Defence Capability Plan 2019
What motivates cyber terrorists to launch acts of cyber terror?
Air, Space, Cyber: Facing the future warfare challenges
The link between food security and political instability
SeaGuardian
MULTI-DOMAIN SURVEILLANCE CAPABILITY
• Cost-effective, multi-role, multi-domain ISR solution
• Responsive, persistent and long-range to support all-of-Government employment
• Capable of securing New Zealand’s vast area of interest – from the mainland to off-shore territories
• Assured networking across the NZDF and civil C4ISR networks
• Safely integrates into all classes of airspace
• Acquisition or Lease
• Inherent growth for broader roles
Leonardo’s C-27J Spartan is the most capable multi-mission airlifter; ideally-suited to the New Zealand Defence Force’s requirement to enhance national security. Its capability to operate from the most rudimentary airstrips in extreme environmental conditions is unrivalled by any other twin-engine military transport aircraft. The platform provides flexibility and total autonomy from ground support for transport missions, disaster relief e orts, humanitarian assistance and in support of Homeland Security missions.
Inspired by the vision, curiosity and creativity of the great master inventorLeonardo is designing the technology of tomorrow.
In this Winter issue of Line of Defence, we talk Defence Capability Plan 2019, RNZAF quality management, the HADR role of diplomats, food security, cyber terror, South China Sea, and foreign political interference.
In his analysis of the DCP, Dr Wayne Mapp QSO notes that confrontational language about China that was a feature of last year’s Strategic Defence Policy Statement is now gone, and a focus on climate change and disaster relief is in. Editorat-large Dr Peter Greener similarly notes the climate crisis focus, commenting that this DCP is the “most comprehensive argument for investment in Defence in modern times.”
The NZDIA agrees, noting that the inclusion of an entire section of the DCP on ‘working with industry’ gives its members “good cause for optimism and confidence about the significant opportunities ahead.” NZDIA CEO Jennie Vickers argues that coupled with the recent Government Procurement Rules update, “there is now opportunity for a real and palpable shift in procurement policy and practice across the public sector.”
Defence Minister Hon Ron Mark and Opposition Defence Spokesperson Hon Mark Mitchell each weigh in on the DCP while also reminding us – in their respective ways – that the Defence Estate regeneration hasn’t dropped off their radars. We also receive updates from our sponsors Embraer, Leonardo, and GA-ASI
With the RNZAF moving its engineering aviation regulations, technical workforce trade structure and Quality Management System to an internationally recognised military aviation system (EMARS), GPCAPT Peter Johnson MBE, RNZAF Chief Engineer and Technical Airworthiness Authority provides us with the details.
In Homeland Security, Hon Heather Roy examines the foreign political influence in New Zealand, Navelene Singh updates us on the Women in National Security mentoring programme, and we learn about the new Safe and Security Facilities and Public Spaces conference to be hosted in Wellington in August.
In this (and the coming Spring) issue we are honoured to be featuring a number of articles arising from presentations delivered at the 1st Asia Pacific Security and Innovation Summit, held 17-18 April in Rotorua. Covering areas including cyber security, food security, unmanned systems, human trafficking, and counter-terrorism, the Summit brought together more than 20 global experts from the fields of psychology, human intelligence, defence, security, international relations, biotechnology, engineering, governance and communications.
According to Summit Chair Dr Anita Abbott, the event brought together minds from a range of sectors “to discuss how we can strategically and innovatively build resilience to the global problems we face today and in the future.”
Summit speakers appearing in this issue include Dr Andrew Dowse AO, Air Vice-Marshal (retd) of Edith Cowan University, Barnaby Pace, Head of Department - Postgraduate and Research at Otago Polytechnic, HE Dr Jesus S. Domingo, Philippine Ambassador to New Zealand, Cook Islands, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga, Minh Tran, doctoral candidate at the University of Canterbury, and Dwi Andreas Santosa, Professor, Faculty of Agriculture at IPB University.
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Hon Ron Mark Dr Peter Greener
Hon Mark Mitchell Hon Wayne Mapp QSO
GPCAPT Peter Johnson MBE Jennie Vickers
Hon Heather Roy Barnaby Pace
Navlene Singh HE Dr Jesus Domingo
Minh Tran Prof Dwi Andreas Santosa
AVM (retd) Dr Andrew Dowse AO
Dr Peter Greener Prof Rouben Azizian
Dr Bridgette-Sullivan Taylor Dr Reuben Steff
Dr John Battersby Paul Howard
Debbie Howarth
Jennie Vickers
John Deal
Douglas Pauling
Hon Dr Wayne Mapp QSO John Campbell MNZM
Ruth Currie DSD Pat Cullen
SPRING - September 2019
Features: Sea power, logistics, Defence estate, Safe and Secure Facilities and Public Spaces.
Copy Deadline: 15 August 2019
28 The curious case of the dog in the night-time
30 How safe are you keeping your public and visitors?
32 What motivates cyber terrorists to launch acts of cyber terror?
35 Big first year for women in national security mentoring programme
36 Resilience and Response: the diplomatic dimension
40 Divergent Perspectives and the Resolution of the South China Sea Disputes
44 The link between food security and political instability
Defsec Media Limited publishes Line of Defence, FireNZ Magazine and New Zealand Security Magazine premier publications covering industry sectors that help keep Kiwis safe. Find us online www.defsec.net.nz
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The Defence Capability Plan 2019 continued the Government’s focus on the future impacts of climate change. According to Embraer, in an uncertain world the KC-390 continues to stand alone as the complete HADR airlift solution for New Zealand.
In a future where climate change poses an increasing threat to the stability of nations, future airlift capabilities will be critical to the delivery of effective local, regional and global responses by the Royal New Zealand Air Force.
It is predicted that hurricanes will become stronger and more intense, requiring humanitarian aid and disaster relief (HADR) operations to be effective, fast, repetitive and responsive. The more aid that can be delivered at high frequency will determine how successful we are at sending enough of it in time to save lives, provide shelter and restore services.
Sea level rise will force populations in the South West Pacific to migrate to islands beyond their current homelands, seek refuge on higher ground and establish new lives in
other countries. Fast and effective airlift will be needed, at short notice, to assist with these ever-increasing realities.
The effects of climate change are being addressed by leaders and experts in New Zealand, where the 2019 Pacific Environment Security Forum was recently held in Wellington. In open statements at this Forum there was overwhelming consensus that there will be an increased requirement for our Defence Force to respond with HADR missions and – potentially –stability operations.
This means that a future focus will likely be on delivering effective capability using air-land and airdrop operations as one of the most immediate response options our Government has.
Enter the KC-390, which has been purposefully designed, built and certified to deliver the most capability in the medium airlift class of modern military aircraft. In essence, New Zealand will require more airlift capability than has been available to date and the KC-390 is the modern force multiplier to deliver it.
The South West Pacific is critically important to New Zealand. What happens in this area will be responded to by New Zealand, Australia and others. We will need to be prepared to fly across the expanses of the Pacific Ocean and respond quickly with more humanitarian aid than ever before.
By example, over a distance of 1,200nm from Auckland lie the islands of New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji and Tonga. The KC-390 can deliver to
The KC-390 is designed, built and certified to deliver the fastest response for humanitarian assistance, disaster relief missions and stability operations. In a world where climate changes, conflicts, and disasters pose an increasing threat, being able to deliver fast and effective assistance will determine how successful we are at saving lives, providing shelter and restoring services. Ru ed and capable of operating in critical environments, extreme weather and from semi-prepared runways, the KC-390 has the highest levels of availability and operational effectiveness in its class, going beyond just the military supply chain and proving to be the best choice for global and regional support operations.
these nations in excess of 25,000kg of humanitarian aid and disaster relief supplies in less than three hours.
