$12billion on defence – who are we defending against? Xi or Trump?

ByMartyn Bradbury

Government unveils $12 billion Defence Capability Plan

  • The coalition has released the 2025 Defence Capability Plan
  • It outlines $12 billion of spending over the next four years, $9 billion of which is new money
  • The plan will lift defence spending to more than 2 per cent of GDP in the next eight years

The government will invest $12 billion over the next four years for a “modern, combat-capable” New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF).

The coalition has just released its highly-anticipated Defence Capability Plan that sets out a spending blueprint for the next 15 years.

Of the $12 billion of spending, $9 billion is new money that will equate to a significant boost in annual funding for the force.

The plan will lift New Zealand’s defence spending from just over one per cent of GDP to more than 2 percent in the next eight years.

Defence spending was last at 2 percent of GDP in the early 1990s.

The government has committed to reviewing the plan every two years but was clear the spending outlined today is the floor, not the ceiling, for future investment.

Of note in the blueprint is the plan to buy new missile systems “to respond to hostile vessels at a greater range” in the next four years.

There are also indications the defence force will expand its martime strike capabilities to deliver “long range strikes from multiple domains” from 2029 to 2039.

Major investments 2025-2028

    • Enhanced strike capabilities
    • Frigate sustainment programme
    • Persistent surveillance (uncrewed autonomous vessels)
    • Replacing the maritime helicopters
    • Javelin anti-tank missile upgrade
    • Network enabled army
    • Special operations sustainment
    • Vehicles for the NZDF
    • Counter uncrewed ariel systems (UAS)
    • Long-range remotely piloted aircraft
    • Replacing the Boeing 757 fleet
    • Space capabilities
    • Enhancing cyber security capabilities
    • Enterprise resource planning
    • Improving intelligence functions
    • Updating classified digital services
    • Accommodation, messing and dining modernisation
    • Defence estate regeneration
    • Defence housing programme
    • Future Devonport naval base design
    • Ohakea infrastructure programme
    • Defence, Science and Technology uplift
    • Technology accelerator
    • Information management
    • Digital modernisation
    • Logistics resilience
    • Consolidated Logistics Project Infrastructure
    • Implementing a workforce strategy

Work on the plan started in August 2023, and was initially expected to be delivered mid-2024, but was delayed – and delayed further after the sinking of the Manawanui.

$12billion on defence – who are we defending against? Xi or Trump?

It’s amazing that we can’t feed our kids anything ore than corporate slop but we can snap our fingers and find billions for war.

If only we considered feeding our kids and homing our homeless with the same passion.

Trump is a fascist, and this is a truth no one wants to acknowledge.

This isn’t just a blip, this is America becoming fascist.

We can’t allow our Chinese Economic Overlords to dominate us any more than we can allow  the mad Orange King to rule over us!

We need a real and true Independent New Zealand, but in doing so, we have to understand it is going to cost us.

NZ needs to lift its Military, Aid and Diplomacy to 5% GDP

New Zealand spends  0.3% of its gross national income on official development assistance.

Our diplomatic arm is even less than that with a cost annually of around $500million.

Our military spend was 1.2%.

I believe we have four choices confronting our new geopolitical reality as a friction point between America and China.

1 – We capitulate to our Chinese Economic Overlords.

2 – We capitulate to our American Political Masters.

3 – We freeze in terror and make no decisions and allow both of them to molest us until one of them wins and takes us over as a vassal State.

4 – We get off our knees, stand on our two feet, acknowledge the reality of climate change and decide to properly fund (via taxing the wealthy elite) an Independent Foreign Policy.

I have no interest in the first three options.

I believe we need to lean into our strengths and we must lift our Military, Diplomacy and AID budgets up collectively to 5%.

1% AID

1% to our Diplomacy arm.

3% to our military.

AID

We have an obligation as a first world country to provide an AID budget that is free of political considerations and is focused on actual welfare of people. We need a far kinder and more generous Aid budget with none of the attached strings other countries try to push. It’s this no strings attached generosity that wins hearts and minds as opposed to the fish hooks of great nations.

We need to stop exploiting Pacific people for fruit labouring and instead pay them properly and house them properly.

We need to look to Universal Union Membership for all migrant workers to stop exploitation.

 

Diplomacy

Enemy to none, friend to all should be our mantra. We need to lean into NZs reputation as Independent and we need to bulk up our embassies and diplomacy and use the strengths of our culture and pacifism to stand for universal human rights and the rule based order.

We must spend aid money on basic infrastructure while acknowledging  China can out spend us, so how can NZ maintain its influence in the Pacific while desperately countering the outrageous level of corruption China and America promotes and so many Pacific Governments revel in?

Auckland is the largest Pacific Island City and we do little to celebrate or leverage off that. We need to look at offering fundamental migration opportunities for Tuvalu, Tokelau and Kiribati who face the worst impacts of climate change but we also need to think outside the square in terms of not only countering Chinese influence but beating it.

I think two ways NZ could uniquely promote its interests into the Pacific against China could be via Rugby Diplomacy and Journalism.

