The ANZMIN meeting of foreign and defence ministers in Auckland this week should focus on how Australia and New Zealand can modernise their alliance to deal with worsening strategic circumstances.
The Luxon government has adopted sharper language about the threat posed by China, but New Zealand lacks a comprehensive defence plan fit for its strategic circumstances, equivalent to Australia’s Defence Strategic Review and subsequent National Defence Strategy.
Wellington’s Defence Capability Plan due for publication in early 2025 is an opportunity to rectify that by laying out the force structure that the New Zealand Defence Force needs to develop over the next decade and beyond. That plan should be shaped by the Australia-NZ alliance and be based on firm methodological foundations, as laid out below.
The first priority is a clear assessment of warning time. Strategic warning time requires not only high-level intelligence analysis about future military threats; it also means bringing together assessment of threats to foreign policy, economic and trade interests, and new threats, including cyber war, artificial intelligence and new weapon systems, such as hypersonics.
The New Zealand government needs to develop a high-level national intelligence warning staff headed by an experienced senior official with both policy and intelligence experience. This person should have direct access to both the minister of defence and the minister of foreign affairs and the National Security Committee.
This brings me to what should be the chief force structure priorities for a country of New Zealand’s size and location. They are twofold: first, New Zealand’s geography and key geopolitical interests; second, what sort of military contingencies and other key national security threats could occur?
From the outset, it needs to be made clear that these two key determinants must not waste time or money on such worst-case contingencies as an invasion or direct military attack on New Zealand. This means that rigorous intellectual pressure must be brought to bear on selecting the relevant threats and contingencies.
It is fashionable to assert that geography no longer matters, because of the speed and accuracy of modern missiles. This must be a consideration. Still, New Zealand is a long way from any potential adversary, such as China, and any forces that such an adversary might send to the South Pacific would be very vulnerable to interdiction. But geography would come back into play with a vengeance if China acquired a military base in the South Pacific. This would threaten New Zealand’s and Australia’s vital sea lines of communication with the United States.
New Zealand’s broader geopolitical circumstances require close attention. In the Cold War, Australia and New Zealand were distant from the USSR’s key strategic interests. And for much of the post-Cold War period, the US has been the unchallenged unipolar power. All this is changing because of the rapid increase in China’s military power, China’s alignment with Russia, North Korea and Iran, and its leveraging of trade and aid across the broader Asia-Pacific region.
This means New Zealand needs to give higher priority to the basic security of its region. These geopolitical issues also need to be considered in determining force-structure priorities.
We must ensure that the South Pacific remains a region of peace and prosperity where all countries are able to pursue their national objectives free from external coercion. An unfavourable balance of power in the South Pacific would increase the risk of regional countries, including New Zealand, being coerced and losing their ability to pursue key interests peacefully. New Zealand and Australia must remain the partner of choice for the Pacific family, including in security cooperation. New Zealand’s Pacific Maori culture is central to its relationships in the South Pacific and provides an advantage.
New Zealand needs to maintain high-level situational awareness in the South Pacific, its primary area of strategic concern, to gain warning time and space for decision making.
As noted earlier, the assessment of credible military threats does not include worst-case military planning contingencies. There still needs to be a tough-minded professional group in the Ministry of Defence testing credible contingencies and applying them to judgements on force-structure priorities.
Maritime contingencies clearly need priority. However, there is a challenging role for New Zealand’s army in the South Pacific, perhaps in a joint New Zealand and Australia amphibious force capable of conducting demanding littoral operations in the South Pacific.
New Zealand defence experts’ determination of credible military threats needs to be rigorously consistent with tough-minded analysis of net military assessments. This is a well-known and trusted methodology of measuring a potential adversary’s military capabilities.
Such net assessments need to focus on what foreign military capabilities could realistically be used against New Zealand, and how New Zealand’s future force structure must be developed in response. The chief of the Australian Defence Force, Admiral David Johnston, tells me that Australia is already intensively using a combination of credible contingencies and net military assessments.
Incorporating the defence planning methodology recommended here would provide strategic warning to political decision-makers and ensure a robust New Zealand force structure evolved for its unique strategic circumstances.
The Luxon government must also communicate its new approach properly if it is to build the social licence required for increased defence spending, which is also essential. Australia can help with that process, including through the ministerial statements and press comments that will emerge from ANZMIN this week.