Over a longer distance of 1,800nm from Auckland lie the Cook Islands, Samoa, American Samoa, Niue, Tuvalu, Wallis and Futuna, Tokelau and Solomon Islands. The KC-390 can deliver to these nations in excess of 20,000kg of humanitarian aid and disaster relief supplies in four hours.
Harnessing the advantages of a military turbofan aircraft such as the KC-390, the response that can be delivered to these types of humanitarian aid operations is second to none.
The efficiency and effectiveness of the KC-390 is unrivalled in its class. Its modern design and improved capabilities are future-proofed by having reliability and supportability woven into its DNA.
Often the nemesis for older aircraft designs is their reduced levels of availability and challenging supportability. Such issues must be avoided so that the aircraft New Zealand operates in the future are available at a moment’s notice to get the job done, when it counts.
Modern airlift designs, such as the KC-390, have major systems, components and design criteria that deliver airline levels of availability. New Zealand deserves to have the best available aircraft for these critical HADR missions in our region – where the effects of climate change will be magnified in the years to come.
In times of conflict we must deploy and support our forces as well. The NZDF is an “expeditionary” force which often means flying long distances to and from areas of operations. These long distances better suit “strategic” aircraft when it comes to getting personnel and equipment to their destination in a timely, less fatigued and safe manner.
Also, when they get there, there is often the need to operate over short distances into unprepared airfields in support of personnel near the front line. This requirement is best suited to “tactical” aircraft with rugged and robust capabilities. For both of these reasons, the KC-390 was designed with the ability to cross between the strategic and tactical spectrum and deliver the best of both capabilities in its class.
The KC-390’s increased speed and payload are a force multiplier for our Defence Force. Boeing’s C17 Globemaster offers similar capabilities in the “heavy” class of modern airlift aircraft. The KC-390 now does it most effectively in the “medium” class. Availability and supportability, across global areas of operations, will be proven to be one of the greatest strengths of the KC-390. Designed to give the highest levels of availability, commensurate with the commercial and executive jets designed by Embraer, it will surprise both operators, planners and logisticians when compared to what they have been used to in the past.
Furthermore, the commonality the KC-390 has with its commercial jet brethren by way of engines, avionics systems, and health monitoring systems will leverage a global support network that goes beyond that of just
the historical military supply chain. The “modern way”, includes tapping into commercial networks of system support and parts supply, as well as the traditional military support system.
Embraer’s already established global commercial and military support network is further enhanced by our extensive network of support partners. With these networks already in place, the future looks bright in terms of support for the KC-390 locally, regionally and globally.
Embraer, and our major support partners, look forward to offering the KC-390 to New Zealand, to ensure it has the best capability to address humanitarian aid and support needs in a changing world of climate uncertainty, and to fulfil the entire range of military airlift operations the Defence Force will carry out well into the future. Challenge. Create. Outperform. Embraer.
The coalition government has been delivering on its plans, writes Defence Minister Hon Ron Mark, and will make it a priority to deliver against Defence Capability Plan 2019. Next task: delivering a much improved Defence estate.
Recently I had the honour of launching the Coalition Government’s Defence Capability Plan 2019. It’s an ambitious document that prioritises our Defence spending to meet the challenges identified in our Strategic Defence Policy Statement.
The feedback I’ve received on the Plan has been overwhelmingly positive and reflects the importance most New Zealanders place on our Defence Force.
Launching the plan came after a long policy process which began with the Government’s Strategic Defence Policy Statement which was launched last year. That document laid out the challenges we, as a nation, are facing. It also laid out the responsibility NZDF has when serving its community, the nation and the world.
We followed that up with an indepth look at the security implications which are posed by climate change. This work has been very well received by our international partners, particularly those in the Pacific, who are seeing first-hand the effects climate change is having on their communities.
As I often say, I’m not here to argue the causes of climate change, I’m here to help the Government respond to what is happening and the effect it is having on communities. It was with this policy work in mind that we began our review of the previous Government’s Defence Capability Plan.
Then Minister of Defence Hon Gerry Brownlee had identified that around $20b would be needed to invest in capital purchases for the Defence Force out to 2030. In our Coalition negotiations New Zealand First sought a reassurance from Labour that this would be protected, and they agreed.
Our next step was to analyse the platforms and capabilities identified in the Plan and to adjust them where needed to ensure our capital purchases provide the capabilities we need to meet the challenges laid out in the Strategic Defence Policy Statement.
The result is what you see in the Defence Capability Plan 2019, it includes:
• Enhanced sealift vessels
• Satellite surveillance capability
• Southern Ocean patrol vessels
• An increase in the size of the Army
• Long range Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for surveillance and much more.
Also identified in the plan, as the highest priority, is a replacement for the C130 Hercules which have served our nation well for over 50 years.
Tactical airlift is a vital part of any military and there is general agreement from all sides of politics that this is a good thing. Why it has not been replaced by now is beyond me.
So it was an incredibly proud moment to be able to announce, on the same day as the release of the Defence Capability Plan, that the Government has identified the C130-J Super Hercules as our replacement for our current fleet.
We are now moving into the FMS phase, and the deal will be completed before the end of this term of Government.
This announcement is on the back of our decision to purchase the P8 Poseidon aircraft as a replacement for our P3-K Orion fleet.
The P8 purchase was booked in Budget 2019, and if you were taking notice you would have seen this Budget provided an historic $2.175b boost to Defence. There are two more capital purchases identified in that Budget, including new Navigation and Communications systems for the Air Force, and an Army initiative which I will announce in due course.
Between Budget 2019 and the launch of the Capability Plan, we commissioned the new Dive and Hydrographic vessel HMNZS Manawanui, bringing this vital capability back online three years earlier than planned.
It’s one thing to have a Capability Plan, it’s another thing to deliver against that plan, and this is what the Coalition Government is doing. We are backing up our plans with actions and making it clear we back our Defence Force. This is incredibly important and personal for me. I know first-hand what it’s like to deploy overseas with poor and outdated equipment. Since taking over the role as Minister of Defence I have made it my mission to ensure our women and men in uniform have the right equipment to do the job our Government asks of them, so that they in turn can complete that task with distinction and, above all, come home safe.
This is why the Capability Plan is so important. I will continue to make it my priority to deliver against this plan. My next task is to deliver a much improved Defence estate. I hope to be able to tell you more in my next column.
General Atomics Aeronautical states the case for the MQ-9B SeaGuardian RPAS to complement to the P-8A for additional maritime surveillance tasks within New Zealand’s Exclusive Economic Zone and the wider region.
The New Zealand Government plans to acquire capabilities to complement the P-8A for civil support missions that span a number of government ministries and agencies. With New Zealand’s broad area of interest spanning from the equator to the Antarctic, the selected capabilities will require a combination of versatility, range, endurance, tactical persistence, a wide range of sensors, and the ability to communicate and network with mobile and fixed platforms, and with C2 centres.
The General Atomics Aeronautical MQ-9B SeaGuardian Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS) offers capabilities across all domains and possesses the key attributes required to meet civil support roles, while also having the capability to support the NZDF.
Illegal fishing is a growing challenge with fish stock reducing around the world and fishing areas being unsustainably harvested. Illegal fishing also brings the risk of disease and damage to the environment.
New Zealand’s abundant fish stocks make it a target for illegal fishing, whether from domestic poachers close in shore, or across the EEZ and areas further abroad, such as the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) region in the Southern Ocean.
SeaGuardian would enable frequent surveillance of inshore and open ocean areas to detect illegal activity and provide real-time reporting to authorities. Fishing zones close to the coast could be surveilled for 30 or more hours on a single SeaGuardian sortie. At a further range, SeaGuardian can provide 10 hours of continuous surveillance in the CCAMLR region.
