Author     Euan Graham

​Rob Ayson’s thought-provoking post implied that the temporary incapacity of New Zealand’s two ANZAC frigates is a blessing in disguise. In other words, because both vessels were undergoing a significant upgrade refit in Canada, Wellington would be able to rebuff any request from Washington to send a warship to the Gulf, simply because the capability was unavailable. Rob went on to ponder whether the absence of a surface combat capability beyond 2030 really matters for keeping New Zealand’s lights on.
 
To this Australia-based occasional commentator on trans-Tasman strategic affairs that seems like a fair, if deliberately provocative, question. After all, successive New Zealand governments have run down the NZDF’s combat capabilities, including its fast jets, without incurring obvious strategic costs. Or, at least not costs that bother most taxpayers, since it is they who are ultimately expected to foot the bill for defence, against competing priorities with more tangible socio-economic benefits. 
  

Author    Robert Ayson

One day (well, 20 May of this year to be precise) as Opposition Leader you’re launching a discussion document on your party’s international policies. ‘National's positioning on international relations issues is anchored in our values, ’ you say. ‘Those values are rooted in our country's long history of unbroken democracy, embrace of political and economic freedoms, tolerance, a staunch defence of fundamental human rights, and a recognition of the need to provide security and safety to our people at home and abroad.’ Hear, hear. But barely 100 days later and you give an interview in China where you laud Xi Jinping and the Communist Party of China, doing your level best to prove the thesis that the only value that really matters is trade-enabled prosperity.

​This is the recent course that New Zealand’s National Party leader Simon Bridges has taken, and it’s no surprise that he is getting roasted for his interview performance. He’s easy meat for the Ardern government which has toughened up New Zealand’s stance on China since coming into office, laying out New Zealand’s concerns about Beijing’s South China Sea moves in last year’s Strategic Defence Policy Statement and more recently including New Zealand’s signature on a letter to the UN Human Rights Council about China’s detention practices in Xinjiang. Finance Minister Grant Robertson, a keen rugby player, took the ball and ran: “the most extraordinary interview I think I've ever seen the leader of a National Party give", he is reported to have said in parliament. 

Author      Lance Beath

Professor Robert Ayson is right to be uncertain about the likely shape of the future surface combatant force once HMNZS Te Kaha and Te Mana are withdrawn from service in the first half of the 2030s. But the reasons for uncertainty are a good deal more complex than Rob’s piece argues.

Robert writes ‘If I was Navy, and fond of my frigates, I’d regard with dread paragraph 204 of the DCP (government’s Defence Capability Plan of April 2019): “The ANZAC Frigates are scheduled to be replaced with modern surface combatants relevant to New Zealand’s prevailing strategic environment in the mid-2030s.” This is hardly a definitive commitment.’ 
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It is hard to see why anyone thinking about the question of the replacement of the frigates would be unhappy with this drafting. The DCP says as much as needs to be said, or indeed can sensibly be said, this far out from any replacement decision, viz: the ANZAC frigates are scheduled to be replaced with modern surface combatants relevant to the strategic environment of the mid-2030s and well beyond.

Author    Robert Ayson

​As I read Jim Rolfe’s thoughtful response to my post on the future of New Zealand’s frigates, one line really stood out. “The primary purpose of the warships is to be able to go into dangerous situations and defeat or deter enemies at sea.” This important message is only amplified if we see what the government’s recent Defence Capability Plan (DCP) says about the money that is being spent on Te Kaha and Te Mana: “These upgrades have been undertaken to ensure that the frigates remain world-class maritime combat capabilities for the full duration of their service.”
 
And that brings to mind Lance Beath’s polite reinterpretation of my subversive suggestion: “if New Zealand did not need the kind of naval combat capability represented by our two upgraded frigates”, he asks, “why did this government choose to spend many hundreds of millions of dollars on the Frigate Systems Upgrade in the first place?” Why indeed.