New Zealand’s Navy: No Bang for the Buck?

This year, New Zealand is expected to release a new Defense White Paper outlining, next to the strategic vision of the Pacific nation, the future force posture of the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN).

With around 2,100 active duty personnel and a fleet of 11 ships and five helicopters, New Zealand’s navy, relative to other maritime powers in Asia, is small. However, keeping up with regional trends, Wellington’s naval forces have been slowly expanding and modernizing – too slowly for some of its allies, given the volatile Asian maritime security environment.

Last April, the government announced that it is increasing defense spending for the first time in four years. As a result, the RNZN is currently upgrading its surface fleet, purchasing new surface-to-air missiles, and is in the processing of receiving a new fleet of missile carrying helicopters.

The 2015 Defense White paper will outline what platform could replace two Anzac-class frigates. Speaking with Defense News, Rear Adm. Jack Steer, New Zealand’s Chief of Navy, recently noted:

I would like to think that whatever we get, we get three of them.(…) Three slightly used combat platforms is fine; three brand new ones is fine. I just think we need to get away from two. I'd like to think that whatever replaces our combat capability is here in time for the other two to move on gracefully, so we don't have a gap.

In order to guarantee a “graceful” transition, New Zealand’s two Anzac-class frigates have already been upgraded with new engines. New sensors and a new weapon -- the MBDA Sea Ceptor surface-to-air missile -- will follow in the intermediate future. Steer noted that “the frigate [combat] systems upgrade is a huge step, starting the middle of next year with HMNZS Te Mana.”

By the end of 2016, RNZN will also field eight SH-2G Super Seasprite helicopters (three of which are already in service) capable of anti-submarine warfare and attacking surface vessels. The helicopters will be equipped with the Penguin anti-ship missile and can be operated from the Anzac-class frigates, two Protector-class offshore patrol vessels, or the Canterbury-class multirole vessel – the RNZN’s flagship.

On the SH-2G Super Seasprite program Steers comments: “It's pretty much on budget, and came reasonably quickly. And we got a simulator, glass cockpit, better avionics, better communications, [longer] range, bigger missile.”

The navy will also look to replace HMNZ Endeavour, a tanker, with “a more versatile replenishment ship,” as well as purchase a new Littoral Operations Support Ship, according to the RNZN website.

“We are a maritime nation with a huge ocean around us. We also have a large commitment to a number of [defense] arrangements; we are expected to have a combat capability in our Navy,” Rear Adm. Steer emphasized when talking to Defense News.

However, New Zealand’s naval forces are lagging behind in size and capabilities in comparison to neighboring states. This is partially due to the lack in funding. Although, as I noted above, the defense budget was increased for the first time in four years, it still sits slightly below 1.6 percent up from 1.1 percent of GDP a few years ago (in comparison Australia’s defense budget, which is heading to 2 percent this year of a proportionally larger GDP).

New Zealand’s key military ally remains Australia; however the capability gap between the two forces is wide. One analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute worries:

I think it’d be a mistake to conclude that we’ll always be able to work smoothly together. Future interoperability between the two countries will require effort on both sides. Simply put, Australia’s building a force structure capable at the top end of modern combat that’s suited for operations with American forces, and NZ is struggling to keep up

In the next few years, New Zealand will need to step up regional integration of allied navies by increasing interoperability of command and control as well as communications systems, in addition to better integrating the other service branches of New Zealand’s military. One step in the right direction was the 2010 announcement of a Joint Amphibious Task Force, capable of operating as “part of another country’s amphibious force and in a higher combat threshold,” as stated in a New Zealand Defence Force document.

The development of this new enhanced combat force is “progressing reasonably well,” according to Steer. The RNZN has also been forging closer defense ties with the United States Navy in the past year. For example, for the first time in 30 years, a RNZN ship has docked at a U.S. naval base during the RIMPAC naval exercise in April 2014.

Although New Zealand’s Navy still lags behind others in the region, these investments nonetheless indicate a level of progress for the island nation. The pending Defense White Paper will iterate how New Zealand plans on structuring its forces and the country’s strategic vision for its role in the Pacific.