New Zealand’s National Party-led government released a
multi-billion dollar Defence Capability Plan last week,
which will nearly double the country’s military spending
from just over 1 percent to 2 percent of gross domestic
product in 8 years.
The $NZ12 billion
committed over the next four years, including $NZ9 billion
not previously announced, represents a dramatic increase.
Annual Defence Force funding has already risen significantly
in recent years from roughly $4 billion allocated in
2020/2021 to $5 billion in last year’s
budget.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon
made clear that even more money will be made available,
telling the media the $12 billion figure “is the floor,
not the ceiling, of funding for our defence
force.”
The new plan, which is supported by the
opposition Labour Party, is intended to strengthen New
Zealand’s integration into the US-led imperialist
alliance, which is rapidly preparing for war against China.
NZ troops are already stationed in Britain training
Ukrainians to fight in the US-NATO war against Russia; and
in the Middle East, assisting in the criminal US-led bombing
of Yemen.
The spending announcement came just days
after President Trump imposed tariffs on all US imports,
which represents a huge escalation in the US trade war whose
main target is China. Washington aims to reshore
manufacturing and secure supplies of raw materials in order
to build up its national war industry. At the same time, it
is demanding that all allies, including New Zealand, boost
their contribution to the militarisation of the
world.
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While Luxon told a media conference that New
Zealand’s military spend-up was “not targeted at any
particular country,” this is transparently false. He was
contradicted by Defence Minister Judith Collins, who cited
China’s testing of a ballistic missile in the Pacific last
September, and the recent exercise held by Chinese navy
vessels in the Tasman Sea, as reasons why New Zealand had to
re-arm.
“This reality requires us not only to work
with others who share our values and interests to reduce the
possibility of conflict but also to prepare ourselves should
the worst happen,” Collins said.
The entire
political establishment and corporate media, like their
counterparts in Australia, have been stoking anti-Chinese
hysteria for years. In particular, China’s economic
agreements with impoverished Pacific island nations, such as
the Solomon Islands and the Cook Islands (a semi-colony of
NZ), have been portrayed as a potential military
“threat,” and have been seized upon to justify the
militarisation of the Pacific.
The Defence Capability
Plan states: “China’s assertive pursuit of its strategic
objectives is the principal driver for strategic competition
in the Indo-Pacific, and it continues to use all of its
tools of statecraft in ways that can challenge both
international norms of behaviour and the security of other
states. Of particular concern is the rapid and
non-transparent growth of China’s military
capability.”
This turns reality on its head. China
has no overseas military bases in the Pacific. It is the
United States which, under successive administrations, has
shifted the bulk of its navy into the region to encircle and
threaten China, while strengthening military ties with
Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Australia, NZ
and elsewhere. New Zealand has participated in numerous
naval exercises in the South China Sea and the Taiwan
Strait, which are intended to provoke Beijing.
All the
talk about upholding “international norms of behaviour”
and reducing “the possibility of conflict” is both
fraudulent and hypocritical. The Luxon government is
supporting the US-Israeli genocide in Gaza; it has not
criticised Trump’s plans to ethnically cleanse and annex
the territory, or his threats to annex Greenland and the
Panama Canal.
New Zealand is a minor imperialist power
which has operated in an alliance with the US since the end
of World War II. The Defence Capability Plan says the
government “will ensure New Zealand is materially
contributing to our security partnerships, particularly to
our alliance with Australia,” as well as the US-led Five
Eyes—the intelligence-sharing alliance that also includes
Canada, the UK and Australia. New Zealand’s Waihopai spy
base is a significant contributor to US surveillance
operations in the Indo-Pacific region and
elsewhere.
The aim is to build the military into what
Luxon has described as a “force multiplier” for the US
and Australia. The Capability Plan says the Defence Force
must “be increasingly combat capable [and] interoperable
with our partners.”
The plan calls for “enhanced
strike capabilities,” including arming the navy’s
existing frigates and P-8A Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft
with missiles, and upgrading the anti-tank missiles for
infantry and special forces. It also outlines plans for new
navy helicopters and army vehicles, and for acquiring a
fleet of maritime and aerial drones, both for surveillance
and combat purposes.
The document makes clear that the
military must be capable of deploying around the world, and
policing much of the Pacific and Southern Oceans. A map with
the caption “New Zealand’s territory” shows a vast
area claimed by the country’s ruling elite, including the
exclusive economic zones of the Cook Islands, Niue and
Tokelau—New Zealand’s colonial possessions in the
Pacific.
In addition to fear-mongering about China,
the document states: “Civil disorder has also demonstrated
the potential for instability in the Pacific.” The New
Zealand and Australian militaries are preparing to intervene
throughout the region to suppress opposition to poverty and
social inequality—such as the riots that erupted last year
in New Caledonia, which prompted France to deploy thousands
of paramilitary forces to the territory to restore
“order.”
The government is also taking steps to
boost recruitment into the armed forces, following several
years of high attrition rates. Last year the Defence Force
lowered the academic requirements for young people to
enlist. “To apply to train as an Army combat specialist,
auto-technician and plumber, a Navy diver and logistic
specialist, and an Air Force firefighter—among other
roles—now requires three years of high school,” and no
longer requires the applicant to achieve a passing grade,
according to Radio NZ.
The Defence Force already runs
special training programs, called Service Academies, in 29
schools across the country. The aim is to recruit working
class youth, who are finding it impossible to get stable,
well-paid jobs, to fight and die for imperialism.
The
plan to double New Zealand’s military budget will be paid
for with intensified austerity measures. Already, the
government has frozen wages across the public sector and
sacked thousands of workers. The healthcare and education
systems are being starved of funds and hospitals are in
crisis.
Last year’s budget announced $5.72 billion
in new spending on health over a four-year period—far less
than what is required to keep up with inflation and
population growth, and less than half the $12 billion
announced for the military.
The Labour Party fully
supports the militarisation of society. Labour leader Chris
Hipkins told RNZ that the Defence Capability Plan builds
upon plans made by the previous Labour-led government. The
2017–2023 Ardern government significantly strengthened
ties with US imperialism, made major purchases of military
equipment, and expanded the country’s intelligence
agencies.
In August 2023, Labour’s Defence Minister
Andrew Little made clear that the target was China, saying:
“If for example conflict does break out in the South China
Sea, where $20 billion of our exports flows through every
year, we have a stake in that, and we may be called on to
play a role should conflict break out. We need to be
equipped for that and prepared for it.”
The union
bureaucracy, like its counterparts in the US, also voiced
support for the military spending plan. The Public Service
Association, New Zealand’s largest union, which has
enforced thousands of redundancies across several government
departments, issued a statement urging the government to
reverse cuts previously announced to civilian Defence Force
jobs “if it is serious about boosting the capability of
the military.”
Union leader Fleur Fitzsimons
complained that Luxon was refusing to recognise “the
critical role the NZDF civilian workforce plays in ensuring
our military is combat ready.”
There is widespread,
deeply ingrained popular hostility to militarism and war, as
shown in the global protests against the US-Israeli genocide
in Gaza. Appeals to the imperialist governments, however,
have failed to stop the genocide.
What is urgently
required—in New Zealand and internationally—is the
development of a socialist anti-war movement, which links
the fight against war with the fight against austerity and
the profit system itself. This means mobilising the working
class in opposition to the entire capitalist political
establishment, including Labour, and the union
apparatus.
This is the program fought for by the
International Committee of the Fourth International and the
Socialist Equality Group in New Zealand
By Tom Peters,
Socialist Equality Group
16 April 2025
Original
url: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/04/16/dbqw-a16.html
