NZ a player in high-tech US war game

Despite the Anzus freeze, GGREG ANSLEY finds NZ troops have a role in the US search for war-winning technology.

CANBERRA - New Zealand troops have been taking part in global exercises to develop space-based technology that will help United States forces to strike faster, harder and more accurately.

Despite the Anzus schism, New Zealand officers were placed in highly sensitive posts during exercises last July to select the weapons-tracking systems.

The exercises were coordinated by the US Space Command beneath Cheyenne Mountain, in Colorado.

Missions were carried out by the frigate Te Kaha, an RNZAF Orion, Army units and other defence staff as part of Joint Warrior Interoperability (JWID) exercises.

Te Kaha and the Orion were nominally part of the US Pacific Command during the exercises.

Although New Zealand is officially excluded from manoeuvres with US forces because of its anti-nuclear legislation, it has taken part in the JWID programme since 1995 and has been included as an ally with Australia, Britain, France, Germany, Canada and other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation states.

New Zealand was admitted to the series ahead of the Nato countries because of its membership of the Washington-based Combined Communications-Electronics Board, established in 1942 with the US, Britain, Canada and Australia and crucial to the ability of allied forces to talk and work together.

New Zealand participation has been sanctioned by National and Labour-led Governments.

The aim of the JWID exercises was to test new space-based technology to allow the US and friendly forces to coordinate and attack faster and with more deadly force.

Systems selected from the exercise - called gold nuggets - will be put through further tests this year as part of a process that will eventually give frontline forces potentially war-winning technology.

The exercises are not part of the development of the National Missile Defence System - although Australia will almost certainly be involved in US Star Wars plans - but they reached the highest levels of the defence Establishment.

Key players included General Henry Shelton, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the commanders-in-chief of Space Command, Pacific Command, %and Joint Forces Command.

%The exercises were based around a war game on two fronts between mythical countries, designed to test systems developed to exploit the battlefield potential of space, allowing the military to tap into cutting-edge commercial developments that would provide low-cost, low-risk additions to its electronic arsenals.

They included smart cards enabling commanders to move from computer to computer, new satellite-linked computer and software systems, cyber-warfare programs and technology enabling commanders to hide from enemy satellites.

Sensors dropped by jet fighters were able to hear, identify and report the location and direction of enemy vehicles, allowing strikes to be coordinated half a world away.

HMNZS Te Kaha and the RNZAF Orion were assigned to a multinational naval task group that included warships from the US, Australia, Canada and Britain, building a global battle map with ships and Cheyenne Mountain through the FLTSAT4 and InmarsatB satellites.

The Orion, linked to this test, also supplied data to American

military meteorologists.

New Zealand officers were also based at US Pacific Command at Camp Smith, Hawaii, the US Marine Corps naval warfare centre at Dahlgren, Virginia, the US Air Force special operations command at Hurlburt Field, Virginia, and on board USS Coronado, the command ship for the US Third Fleet, which guards America's west coast.

New Zealand defence chiefs used JWID to test their ability to operate in a coalition, to boost their own knowledge of cutting-edge command, control, communications and computer systems, and to identify any that they might be able to pick up.

Key New Zealand tests included a joint intelligence support system - allowing intelligence analysts and operators to swap and analyse data with other defence forces - operated with US naval officers.

The tests also included combat radio and command support system trials between Army units in New Zealand and Australia, handheld satellite data transfer systems, and battlefield data sent as encrypted e-mails from an Orion to land units.

Peace researcher Nicky Hager said the cooperation went back many years and continued through the spat over Anzus because it was in the United States' interest to maintain coordination between allied forces.

"This continuing cooperation is the reason why there is constant pressure from the military for upgrades that run counter to the Government policy."

The Government has scrapped the $568 million Sirius upgrade of the Orions' avionics and warfare equipment.

Mr Hager said the military was likely to "patch up" the Orions' capability to maintain cooperation with the US and wait for a change of Government.