US urges NZ to invest more in armed forces for policing Pacific

The US and Australia have encouraged New Zealand to invest more in its arm forces, especially in patrolling and policing the wide waters of the Pacific.
US deputy secretary of state Kurt Campbell talked to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon on the sides of the Pacific Islands Forum in Tonga this week, and that gave him “high confidence” that New Zealand will increase its military capacity.
This comes despite cost-cutting elsewhere across the public sector.
Kurt Campbell disclosed the discussions in response to questions from Newsroom about New Zealand’s half-drafted defence capability plan, while on a brief stopover in Auckland on Friday afternoon.
The last defence capability plan was in 2019. The Defence Force and Ministry of Defence are drafting a new one for this Government, that will describe specific agreed investments, to aid the planning of industry and international partners, as well as the New Zealand public.
“I don’t want to get into too many details,” Campbell replied. “We do believe that some of the unique offerings, that New Zealand has the ability to engage in, are largely in the maritime domain. And so it is going to be critical we’re going to need more coverage in the Pacific, in the maritime realm, maritime domain awareness, illegal fishing and the like.”
Does this mean more patrol vessels?
“Ultimately, these are independent decisions that New Zealand has to take,” he replied.
“They’ve had close consultations with Australia, with us, and others. We’ve provided our input. we have high confidence that they will take necessary steps to increase capacity.
“We do want to see more investments in their armed forces. We do think the maritime domain is important and we think that this is an arena where New Zealand’s contributions are natural.”
US secretaries of state have worked through a range of descriptions of the US-New Zealand relationship over the years, as relations have blown hot and cold. Colin Powell famously described the two countries as “very, very, very good friends” while pointedly stopping short of the word “allies”.
Asked for his description, Campbell said it was a “strong, improving, deeply respectful… partnership”, that was “central to what we’re seeking to accomplish together in the Pacific”.
The New Zealand Navy and Air Force have traditionally played a big role in patrolling the Pacific for illegal fishing, drug-running, and security threats.
But in the past year the Navy, in particular, has been enormously constrained by personnel shortages, and has been forced to wharf some of its ships for extended periods.
The Air Force has taken delivery of the first of its new Boeing P-8 Poseidons, replacing the old Orions. The manufacturer describes the P-8s as multi-mission maritime patrol aircraft, excelling at anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and search and rescue.
“The P-8 can fly higher (up to 41,000 ft) and get to the fight faster (490 knots),” Boeing says. “Shorter transit times reduce the size of the area of probability when searching for submarines, surface vessels or search and rescue survivors.
“P-8 is also designed for low altitude missions and has already proven its abilities supporting humanitarian and search and rescue missions.”
Professor David Capie is director of the Centre for Strategic Studies at Victoria University of Wellington. “I don’t think it’s any secret that the US would like to see New Zealand spend more on defence,” he says.
“They’re encouraging. They want to send a signal. They clearly want to see more defence spending. They’re sort of taking a wait-and-see approach and waiting for the defence capability plan to come out.
Capie says the NZ Navy has faced “a real crisis” in personnel, and not being able to put ships to sea. Alongside that, it faces looming block obsolescence of a whole series of platforms – the frigates, HMNZS Canterbury, maritime helicopters and more. So that makes the US pressure in maritime capacity unsurprising.
“If you look at New Zealand’s strategic geography, obviously we live in a maritime region. So on the one hand, he probably understands that New Zealand’s got its own national interests as a player in a maritime sphere.
“It doesn’t just mean ships. That also means aircraft, where we’ve seen significant investment in the last five years, especially with the P-8. But it could also mean autonomous drones. It could mean autonomous maritime systems. It’s the whole shebang.”
Capie says the New Zealand Government has been very clear and explicit that it wants to lean into the traditional Australia and US partnerships, but what’s sometimes overlooked is that it’s also pushing quite a significant step up with other partners in the Pacific and Southeast Asia.
Campbell and Luxon both flew into New Zealand on Friday, after attending the Pacific Islands Forum in Nuku’alofa.
Campbell met with Bede Corrry, New Zealand’s new Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade, to hammer out this year’s strategic dialogue with enhanced defence collaboration
The two men expressed “grave concern about dangerous, destabilising, and provocative actions” in the South China Sea, including by Chinese vessels towards Philippines vessels.
Afterwards, Newsroom asked Campbell about China’s security deals with some Pacific Island nations. “Our primary area of concern is in efforts on the part of China to create possible power projection capabilities in the Pacific or to use outposts in these countries for various space related activities,” he replied.
“We’ve communicated that directly to the countries involved. I think it is entirely appropriate for the United States to communicate directly about what our areas of contribution to Pacific interests are. I think they’re going to choose from a variety of different options on the way forward.”
China has done security and policing deals with Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Fiji, Samoa and Vanuatu, as part of a Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s four-day diplomatic blitz across the Pacific, visiting eight nations and talking to 10 leaders.
Experts have raised concerns about the militarisation of the region, citing those deals and the US defence cooperation agreement with Papua New Guinea. Only three Pacific countries – Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Tonga – have their own militaries.
“Our ultimate goal – and it’s a goal that we share with Australian and New Zealand friends – is we seek to strengthen democratic trends, democratic processes, and a strong civil society,” Campbell continued. “And we think some of the steps that China has taken are antithetical to those goals.”
Campbell and Corry also launched a dialogue on critical and emerging technologies. Of note, the two countries have committed to pursue focused collaboration on the need to advance safe, secure, trustworthy, and responsible AI innovation; safe and secure biotechnologies; and quantum computing.
As for Luxon, he returned on Friday night from Nuku’alofa and was making his way to Turangawaewae to pay his respects at the tangihanga of Kiingi Tūheitia.
In Tonga, Luxon had spent the past days highlighting existing NZ aid development aid projects rather than new initiatives, Newsroom’s Sam Sachdeva reports. And New Zealand’s projects were dwarfed by the likes of Australia and the US.
The bigger sums means a lot to the Pacific, given the unmet need.
For instance, the Pacific Resilience Facility, due to launch next year, was originally established with a US$500 million fundraising target, but this week Cook Islands prime minister Mark Brown said leaders had decided: “We need to be transformational this time, it actually needs to be US$1.5 billion. It may sound like a big number, but in the global context of things, this is a very modest amount of money.”
With the New Zealand Government promising a back-to-basics approach and continued budget cuts, Sachdeva reports that there are worries how much money Luxon and his team will really be willing to invest in the Pacific.
“You would have seen in our Budget reprioritisation exercise we ran … we have said no, there are real priorities in foreign affairs that we are very committed to,” Luxon says. “Likewise in defence – and we have made choices about our spending level that are entirely appropriate, so I’m not worried at all.”