Defence - plugging the gaps

By JOHN ARMSTRONG Political editor

Commercial jets flying out of Kenya are not the only planes vulnerable to terrorists these days.

Closer to home, New Zealand's unprotected Air Force Orions and Hercules could easily be shot out of the sky by missiles launched from a terrorist's shoulder.

The Air Force's Iroquois helicopters are so old they risk hampering its ability to function as a modern, mobile land force. Even the Navy's near-new Anzac frigates will soon be ineffective in fending off attacks by aircraft and submarines.

For anyone worried about the state of the nation's defences, the Government's "Defence Long-term Development Plan" makes disturbing reading.

Issued six months ago with little ceremony, it outlines a $3 billion, 10-year programme to re-equip the armed forces and remedy such deficiencies. In the bureaucratic jargon, the deficiencies are termed "capability gaps", but the document is clinically direct in warning that some of those gaps present significant risks.

Take the 14 Vietnam War-vintage Iroquois, for example.

"The Iroquois is becoming increasingly difficult and costly to support," the document warns. "The United States military has begun to withdraw support of the Iroquois to foreign owners in advance of retiring that aircraft from United States Army service by 2004. As the Iroquois no long adequately meets Defence Force capability requirements, there will be some operational limitations until the aircraft is replaced."

Defence Force chiefs say the Iroquois - which were deployed in East Timor - are still serviceable. Defence Minister Mark Burton expects to take a paper to the Cabinet in the second half of next year on replacement options estimated to cost $400 million to $500 million.

A further $11 million will have to be spent on replacements for the Sioux training helicopters, which date from the 1950s. So inadequate are the Sioux that pilots must spend extra training time on the Iroquois, increasing the burden on those aircraft.

The Iroquois, an essential part of SAS operations, are testimony to the crippling problem afflicting the Defence Force: "block obsolescence", which is seeing a range of hardware across the services reaching its use-by dates at once.

This is mainly because the re-equipment programme slowed drastically in the 1990s after National cut the defence budget; only at the tail-end of the decade did things pick up during Max Bradford's time as minister. Then there was further delay as Labour became the Government, cancelled the lease on yet-to-arrive F-16 jet fighters and rewrote defence policy.

Before then, New Zealand's traditional approach had been to give all three services a combat capability as insurance against the unforeseen.

Arguing that it is better to do one thing well rather than three things badly, Labour forced a radical shift by axing the air combat wing and a third frigate in favour of beefing up the Army and the air and naval transport needed to get troops to a conflict zone.

Since September 11 and Bali, this "depth versus breadth" approach has come under attack from Opposition MPs. The Government and defence planners say the logic still applies, but right now New Zealand's defence fabric is stretched to breaking point by the combined effect of historical underspending, strategic cuts to the Navy and Air Force and the sheer difficulty of fighting terrorism with conventional forces.

Part of the emerging problem lies in defining a nation's defence capability against terrorists. New and difficult questions arise: should we reconfigure our armed forces to combat terrorism as well as the conventional threat from nation states? And to what extent can conventional defence forces protect us from terrorist attacks anyway?

In Australia, a furious debate has erupted since the Bali bombings over the direction of defence policy. On this side of the Tasman, argument has been more muted and unfocused.

There is a kind of "fear equation": terrorist acts equal instability in the Asia-Pacific region, which equals a threat to New Zealand. National has exploited this sentiment, pillorying the Prime Minister for her 2000 reference to New Zealand's "exceptionally benign strategic environment".

Helen Clark counters this by arguing that terrorism is a problem within states, rather than between them. Instead of instability, there is co-operation through such institutions as Apec and the "confidence-building" Asean Regional Forum, where Southeast Asian nations can talk first, shoot later (John Howard, take note).

Last month, for instance, about 80 defence and foreign ministry officials from 13 countries met under the forum's auspices in Wellington to quietly exchange information on counterterrorism initiatives.

Likewise, October's Apec summit in Mexico adopted a string of new policies to make travel safer and choke off funds for terrorists. With Apec states accounting for about half the world's trade, their leaders also began a cargo-container security regime.

It could be argued that the x-ray machines needed for such checks - they would cost $20 million, according to Foreign Minister Phil Goff - might now count as "defence" equipment.

"What is actually more important in countering terrorism - something down on the Auckland wharves or Skyhawks at Ohakea?" ponders one defence source.

Perhaps surprisingly, the Government has not argued that such spending is in effect extra defence spending - even when announcing its $30 million package of counterterrorism measures after the September 11 attacks in the United States.

