Budgeting to be a peacemaker not a warmaker
When it comes to helping out the victims of war – refugees – the government says it can only afford $25 million a year for an extra 250 refugees, a derisory amount.
Yet when it comes to preparations for fighting wars, the sky’s the limit. In its Defence White Paper the government projects spending $20 billion on new defence equipment over the next 15 years?
Most of this $20 billion is so we can kit up with all the latest hi-tech gear to fight wars alongside the United States – wars which in recent times have only created chaos and more refugees.
Don’t be fooled by Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee spinning the $20 billion as necessary to “respond to activities in New Zealand’s Exclusive Economic Zone, supporting New Zealand’s presence in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, as well as increasing cyber threats to Defence Force networks.”
Expenditure for those purposes is at the cheap end of the spectrum. In 2011 the Defence Force completed a Project Protector which delivered a whole new naval capacity to operate in the EEZ, the South Pacific and the Southern Ocean. The project delivered two Off-shore Patrol Vessels, four In-shore Patrol Vessels and a Multi-Role Vessel, the Canterbury. All up Project Protector cost $500 million.
Compare this $500 million for seven completely new ships to the latest (of many) equipment upgrades on the two ANZAC frigates – now scheduled to cost $473 million. If the present frigates are replaced in the 2020s (as projected in the White Paper) that additional cost will be in the billions.
The frigates are so much more expensive to build and operate than the Multi-Role Vessel and the patrol boats because of all the high-tech equipment they need to fight a major war alongside the US and Australian navies.
In the 1980s there was a widespread public debate over whether we should get frigates at all. Frigate opponents argued that they were too expensive and they locked us into US and Australian defence objectives. The arguments against wasting money on frigates apply even more today when America’s main military adversary is now our main trading partner, China.
The Defence White Paper seems calculated to annoy China.
It praises the “United States ‘rebalance’ towards the Asia-Pacific region” – which is actually all about confronting China. It praises the “degree of global influence” the US exerts and how New Zealand’s military relationship with the United States is “one of this country’s closest.”
You’d think that given the tension between China and the US, New Zealand would step back a bit. Instead the White Paper says that the “deepening geostrategic competition in Asia” is a reason New Zealand needs to be “able to contribute Defence resources beyond [our] immediate region if required.”
Part of this “geostrategic competition in Asia” is a military standoff between China and several other countries over some islands in the South China Sea. One of these countries is Malaysia. Is it wise then for the White Paper to explicitly promise that New Zealand would come to the defence of Malaysia, if it were the “subject of military attack”?
This is not to say that New Zealand should be uncritical of Chinese policy, domestic or foreign. But our criticism, on democratic rights issues for example, will be more effective if we are not seen as a military lapdog of the United States.
Each proposal for a major defence spend should be scrutinised closely to see if it meets New Zealand’s real needs. The proposal for “ice-strengthening the planned third offshore patrol vessel” may have merit, to catch trawlers depleting fish stocks in the Southern Ocean.
Sometimes a non-military equipment option will be better than a military one – and much cheaper. Other countries do much of their maritime surveillance with civilian planes, whose work is now made easier by access to satellite imagery and GPS transponders on boats. Drones may also be available for such work.
Most of the expenditure on the Air Force Orion planes is for military purposes unrelated to the day-to-day surveillance work it conducts around New Zealand and in the South Pacific. For example, the White Paper mentions “work is underway to upgrade the Orion’s underwater intelligence” – as part of a high tech revamp costing nearly $400 million. “Underwater intelligence” means detecting submarines. New Zealand’s submarine hunting was originally part of an American Cold War project to track Soviet submarines, wherever they happened to be. Presumably the idea now is to help the US track Chinese submarines. Is that really what we want our tax money spent on?
The White Paper also references the need for cyber-security “for the protection of Defence Force networks, platforms and people”. That’s fair enough, although we are much more likely to be a target of cyber-attacks if we are closely tied to the US military.
New Zealand is hardly facing any military threat and should be promoting itself as a peacemaker not a warmaker. Having a small military budget would then be an asset, not a liability.
JK fancies himself as a bit of a rambo sas war hero, remember he used to travel the country with military helicopters and military escorts when he was first elected.
He wants to play big boys war games with Hillary and the US military machine, along with his offsider Billy Bunter Brownlee.
It is actually quite comical to watch these politican’s behaviour and posturing?
In humanity’s final confrontations over resources it won’t matter which side NZ fights on because everyone will lose (has already lost?).
The continuous war engaged in by the financial-military-industrial complex on the very systems that make life-as-we-know-it possible has been extremely successful: Nature has been devastated beyond recognition, and it is now only a matter of time before planetary overheating and environmental collapse terminate human existence.
Daily CO2
June 17, 2016: 406.68 ppm
June 17, 2015: 401.63 ppm
Up 5.05 ppm (versus the recent average of 2.11 ppm per annum).
As everything that matters gets made rapidly worse by mendacious politicians we must expect the lies told to the masses to become ever greater……until the system collapses.
No one mentions the greenhouse type emissions from war machines, both in the manufacture and the use. In a time of pretending to commit the world to reducing these emissions it seems the world is arming itself. I don’t think any of this will end well.
You are absolutely right. It will all end very badly, and fairly soon -the US ramping up of tensions with Russia and China and the environmental repercussions of unabated emissions plus all the other damage being done to the environment.
