The Shape of New Zealand's Defence - A White Paper (November 97)
Foreword
This document, which is the product of an exhaustive review by Ministers and their departmental advisers, sets out a future path of investment for the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) and outlines the expected evolution of our force structure in the next decade and beyond. It takes into account both New Zealand's geo-strategic circumstances and the range of external risks and pressures that New Zealand is likely to encounter in the early decades of the next century. Over the next few years many of the major capital assets of the NZDF will reach the point of obsolescence or the end of their effective working lives, and will require either extensive refurbishment or actual replacement. This White Paper responds to that reality.
New Zealand has a wide range of external interests and opportunities that can, from time to time, be advanced by deployment abroad of elements of our Defence Force, New Zealand also has obligations and expectations, arising from historical ties and from our commitments as a member of the United Nations and regional organisations, to support the maintenance of peace, security and stability beyond our shores. Earlier generations of New Zealanders earned our reputation as a country that will carry its share of the weight of the burden of upholding the rule of law and the protection of the rights of others to live free from coercion.
New Zealand hopes and expects to benefit from the globalising trends in information, communications, commerce and technology. Those benefits can best be secured when there is an environment of peace, stability and shared prosperity. For New Zealand this is particularly, but not exclusively, relevant in the Asia Pacific region. Therefore our nation's foreign policy and our external security policies must continue to be internationist, not isolationist.
Against this background the Government sought the most appropriate balance between New Zealand's local defence needs and its wider security interests. In setting the Terms of Reference for the Defence Assessment which formed the basis of this White Paper, Cabinet directed officials to develop investment proposals that matched fiscal realities with long term sustainability. The government wanted to find the right level of funding for Defence that would ensure that not only is its investment in people and equipment sufficient to maintain professional military standards but that it would be supportable by successive governments over the longer term.
After considering a range of force structure options, the Government has concluded that for the near-to-medium term New Zealand's security interests are best served within the structural framework that has evolved over the past several decades. This is an acknowledgement that our Army, Air and Naval forces have served us well, and with some shifts in force configuration will continue to do so. We will enhance Army capabilities and personnel in recognition of the growing importance of their peacekeeping role; we want to upgrade our air surveillance and transport capabilities; and we are in a long term programme to modernise the naval fleet.
The Government has had to make some difficult choices in arriving at this plan, not only within the Defence sector but within its broader spending programme. The force structure set out in this White Paper in necessarily a compromise between many competing pressures. But it is militarily credible; it has flexibility and depth; it will give successive governments sufficient options to deal with a wide range of local and external contingencies; and it will be fiscally sustainable in the long term.
Rt Hon J B Bolger
Prime Minister
