New Zealand’s new defense minister, Andrew Little, said Thursday that the military would need significant investment to meet new challenges and regional allies’ expectations.
“I believe when you look at the geostrategic scenario we have in the Pacific at present, I think the longer-term difficulty is that our allies and neighbours will say to us: ‘we demand more,'” Little told Reuters in an interview.
Climate change and weather occurrences will become more frequent. “Then there’s working with partners to present a defensive stance,” he stated.
Little stated that Kurt Campbell, the White House’s Indo-Pacific coordinator, had discussed New Zealand becoming a non-nuclear AUKUS partner this month.
“The US is clearly keen to have New Zealand participating but it’s not a choice I get to take alone,” he added. AUKUS will be one of the long-term defense problems we will address in the coming weeks.
AUKUS would strengthen New Zealand-US ties. Not allies.
Little stated that whatever New Zealand chose on AUKUS, the defense force needed to be ready to engage with Australia.
As it faces regional geopolitics and climate change, New Zealand is reviewing its defense posture, which accounts for 1.5% of GDP. Little anticipates the initial review results in weeks.
Low pay has caused the Defence Force to idle three ships and withdraw its P-3 Orion fleet early due to unprecedented attrition.
Little added that it would have struggled if a second major catastrophe had occurred when the Defence Forces reacted to Cyclone Gabrielle in February.
Little said keeping personnel and enticing ex-Defence Force troops with greater pay was crucial. He didn’t know the military’s budget for this year.
Although New Zealand had made some investments, the government needed to consider more, notably for the navy.
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