The All Blacks doing a tour of the South Pacific would actually be of huge cultural and sporting importance and something the Government should sponsor with taxpayer dollars to help subsidise the costs to the All Blacks as a sign of respect to the sporting and cultural contribution Pacific Island nations have provided NZ.

Why shouldn’t we use Rugby as a diplomatic tool to build standing throughout the Pacific? It’s something China couldn’t match and something NZ could excel at. China might build the stadiums, but they will be watching NZ Rugby in them!

Likewise Journalism. AUT run the excellent Pacific Media Centre to promote quality Journalism throughout the Pacific. What if NZ saw the promotion of quality Journalism as a craft throughout the Pacific as a strong way to counter corruption and Chinese influence? Scholarships, Pacific News Media websites, support of local ethical journalism these could be the pillars of promoting corruption free politics and holding those Governments to account.

Dr Robie, formerly founding director of AUT’s Pacific Media Centre and a professor of Pacific journalism has launched an independent news and current affairs website to complement his long-established Asia Pacific Report. His work should be promoted throughout the Pacific!

Rugby diplomacy and promotion of Journalistic standards throughout the Pacific could counter China and promote NZs strategic interests.

We need to look at setting up Peace Camps at Marae where young people from warring zones can come to NZ as a Peace centre.

 

Military 

We can’t pretend we are in a benign environment any longer. We need a military that is focused on peace keeping and defence.

We need a drone manufacturing industry and we need an expansion of drones for patrolling our economic zone and defend the Realm.

We need a better coast guard and more surveillance capacity.

Arguments that we can’t afford huge ships are valid, but drones have shown us that we can hit expensive ships for very little cost, and if the focus is defending NZ and not going on foreign military adventures, we can use NZ as one giant air craft carrier with Drones.

We need far great capacity to project civil defence capacity around the Pacific.

 

We can’t outspend China or America, but we can play a far smarter game and end up with an Independent Foreign Policy.

If we want to be independent – we need to lift military, Aid and Diplomacy spending to 5% GDP.

 

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42 Comments

  1. No money for our health, education, housing, mental health to name a few but money for war bloody war mongers judeath gollins.

    1. Yep .. Nothing changes.
      At least they may be able to include some extra absorbent tissues in their budget, so Winston Peter’s can wipe his chin.

  2. No money for our health, education, housing, mental health to name a few but money for war bloody war mongers judeath gollins. No mention of peace keeping either.

    1. I don’t think he’s got the guns yet. I don’t think we will see much change because
      a) it will take 10 years to get the boats and planes built unless we buy rejects from other countries and
      b) we can’t afford it unless Willis is going to print money

      1. we can’t afford it unless Willis is going to print money

        Well, there are other options, such as reversing tax cuts for landlords, imposing CGT and possibly wealth tax and/or financial transaction taxes. Of course, if one is imposing all these new taxes then we would need to reduce GST and possibly company tax.
        I think what you are really saying is that given the current government settings … Willis would have to print money – which would, of course, be inflationary.

  4. NZ military in any real defensive conflict will prove as useful as the coat of wode dye native Britons wore against Roman ballistas in the first century CE.
    That won’t change even if the spend is > 15% GDP.

    Funding is better spent elsewhere.

    1. Gunboats showing up off the coast of New Zealand isn’t a theoretical concept anymore. I’m not sure you understand why you’re analogue don’t support your argument. Technological change has always lead to easy victories.

      1. “Technological change has always lead to easy victories.”

        Occasionally in battles, but not wars. That’s why USA keeps ultimately losing almost every war it has entered into since the Korean.

        By all means, we can go and face the gunboats with expensive popguns and boasts that we’ve got a mean older brother to back us up, but none of that will make a dent in any serious invasion.

        1. Only if you are any to isolate yourself. The moment a hundred thousand body bags appear we will be obligated to contribute. It’s happened before on WW1/2 and Maori vs the crown. Both times we had the usual suspects whining and moaning oh it’s to expensive, can’t do it nope no way. What about the children. Blah blah blah. It’s just the way the world works only you want the weakest most ineffective military possible and people like you are usually shot or put on jail if you didn’t cop a hiding first.

        2. Didn’t the Korean War end as a “frozen” conflict? Doesn’t sound like a win to me.

          1. Yeah but the idea that any of us can be considered “the good guys” is bullshit. We are all villains it’s just The Kim’s gives us the illusion that we’re not that bad.

          2. Yeah but the idea that any of us can be considered “the good guys” is bullshit. We are all villains it’s just The Kim’s gives us the illusion that we’re not that bad.

  5. If we spent our entire GDP on defense it wouldn’t be sufficient to defend us against a super power with malevolent intent. Smedley Butler was right – “War is a racket” and in the way the US uses war, or the threat of it, to further its interests, it’s a protection racket. The one great positive that has come out of Trump’s election is that, in his naivety and bullying school yard hubris he has exposed what has always been so about America – it’s a gangster nation.

