Every year, thousands of New Zealanders turn out for Anzac Day commemorations, reflecting national pride and gratitude for the military contributions of earlier generations. In 2025, attendance at the Auckland ceremony alone was estimated at 15,000.
Some doubt that a new generation may have to go to war. Others believe that a future conflict is likely and that New Zealand needs to adequately prepare for that possibility. However, a large number of people are unsure of when and where a future conflict involving New Zealand would occur. Many have concerns about how this small, moderately resourced country should rebuild its armed forces to meet future threats.
Several public figures have contributed to greater clarity about these matters. The previous Minister of Defence, Andrew Little, raised consciousness of the threats, naming China as a specific concern.
“I strongly disagree with those who argue that China is a benign presence and poses no threat. The nature of China’s engagement in the Pacific, its ambitions and its conduct in the South China Sea, as well as its actions in the cybersphere, make its presence in our neighbourhood a source of tension.”
The current Defence Minister, Judith Collins, and Foreign Minister Winston Peters have also identified China as a potential enemy.
But government defence policy documents provide little guidance on what the risk is, what the level or seriousness of the risk is and what sort of conflict New Zealand needs to prepare for. The following statement in the 2023 Defence Policy and Strategy Statement is representative of their tone:
The NZDF will pursue these interests by acting early and deliberately to achieve three policy objectives:
• Promoting and protecting New Zealand’s defence interests in our region, particularly in the Pacific.
• Contributing globally to collective security efforts that promote and protect New Zealand’s interests and values.
• Responding to events in New Zealand, in our region, and globally where required.
A 2023 press release about the upgrading of the navy’s two frigates stated that the proposed work was in furtherance of “[w]orking with our allies in regional and global security, conducting patrols in the Southern Ocean for illegal fishing, participating in joint training exercises with other navies, participating in UN peacekeeping missions, search and rescue missions.”
Statements such as these are generalised and do not provide useful information about what our defence forces are trying to achieve. (They do, however, invite the question of who “our allies” are, given that the ANZUS Treaty has been a dead letter for decades.)
This problem continued with the 2025 Defence Capability Plan (DCP), which identified the problem of “China’s assertive pursuit of its strategic objectives” as the principal driver for strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific. It also stated that China used all its tools of statecraft to challenge both international norms and the security of other states. “Of particular concern is the rapid and non-transparent growth of China’s military capability.”
Thereafter the DCP jumps straight to listing a series of action proposals concerned primarily with what equipment needs to be procured and what defence structures should be adopted to meet the threat. This approach leaves the reader in the dark about what type of battle New Zealand is preparing for and how those proposals are the best way of preparing for it.
The DCP’s authors may be correct in their recommendations about what New Zealand needs to do in the defence area. But we cannot judge either way unless they explain where and how New Zealand is likely to fight which would then provide a basis for deciding whether their advice about the equipment and technology that the government should buy and the personnel needed is correct.
New Zealanders search in vain for explanatory statements of a similar nature to this one from the Australian government: “Australia has signed a cooperative agreement with the U.S. for access to Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM), which can be launched from HiMARS vehicles. This partnership is aimed at expanding and accelerating Australia’s long-range land-based strike capabilities, directly contributing to deterrence and the ability to meet strategic threats.”
Australians have also been told that their government is acquiring Tomahawk missiles, which have a range of approximately 1500 kilometres. Government communications and information available on the internet show that Australia is equipping its forces to be able to attack any force invading from the north. Compared to New Zealand’s defence, Australia’s military strategy communication is remarkably clear.
The New Zealand government’s vague statements also contrast with the candour from the US regarding its assessment of the risks from China in the Indo-Pacific and the expected US response. They expect China to attempt to blockade or invade Taiwan. Admiral Samuel Paparo, (Commander, US Indo-Pacific Command) says that in such a scenario, the US plans to turn the Taiwan Strait into an “unmanned hellscape” by using thousands of unmanned systems to disrupt or delay an invasion and buy time for a larger allied response.
In another example, the US Marine Corps makes no secret that they would be involved in a battle in the SCS from their deployment positions in the Philippines and elsewhere, probably including the Japanese Nansei Islands. Open sources indicate they would likely employ NMESIS, a ground-based anti-ship missile system.
It is perhaps understandable how New Zealand’s defence statements came to be so cloudy and ambiguous on the question of whether it might find itself in conflict with China. Defence officials were likely to be reticent about speaking too specifically about the Chinese threat because of concerns on the part of successive governments that China, with its significant trade relations with New Zealand, might take offence at statements made about the threat that it posed to New Zealand’s national security.
Problems with obscurity of strategy statements
Not stating clearly and accurately enough the nature of the security threats facing the nation and not providing clear, concise statements of intent to counter such threats could have negative consequences for the New Zealand government.
