New Zealand Defence Force - Foreign Defence Relations

Foreign Defence Relations

New Zealand states it maintains a "credible minimum force," although critics (including the New Zealand National Party while in opposition) maintain that the country's defence forces have fallen below this standard. With a claimed area of direct strategic concern that extends from Australia to Southeast Asia to the South Pacific, and with defence expenditures that total around 1% of GDP, New Zealand necessarily places substantial reliance on co-operating with other countries, in particular Australia.

Acknowledging the need to improve its defence capabilities, the government in 2005 announced the Defence Sustainability Initiative allocating an additional NZ$4.6 billion over 10 years to modernise the country's defence equipment and infrastructure and increase its military personnel. The funding represented a 51% increase in defence spending since the Labour government took office in 1999.

New Zealand is an active participant in multilateral peacekeeping. It has taken a leading role in seeking to bring peace, reconciliation, and reconstruction to the Solomon Islands and the neighbouring island of Bougainville. New Zealand maintains a contingent in the Multinational Force and Observers and has contributed to United Nations and other peacekeeping operations in Angola, Cambodia, Somalia, Lebanon and the former Yugoslavia. It also participated in the Multilateral Interception Force in the Persian Gulf. New Zealand has an ongoing peacekeeping commitment to East Timor, where it participated in the INTERFET, UNTAET and UMAMET missions from 1999–2002, with an infantry battalion which was withdrawn in late 2002. In response to renewed conflict in 2006 more troops were deployed as part of an international force. New Zealand troops currently maintains an infantry company and supporting elements in East Timor. New Zealand has participated in 2 NATO-led coalitions; SFOR in the Former Yugoslavia (until December 2004) and an ongoing one in Afghanistan (which took over from a US-led coalition in 2006). New Zealand also participated in the European Union EUFOR operation in the former Yugoslavia from December 2004 until New Zealand ended its 15-year continuous contribution there on 30 June 2007.

New Zealand participates in sharing training facilities, personnel exchanges, and joint exercises with the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Brunei, Tonga, and South Pacific states. It also exercises with its Five Power Defence Arrangement partners - Australia, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, and Singapore. New Zealand military personnel also participate in a wide variety of training exercises, conferences and visits as part of military diplomacy.

New Zealand is a signatory of the ANZUS treaty, a defence pact between it, Australia and the United States dating from 1951. After the 1986 anti-nuclear legislation that refused access of nuclear powered or armed vessels to ports, the USA withdrew its obligations to New Zealand under ANZUS, and ANZUS exercises are now bi-lateral between Australia and the United States. Under anti-nuclear legislation, any ship must declare whether it is nuclear propelled or carrying nuclear weapons before entering New Zealand waters. Due to the US policy at that time of "neither confirm nor deny", ship visits ceased. Despite the Presidential Directive of 27 September 1991 that removed tactical nuclear weapons from U.S. surface ships, attack submarines, and naval aircraft, ship visits have not resumed. Despite signs of rapprochement in recent years, military relationships with the US remain limited, although senior US officials have been complimentary about New Zealand's contributions to the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. New Zealand retains a close bi-lateral defence relationship with Australia.

Due to New Zealand's antinuclear policy, defence cooperation with the U.S., including training exercises, has been significantly restricted since 1986, when the ANZUS treaty defence obligations to NZ were suspended by the USA. However, New Zealand and the USA remain 'very, very good friends'. On 26 July 2008 during a visit to New Zealand, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice upgraded this status and said "New Zealand is now a friend and an ally". The NZDF has served alongside NATO led forces in Afghanistan in recent times, and in 2004 the NZSAS was awarded a Presidential Unit Citation by US President George W Bush for "extraordinary heroism" in action.

New Zealand is a member of the ABCA Armies standardisation programme, the naval AUSCANNZUKUS forum, the Air and Space Interoperability Council (ASIC, the former ASCC, which, among other tasks, allocates NATO reporting names) and other Western 'Five Eyes' fora for sharing information and achieving interoperability with like-minded armed forces, such as The Technical Cooperation Program (TTCP).