  7. Am I in the ranks of the appeasers if I say there is a lot of panic mongering here?
    Is China our major trading partner? Yes.
    Do we need to protect the shipping routes to China? Yes.
    Who is the enemy we are protecting our shipping routes from? China.
    So we need to protect our shipping routes from our major trading partner?

    Is the United States of America a huge military power? Yes
    Does our government consider the USA our major ally? Yes
    Is the United States imposing tariffs on New Zealand? Yes.
    Does the USA pressure us to abandon our nuclear-free policy? Yes.
    Does the United States expect us to support it when it arms and aids Israel? Yes.
    Does the United States expect us to support it when it goes to war with other countries(Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen)? Yes.
    Is China imposing tariffs on New Zealand imports? No.
    Does China pressure us to abandon our nuclear-free policy? No.
    Does China want us to be a military ally? No.
    So the United States imposes penalties on us and influences our foreign policy but China is the aggressor?
    Is China a brutal and repressive dictatorship? Yes.
    Is the United States a Democracy? ………………………………………………………fucked if I know.

    Can China dominate us by economic means? Only if we let it. We can look for other markets and trading partners. We can diversify our products and insulate our economy.
    Of course all this will change. I anticipate that Trump will not relinquish power when his time is up and the resulting American Civil War will destroy the USA as a world power( let us face it, this is the military that could not defeat the Vietnamese Communists, or the Afghan Taliban so we may be better off not relying on them).
    It is time to rely on ourselves, also find trading partners that do not want to control us. Look to Latin America, South East Asia and The European Union. They also will need to readjust to the collapse of US power.

    1. Sanctions are an act of war. Tariffs are just bad manners. Trying to win yesterday’s is a rule of thumb. New Zealand is never going to have the high end capabilities in peace time but we must have the capability to surge into a war.

      What I’m saying is and what I’ve been saying is that if anyone, for whatever reason sends a task force down here we need something that says we will smash your boys. In other words we need a high low mix of high end tier 1 assets and teir 2 and or tier 3 assets. And we should create some sort of South Pacific Command centre so that personal from smaller south pacific nations like Samoa etc can fall into cheap tier 2/3 patrol assets freeing up kiwi personal for the tier 1 stuff but south pacific personal and kiwi personal should be interchangeable. We have to get creative of the personal, reimbursement and training fronts.

      But the idea that multi role military platforms is the key to winning a coral sea engagement is just Judith drinking her own Kool aid. Winning an island hopping coral sea engagement during peace time is cost prohibitive.

      For example to future prof our Frigate replacement program those frigates will have to have at least 10% of empty void space just for the wires needed for military technology that maybe developed in the future or for countermeasures against weapons that might blindside our projections of what the region might look like later.

      It’s all hearsay these what if China does this or America does that. We have to cut out all of the lies and bullshit and say what capabilities makes sense and how much does that cost and if we can find $9 billion for defence then we can apply the same arguments for finding $9 billion for health, education, housing and WINZ respectively.

      If National can’t produce a balanced policy environment I would expect chippie says fuck your ideological dogma and stretch defence spending out from 4 years to 8.

      If your going to tighten the belt then fucken it.

  8. increased warfare spending is due to US pressure, henceforth, it is China we are gearing up to strike (or defend against, for those not keen on reality). The call to increase strike power has been heard by all US allies. In a time where a struggling economy has only gotten worse, the political class now demands we spend stretched public funds on non public interest endeavors. Further evidence of a rotten friggin political system

    1. You don’t know that. We’ve always had scouts, spy’s diplomats or rangers days, weeks or years in advanced of the main force trying to create the conditions for military victory. As long as human rights are a thing we will always have someone trying to take them away.

    2. I don’t know what exactly, and whose human rights are we gearing up to crush this time?

      1. Humans rights is a constant struggle. If I crush your throat so that you can’t speak did you even have free speech in the first place?

        Every single human rights come with man traps for example the freedom to own guns comes with a consequence that mass shootings will happen. The consequences of the right to vote means they may elect an idiot. The consequences are consistent across each human rights respectively that’s the big reason why we require a military as the ultimate check and balance.

          2. No, humanity underpins human rights, not force. But force rules the world, not humanity, so yeah, you do have a valid point. The genocide wreaking havoc in Palestine is a prime example of force determining the legitimacy, or not, of human rights. Force rules, not humanity, and force is nothing more than the expression of big money interests in action. You’re on the wrong side, Sam, because if you had money, you wouldn’t be here! Choose peace, not war.

  9. $12billion on defence – who are we defending against? Xi or Trump?
    Not defending against anyone.
    Getting ready to join an attack upon China if or when Donald Trump gives Wellington the order.

  10. uncrewed autonomous vessels?

    Is this because the Navy has run out of Lesbian Captains?

    1. Not exactly, they’re about to be flooded with Zoomers (Gen Z 13yrs- 28yrs). Those were good times.

  11. Best we get Korea to build our new frigates and buy our air craft from air bus and our hard ware from Germany .Or we could get our shit together and make our own .We have a few very cleaver people left still and if we started manufacture of our own hard ware we may well entice some who have left to return .

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