The use of a powerful maritime surveillance radar, electro-optical system, and other specialised sensors and a suite of communications would ensure evidentiary-standard data and video is provided to relevant authorities in realtime.
SeaGuardian provides more frequent and responsive surveillance when compared to satellites that have a known inherent revisit time and tasking shortcomings. The RPAS can also provide significantly larger coverage, time-onstation, and less cost when compared to small-medium manned fixed-wing surveillance aircraft that do not have the range to reach distant areas of interest.
Counter-Smuggling
People, drug, illegal arms, and natural resource smuggling are becoming more commonplace at sea and on land, requiring better intelligence and networked capabilities to counter these threats. Real-time communications and intelligence, along with stand-off and covert surveillance are essential to combat these activities.
To counter smuggling at sea, SeaGuardian can provide either a distant barrier or area patrols to detect illegal activities or conduct long-duration covert monitoring of vessels.
As an example, two SeaGuardian aircraft are capable of securing a 500nm barrier at a low level, 500 nm from the operating base, for many days. Similarly, depending on the distance from the operating base, SeaGuardian can provide over 30 hours of stand-off, covert surveillance in maritime, littoral or overland environments, while providing continuous real-time data and video to participating units.
The long endurance of SeaGuardian provides the ability to determine patterns of life; something not available if a continuous presence is not maintained.
New Zealand’s Search and Rescue Region covers 30 million square kilometres and is one of the largest in the world, spanning from the Equator to the South Pole, and an extensive distance in longitude. This significant search and rescue responsibility requires assets with long-range, long-endurance, the ability to operate in adverse weather conditions, and with reliable communications capabilities to provide real-time information to relevant authorities, survivors and other search assets.
SeaGuardian possesses capabilities which would prove invaluable during SAR events, whether overland, inshore, or at very long distances from New Zealand’s coast. While the SeaGuardian does not have high dash speeds over long distances, working in conjunction with an asset like the P-8A, the SeaGuardian could remain in a search area 1000 nm from its departure base at a low level for over 12 hours. This endurance cannot be matched by manned, fixed wing aircraft. Further, SeaGuardian’s ability to provide networked communications enables real-time on-scene command and control to direct other search assets over very long periods. SeaGuardian is also capable of deploying SAR stores such as life rafts and supplies.
New Zealand and its neighbours in the South Pacific are relatively exposed to the threat of natural disasters, such as earthquake, tsunami, cyclone and flood. These events require New Zealand to mobilise capabilities that provide situational awareness to first responders with high quality information in real-time, often when local infrastructure and communications have been destroyed or damaged. The provision of reliable and continuous information during the subsequent rescue and recovery stages are also vital.
In the event of a natural disaster, SeaGuardian can provide vital capabilities to assist in the management of the situation. The aircraft can operate from a location far removed from the disaster location: a SeaGuardian operating from Ohakea could spend over 30 hours in the vicinity of Christchurch, or around 18 hours overhead Tonga before recovering to base.
The SeaGuardian can employ a range of sensors including high-resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar and electro-optical systems to provide detailed damage maps using coherent change detection techniques to assess damage, pinpoint survivor locations, and assist in the prioritisation and allocation of rescue resources and the provision of aid.
The platform is also capable of carrying payloads to provide broadband communications and networking in the disaster area over extended periods, particularly for first responders and other emergency and rescue agencies. This ability to provide an unblinking eye for long periods can save lives.
Responses to fire emergencies, whether in domestic, industrial or forest environments, requires high levels of situational awareness for resource management, coordination and safety. Unmanned systems have proven very successful in this role, providing unique perspectives and availability for fire authorities and crews.
SeaGuardian possesses excellent sensor and communications capabilities to assist in fire management. The ability to respond quickly, operate in a fire region for extended periods, operate above other air traffic and smaller drones, assist in the management and location of firefighting resources, assist in fire path or threat area prediction, and provide a communications networking and relay capability, can significantly enhance fire management and save lives and property.
SeaGuardian’s ability to operate in all classes of airspace would ensure its availability when needed and the ability to operate alongside other airborne assets.
A capability to complement the P-8A for civil support tasks to New Zealand Government ministries and agencies will aim to provide assured real-time intelligence to aid timely decision making. Key requirements of such capabilities are likely to include high availability, long range and endurance, multiple and capable sensors, real-time networking and communications capability, ability to operate in adverse weather and cost-effectiveness.
SeaGuardian would significantly contribute to civil missions, including – but not limited to – illegal fishing, smuggling, SAR, HADR and fire emergencies, while also providing a robust, latent ISR role to the NZDF.
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI), an affiliate of General Atomics, is a leading designer and manufacturer of proven, reliable Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) systems, radars, and electro-optic and related mission systems.
For more information, visit www.ga-asi.com.
The C-27J Spartan, the most effective multi-mission medium turboprop airlifter available on the market today, is able to operate from the most rudimentary airstrips and in extreme environmental conditions.
With 85 aircraft already sold to 15 operators across five continents, the C-27J offers high operational effectiveness together with competitive costs, extreme flexibility and interoperability with larger airlifters.
Thanks to multiple roll-on/roll-off easily installable and transportable mission kits and systems, the C-27J can be quickly configured to carry out tactical transport including troops, cargo, paratroops and cargo airdrop, Medevac/Casevac, VIPs, and also transport for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief support and firefighting.
The C-27J has the largest cargo bay in its class with a unique strong cargo floor supporting almost five tons per square meter and adjustable both in height and inclination, to facilitate operations. The C-27J also has the best descent and climb rate (4,000 - 2,500 ft/min), it can perform 3 g tactical maneuvers, and it is qualified to perform short take-offs and landings (STOL) on snowy, sandy and unprepared airfields.
The combat proven C-27J can be equipped with a full Defensive Aids Sub-Systems suite, secure communications and battlefield ballistic protection in order to operate in high threat environments, delivering cargo, light trucks and personnel wherever they are needed. Its Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) guarantees autonomous operations.
To increase safety and reliability, the avionics architecture is fully redundant and guarantees excellent performance and low pilot workload in all environmental conditions and all operational theatres. The glass cockpit
includes five colour Multipurpose Display Units, radar for tactical transport missions and a comprehensive communications suite. Optional systems include air-to-air refuelling, selfprotection and head-up displays.
Italy, Greece, Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, United States (Army Special Operations Command and Coast Guard), Morocco, Mexico, Chad, Australia, Peru, Kenya and an undisclosed sub-Saharan African country are the customers of the C-27J. Italy, Romania, and the United States have also purchased C-27J aircrew training flight simulators from Leonardo’s Aircraft Division.
A different beast – the RAAF’s C-27J Spartan
Much like the Hercules and Globemaster, the C-27J Spartan battlefield airlifter can:
- airdrop cargo and paratroops inflight;
- airlift a variety of cargo loads and conduct aeromedical evacuation of sick or wounded personnel.
The C-27J Spartan battlefield airlifter complements the Australian Defence Force’s existing air mobility fleet. Its capabilities bridge the gap between Army helicopters, such as the CH-47F Chinook, and larger Air Force aircraft, such as the C-130J Hercules and C-17A Globemaster III.
The Spartan will provide airlift of people, equipment and supplies in Australia and the region, operating from unsurfaced airstrips, and supporting humanitarian missions in remote locations.
Last February, RAAF No. 35 Squadron C-27J Spartan aircraft and personnel from Amberley responded swiftly to deliver personnel and urgent fuel stocks to Mt Isa and western Queensland in support of flood relief efforts.
The first two flights to western Queensland on 9 February were the first flights of the year for the
squadron and marked the start of flying operations two days earlier than had been scheduled from their new base at Amberley.
Loadmaster Sergeant Jay Goggin said two RAAF C-27J Spartan aircraft and crew worked with Australian Army personnel from 9th Force Support Battalion to load Drum Fabric Collapsible bladders containing 1,895 litres of urgent fuel stocks.