“The state of the climate so far this year gives us much cause for alarm,” said David Carlson, Director of the World Climate Research Programme. “Exceptionally high temperatures. Ice melt rates in March and May that we don’t normally see until July. Once-in-a-generation rainfall events. The super El Niño is only partly to blame. Abnormal is the new normal.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/may-was-hottest-month-on-record-carbon-dioxide-levels-antarctica-also-reach-highest-ever-a7089366.html
Alarm? Climate emergency? Global environmental meltdown underway? Financial and economic meltdown coming soon?
Ignore, ignore, ignore. Deny, deny, deny: “Keep calm and keep buying property.”
There are two things most New Zealanders need to recognise but still have not:
1. John Key and the other maniacs in power could not care less about the future.
2. Everything Key & Co. say is a direct lie or is founded on a lie.
It can both be done, refurbish and improve our defence forces, and also take in more refugees, that is if the political will would be there.
But it may necessitate a review of our tax system, and as greed has been the main motivational drive under this government, telling people to want more for ME, ME and MY interests, too many people have become more selfish and do not want to pay the taxes that are needed to safeguard our future and to improve lives for all of us.
Divide and rule, that is the main problem, where greed plays a great role, hence we have this dilemma.
Re defence I would prefer the Swiss kind of approach, more neutrality, independence, but robust enough funding to pay for the essentials.
I’d prefer a more peaceful approach like Costa Rica’s.
No military.
Equipment to patrol our fisheries, to respond to humanitarian disasters and that’s it.
Works for them, and they’ve got Nicaragua and Panama on either side of them. And no, they have no arrangement with the USA for “protection”.
That’s not ‘sky’s the limit’ type spending. It’s only $1.333 billion per year. We actually do need to be able to defend ourselves from the types of people causing the refugees.
And realistically it’s not enough. That’s the problem. Throughout our history NZ has never spent enough on defence relying upon the good will of others to defend us and that’s neither diplomatic or practical unless we’re determined to be someone else’s serfs.
Personally, I’d prefer to be an independent nation.
The frigates are so much more expensive to build and operate than the Multi-Role Vessel and the patrol boats because of all the high-tech equipment they need to fight a major war alongside the US and Australian navies.
No, they need that high-tech to be able to defend us from high-tech threats.
That’s actually an argument for not only improving our defence forces but building up our own defence research, development and construction. Not by private for profit corporations of course. The weapons of war should not be produced for profit as it puts in place a large incentive to then go to war.
Yep, we should be declaring our total and utter neutrality. But even in doing that we’d still need to build up our defence forces.
Not helping the US, no, but we do need to track any submarines in the area as they are a threat.
No it wouldn’t – it’d make no difference whatsoever. What it’d mean is that we’re more likely to be attacked and that no one would step in to save us.
‘We actually do need to be able to defend ourselves from the types of people causing the refugees.’
So you are saying that we need to defend ourselves from the American financial-military-industrial complex. Hmm? Can’t see that working out well.
‘What it’d mean is that we’re more likely to be attacked and that no one would step in to save us.’
It’s not 1941. The game is OVER.
I think that Draco is right. We need some defence forces, and what we have is old stock and much of it is not up to modern day performance and purpose. So some investment is needed.
But apart from the resources we have in the seas around us, and on our land, New Zealand is a small, strategically not very significant piece of land. No major power really needs us all that much, as they can control the South Pacific without needing a base or support from here, China’s and now even Russia’s contacts with Fiji and a few other small island nations shows it.
The US still have American Samoa, the French are still in Tahiti and New Caledonia, and Indonesia can flex its muscle in Papua New Guinea and Melanesia, whatever New Zealand does, it will not change any of these influences.
The only major power down under that is of importance to the rest of the world, that is militarily and strategically, that is Australia, and all we can do is work with them, to some degree, and otherwise mind our business, and make sure we keep some illegal fishing boats, and drug smugglers and other undesirable players out.
The rest will be done by the big players, irrespective of what we may do or not do. Naturally, it should be smart though, to have sufficient people involved in defending this land, should something happen further down the track, and having enough men and women with training and good, basic arms ready to defend us, that is the basic essential, come global climate change, sea rises, whatever.
The world is not just full of warm hearted, loving people out there, if that was the case, we would have no conflicts and troubles anywhere. A short look over the shores and seas tells us, better be prepared for some trouble.
Was watching this the other day and one of the pieces of information in it was that NZ has more resources per capita than any other nation.
So, no major nation needs us but they do want our resources. That’s what the FTAs are for – to get nations to export their resources to the rich and powerful countries. If FTA’s don’t work then armed invasion is it as the Middle East has found out over the last 60+ years.
And don’t think that we’re special either just because we have the same forbears as some of those potential aggressors.
Yes and it would work fine. Just need to stick to physical reality rather than the delusional one of money and politics. Global empires don’t actually work.
+100 – Good post
I agree with a military force for peacekeeping, humanitarian needs and fisheries patrols but to act as supporters and accessories to the US war machine and US military industry no I do not agree.
NZDF isn’t an interventionist military, it’s more a forign policy tool that gives government more of a say in multinational operations. So if we contribute a ship or airplane then some one from NZDF is stationed in the command HQ where the operation is run out of. That gives us a say in day to day operations. Then again we don’t really choose who to fight where you’re Americas Ally.
And today we learn, another John Key comment from late last year, was again just something not worth honouring. Today he announced the special trainers and their protectors will stay in Iraq for another 18 months. Last year Key said, he say no reason to extend their stay on duty there. So there seems to be money for this also, while Paula Bennett rushes around handing out $5,000 cheques to people without homes, who she wants to shift out of Auckland, something quick:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/306847/nzdf-operation-in-iraq-to-be-extended
It is damned hard to keep up with all this circus.