In the national interest: Security promises without a strategy

In the first of a three-part series, FRAN O'SULLIVAN and GREG ANSLEY question New Zealand's ability to handle the defence commitments it is making.


The photograph of Helen Clark putting her arm about a weeping Korean veteran said it all.

In Korea at the weekend with 30 New Zealand war veterans for the 50th anniversary celebrations of the end of the war, Clark gained huge personal media coverage.

New Zealand had refused to take part in a proposed naval blockade against North Korea. Clark strongly argued diplomacy should be given a chance.

Her strategy is to "fully support the big powers" in their efforts to resolve the confrontation over North Korea's resumption of its nuclear weapons programme, which she has condemned.

Clark is optimistic over proposed talks between the United States and North Korea.

But what if things go pear-shaped?

"All we've got there is an armistice and it's a United Nations-sponsored event," observes Air Marshall Carey Adamson who retired as chief of the defence force last year.

"If hostilities broke out in the peninsula again, then I guess we're back into it again. Because all we have done is taken time out - and that was years ago."

Since becoming Prime Minister, Clark has come to appreciate the strategic utility of New Zealand's military as instruments of foreign policy.

Since the September 2001 terror attacks on the United States, New Zealand has sent forces to Afghanistan to clean out the Taleban, both Anzac frigates to the Persian Gulf to intercept al Qaeda vessels, committed mine-sweepers and Army engineers to post-war reconstruction in Iraq, enacted anti-terrorism legislation and boosted capacity to monitor security threats.

This has given Clark valuable brownie points with other nations, particularly the United States, where the longstanding dispute over New Zealand's refusal to allow nuclear-powered warships into its harbours resulted in its suspension from the Anzus military alliance.

It is a tall order for a Government which inherited a defence force that had suffered from declining, or at best static, budgets for most of the 1990s and whose most strategic contribution has been to embark on a controversial acquisition programme to equip the military for a switch to predominantly peace-keeping or nation-building duties.

A Herald inquiry has raised questions over whether New Zealand's military and security assets are now spread too thin for the type of confrontations the country is being drawn into.

The prospect of New Zealand being involved in a Korean conflagration is not part of Clark's plans.

But neither were proposals for New Zealand to join a US-led war against terrorism on the Government's radar screen when it issued a defence statement in May 2001 to provide for a "high-quality defence force for the 21st century".

The statement confirmed intentions to narrow New Zealand's military focus to coastal protection, UN peace-keeping operations and contributing to strategic alliances in an affordable way.

Other methods, such as diplomatic, economic and other international co-operation, would be employed to address regional and global insecurity.

The reality has been somewhat different.

The Defence Force mission statement is to "deal with small contingencies affecting New Zealand and its region", requiring the armed forces to be capable of "contributing to collective efforts where our wider interests are involved".

But there has been scant indication what those broad objectives mean in practice.

Australia issued its "strategic defence update" in February, but there is little to suggest the Government has made a similar reassessment.

Many people involved in defence - past and present - are concerned that New Zealand is fast getting out of its depth, particularly as the United States and Australia also expect it to play a bigger security role in our Pacific backyard.

New Zealand police and troops have joined an Australian-led, 2000-strong mission to the volatile Solomons in the largest Pacific deployment since World War II.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the External Assessments Bureau have strongly indicated to the Government that the South Pacific's "natural cohesion" is strained.

Concerns are mounting that Papua New Guinea will be the next island state in this "arc of instability" to blow after emergencies in Bougainville, Vanuatu, Fiji, the Solomon Islands and New Caledonia over the past 20 years.

It has been suggested that struggling East Timor will ask Australia and New Zealand to send troops back and that if left to their own devices some troubled Pacific nations will "go rogue" and provide havens for international terrorists.

Prime Minister John Howard wants Australia to take a more "interventionist' role in the Pacific and has threatened to axe aid to blatantly corrupt regimes. As the regional junior partner, New Zealand is under pressure. Foreign Affairs Minister Phil Goff is happy to play along - with provisos.

