Could we give this new arms race a miss? By Sam Buchanan


The presence of Chinese warships in the Tasman Sea has been a great boost to cheerleaders for the new arms race. Globally and locally, there have been calls for increased military spending from the whole range of the commentariat spectrum, from academics to Donald Trump. The British Labour government just slashed its overseas aid budget in order to have money to buy more guns. 
 
Locally we are being told to increase our defence spending to two percent of GDP. We are told we’ve ‘underinvested’ in defence, and that a response is needed to the worsening ‘security situation’.
 
Defence minister Judith Collins recently said we have to “make up for the 35 years of feeling that we’re living in this wonderful world where nothing bad could happen”.
 
Contrary to the minister’s suggestion that we’ve been sitting on our hands, in the last 35 years we have splurged on new military gear including, but not limited to, two ANZAC frigates, a new amphibious and military sealift vessel and newer models of the Seasprite helicopter for the navy; NH90 helicopters, P-8 Poseidon anti-submarine aircraft and replacement C-130J Hercules transport aircraft for the air force; and LAV III and Bushmaster armoured vehicles, new rifles, and Javelin anti-tank missiles for the army (other new military vehicles are on order). 
 
While hawkish voices pretend our military is run on a shoestring, the defence budget is hardly insignificant. Planned spending is $4.8 billion in 2024/25 – about three times what we spend on Oranga Tamariki or six times what the Department of Conservation has to manage on. Defence spending has steadily risen over the years.
 
The chorus of claims of miserly defence spending has been very effective in shaping public opinion. New Zealanders are surprised to hear that we are not a low defence spender by world standards.
 
In 2023 our expenditure was US$580 per capita. Out of 172 countries, New Zealand was 32nd highest in military spending per capita, about the same as Belgium. It’s true that that figure is considerably below that of the serious military wastrels that we are usually compared to, such as the US and Australia, but it is nearly double the US$306 per person global average.
In order to justify claims of low defence spending, expenditure is often cited as a percentage of GDP, a convenient statistic as the spending figure will decline as the economy grows. As there is no linkage between security threats and the size of the economy this makes no sense whatsoever. Other spending is based (at least theoretically) on actual need, not directly linked to some arbitrary percentage of GDP.. We don’t insist on spending more on dentistry or playgrounds simply because the economy has grown. If anything, more prosperous countries are likely to face fewer threats. 
 
The occasional successes of our military in peace keeping and stabilisation roles, in operations in East Timor and Bougainville, have come from the political and diplomatic impact of having ‘boots on the ground’ – often quite intelligent ones respected by locals – which deter threats of force by their presence rather than by its capability to over awe our enemies. As we’ve seen, this has been ineffective against an enemy that doesn’t give a damn about diplomacy, but a country the size of New Zealand is never going to field a military big enough to win by brute force anyway.
 
If we are concerned about countering China’s influence in the Pacific, it might be better to deepen our diplomatic and economic links with Pacific countries, and bump up our aid budget, rather than compete in an arms race we can’t win. A willingness to seriously address those countries climate change concerns wouldn’t hurt either.
 
It’s commonly noted we need the military for such things as disaster relief operations, search and rescue and fisheries protection. If that is the purpose, we would be better funding a professional coastguard and improving our civil defence capabilities. It makes a charming photo op to have the air force deliver firewood to tramping huts, but with the price tag of an NH90 at nearly $100 million apiece, it’s also a ridiculous use of resources when a far cheaper civilian helicopter can do the same job.
 
Lastly, before we start a spend up, we need to ask what purpose the New Zealand military serves. That comes back to the values we, as a country hold, and how we implement them.
 
It has been generally assumed that our military is here to build to peace and stability in our region, and contribute to that goal as part of an international response.
 
The 2016 defence white paper claimed that the military’s mission was, amongst other things, “maintaining democratic institutions and national values” and that “the rules-based international order has been placed under increasing pressure”. That seems like halcyon days now, when both the international rules and democratic institutions are not merely ‘under pressure’ but are having the living daylights stomped out of them. But it’s difficult for this country to contribute to a joint response when it’s our traditional allies that are doing the stomping. 
 
The international order has never been as ‘rules-based’ as we like to pretend. And our willingness to contribute to ‘peace and stability’ has often been predicated by a mix of obsequiousness to the powerful and the likelihood of getting some benefit from it.
 
Rather than stand up to those who would destabilise and destroy, our government responded to the Chinese government’s sabre-rattling by signing a trade deal with them, and supported Burma’s nascent democracy by hosting representatives of the gangsters who launched a violent coup against it. Our last significant military deployment, in Afghanistan, was an abject failure when our allies decided to cut their losses and run.
 
If, in the past, we built a military in order to defend our values and demonstrate to our allies that we were willing to ‘do our bit’, we are now a bit stuck. There’s little point spending more to build a military when we haven’t the moral backbone to use it for anything other than running with the usual gang, especially when the gang’s new leadership looks as scary and unpredictable as our supposed enemies.
 
 
Spending figures from https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/17/which-countries-are-the-top-military-spenders-and-where-does-europe-rank  Source: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) | 2023

Budget figures from https://budget.govt.nz/budget/2024/by/vote/index.htm

 

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