economic rather than strategic concerns. Its training and doctrine is still focused on conventional operations. It has not expanded its special forces. It has also avoided any major moves towards improving its expeditionary capability through the acquisition of sea and air-lift. Overall, it has been stuck in a rut of conservatism and continuity.
There are several reasons for this continuity. The defence budget has declined in real terms, leading to a reduced capability to test new concepts or expand various elements of the force. There have been internal issues as well, related to this resource scarcity, with elements of the bureaucracy and defence force more concerned with the retention of force elements than a true re-evaluation of defence needs. The executive has avoided direct intervention in strategy, preferring to concern itself largely with resourcing and financial management issues. There has been little public concern, or involvement by Parliament, in defence policy. And there has been no threat to shake up this conservatism, no terrorist attack or similar, to stimulate thought as to whether New Zealand needs to change its defence force to meet the challenges of the evolving security environment.
"A rut of rut of conservatism and continuity." Within a defence force, institutional knowledge has been accumulated over time, sometimes through harsh lessons, and should not be thrown away quickly just because a new threat may surface. Because a new threat is apparent does not mean that "old" threats have suddenly become obsolete or have vanished. Many people have thought that because the Cold War ended, threats to New Zealand and its interests from hostile or potentially hostile nation states, have dramatically diminished, or even ceased to be. Unfortunately, this is not the case, nor has been the case.
Force Structure Recommendations
In order to better meet defence policy objectives in the period to 2020, several recommendations regarding the NZDF’s future force structure can be made. These would better fit the NZDF to likely future tasks: low intensity, land-based operations, from peaceful peacekeeping such as Bougainville, through to more dangerous counter-insurgencies akin to operations in Iraq today, as well as maritime patrol. They would not transform the NZDF into an RMA-paradigm force. They would not turn the NZDF into a copy of the Australian Defence Force (ADF); rather, they would enable it to assist that force by providing complementary capabilities. The recommendations seek a pragmatic balance between, on one hand, New Zealand's strategic and policy concerns and, on the other hand, the hard choices New Zealand must make in order to achieve best value from its
limited investment in military capabilities.
RECOMMENDATION ONE – A THIRD INFANTRY BATTALION
As noted earlier, future conflicts will likely require the heavy use of land forces. The NZDF currently maintains only two regular infantry battalions. As such, long-term battalion rotations are only achievable through the heavy use of reserves, and even then they cause major problems to training schedules. A third infantry battalion would allow the NZDF to deploy a battalion to operations indefinitely. This third battalion need not be motorised, as are the others. A light infantry battalion, perhaps parachute trained, able to deploy quickly and armed with light weaponry, would likely be most useful for peace support and other such operations. A third infantry battalion would also mean that in the case of a major security threat the NZDF could provide a full infantry brigade. It would also enable the NZDF to provide smaller infantry detachments for multiple operations simultaneously.
A very good recommendation. The NZ Army infantry regiment, 1 Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment (1RNZIR) is structured as a Light Infantry regiment.
RECOMMENDATION TWO – A READY COMPANY
One shortcoming of the NZDF is its restricted readiness. For budgetary and other reasons, it lacks a true quick response capability. This means that during emerging crises it is seldom able to be the first on the scene. A solution to this might be having one infantry company ready and able to deploy within twelve hours of receiving its orders. This would allow the NZDF to make a significant early response, as Australia did in the recent eruption of violence in East Timor. By rotating the ready company amongst the twelve companies that would be maintained under a three battalion structure, the burden would not fall too heavily on a single unit. This change would also likely have foreign policy benefits. Often, in peace support operations, the first unit in is the one that receives the most attention; it is also often the first unit out. This might allow the NZDF to provide a small, but highly beneficial, contribution to operations, and one that could be quickly withdrawn.
RECOMMENDATION THREE – ENLARGE SPECIAL FORCES
In the increasingly complex future security environment, special forces will be of great utility due to their inherent flexibility. If the frequency of terrorism increases, the need for counter-terrorist forces, drawn from special forces, will also increase. The NZDF currently maintains a single SAS squadron. This force might be doubled in size, with the second squadron perhaps based near Wellington. This doubling of special forces would give the NZDF an additional domestic counter-terrorist group, located even closer to the central government. Perhaps more importantly, it would substantially improve the NZDF’s capability in expeditionary operations. An additional SAS squadron would be useful in both low and high-intensity operations, and could be used by the government as New Zealand’s contribution to operations in which other elements of the NZDF would be too vulnerable. This would have distinct foreign policy benefits.
Regarding recommendation three, this has been done to a certain extent with the formation of the Commandos.
Part 2 follows.
I think the dollar amounts will have changed, as in the unit cost, more than in the currency fluctuations. So do we presume that costs cited are only for the aircraft, tech support, spares, manuals, simulator, training package, armaments and support pack? What I mean is they are not factoring the Term of Life Costs. 