“These fuel bladders were delivered to the isolated areas of Richmond and Julia Creek for local civilian helicopters dropping fodder and hay to farmers and livestock devastated by the extreme weather conditions,” Sergeant Goggin said.
Executive Officer No. 35 Squadron, Squadron Leader Mark Seery, said the deployed team consisted of pilots, loadmasters, technicians and engineers who flew the stores more than 1,500km to western Queensland.
“The C-27J Spartan is an agile aircraft that can land in austere airfields and along dirt strips enabling the quick insertion of supplies to
areas that need it most and would have otherwise been inaccessible for larger aircraft or via road transport,” SQNLDR Seery said.
No. 35 Squadron continued to provide humanitarian aid and disaster relief in support of the Whole of Government and Defence efforts over several week weeks.
Commanding Officer No. 35 Squadron, Wing Commander Ben Poxon said the ongoing flood relief response would be a “hub and spoke” operation highlighting the strength and flexibility of the air mobility fleet.
The squadron worked closely with RAAF C-17A Globemaster aircraft to move more supplies to those affected by the floods.
“The C-17A will fly multiple fuel bladders into larger, more established airfields [hubs] like Mt Isa airport where the C-27J will transport to smaller, remote airfields [spokes] where Army personnel are ready waiting to unload,” WGCDR Poxon said.
RAAF welcomes 10th and final C-27J Spartan into service
In April, the then Australian Minister for Defence, Senator the Hon Marise Payne, and Minister for Defence Industry, the Hon Christopher Pyne MP, congratulated the RAAF on completing the upgrade to the Australian Defence Force’s comprehensive fleet of air mobility platforms.
Minister Payne said the Spartan was a highly versatile aircraft that would enhance battlefield airlift capability of the Australian Defence Force.
“The Spartan provides flexibility to Defence operations, allowing us to land at airfields that are smaller or unsuitable for our much larger transport aircraft like the C-130J Hercules and C-17A Globemaster,” Minister Payne said.
“The Spartan can carry up to five tonnes of cargo and is capable of moving troops, equipment and supplies; conducting aero-medical evacuation missions and conducting air drops.”
Initial Operating Capability for the Spartan was declared in late 2016, and Final Operating Capability is scheduled to be declared in late 2019.
The just-released Defence Capability Plan is the most comprehensive argument for investment in Defence in modern times, writes Editor-at-large Dr Peter Greener, Senior Fellow at the Centre for Strategic Studies (VUW).
When the last Defence White Paper was released in June 2016 there was criticism that it lacked detail on future capability purchases with Phil Goff saying, “The White Paper is essentially a series of general statements which add little to what we already know about the Defence Force. In failing to disclose any real decisions about capital asset purchase or strengthening personnel, it adds little of value.”
With the release of the subsequent Defence Capability Plan in November 2016 there was some improvement yet in the event there remained a lack of detail. These same observations cannot be made about Defence Capability Plan 2019.
As noted in the Executive Summary of the Plan, “Taken alongside recent commitments, the Defence Capability Plan 2019 provides for the replacement and regeneration of all major defence capabilities.” This Capability Plan provides perhaps the most comprehensive and clearly articulated argument for investment in the Defence portfolio in modern times.
Many important capability development intentions are highlighted in the Plan and many will be touched upon elsewhere in this issue of Line of Defence . This brief article will focus on three complementary capabilities, which will provide the NZDF with a significantly enhanced ability to respond to crises in our immediate region.
Already across the political spectrum though there has been criticism of some of the decisions announced. The Honourable Mark Mitchell was concerned about the decision to bypass the tender process and go straight to sole-source procurement for the replacement of the C-130H (NZ) Hercules, whilst the Greens Defence and Foreign Policy spokesperson, Golriz Ghahraman, has been critical of the amount to be spent on new aircraft.
Dr Peter Greener is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Strategic Studies at Victoria University Wellington. He is also an Honorary Professor and was previously Academic Dean at the Command and Staff College of the New Zealand Defence Force
Yet the C130-J 30 Super Hercules replacement choice warrants some further examination. Were there really other competitive contenders?
One contender was the new Embraer KC-390, which was designed to be operated from unpaved runways, yet none have yet been delivered
and the aircraft remains untested in service. The Kawasaki C2 currently under delivery to the Japanese Self Defence Force was another outside possibility, but still to have an international customer.
The Airbus A400M at one point was seen as a prospect; however last year, the German air force explained that it had bought C-130Js to “be used where the A400M is too large. This could, for example, be… evacuation missions where small and unpaved airfields make the use of the A400M impossible.” Many Pacific Island nations have smaller, austere airfields which are currently able to be accessed by a Hercules.
The new C-130Js will see enhanced performance, and payloads increased by 30 percent, yet with superior runway performance.
Central to the Defence Capability Plan 2019 is the sharpened focus of the impact of climate change in the Pacific region. Whilst climate change was one of several ‘complex disruptors’ identified in the Strategic Defence Policy Statement 2018, it’s importance was amplified with the release of The Climate Crisis: Defence Readiness and Responsibilities report in December 2018.
In responding to the climate crisis, the 2019 Plan notes that, “Greater capacity will also be required as events become more frequent, which will result in concurrent operational requirements becoming more likely.”
In responding to natural disasters, the New Zealand Defence Force
relies often on the Hercules for a first response. However, the movement of large amounts of supplies and equipment has been reliant on the availability of the sealift vessel HMNZS Canterbury, and as the Minister has highlighted this ship cannot be in two places at once.
Whilst other Royal New Zealand Navy ships provide a supplementary contingent capability, the plan to ultimately have two ships with an enhanced sealift capability is one to be welcomed.
When initially commissioned, it was anticipated that HMNZS Canterbury would be capable of transferring cargo and personnel ashore in benign conditions (up to sea state 3) when port facilities were not available. The ship has over the past decade provided a significant capability to the RNZN, yet its initial design as a Ro-Ro ferry with a stern
ramp has meant it has some significant limitations.
It is planned that an additional sealift ship, to be introduced in a decade’s time, will seek to overcome these by being based on a vessel with a docking well, a Landing Platform Dock or LPD, “allowing the ship to operate in a greater range of sea states.” Of note is the intention that the new ship will have significantly greater capacity for vehicles, aircraft and personnel allowing for long duration operations.
More importantly though is the signal for a second ship with similar capabilities to be delivered when Canterbury is replaced in the mid2030s, helping ensure that the NZDF does have the ability to undertake concurrent operations.
With the expectation of a higher tempo of operations in the future, the third enhanced capability is the
proposed expansion of Army to a total of 6,000 service personnel. Almost a decade ago, Defence White Paper 2010 indicated that Army strength should be sufficient for deployment of a Battalion Group of up to 800 personnel sustained for three years. By the time the Defence Mid-Point Rebalancing Review was undertaken in 2013 – 2014, it was clear that sustainment of such a force would be dependent on recruiting new, young soldiers beyond the initial deployments.
A commitment in the 2019 Capability Plan to increase Army strength to 6,000 by 2035 will help ensure that Army can respond to the diversity of roles expected of it in the future.
Taken together, these three proposed new and enhanced capabilities will provide Defence with the means to respond to incidents that arise concurrently both within New Zealand and further afield.
Defence Capability Plan 2019 provides industry with a clear mandate to step up further into roles supporting Defence, according to the New Zealand Defence Industry Association’s post-DCP announcement media release.
The NZDIA is delighted that the New Zealand Defence Capability Plan 2019, released by the Minister of Defence, recognises industry as a “a key partner and a fundamental input in the successful implementation of this plan and the future operations of defence.”
