In the national interest: Maintaining the peace on a shoestring

Short of equipment, staff and money, the military is struggling. SCOTT MacLEOD looks at the results in part two of a series.


The armed forces are battling a staff and resource crisis as one in eight of our soldiers, sailors and airmen quit each year.

At the same time, the military is grappling with hotspots in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Solomon Islands.

Despite assurances that the Defence Force can cope, papers obtained under the Official Information Act suggest it is badly stretched.

One "proposed military pay adjustment" paper warns that the force may soon have to choose between deploying or training.

It will not have enough staff to do both.

Other documents warn that the military will struggle to meet any big, long-term deployment.

The documents are backed by a Herald analysis of military forces in 19 Asia-Pacific nations, which shows New Zealand ranks with Japan as the least committed to defence spending as a percentage of gross domestic product.

Defence Force figures show that 12 per cent of New Zealand's military staff leave each year, compared with 8 per cent in Australia and 6 per cent in Canada.

The pay adjustment paper says the loss is "of critical importance".

The people being lost are "the future leaders and trainers".

The paper and other documents show that some staff quit in batches at the same low rank, leaving "black holes" that move up through the forces and create problems later at senior levels.

The result is that many people are being promoted sooner than they should be.

The Herald spoke to 20 people in all three services. Many said they were having to work much harder than usual because of the staffing crisis and resource problems.

Few would be named for fear of being disciplined.

One senior Air Force officer said staff were "extremely busy" with an Orion in the Middle East, a Hercules near Afghanistan and Iroquois helicopters heading to the Solomons.

"We're working extremely hard, pretty much on a knife-edge," he said.

One Army captain who has been deployed seven times said: "We're all feeling the pinch. It puts pressure on everyone. We've always been poor cousins because the public doesn't like paying taxes."

One senior Navy figure said staff shortages in some areas were self-fuelling as those remaining worked harder, "got disgruntled", and left.

Defence papers show that in the second half of last year the Air Force had only three crews available for its six Orions.

But staff shortages are hurting nearly all levels of the military.

The Air Force needs air electronics operators, aircraft captains, navigators and pilots.

The Navy is 25 per cent below strength in lieutenants and leading hands. It is also short of communicators, seamen officers and marine engineers.

The Army is at least 30 per cent short of corporals and sergeants in half of its trades.

The service had "a shortfall in virtually every area of capability to meet a large and sustained commitment", a defence paper says.

The problem can be solved only by retaining existing staff or recruiting more.

Retention is hampered by burnout and stress caused by the existing shortage.

Some who have left told the Herald of better opportunities in the private sector and frustration with military hierarchy.

Recruitment appears to be hampered by New Zealand's small labour pool and a poor public perception of military life.

The military has tried to improve staff levels by giving three pay rises in three years.

But the latest, of 2 per cent, barely keeps pace with inflation, and defence staff are paid about 10 per cent less than their equivalents in the private sector.

Vice-Admiral Sir Somerford Teagle, a former defence chief of staff, said technical crews had to be well paid.

"You train people and motivate them and work them hard - then somebody else comes along and nicks them."

Low pay rates are a symptom of military spending cuts since the mid-1980s, from 2 per cent of gross domestic product to just under 1 per cent.

The cuts have gone mostly unchallenged because New Zealand is not seen as being under threat.

But military experts say the world has changed since the terror attacks of September 2001, and Western states are expected to take a more active role in international security.

Hence the Solomons mission, thought to be the biggest in the Pacific since World War II - although New Zealand's contribution is paltry.

The four Iroquois, 105 military staff and 35 police will take 10 days to get to the Solomons, partly because of demands on the Air Force's five Hercules transport planes, three of which are 38 years old.

Wing Commander Ron Thacker, who will command the Iroquois, said bluntly: "We're limited in getting up there by the number of Hercules."

Many Australians are travelling by ship, but New Zealand must hire vessels when it sends troops by sea, at least until a new multi-role ship is delivered in 2005.

The Government has pledged 350 other staff to operations in 14 nations, Australia is at its most heavily committed in 30 years, and the United States' stretched forces are pleading for help.

New Zealand seems too weak for these obligations.

Soldiers told the Herald of exhaustion after Timor, where some were posted three times for six-month stints.

Air Marshal Carey Adamson, who was Chief of Defence Force during the Timor emergency, said engineers and other soldiers not meant to fight had to be sent as foot-soldiers.

"We cobbled together a lot of people who wouldn't normally be deployed and sent them over," Mr Adamson said.

"But if you are in a full-blown combat situation you can't do that."

Mr Adamson said the latest deployments meant "we are stretching ourselves awfully thin".

Staff shortages and spending cuts have undermined the military's ability to deal with a surge of terrorism, piracy and political turmoil in the Pacific.

