We have posted several times on our national defence policies, which however you frame them, are a shameful disgrace. The only rational Christian position position on war is that it is a fundamental duty of civil government--the minister of God--to defend its citizens from war-making by other nations or non-state aggressors against us. It is a duty long left derelict by successive New Zealand governments. We would rather our government doled out money for health, education, and welfare than maintain a credible defence force. Why, you may ask? Simply put, there's more votes in it.
The past two hundred years of our national existence has seen New Zealand fight in many wars, however--none of them defensive in nature: the Boer War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Malaysia, Vietnam, Timor, Iraq (well sort of) and Afghanistan. In the two world wars, New Zealand forces were at times decimated due to their lack of equipment and training. We were the convenient cannon fodder for the generals of other nations. In every one of these conflicts you strain credulity to argue that they were defensive wars. Increasingly, our armed conflicts overseas have been sacrifices to the great god of universal human rights, not a defence of the citizens of this nation.
As the costs of government entitlement programmes have risen, successive reviews of the armed forces have resulted in cost-cutting. This, in turn, has led to the development of the reigning defence doctrine in this country: the "Others" defence doctrine. We have no real defensive capability: the army could probably conduct a shooting war that would last about twenty minutes before we ran out of ammunition and our armed personnel carriers, the LAVs, broke down. But that's not the point. Our real defence strategy is to rely upon other nations to come to our aid. The primary candidates would be the US and Australia. (Some airheads would look to the "international community" to defend New Zealand if attacked--by which they mean the United Nations. These folk no doubt sleep easily at night because ignorance is bliss.)
To demonstrate how parlous things have become, we recite the following stock-take of aircraft operated by the NZ Air Force.
The Air Force employs 3195 staff with key equipment, including:
- Five naval helicopters (Super Seasprite)
- Six maritime patrol aircraft (Orions)
- Five Hercules (transport)
- Two Boeing 757-200s (transport)
- 13 Iroquois helicopters (transport)
- Five Sioux helicopters (transport)
- Five Beech King aircraft (transport – training)
- 13 CT-4E aircraft (transport – training)
Hat Tip: Kiwiblog
Most of our airforce is devoted to transport (and training to enable transportation)!
It is time to get real. Since "Others" is our prevailing and controlling defence doctrine, it is high time the New Zealand government became transparent and honest on the matter. Apart from a bit of offshore fishing surveillance, which essentially is a commercial enterprise, we are in the invidious position of maintaining an airforce, and a navy, and a skeleton army for the sole purpose of enabling us to make token efforts to assist in the war-engagements of other nations all in the attempt to create a moral obligation for them to defend us should we ever be attacked. "We did the decent thing by you; now you help us out." This is about as naive and infantile as one could get--but we seem to specialize in such asininities.
Given the cravenness and irresponsibility of our "Others" defence doctrine, we believe the following would be a far more honest and cost effective solution: outsourcing. The New Zealand government should put the defence of this country up to competitive international tender every ten years. The contract would include KPI's, performance reviews, specified obligations--all the standard stuff. Obvious candidates to tender would be China, Australia and the US. Maybe Japan would be interested. Fiji, which maintains a larger army than NZ, might also be interested in being part of a tender consortium, along with Japan. Large mercenary organizations might also be able to put in a credible tender. (Don't reject this out of hand: it has a long historical lineage. Ask the Swiss--and the Vatican.)
We could then remove entirely all military bases, top brass, equipment, and personnel costs. This money could be put to funding the new defence contract. We predict there would be a significant cost savings--and a much, much greater defence capability than at present. It would also be more certain and reliable. The Hercules would not break down on route to . . . well, transporting.
Sure, a few egos would be bruised. National pride might receive a bit of a dent. ANZAC parades would quickly seem antiquarian. The RSA would die away. But these would be nothing if we could secure a better defence capability. It would not take much to get a better defence policy than our current one which falls between two stools. International competitive tendering and outsources is simply the "Others" doctrine taken to its logical and more effective end.
And we have one other great advantage: our Prime Minister, John Key has proven international negotiating skills. Look at the deal he swung with Warner Brothers for The Hobbit. International defence tenders and their competitive negotiations would be right up his alley. Clark was so ideologically myopic that she would have awarded the tender to the Kofi Ananistan Greater South East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, or, even worse, to the Scandinavian Defence Alliance. But Key would be far more commercial--and, therefore, reliable.
Why, Key's skills in this area are so formidable we could end up with Chinese or Fijian manned .50 cal machine gun posts on every intersection. Now we are talking. That would be a real "Others" defence policy at work, not the current wasteful, expensive show pony, which is all show and no pony, or, if you would permit a mixing of metaphors, all buck and no bang.
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