{"id":14802,"date":"2014-07-18T06:00:14","date_gmt":"2014-07-17T20:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=14802"},"modified":"2014-07-21T10:00:22","modified_gmt":"2014-07-21T00:00:22","slug":"an-australia-new-zealand-defence-gap-political-more-than-technical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/an-australia-new-zealand-defence-gap-political-more-than-technical\/","title":{"rendered":"An Australia\u2013New Zealand defence gap? Political more than technical"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

New Zealand watchers of Australia\u2019s defence policy won\u2019t be surprised by Graeme Dobell\u2019s point<\/a> that alongside New Zealand and the United Kingdom, Japan now rates as one of Canberra\u2019s second-tier partners. But more intriguing is the notion that Japan has now taken New Zealand\u2019s old place in the triangle with the United States which is the \u2018foundation for Australian defence thinking’. If that doesn\u2019t grab attention in Wellington, then the explanation will: New Zealand\u2019s defence capability is apparently \u2018grinding to a standstill\u2019.<\/p>\n

Graeme attributes that bold view to a post<\/a> written by ASPI colleague Andrew Davies after the recent 1.5 Track Dialogue held at Victoria University. In reality, Andrew doesn\u2019t go that far, but he does argue that New Zealand\u2019s forces will struggle to operate with a modernising ADF.<\/p>\n

Retaining that ability won\u2019t come cheap to Wellington, but as I noted in an earlier post<\/a>, the Key government has signaled a willingness to commit additional funds for defence. And there are signs the longer-term challenges aren\u2019t being forgotten. New Zealand\u2019s refreshingly concise (and anti-standstill) Defence Capability Plan<\/a> contains the following warning from the Defence Minister:<\/p>\n

The period following 2020 will be a challenging one. Work has commenced on options to replace our C-130H and Boeing 757 fleets in the early 2020s. This will require a significant investment. The P-3K2 Orion maritime surveillance aircraft and the ANZAC frigates will also reach the end of their service life in the 2020s.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the shorter term, it\u2019s difficult to imagine why a New Zealand government would be finding money for a major combat-systems upgrade of its two ANZAC frigates if there was little interest in being able to work with traditional partners. As the press release<\/a> announcing this decision suggests, that group extends beyond Australia.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, there\u2019s one Australia\u2013New Zealand gap about which we should be concerned. But it\u2019s a political one. To see it, we need only compare the recent visits to both countries by Japan\u2019s confident Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.<\/p>\n

The warm-up visit to Auckland and Christchurch was over in the blink of an eye. But for those watching, two issues dominated the media coverage. One involved New Zealand\u2019s concerns<\/a> about Japan\u2019s whaling policy. Had those gone un-mentioned by the New Zealand Prime Minister some awkward questions would have been raised domestically with an election looming. The second issue was Japan\u2019s approach to the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations. As I suggested<\/a> before Mr Abe\u2019s arrival, the undemanding free trade agreement that he was about to sign on the Australian side of the ditch had taken the pressure off Japan in terms of agricultural reform. And so that proved to be<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the New Zealand visit did produce something unusual from the Key government: a publicly-available statement<\/a> about foreign policy. This rare document includes an endorsement of closer New Zealand\u2013Japan defence cooperation. Yet the modest details are hardly the stuff of a rapidly evolving partnership-cum-alliance. And the line on Japan\u2019s changing approach to military affairs seemed designed to leave the reader guessing about Wellington\u2019s real level of enthusiasm. \u2018New Zealand appreciated\u2019, the statement reads, \u2018the issuing of Japan\u2019s policy of \u201cProactive Contribution to Peace\u201d based on the principle of international cooperation, including the recent updating of its framework for security.\u2019<\/p>\n

I suspect \u2018appreciated\u2019 is somewhere on the scale between \u2018noted\u2019 and \u2018welcomed\u2019. It\u2019s some distance away from \u2018adored’. I use that last piece of hyperbole deliberately because Abe didn\u2019t just get a welcome mat in Canberra but a trail of rose petals leading from the tarmac to Parliament House.<\/p>\n

No such parallel was possible in New Zealand and not just because the size of Abe\u2019s plane made a Wellington visit logistically challenging. John Key\u2019s government argues that it can enjoy good relations with all the major players, and gives the impression that it doesn\u2019t have to make trade-offs between them. But it knows that siding too closely with Japan on issues that divide North Asia will have long-term costs for its relations with China.<\/p>\n

In a recent speech<\/a> on foreign policy, (for which a script hasn\u2019t been released and in which Australia warranted scarcely a mention) Mr Key said that New Zealand enjoys \u2018different\u2019 relations with China and the United States and that this arrangement worked fine. But Wellington would be reluctant to test that shaky logic by aligning itself with Tokyo in the same way that it has been aligning itself with Washington.<\/p>\n

By contrast, Canberra is standing alongside Tokyo in more obvious ways. I don\u2019t share Peter Jennings\u2019 confidence<\/a> on this score. The Abbott government is buying into the toxic mess of tensions between Japan and China. And its actions could make Australia a big obstacle to the types of regional relations that New Zealand would like to see these southern parts of the Asia-Pacific region enjoy with the more northern portions.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the trans-Tasman interoperability problem I\u2019m most worried about. And it was for me the most revealing finding of the Australia\u2013New Zealand 1.5 Track Dialogue.<\/p>\n

Robert Ayson is professor of strategic studies at Victoria University of Wellington. Image courtesy of Flickr user Emre Simtay<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Zealand watchers of Australia\u2019s defence policy won\u2019t be surprised by Graeme Dobell\u2019s point that alongside New Zealand and the United Kingdom, Japan now rates as one of Canberra\u2019s second-tier partners. But more intriguing is …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":14803,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17,51,135,73,31],"class_list":["post-14802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-australia","tag-defence-cooperation","tag-japan","tag-new-zealand","tag-united-states"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAn Australia\u2013New Zealand defence gap? 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