The inclusion of a whole section of this plan “Working with Industry” (Section 9) gives NZDIA and its members good cause for optimism and confidence about the significant opportunities ahead.
A good proportion of Defence operating and capital spend circulates through New Zealand businesses, to New Zealand workers, for the betterment of New Zealand communities. Increased investment in Defence capability, and the purposeful consideration of New Zealand suppliers in support of those capabilities will lead to further job creation and employment security into the regions.
Industry and Defence both grapple with the challenges presented by a rapidly evolving information technology environment. Investment in new skills, competencies and
capacity in cyber security, spacebased surveillance, communications, information and data management, all provide opportunities for codevelopment of solutions by Industry and Government. In turn, the development of technology and innovation will also present export opportunities into other markets.
MBIE has published new Procurement Rules aimed to support the Government’s policy objectives “to enhance the effectiveness of Government Procurement Policy in delivering on the wider policy objectives”. Our Members have previously signalled their willingness and enthusiasm to see their smart technology adopted by other Government agencies, to deliver better public value to New Zealand as a whole.
The DCP’s focus on securing capability to deliver value to the Community, Nation and World will, by necessity, involve a greater joining of the dots between agencies. This will be welcomed by industry and will support the Government’s desire to deliver on broader outcomes in the process.
The increased focus in the DCP on early engagement and early market participation will increase the opportunities for NZ businesses. Importantly, the phased engagement processes will create the time and space for international primes to identify and develop relationships with the sort of smart innovative NZ companies we read about, and who are already quietly working away exporting their smarts to the rest of the world. Everyone will win from these new collaborations.
NZDIA’s Chair Andrew Ford says, “The DCP provides our communities
and international partners with confidence and assurance that the Government remains committed to a continued and considered investment programme for the defence and security of New Zealanders. “
For New Zealand companies, the plan recognises the critical supporting role of Industry in delivering the new capabilities and providing supporting services to enable Defence outcomes. Industry stands ready, willing and able for engagement from Defence to explore ideas, innovations and solutions for the capabilities outlined in this plan.”
The Minister states that he is confident that New Zealand’s Defence agencies will rise to the challenge of delivering this Capability Plan. NZDIA is confident that industry in New Zealand and offshore will also rise to this challenge in supporting Defence and also supporting the wider government policy objectives to increase the participation of New Zealanders in government procurements.
NZDIA is poised to roll out a range of engagement activities where “Defence can engage with industry, build relationships, and recognise excellence in capability service delivery” and shares the view expressed in the DCP that these activities are vital.
NZDIA thanks the Minister, the Ministry of Defence and the New Zealand Defence Force for recognising NZDIA as the preeminent body representing the commercial interests of the Defence industry and its individual members. NZDIA will continue evolving its activities to ensure that the DCP ambitions can be delivered in collaboration.
Capability
Discussion Document and Iraq troop withdrawal. Defence Estate Regeneration, he writes, is progressing too slow, while Iraq withdrawal may be too soon.
Last month, National launched its International Affairs Discussion Document, covering our approach to Foreign Policy, Defence, Security, Trade and Official Development Assistance. The purpose of this document is to outline our vision for how New Zealand should be presented on the world stage and to ask for your feedback and ideas about what our policies should look like in 2020.
In a changing world, with many emerging threats, we must punch above our weight. All states, no matter how small, have a responsibility to contribute towards global peace and stability.
National is committed to offering support and assistance where required to uphold a rules-based international order. We also recognise that this cannot be achieved without a world class, fit-for-purpose, modern Defence Force.
The Discussion Document affirms National’s strong belief that a core responsibility of Government is to keep New Zealanders safe and that to do so, we must ensure our Defence Force is supported with the right investment. It acknowledges the strong link between international stability and peace in our region, and reinforces that we must take an outward looking approach to international affairs.
The launch was a great success, and we have received excellent feedback on the ideas and questions posed in the Discussion Document. A big thanks to the Right Honourable Sir Anand Satyanand, Melanie Thornton and the rest of the team at the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs for hosting the event.
I also want to thank the members of our expert panel - Charles Finny, Tracey Epps, Rear Admiral (Ret) John Martin and Dr Anna Powles – who contributed to the event.
I particularly enjoyed hearing RADM Martin’s valuable insights on New Zealand’s role in Defence and Intelligence. John has previously served as the Chief of Navy and was a co-creator of the Defence White Paper 2016 and Defence Capability Plan 2016 – two documents instrumental to the future of New Zealander’s Defence Force and released under the former National government.
Defence Minister Ron Mark has effectively relaunched the former National government’s Defence Capability Plan. We welcome Defence Capability Plan 2019, which reflects the work done in the previous Defence White Papers and expands the outlook of Defence Capability Plan 2016. We are pleased the Government has committed to the $20 billion capability investment plan.
We have worked tirelessly to put pressure on the Government to invest in our Defence Force, and we are happy with the result. However, we are very concerned at the lack of progress on the defence estate regeneration plan. It is on a much slower timeframe, despite being no less urgent. We will continue to put pressure on the Government to make sure estate regeneration is a priority.
The Government has also announced it will withdraw troops from Iraq by June 2020. National supports the withdrawal if our allies do, especially Australia and the United States.
Personally, I think a withdrawal in June 2020 is too soon. If we look at history, we always leave countries too quickly. We must be absolutely confident that when we withdraw troops, the Iraqis have the training, leadership and stability in place to be able to maintain security and protect the civilian population from another uprising. If we leave too quickly, this may create a power vacuum and give ISIS a chance to reorganise.
We are proud of our troops and acknowledge the outstanding difference they have made and will continue to make through to 2020.
In this comprehensive analysis of Defence Capability Plan 2019 and Budget 2019, Hon Dr Wayne Mapp, writes that a consensus DCP delivers on a New Zealand First promise while gaining Greens support.
Ron Mark has reason to feel proud about his term as Minister of Defence. In his first two years in office he has made two major significant purchases in replacing the P3 Orions and C130H Hercules. Although both decisions had been signaled for several years, the credit will go to Ron Mark for making the actual purchase decisions.
Both of the replacement aircraft, the P8 Poseidon and the C130J, were the logical choice. There is good sense for a small defence force to play it safe in buying what is already well-proven in service with our partners.
On the day of the C130J purchase decision, the Government also released the Defence Capability Plan 2019. As Minister for the 2010 Defence Review and a member of ministerial advisory panel for the 2016 Defence Review, all of the planned capabilities set out in Defence
Capability Plan 2019 were no surprise. They pretty much follow what has been planned for several years.
One of the major differences to previous capability plans is the articulation of the purpose and role of the Defence Force. I imagine this was necessary to offset some of the blunt language about China in the 2018 Strategic Defence Policy Statement
Chapter Two has a section about the World. There is much discussion about working with our partners in furtherance of peace, contributing to an international rules-based order, and supporting peace and security in the Asia Pacific region. The confrontational language about China is gone.
A notable change is the extensive discussion on “the climate crisis”. While there had been discussion about climate change in previous plans, it is much more fully covered in this document.
This has helped gain the support of the Green Party, with their defence spokesperson Golriz Ghahraman noting that the increased focus on disaster relief, especially in the Pacific, is something the Green Party had been advocating for years. Her statement probably says more about how well the Minister has engaged with the Greens, rather than an actual substantive change in how the Defence Force operates.
Given the bow wave of future costs, there are some changes in timing in the purchase of replacement and new capabilities.
There are three big purchases in defence that attract the most attention. They are the air transport aircraft, the maritime surveillance aircraft, and the frigates. The government has announced the replacement of the first
two. Unusually they have done this within a single term of government.
However, the frigate replacement has been pushed out to beyond 2030. This makes sense. Both frigates are already in the process of a very expensive mid-life upgrade, which will surely add another 15 years to the lives of the two ships.