The main problem is that to settle on an effective defence policy, the government has to have an accurate understanding of the threat. If the reasoning behind the official advice is not openly and explicitly stated, the government will not be able to judge whether assumptions about the threat are correct. Further, the steps in the reasoning connecting the threat to the means of responding to it must be similarly transparent and understandable; otherwise there is a risk that the government will again come to wrong decisions about what the defence policy should be. In either eventuality, New Zealand would not develop what it needs: a military force that is as strong as possible, of adequate size, and properly equipped and trained to meet the threats. There is no need to specify the obvious perils that could arise from this situation.
But the second unwanted consequence is that poorly thought-out, unconvincingly explained strategies will lose public support and jeopardise much-needed increases in defence spending. The days of full, uncritical public support for national security strategies are long gone. The report of the independent UK panel, which recently completed the Strategic Defence Review 2025, touched on this subject. One of the reviewers, Lord Robertson, stated that how much the taxpayers were willing to pay for defence would determine how safe they would be. The governments of Western Europe are encountering strong opposition to greater defence spending—this at a time of invasion and war in Eastern Europe.
If European governments are battling a reluctance to increase spending, what headwinds is the New Zealand government likely to face when proposing defence budget increases? The government must provide a detailed explanation of the potential harm to New Zealand if it fails to adequately defend itself. Fail to do this, and they may not be able to obtain the necessary funding.
The third negative consequence of generalised and uninformative strategy statements is that a lack of specificity could result in the government losing proper control over defence, resulting in a defence force that does not achieve what the government expected of it.
The fourth consequence: vague statements of military strategy provide no deterrence. In contrast, the US and Australia have built their military strategies on the doctrine of deterrence by denial: demonstrating the ability and willingness to respond to aggression with counteractions that would be unacceptable to their adversaries. The strategy, though, depends on the opponent having an accurate understanding of what it would be up against if it moved aggressively against the country in question. That, incidentally, is probably the reason, or one of them, why Admiral Paparo spoke so openly about US intentions in the South China Sea.
In that example, a less thoughtful approach would have been for the US forces to attempt to maintain secrecy about the likely military response to any aggression in the South China Sea. The more nuanced approach that the general adopted was an intelligent way to leverage off a genuine strategic strength that America had in reserve: to inform the Chinese of the consequences that any aggressive move against Taiwan or elsewhere in the South China Sea would be met with. A reflexive instinct to blanket everything in secrecy is therefore not the correct answer. It is a question of balancing the advantages and disadvantages of so doing. This will be the subject of a subsequent note exploring the admittedly complex balancing that is required between the need for military secrecy and the need for openness in a democracy.
Another point for consideration is that if New Zealand citizens are to be accurately and comprehensively informed about security threats and what is needed for their country to defend itself, a minimum level of candour is unavoidable, even if it does cause offence to China. Even though China has expressed indignation in the past, New Zealand must not allow it to normalise a situation where the government cannot communicate with its citizens in New Zealand without sparking outrage on China’s part.
Risk
There are three elements of risk that will be considered at the outset. The first is identification, which involves proactively recognising internal and external risks that could have significant consequences for New Zealand. Secondly, analysis is necessary to assess in order to determine the likelihood and impact of each risk which is a prerequisite to prioritising where attention and resources should be placed. The third element is control and mitigation, which is concerned with developing and implementing strategies to manage, reduce, or transfer risk.
New Zealand’s 2024 Security Threat Environment report emphasised Chinese efforts to influence New Zealand politics and actions through various public, private, educational, business, and media sectors. This document demonstrated not only a growing awareness of the threat that China posed but also a willingness to acknowledge and address this issue more broadly in the public space. New Zealand’s current military strategy assumes that China is the only likely aggressor that New Zealand faces[1].
Making that judgement is assumed to be based on the views of security officials, experts in foreign relations and related fields whose responsibility it is to provide assessments of how China can be expected to act in the years ahead. Such analysis forms the foundation for assessing military risk.
This involves discussing hypothetical events that may occur far in the future, to the extent that theorising about them resembles predictions bordering on futurology. That is to say, the discussion takes us all the way up to the point where assessing the probabilities becomes so inconclusive that the process passes into the realm of mere speculation. The casting of military strategy requires us to winnow out what could conceivably happen from what can be described as fanciful. In this paper some suggestions are put forward about how this can be done.
What the government says about the risk
The Defence Capability Plan mentioned above seems intended to be to directly transition from strategic high-level statements of the government’s intent into the area of practical steps that it intends to take. That the government is prepared to take timely and decisive action on defence is to be welcomed. If what it is proposing is misplaced, then we need to be concerned. In fact, the government communications leave unanswered the question, “What threat from China are the government’s plans designed to counter?” The government leaves that question unanswered. The following discussion in this paper identifies some possible risks that might qualify as sufficiently real hazards that New Zealand should consider defending itself against, if possible.
In the following article discussion will continue about the risks to New Zealand and the possible hazard that China represents will be discussed.
[1] CSIS paper 07.05.2025 https://www.csis.org/analysis/new-zealands-wake-call-beijings-reach-reorienting-wellingtons-regional-role
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