Author    Robert Ayson

Donald Trump’s Presidency began with a foreign policy decision forged in the furnace of America’s domestic politics. The abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership certainly has had implications for New Zealand. But it would have been unwise at the time, and is even less wise now, to conclude from this single step that all the new Administration’s external policy preferences would be reversals of what we had come to expect from Washington.
 
Yet there were reasons to wonder if at least some of the established settings would change as Trump arrived at the White House. The President-elect seemed to be angling for a change to Washington’s longstanding one China policy. But that has proven to be little more than a transitory thought. Rex Tillerson’s recent China visit is instructive here. We don’t know how robust things got in private discussions, but the Secretary of State’s language (using formulations we have come to expect from Beijing rather than Washington) cannot have been more welcome to Xi Jinping.

​
Author     Peter Greener

​Over the weekend of 25-26 February 2017, tens of thousands were thrilled by flying displays hosted at RNZAF Base Ohakea on the eightieth anniversary of the founding of the Royal New Zealand Air Force. The RNZAF opened the Air Tattoo with a 'Thunder formation' led by a Boeing B757, with two Lockheed Martin Hercules C-130 LEPs and a Lockheed Martin P-3K2 Orion. They looked impressive as they flew overhead and remain very capable aircraft. But with the oldest of these aircraft now 52 years old, all three types are due to be replaced by about 2026. The importance of making the right decision cannot be overstated. 
 
Last June’s Defence White Paper 2016 contained little information about specific future capability purchases, and there was hope that this would be rectified with the release of the subsequent Defence Capability Plan in November. But notwithstanding the DCP’s claim that it was 'significantly more detailed than previous versions', details remain elusive. Whilst defining capability requirements is central to decision making, the public remain interested in the actual platforms, the aircraft, that might help fulfil those requirements. So what replacements are we likely to see?