The replacement ships to the ANZAC frigates need to be coming into service around 2035, when the current ships will be nearly 40 years old. That means the actual purchase decision will need to be made in the late 2020’s, with the detailed planning taking place from 2025 onward.
The Southern Ocean patrol vessel has also been extended to 2023 for the actual purchase decision, with an inservice date of 2027.
The Air Force will finally get a medium ocean surveillance capability, either as drones or as traditional fixed wing aircraft. The request for tenders occurs in 2020, so there is a possibility a purchase decision may be made before the next election.
In the near term, the Army will continue to build up its networked capability and will replace the inadequate Pinzguaer.
There will be a modest increase in the size of the Defence Force, though this will take place over the next fifteen years. It is likely that Defence Force numbers will continue to decline as a percentage of the total population. Technology will increasingly enhance the capability of the people in the Defence Force.
The main decisions of the Capability Plan were foreshadowed in the 2019 Budget. The Budget confirmed the coalition government’s commitment to defence. Notwithstanding the sensationalist
news headlines about tanks over teachers, this commitment would have surprised no-one familiar with the budget process and the make-up of the coalition.
It is pretty clear that New Zealand First has control of defence policy, and therefore is able to set the budgetary expectations.
Defence, as is clearly indicated in the Capability Plan, is not an area that is likely to suffer budget cuts, at least not while the economy is going reasonably well. In fact, in terms of the ongoing operating budget for the Defence Force, there has been a seven percent increase in the appropriation from $2.155 billion to $2.316 billion.
This is enough to increase levels of recruitment and to deal with upgrading or replacing the many substandard buildings in the various camps and bases.
The Budget gave a clear signal that New Zealand would be completing its Iraq commitment during the coming financial year. The budget for peace support operations is only half that of the peace support operations in last year’s Budget. This was confirmed by the announcement on June 10 that the Iraq commitment would be progressively downsized during the rest of the year, with the final troops being withdrawn in June 2020.
The most notable part of the budget, at least from the point of
view of the news headlines, was the $1.1 billion appropriation for new equipment. There is considerable misunderstanding of how the Defence Force pays for new capital equipment. It is done out of the depreciation allowance, and if necessary, by new capital appropriations.
The amount of the depreciation allowance is fairly consistent from year to year. It is derived from all the capital equipment of the Defence Force, that is the aircraft, the ships and various major items of equipment of the Army. Old capital items generate relatively low amounts of depreciation while new equipment generates higher levels of depreciation.
In recent years the amount of depreciation has been around $700 million. This is a sufficient sum to cover many new purchases, particularly for the Army, where the individual items of equipment tend not to be overly expensive. For instance, the infantry rifles were able to be fully replaced for $59 million.
However, the acquisition of major capital equipment, such as the purchase of the P8 Poseidon aircraft, requires an injection of new capital in addition to the depreciation allowance. The Budget provided that there will be $568 million of new capital transferred to Defence.
Over the next fifteen years there will $20 billion in capital expenditure.
Around $12 to $14 billion will come from depreciation, since the expensive new assets being purchased will generate greater levels of annual depreciation. The balance of $6 to $8 billion will come from new capital injections. It means that virtually every year over the next fifteen years there will be around $500 million new capital required.
That is the price that New Zealand has to pay as a result of keeping its major defence assets for 40 to 50 years. The existing C130 Hercules and the P3 Orions were purchased over 50 years ago. The Iroquois helicopters lasted 40 years. The ANZAC frigates are expected to last 40 years. Not surprisingly, the replacement assets are vastly more expensive than the book value of the existing assets.
The 2019 Capability Plan is a well thought through document. Although it builds on the plans articulated over the last decade, it has taken the defence debate to a new and more thoughtful level. The fact that there is almost universal consensus about the overall shape and purpose of the Defence Force says much about the consensus building about defence that has occurred in New Zealand over recent years. Bringing the Greens on board is a reflection of both the Minister’s persuasive abilities, and the realities of the Green Party being in government.
The RNZAF is moving its engineering aviation regulations, technical workforce trade structure and Quality Management System to an internationally recognised military aviation system (EMARS), writes GPCAPT Peter E C Johnson MBE, RNZAF
Chief Engineer and Technical Airworthiness Authority.
We are adopting EMARs to align our organisation to a universally recognised system in order to enhance operability with our international partners, provide an easier system to ‘do business’ with and become a more attractive employer.
The European Military Aviation Requirements (EMARS) are military adaptations of the proven European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) airworthiness rules.
EMARs is a well-established system to design, repair, maintain and support an aircraft; all very relevant to the RNZAF as it keeps its aircraft flying safely to support operations wherever they occur. It also provides a framework for maintenance training (i.e. which trade is responsible for which part of the aircraft) and the rules around operating a training establishment.
EMARS has been adopted by more than 30 militaries around the world, predominantly in Europe but, most importantly for New Zealand, by the Australian Defence Force.
As the RNZAF adopts EMARS, it has given us the opportunity to look at our maintenance training and technical trade structure to ensure that our mechanics and technicians are able to deliver appropriate support to flying operations, now and in the future.
The RNZAF has about 980 technicians currently spread across eight separate technical trades (Aircraft, Avionics, Composites, Armament, Safety Equipment and Surface Finish, Ground Support Equipment, Metalwork and Machinist).
While EMARS is quite detailed in the training required and responsibilities of the Aircraft, Avionics and Armament tasks, it does not deal with the responsibilities of the other technical trades.
The RNZAF has thus taken the opportunity to align as much of its training and trade structure with civilian qualifications whilst still ensuring they are able to do what we need of them. In addition, we have amalgamated some of the trades to provide a more autonomous utility in a deployed environment where there may not be the ability to use local facilities or personnel – for example, in a disaster response.
More details on each of the new trades can be found at the end of this article.
The technical training has been designed, as far as possible, to meet a nationally – and in some cases internationally – recognised standard. This will ensure that our highly
skilled and experienced maintenance workforce are aligned with other military and civilian organisations that we are likely to work with and their qualifications are recognised.
Finally, the RNZAF is updating its Quality Management System to align with EMARS, so that continual improvement is embedded.
By taking the opportunity of making these changes now, we will have the time to ‘bed-in’ the transformation ahead of new capabilities the RNZAF will have in the future and to better support those that they currently have.
Aircraft systems personnel will be responsible for all the mechanical systems on an aircraft, such as flying controls, hydraulic, fuel and air systems, engines, propellers, helicopter rotors and drive shafts, landing gear and internal cabin furnishings.
Following successful completion of recruit training, a trainee will start mechanic training (at RNZAF Base Woodborne) aligned with EMAR 66, Category A (flight line operations). On
successful completion of the training, the mechanic will graduate with a New Zealand Certificate in Aeronautical Engineering (Workplace Introductory skills) – Level 4.
This will allow the mechanic to support aircraft flight operations (such as refuelling, routine servicing, fault rectification minor repairs and modifications) both at home and away from NZ.
The mechanic will be posted to one of a number of positions at RNZAF Base Ohakea or RNZAF Base Auckland, either on a flying Squadron, or in one of the aircraftsupporting maintenance facilities to support aircraft operations and gain experience. This should culminate in the awarding of a New Zealand Certificate in Aircraft Servicing –Level 3.
Once the aircraft systems mechanic has gained some experience and has been selected for Advanced Trade Training, he/she will return to RNZAF Base Woodborne to receive more specialised training in aircraft systems and some limited avionics training (EMAR 66, Category B1). The technician will then be qualified to
carry out fault diagnosis, more complex repairs and direct the activities of the mechanics. This should culminate in the awarding of a New Zealand Certificate in Aeronautical Engineering (Applied Skills) –Level 4.