"I have a concern there will develop again within the Solomon Islands an expectation that suddenly the cargo cult begins again and the outside forces come in and resolve the problems and they don't have to do anything," he says.

"There are already questions about what this deployment means for countries that have problems of the same broad nature."

The Clark approach - with its adherence to multi-lateralist dogma - has raised New Zealand's international profile and her own.

Asked this year if it was now necessary to recraft a strongly identified external security policy, Clark said: "There's been a good think internally.

"I went through recently with Simon [Murdoch - head of Foreign Affairs and Trade] the results of a retreat that the ministry had with senior people.

"They sorted out pretty well what needed to be aimed at."

But there are no plans to update the New Zealand public by a White Paper.

The Foreign Affairs and External Assessments Bureau security position papers on their respective websites are hopelessly out of date.

The bureau - which said in its 2001 strategic assessment that it did "not judge that New Zealand is likely to be involved in widespread armed conflict" within the next five years - has not posted a subsequent update.

The Government is also sitting on its Pacific regional security policy, and has refused to give its draft of last July to parliamentary opponents despite having subsequently committed military assistance to the Solomons.

The most recent effort to spell out the Government's thinking came in a speech delivered by Simon Murdoch on Goff's behalf at the Otago Foreign Policy School in Dunedin last month.

Goff's speech said the consequences of factors such as spiralling world population, pressure on scarce resources and diseases such as Sars could not be addressed by the force of arms.

"Realism in the 21st century requires a wide definition of security and a commensurately wider means of defence," he said.

Using Iraq as an example, Goff spelled out a "principled position".

New Zealand was keen to:

* Maintain UN commitment.

* Affirm the importance of international law.

* Support the elimination of weapons of mass destruction.

* Respond to humanitarian needs.

* Maintain a network with countries of similar views.

Goff also acknowledged that "going it alone" was not an option - "We need to be team players."

But the teams in which New Zealand plays - those led by the US or Australia - also have expectations about our military contributions.

The image of New Zealand as a "defence bludger" is well embedded across the Tasman, although there is a growing understanding of the Government's defence philosophy.

The United States recognises New Zealand as an active partner in the global war on terrorism. But there are caveats.

In this year's report on US-New Zealand Relations, the US State Department notes: "Even after President Bush's 1991 announcement that US surface ships do not normally carry nuclear weapons, New Zealand's legislation prohibiting visits of nuclear-powered ships continues to preclude a bilateral security alliance with the United States.

"The US would welcome New Zealand's reassessment of its legislation to permit its return to full Anzus co-operation."

Some critics question whether New Zealand would be better off getting back into its formal alliance with the US - with all its benefits such as up-to-date technology and shared intelligence - rather than protecting its anti-nuclear image.

'To go twice to Afghanistan, twice to Iraq, to have frigates in the Gulf and Orions in the Gulf seems to be rather more than a Pacific country needs to do," observes former Secretary of Defence Gerald Hensley.

"It might be easier to have a line to the United States and do damn all."

Says former UN Ambassador Terence O'Brien: "We will never be invited to join any coalition because of our order of battle - how many tanks we have, how many planes.

"We will be asked because of what this country is - which is small, non-threatening, reasonably sane and sensible, democratic and all the other things."

But O'Brien questions whether - like predecessors - the Government is trying to run its external interests "on the smell of an oily rag".

Others question whether it was necessary to keep forces in Afghanistan for such a long period.

There is little to suggest that the Cabinet considered the effect of the extended period of duty on the troops, who were operating in a harsh terrain and borrowing kit and transport from the Americans.

At issue is whether the extension was simply an attempt to notch up more brownie points with the US when the Government is seeking to negotiate a bilateral free trade deal.

Until the Government sets out a comprehensive security and defence strategy these questions will persist.

* Tomorrow: Security writer Scott MacLeod probes why defence is facing a personnel crisis.