HAS NEW ZEALAND LET DOWN THE ANZAC TRADITION?

• Author: Fenton, Damien
• Position: New Zealand's defense policy - Australian and New Zealand Army Corps

Damien Fenton criticises the government's new defence stance.

So, Helen Clark prevails where Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan failed. The RNZN will basically be left with an ineffective two-frigate force while the strike wing of the RNZAF is to be disbanded by the end of the year with the loss of 700 jobs, not to mention New Zealand's reputation as a trustworthy and reliable ally. Do not be fooled by the polite diplomatic mutterings about New Zealand's defence posture being a matter for New Zealand to decide. For our traditional allies and regional friends, none more so than Australia, the Labour-Alliance government's latest actions will be the last straw. An early assessment of Clark's stated security policies last year led the respected Australian defence analyst Professor Paul Dibb to label New Zealand a `strategic liability'. Any doubts that may have lingered within the Australian federal government over that candid description will now have been completely dispelled.

Less formal commentators on the Australian side of the Tasman are putting it in even more brutally frank terms: that New Zealanders, quite simply, have opted to bludge or freeload on Australia's defence effort. From now on Australian taxpayers by themselves will be footing the bill to maintain the air and naval power needed for the long-term defence and security of Australasia. As far as many Australians are concerned, the Australian hit it on the head with its front-page headline: `NZ turns back on tradition of Anzac'. Is this an unfair and unwarranted perception on the part of our closest neighbour? A brief look at the issues involved suggests not.

One of Clark's favourite justifications for her government's sweeping cutbacks in New Zealand's defence capability is that the Cold War is long since over and that the need for a small, but balanced, defence force died with it. She insists that in today's changing world `traditional' war-fighting capabilities will be less important than so-called peacekeeping capabilities. Any argument to the contrary is dismissed as the hawkish out-of-touch ramblings of unreformed Cold Warriors. Hence the contempt with which Clark treated the open letter by seven retired defence notables that dared to criticise her plans.

Yet the greatest irony of all this is that if anyone is `fighting the last war' it is Clark and the other babyboomers currently occupying the leadership of the Left. It appears that for these people the Vietnam War never ended, and the emotional chords of anti-militarism and anti-Americanism struck by their activities and experiences of 30-odd years ago colour their thinking to this very day. How else can you explain the failure of otherwise seemingly strong and intelligent politicians such as Clark and Jim Anderton to modify their defence policies in the face of unambiguous, if personally unpalatable, facts?

Important evidence

There is plenty of impartial evidence available supporting the need for both an air strike wing and a four-frigate navy. The practical, operational and political arguments have been strongly represented elsewhere, and need not be reiterated, but a few points will highlight the irrational basis of the government's defence decisions. From the `The Navy Critical Mass Argument' by Professor G. A. Vignaux of the Institute of Statistics and Operations Research at Victoria University of Wellington in 1997 to Derek Quigley's embarrassing (for Clark) report approving the F-16 purchase early last year, the rational arguments in favour of maintaining New Zealand's small, but balanced, war-fighting capability are overwhelming. All of this is ignored, dismissed as self-serving military propaganda or, as a last resort, waved away on the superfluous...