Avionics systems personnel will be responsible for all the electrical and electronic systems on an aircraft, such as sensors, communications, aeronautical software, power generation and distribution, flight control systems and navigation equipment.
Initial recruit and mechanic training, qualifications and experience are the same as Aircraft Systems described in the paragraphs above.
Once the avionics systems mechanic has gained some experience and has been selected for Advanced Trade Training, he/she will return to RNZAF Base Woodborne to receive more specialised training in avionics and some aircraft training (EMAR 66, Category B2). The technician will then be qualified to carry out fault diagnosis, more complex repairs, and direct the activities of the mechanics.
Aeronautical Structures is a new trade for the RNZAF. Aeronautical structures personnel will be responsible for repair and fabrication of aircraft structures using metal and composite materials. Aeronautical structures mechanics will initially start their RNZAF career in the same way as the Aircraft Systems and Avionics Systems trades.
Once an aeronautical structures mechanic has gained some experience, and he/she has been selected for Advanced Trade Training, they will conduct their specialist Aeronautical Structures training. This will include such skills as welding, milling and lathe turning, grinding/honing, heat treating, hardness testing, design of jigs and fixtures and use of specialist tooling.
The Advanced Trade Training will take the form of an apprenticeship model at either RNZAF Base Ohakea or RNZAF Base Auckland. Once the training has been completed, the Aeronautical Systems technicians will be authorised to carry out repairs in-situ, in the aircraft as well as off-aircraft fabrication and manufacture.
This should culminate in the awarding of a New Zealand Certificate in Aeronautical Engineering (Specialist Support) – Level 4.
Ground Support Equipment personnel provide support to deployed operations by providing temporary airfield infrastructure such as aviation fuel, power and water treatment. Domestically, the responsibilities also include specialist vehicle maintenance, maintenance of the deployable equipment and other maintenance and repair functions.
Following successful completion of recruit training, initial mechanic trainees will be enrolled as apprentices in the New Zealand Certificate of Automotive Engineering (NZCAE) Level 3 programme through the Motor Industry Training Organisation (MITO).
While gaining their qualifications, trainees will work at either RNZAF Base Ohakea or RNZAF Auckland and also complete some of the training and assessments at technical training institutes. On successful completion, they will be able to operate, maintain, service and repair the RNZAF’s support equipment, specialist vehicles and cargo loading equipment.
Once they have gained some experience, they will go on to complete selected modules of the New
Zealand Certificate of Automotive Engineering (NZCAE) – Level 4.
Safety and surface
Safety and Surface personnel will be responsible for all the Safety equipment, such as parachutes (cargo and personnel, packing and maintaining), life rafts, survival packs, aircrew helmets and clothing. They are also responsible for the removal and application of surface finish coatings on aircraft and vehicles (aerospace coatings, markings and placards and vehicle paint).
Following successful completion of recruit training, initial Safety and Surface mechanic training will be conducted at the training base (RNZAF Base Woodborne), followed by training at both RNZAF Base Ohakea and RNZAF Base Auckland. Once all modules have been completed, trainees will be Safety and Surface technicians.
This should culminate in the awarding of a National Certificate in Aeronautical Engineering (Specialist Support) Aircraft Furnishings and Equipment – Level 4, and a National Certificate in Aeronautical Engineering (Specialist Support) Aircraft Painting – Level 4.
Writing
With three weeks to go before the end of the Government’s financial year, we had a big and exciting second week of June.
I said to a few people this week that I was maybe becoming tragic, being so excited about the release of the Defence Capability Plan 2019 (DCP). In my defence though, this DCP is of critical importance, not only to Defence but also to Industry and NZDIA.
The week before we also saw the publication of the 4th Edition of the Government Procurement Rules which take effect on 1 October 2019. I got very excited on that day too!
These two documents together represent the best chance in years for smaller New Zealand companies to engage on a more equal footing in Government procurements.
In my distant past career, I was a director of a cutting-edge technology business. Our greatest failing was being ahead of the tech adoption curve. The next (and a common challenge) was not having sufficient marketing budget to counter the overseas businesses peddling old technology to Government departments. Eventually we stopped responding to tenders because we could not compete against the fear-driven platitudes of the larger mainly overseas (competitors).
I tell this story because it remains the story of many innovative tech businesses in New Zealand, a story that others tell me on a regular basis.
The combination of the new 4th Edition and the DCP presents an opportunity for a real and palpable shift in procurement policy and practice across the public sector. That this shift is mandatory is clear in Government policy as seen in the Cabinet decision in
December 2018 that sparked the review of procurement and the issue of new Rules.
Rules have been issued in the past with similar sentiments, but the expected sea-change never occurred. The cynics might say what is different now? To the cynics I say that sometimes we need a critical mass of influences to persuade procurers to change their attitudes, and we now have that critical mass.
Cabinet paper Enhancing the effectiveness of Government Procurement Policy ; the new Government Procurement Rules including the concepts of ‘broader outcomes’ and ‘public value’; a DCP with a substantial focus on working with industry, early engagement and collaboration; and the launch of a two-year programme from the Office of the Auditor General into Government Procurement; appears to constitute a critical mass.
Industry now has the obligation and opportunity to call out poor procurement practices so that we get a better outcome for Government spend and for industry. Procurers have the best incentive now to re-frame their driving motivations before they have to explain them to others!
This is not intended to be a beat up on procurement people. The importance of the leadership of Government agencies and the messaging they send cannot be underestimated. If leaders continue to talk about cost savings, getting more for less and demanding more with no consequences, their diligent procurement people will continue to focus on the wrong things and broader outcomes will be a pipe dream.
Again, we all need to speak out if we see tenders or documentation that entrenches the old approaches. If speaking out seems too risky, then let NZDIA help.
Armed with and informed by the DCP, NZDIA is working on the final changes to a programme of events to support industry (New Zealand and offshore) and Defence in delivering outcomes that work for everyone. Having spent time in Australia with CASG and the Australian Department of Defence, I can attest that when industry and the public service learn together about how to achieve broader outcomes for all, change can happen and happen fast.
The NZDIA Newsletter is the best source of updated information on the events programme and support for Primes and SMEs wanting to work together. If you are not on the mailing list, contact admin.support@nzdia.co.nz and ask to be added.
In the air, space and cyber domains, success will come to those who have a relative mastery of technologies supporting autonomy, AI and cyber security, writes Dr
Andrew University.Military doctrine considers modern warfare in terms of five domains. Of these, three are relative newcomers: air is little more than a century old; whereas the fourth, space, and the fifth, cyber, are even newer.
Our ability to utilise each of these three new domains has been facilitated through the development of technology. Aircraft, rockets and the convergence of information and communications technologies has allowed humankind to utilise these respective environments. As capabilities within these domains have matured, they have demonstrated their potential to contribute decisively to military success.
The source of great advantage for one nation is therefore a centre of gravity to a potential adversary. In each of the three domains, there is such a focus on counter-capabilities that the future ability to operate within them is in significant danger.
Since its introduction in the First World War, air power’s early beginnings in observation evolved to a domain in which air superiority translated to control over the other domains. This led to a technology race to develop the best aircraft platforms to achieve air superiority, with the race being dominated by efforts in speed and manoeuvrability.
With the development of the jet engine, we saw incremental improvements in air power technologies, chronicled in the classification of generations of fighter aircraft. In the fourth and fifth of these generations of fighters, we have seen a step change in the air domain.
The combination of several technologies has changed the modern air combat capability and arguably the nature of modern warfare as we entered the 21st Century. Fifth generation aircraft combine technologies to maximise their lethality and survivability.
Sensors and precision munitions are so capable that threats can be detected and defeated at beyond visual ranges. Stealth characteristics maximise survivability, and communications systems allow threats to be engaged effectively by a networked force. The previous focus on speed and manoeuvrability of air power has become less relevant in the quest for air superiority.
