Defence policy: thinking systematically: Jim Rolfe comments on New Zealand's approach to defence policy in the 21st century.

• Author: Rolfe, Jim

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How should New Zealand think about the New Zealand Defence Force. What is its role as a component of the government's foreign, defence and security policies in the 21st century? New Zealand does not appear to address these questions in any systematic sense. What follows is based on the not at all controversial assumption that the armed forces have a role in more than just defence and the application of armed force. (1)

In a recent Australian Strategic Policy Institute paper I outlined some of the bureaucratic and policy processes that have got NZDF to where it is today. I will not here rehearse the force structure at all. Suffice it to say that the NZDF is a force with a more or less viable army, navy and air force, depending on the roles and the levels of activity required of them, but a force that is stretched in some areas, both immediately in terms of commitments and in the longer term as affordability problems inevitably start to bite. Of the two, it is probably the affordability issues that will cause the most angst in coming years.

Part of the problem it seems to me, as an outsider, is that we do not have a dear, systematic and realistic idea of what we want the NZDF to do. Or more accurately perhaps, we do. But what we want is for the NZDF to be able to do a little bit of most things without forcing it to narrow its focus too much. This has been the approach taken for almost the whole of the last 50 years. It is an approach that privileges maximum flexibility, but perhaps this comes at the expense of affordability and focus. I wonder if this approach is still appropriate, especially given that trying to do a little bit of most things has a cost. Certainly, in the last several years, the government has discussed building a 'niche' force suited to New Zealand's needs. The cynical might argue that that is as likely to be because of affordability issues as because of any great belief in the virtues of specialisation. Whether that is so or not, if the niche concept is to be taken seriously there is much more that could be done.

Let us go back to the middle of the last century and compare the world (and especially the Asia--Pacific regional) system existing then with now. Then it was a world of states and their colonies. Today it is a world of independent states forming regional groupings--groupings that are to a large extent at peace internally. Then it was a world in which power determined the ability of states to act. Today it is a world in which rules are as important as, or more important than, power. Then it was a world in which the recourse to war to resolve political differences was a commonplace. Today war is becoming illegitimate and diplomacy and political settlements are the preferred means for resolving differences. Then it was a world of closed economies and closed societies. Today, through the force of globalisation, it is a world of open economies and open societies. Too much should not be made of all this, but it does seem to me that we do inhabit a world today in which the rules and norms of international behaviour have moved towards a presumption of co-operation rather than of confrontation or conflict. (2)

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