This has sparked claims in the United States, Australia and Southeast Asia that New Zealand is a military bludger.

The president of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Hawaii, Ralph Cossa, said New Zealand did not seem interested in playing a serious security role in the world.

Recent turmoil in the Pacific showed the need for peacekeeping, enforcement and conflict resolution.

"NZ's ability to contribute seems suspect with its current budget and capabilities."

The Air Force has lost its strike wing and has nothing to fight with except a few machine-guns on its helicopters.

Its Orion surveillance planes are due for an electronics upgrade, but have a limited ability to spot submarines.

The Navy will get multi-role and patrol vessels worth $500 million, but the loss of the Canterbury in 2005 will leave New Zealand with only two frigates.

Time taken for training, maintenance and steaming to and from deployment areas means three vessels are needed to keep one permanently on station.

The Army is vulnerable because of weaknesses in the other two services.

But does New Zealand need to spot submarines, send frigates to distant waters and bomb ground targets?

Events in Timor Leste, the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Bougainville and Fiji show dangerous elements exist in New Zealand's area of interest.

Two months ago the International Maritime Bureau said one of New Zealand's main trade routes had a piracy rate three times worse than any other part of the world.

There were 28 attacks within three months on the Indonesian route, some on large cargo ships.

There are indications of pending trouble in Papua New Guinea, Timor Leste is a new and frail state, Fiji has a history of coups and New Zealand has defence obligations to the Cook Islands, Samoa and Niue.

Gerald Hensley, who was Secretary of Defence from 1991 to 1999, said the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean made New Zealand "virtually immune from invasion".

But the armed forces needed to be able to defend our interests, and since these were shared with other nations, "we have to be able to work with other nations' forces".

The loss of the Skyhawks stopped exercises with the Australian Navy, which had affected the transtasman relationship.

The five-power defence arrangements with Australia, Britain, Malaysia and Singapore involved complex sea and air exercises.

"We no longer have air," Mr Hensley said. "We can send a couple of Orions and a frigate, but it's noticed by our friends that New Zealand is just not interested any more."

The Solomons detachment of 65 Iroquois crew, 12 Army engineers and 28 support staff is relatively small compared with Australia's contribution. This suggests New Zealand cannot offer more.

The director of the Centre for Strategic Studies, former naval commander Peter Cozens, said it took a lot of manpower to keep one person in the field.

The ratio for British occupation forces after World War II was more than 20 in the rear for every one at the front.

"My gut feeling is that the [staff] numbers need to be increased."

But Defence Minister Mark Burton said he did not send staff overseas without first asking the head of the Defence Force, Air Marshal Bruce Ferguson, whether the numbers were available.

Mr Burton said the staffing shortage was "not a new challenge", and recruitment had improved from 9.6 per cent of staff numbers in 1999 to 13.2 per cent this year.

The GDP comparison was "not comparing apples with apples", he said, as nations defined their military spending in different ways. Some included items such as war pensions in their defence spending whereas New Zealand did not.

Mr Burton said New Zealand tailored its defence spending to meet its policy objectives.

Air Marshal Ferguson said he had never been pressured by the Government to send troops overseas when he felt his staff was too stretched.

"I am the principal military adviser to the Government," he said. "I do not, and will not, give advice to the Government that I believe is not appropriate."

He said conditions of service such as housing and leave were being improved, and the military was finding more innovative ways to lure recruits.

Some foreign commentators back the official stance.

The director of Thailand's Institute of Security and International Studies, Dr Chookiat Panaspornprasit, said New Zealand faced no "imminent and clear-cut threat", and therefore had no need to increase its military budget.

Other critics of military spending point out that the Skyhawks fired shots in anger only once - across the bow of a fishing boat in March 1976 - that our Navy has fought no battles in decades and that the scrapped $550 million upgrade of the Orions' sensors would have cost two-thirds as much as the Air New Zealand bailout.

Mr Hensley, Sir Somerford and four other retired high-ranking defence staff have written what they call a "green paper on defence strategy". It warns that poor technology increases the risk of New Zealand's forces suffering casualties in a war.

It urges a 50 per cent boost in military spending to 1.5 per cent of GDP - roughly, from $1.1 billion to $1.7 billion.

The main feeling among soldiers was that they were doing a good job despite poor resources.

They put up with the many deployments because that was what they signed up to do.

"The Kiwi soldier is second to none," said one Army veteran of 23 years.

"The psyche of the Kiwi is to help people - but if we have to kick arse, we will."

- additional reporting:Fran O'Sullivan

* Email Scott MacLeod

* TOMORROW: Australia correspondent Greg Ansley examines whether New Zealand has been left out of the security intelligence loop.