While New Zealand is unlikely to face any conventional military threat in the foreseeable future, non-conventional global and regional security challenges could have serious implications for New Zealand. These challenges include terrorism, increasing intra-state conflict, threats to our forces deployed abroad in multilateral operations, global criminal networks, nuclear proliferation, problems arising from weak governments in our region and beyond, and competition for maritime resources in the South Pacific.
In order to face these challenges, our defence and foreign policies must work in partnership to secure our territorial, economic, social and cultural interests, and to meet our collective regional and global responsibilities.
The pressures on the international community to intervene to restore stability within or between countries are greater than at any previous time in our history short of global conflict. This is evident in the highest ever level of United Nations (UN)-led operations- 18 operations with more than 110,000 personnel deployed. Consequently New Zealand is frequently asked to contribute to these peace support missions. Currently the NZDF has about 400 personnel deployed on 14 separate operations in ten countries, including contributions to five UN-led missions. We are frequently asked to do more, but are mindful of the need to maintain a timely response capability in our own region in the event of untoward developments.
NZDF contributions to UN and other UN-sanctioned multi-national peace support operations are a tangible demonstration of the importance New Zealand places on contributing to international peace and stability, in particular the principle of collective security. Our current contributions in Timor Leste, the Solomon Islands and Afghanistan, as well as the Middle East and Africa, underscore our credentials as a good international citizen. They have also reinforced and, in some cases established, New Zealand's profile in areas of considerable international tension.
Over the past three years New Zealand has been playing a crucial role in Timor Leste and currently contributes military personnel to the Australian-led International Security Force (ISF), and the United Nations Interim Mission to Timor Leste (UNMIT), as well as having training and advisory staff embedded in the Timor Leste Defence Force under the Mutual Assistance Programme (MAP). Our extensive involvement reflects the importance New Zealand attaches to stability and security in the Asia Pacific region, and to assisting a regional country in time of great need.
Closer to home, the South Pacific is not immune to the effects of state fragility. The Australian-led Regional Assistance Mission in the Solomon Islands (RAMSI), to which the NZDF continues to be a major contributor, is a Pacific response to a neighbour’s request for help. While security continues to improve, we expect to be needed there in support of the Police-led mission for some time.
The South Pacific will continue to be a key focus for the NZDF. Transnational problems such as organised crime, money laundering, and the illegal movement of people and goods are placing additional stress on neighbouring countries already facing pressing political, economic and social problems, which are likely to be exacerbated by the current global financial crisis. The challenge for the NZDF is to maintain mobile, responsive forces that can respond to calls for help from the region as we are presently doing in the Solomon Islands, and as we did in Tonga following the riots in November 2006. To do this New Zealand needs to maintain strong partnerships throughout the region, especially with Australia.
New Zealand has contributed to international efforts to promote security, governance and development in Afghanistan since 2001, and currently operates under the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). The NZDF currently leads the Bamyan Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), provides key staff to ISAF HQ, assists in training the Afghan National Army, and contributes to the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA). Our various contributions are in recognition of the global implications of state failure and demonstrate the importance we attach to multilateral peacekeeping and state building efforts.
New Zealand, as a nation that is internationally engaged, continues to work with partners to help secure a more stable international environment. We currently have NZDF personnel deployed in Afghanistan as part of this multilateral effort. A successful outcome there will be of benefit to the people of Afghanistan and to the wider international community.
Our closest strategic partnership is with Australia. We have a long tradition of mutual commitment to each other’s security and of working together in pursuit of shared strategic interests. A high priority in the period ahead will be to work closely with Australia to ensure our forces maintain a high level of interoperability in order to promote a secure and stable neighbourhood, as we are currently doing together in the Solomon Islands and Timor Leste. We will continue to work closely with the Australian Defence Force (ADF) to respond in a timely and co-ordinated fashion to a range of contingencies.
The NZDF has a good working relationship with the United States. We will continue to strengthen this relationship through working together in support of our common international and regional security interests. We have close operational contact with Canada and the UK as a result of common peacekeeping endeavours and have strengthened our defence and security dialogue with both countries. Since NATO assumed authority for the ISAF mission, New Zealand has developed a sound functional relationship with the Organisation, ranging from access to NATO decision making on ISAF, to high level representation at the NATO Summit in 2008 and other NATO conferences.
New Zealand is an active participant in measures designed to reinforce peace and stability in Southeast Asia. The NZDF maintains an active role in the Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA) with Australia, Malaysia, Singapore and the United Kingdom, and in adapting FPDA activities to help build capacity to meet non-conventional security challenges. The NZDF is also active in the ASEAN Regional Forum, which with its broad regional membership provides opportunities for New Zealand to work with other forum members in countering terrorism and transnational crime, and promoting regional security through participation in confidence building measures. The NZDF is particularly active in supporting close cooperation among ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) countries in disaster relief and humanitarian response coordination, and in maritime security.
At the bilateral level we continue to maintain strong relationships with Malaysia and Singapore. The latter’s welcome decision to contribute personnel to our Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Afghanistan underlines the closeness of the relationship with Singapore and the ability of the two forces to work together effectively in the field for peace. In other recent developments, bilateral relations with Indonesia have been renewed with an emphasis on military education, and closer links are being established with Vietnam.
Further north, our maturing defence relations with China, Japan and Korea, enhanced through regular defence contact and dialogue, add an important dimension to New Zealand’s engagement in North Asia, and underscore our commitment to peaceful interaction in a region of substantial and growing significance to New Zealand. The NZDF’s contribution to the United Nations Command (UNCMAC) in the Republic of Korea underlines the Government’s commitment to the Armistice Agreement until a peace agreement can be put in place on the Korean Peninsula.
With the current global economic crisis further complicating the global security outlook, the demands on the NZDF are likely to intensify as we continue to play our part in countering international terrorism, supporting fragile states, and addressing the challenges of nuclear proliferation. As part of our wider effort to meet these challenges, New Zealand has joined with a number of like-minded countries in support of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), a multilateral effort to counter the illegal trafficking of weapons of mass destruction and related materials. The NZDF played a substantial role in the New Zealand-hosted PSI Exercise Maru in September 2008. And, with the broadening of security definitions in the post-Cold War era to include transnational crime, the NZDF will be called on to support measures to deal with those threats, particularly in the South Pacific.
The Employment Contexts (ECs) which follow are “environment-related” (geographically grouped) and relate directly to the tasks that the force elements of the Navy, Army, and Air Force need to train for and be prepared to deploy against should that be the Government’s requirement. The ECs are an integral part of the NZDF Operational Preparedness Framework [the NZDF Operational Preparedness and Reporting System (OPRES)] described later in this Statement of Intent.
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