The 1997 Defence white paper: another view.

• Author: Bradford, Max
• Position: New Zealand Foreign Policy

The Minister of Defence, Max Bradford, responds to recent comments on the government's defence policy.

The articles on the 1997 white paper written for New Zealand International Review's March/April issue (vol XXIII, no 2) contribute to a better understanding of the defence and security issues that confront New Zealand as a nation, and I am grateful to the authors for that. Unfortunately, I have to say that two of them -- Dr Stewart Woodman and Grant Crowley -- are well wide of the mark.

Dr Woodman argues for 'an integrated defence force well-matched to the nation's primary security needs' -- essentially, if I understand him right, a joint maritime task force. By contrast, Grant Crowley thinks the Defence Force could and should play a wider social role during prolonged periods of peace. On the other hand, both Jim Rolfe and Dave Dickens appear to favour the approach taken in the 1997 white paper of maintaining a flexible and balanced force structure. Who is right?

Certainly not Messrs Woodman and Crowley, who base their case on some very large assumptions about the future. Dr Woodman seems to think that our primary security requirements lie in the South-west Pacific, and that we need to deal with them by ourselves. I cannot agree. A serious, large-scale security threat in our immediate region seems unlikely, and those threats that do arise are likely to be low intensity and non-military ones. The force structure set out in the white paper gives us the capabilities to look after these -- from disaster relief after cyclones, to rescuing yachties, up to our contribution to the Bougainville Truce Monitoring Group.

If we are wrong and a more serious threat does emerge in the region, the interests of Australia, France and the United States would all be affected to name but three. In these circumstances, New Zealand would not be operating independently; we would be working with others. What counts then is our ability to operate as part of a multinational force, which would also be the case if we were faced with a security threat in the wider Asia-Pacific region or globally as part of our peacekeeping efforts. In all three cases what we need is a range of capabilities suitable for a broad spectrum of military operations. I simply do not agree with Dr Woodman that our defence planners are tom between the demands of independent operations in the South Pacific and wider security commitments.

Doubtful assumption

I am even less comfortable with Grant...