That is because ministers and officials categorise "defence" as only one component in maintaining security - others being the intelligence agencies, police, Customs, immigration and diplomatic measures.

In the so-called war against terrorism, the front line of defence is not the armed forces but the intelligence and border control agencies.

And even in the event of a terrorist emergency, the Defence Force would play a secondary role to the civil authorities, probably providing transport and medical help. In the first instance, armed intervention would be undertaken by the police special tactics group, rather than the SAS, which would only come in under police command.

The armed forces have gained only one major new domestic role since September 11 - the establishment of a chemical and biological terrorism response unit in Wellington, which can link with the Defence Force's existing bomb disposal squads if required.

However, the unit is thought to be still not operational because of a worldwide shortage of the necessary equipment.

Meanwhile, in the post-Bali world, defence analysts recast the question of whether there is a threat to New Zealand as "a threat to New Zealand's interests". Given the extreme unlikelihood of a conventional attack on New Zealand, the job of the military is to defend New Zealand's interests abroad, from fisheries protection beyond the 12-mile limit to keeping shipping routes open through Southeast Asia.

Planners identify "lower-level security challenges" - the targeting of fish resources, acts of terrorism, transnational crime, illegal immigration, biosecurity hazards and attacks on computer systems.

On top of those are civil disorder and the use of violence by secessionist movements in the South Pacific, and serious disruption to sea lanes and loss of access to airspace in Southeast Asia. Other security "events" in Asia would include religious, ethnic and territorial conflicts.

"Trade could be disrupted, and demand depressed in some of New Zealand's key markets. Conflict could also create refugee flows, destabilising neighbouring states," warns a Government-commissioned review of defence capabilities released last year.

Partly because of this wide range of perceived threats, the Government and defence chiefs are adamant that there will be no sudden changes in defence strategy to combat terrorism.

Burton says defence "fundamentals" are unchanged and Chief of Defence Force Air Marshal Bruce Ferguson says it would be wrong to restructure the armed forces simply on the basis of a contemporary threat of terrorism - "We do not know what tomorrow's threats will be."

As a result, priorities in the force's 10-year plan remain flexible. Based on the recent experience of East Timor and Afghanistan, defence sources identify key operational elements:

* The "sharp end" of the Army - principally the SAS plus a "quick response" capability to deploy a larger force, as was required in East Timor.

* Helicopters.

* Transport and intelligence-gathering aircraft.

* A multi-role vessel to shift troops.

* The frigates.

* Interoperability with Australian forces.

Purchases or upgrades are high on the priority list, including $10 million for unspecified extra equipment for the special forces to enhance the SAS's world-class quality.

Asked if SAS numbers should be expanded, Ferguson replies: "Quality not quantity".

There is, of course, another way of considering the evidence. Arguably, the war on terrorism reinforces conventional thinking that defence is like an insurance policy - you have to cover every conceivable threat because there is no way of anticipating where an attack will come from.

Seen in this light, New Zealand's decision to run down spending on vital equipment for a decade (under National) and then drastically prune the Navy and Air Force (under Labour) could be seen as overspecialisation which is now costing us dearly.

It will not have escaped the defence establishment's notice that Clark, who readily deployed an Anzac frigate to the Gulf, once bristled at the ship's purchase in the late 1980s.

But Ferguson insists that "small but effective" must still be New Zealand's motto.

"Small nations cannot possibly cover everything. The greatest folly a small nation can do is stretch its military forces across too many capabilities. On paper, you are able to contribute. In reality, you risk being a liability rather than an asset."

HARDWARE SHOPPING

What the military plans to buy over the next 10 years.

* Light-armoured vehicles (LAVs) - $700 million.

* Light operational vehicles (replacing Army Land Rovers) - $60 million to $100 million.

* Hercules transport aircraft upgrade - $100 million to $170 million.

* Second-hand Boeing 757s - $200 million.

* Multi-role naval vessel - $200 million.

* Patrol vessels - $300 million.

* Upgrade of Air Force Orions' surveillance systems - $150 million to $200 million.

* Upgrade of Hercules' and Orions' communications and navigation systems - $320 million.

* New helicopters (replacing ageing Iroquois) - $400 million to $500 million.

* Ohakea runway reconstruction - $23 million.

* Fire support and anti-armour weapons for Army - $44 million.

* New Army trucks - $94 million.

* Upgrade of Anzac frigates' self-defence systems - $300 million.

* New torpedoes for frigates, Orions and Navy helicopters - $30 million.

* Anti-ship missiles for Orions - $25 million.

* "Self-protection" capability for Hercules and Orions - $30 million.



* This is the final part of our God Defend NZ series.

Herald feature: Defence