Arguably, US F-35 and F-22 aircraft are more capable than aircraft such as the J20 and Su57, which might temporarily comfort the US and its allies. However, nations will continue to develop their capabilities to be more competitive.
The current and future challenges in the air domain can be viewed from two perspectives – one of symmetry and one of asymmetry.
From a perspective of symmetry, many nations are developing fifth and even sixth generation fighter aircraft, although the desire to achieve a competitive advantage means that detail about programs is strongly protected. Therefore, it is difficult to know how good developmental capabilities will be and how much is hype. For future generations of fighters, the technologies will build upon those for the fifth generation, as well as enhancing artificial intelligence, autonomy and cyber security.
Other military forces have capabilities that, whilst a minor concern for US fifth generation fighters, could pose a significant threat to other assets. Fourth generation fighters and high value elements such as air-to-air refuelling and airborne early warning and control will need to be situated well back from sophisticated threats. Hence, while fifth generation aircraft can maintain freedom of manoeuvre, other forces will be unable to deal with a strategy of antiaccess and area denial (A2AD).
Dowse AO, Air Vice-Marshal (retd), Director, Defence Research and Engagement at Edith CowanA lineup of Albatros D.IIIs in early 1917
More importantly, from 2030, systems currently in development may challenge the superiority of Western fighters. With air combat being a battle between lethality and survivability, we will find that lethality starts to win out. The development of variety within sensors and use of networked multi-sensor capabilities will exceed the variety possible within an aircraft’s stealth characteristics. It will become more difficult to break an adversary’s kill chain.
What we will see into the future is that, far from being a counter to an A2AD strategy, the ongoing development of fighter and other weapon technologies will reinforce the ability to deny an area through the use of comprehensive sensing, networking of the force and long-range weapons. Hence, in 2014, the US announced its Third Offset Strategy to develop the ability to project force into such a highly contested environment, essentially with a focus on the ability to eliminate threat systems.
In order to maintain capability advantage from 2030, priority needs to be given now to research and development of associated technologies. These include ISR, counter-ISR, artificial intelligence, autonomy, hypersonic weapons, cyber security and the delivery of non-kinetic effects.
One such program is Boeing Defence Australia’s Loyal Wingman, augmenting the fifth-generation fighter force with unmanned combat air vehicles. These aircraft could operate further forward than manned platforms as part of an integrated force. Such capabilities could herald the start of an autonomy era in the Royal Australian Air Force and confirm the F-35 as its last manned fighter.
From the asymmetric perspective, the use of weaponised drones has become a significant security concern. The barriers to entry for these systems based upon commercially
available and largely unregulated technologies are low and present an opportunity to attack ground, surface and even air targets.
As drones are increasingly used for private and commercial purposes, it will be increasingly difficult to prepare for and defeat such attacks. Even inadvertent use of drones is a security threat, as we have seen at airports and during aerial fire-fighting.
Currently, the typical option for dealing with a drone in a restricted area is to observe and attempt to identify the operator. There are systems that have been developed to deal more forcefully with drones, where allowable, such as jamming the operator signal, lasering, kinetic kill, capture and hacking.
Most nations are still deliberating, far too late, on regulatory mechanisms to register and control commercial drone usage. A regulatory approach is needed that allows drones not only to be identified but to be disabled by an authority when being misused.
Interestingly cheap autonomous air vehicles represent not only an emerging asymmetric threat, but also a potential solution to the future contested military environment. In the case of the latter, conceptually a large volume of low cost networked unmanned air vehicles may confuse an adversary’s defence systems and represent a challenge to eliminate, especially if the attacking force comprises a networked mix of low cost as well as highly capable systems with similar signatures.
It is therefore prudent to consider such a situation from the defensive perspective and the prospect of a nation state launching such an attack of UAVs, or mixed UAV and conventional forces, against us. Military planners must
consider the air defence capabilities that we would need in the future to discern and deal with air targets, considered not only from an operational perspective, but also from an economic perspective.
For example, can we afford to expend $4m AMRAAMs on $500k UAVs? Conversely, if we don’t know the threat, can we afford not to do so?
Modern military forces rely on the fourth domain, space, for the provision of communications, intelligence and surveillance, and Precision Navigation and Timing (PNT) services. Indeed, large parts of our society rely on space for similar services.
The 2011 US National Security Space Strategy characterised the space environment as congested, contested and competitive. One factor behind this characterisation is the limited resource of radiofrequency (RF) spectrum.
Increasing demand for more bandwidth by more people from more providers creates a dilemma, given the finite capacity of the RF spectrum. Technology breakthroughs, such as high throughput satellite communications, provide increases in capacity, but it’s not enough to satisfy the demand. Low Earth Orbit satellites have taken some of the pressure from geostationary orbit allocations, although there are growing concerns with interference and with the growing traffic in space.
According to the European Space Agency, as at January there were 5,000 craft in orbit around the earth, 1,950 of which are still functioning. More concerning is the amount of space debris – in excess of 22,000 in space surveillance network catalogues, but more than another 900,000 debris objects in excess of 1cm.
There have been eight significant collisions in space, which means that we can’t dismiss the risk by subscribing to Big Sky theory. Moreover, a cascade of collisions, known as
the Kessler syndrome, could affect not only the current but also future use of space.
This syndrome can be mitigated through responsible mission disposal and debris removal, as well as through active collision avoidance.
The current approach to collision avoidance needs to be transformed and resourced and given authority over space operations in a similar way to air traffic control. Space traffic control is far more difficult than air traffic control given the:
• relative speeds of objects,
• difficulty in assessing conjunctions,
• risks associated with debris,
• costs compared to low level of funding, and
• difficulty in achieving international agreement.
If the risk of collision is not enough, there is the potential also for space to be a contested environment. With the post-Cold War focus of operations having been on unsophisticated adversaries, it has been easy to presume continuity of space services. Many people also read too much into the Outer Space Treaty restricting military operations in space.
Modern militaries obtain immense value from space systems, to the extent that elements may be rendered ineffective if their services are not available. Hence, space capabilities are potential targets for adversaries.
Nations around the world are developing antispace capabilities, as the early 2019 Indian ASAT test demonstrated. If such nations are willing to tolerate criticism by demonstrating such capabilities in peacetime, then we should have no doubt that these weapons will be used in conflict. Non-kinetic attacks on space systems are even more likely and are within the reach of many state and potentially non-state actors.
Australia and other nations are examining options for the next generation of space capabilities to achieve
resilience in communications, earth observation and PNT. Considerations will include a mix of hardening systems, developing redundancies and distributing capabilities across multiple assets, including entangling with other nations. Continuing and expanding ‘Day Without Space’ components of training and exercises is critical.
Given the aggregated risks of military action and of cascaded collisions, arguably the best alternative to a space system may not be another space system. Technology development in aerospace, autonomy, energy and electronics is leading to persistent high-altitude unmanned vehicles, or pseudo-satellites, being a strong consideration as an alternative or complementary capability.
For around 10 years there has been broad agreement that the cyber environment not only supports warfighting in the other domains but is a domain in its own right in which battles are waged.
In modern warfighting and indeed modern society, the fifth domain is pervasive, increasingly pivotal to activities in every domain. This cyber reach has implications in the virtual and physical, with blurriness between military and civilian, between nation state and non-nation state, and between conflict and peace.
Modern military systems are heavily reliant on information technologies. Defence forces rely on these technologies to achieve a capability edge, however that edge is only relevant if confidentiality, integrity and availability are assured.
Defence forces need to move on from the old ways of thinking in the cyber domain. In relative peacetime, our focus has been on protecting confidentiality, and we tend to only be concerned with the availability of systems in conflict. However, within a cyber-attack chain, exploits to gain access to military systems could be used for espionage or as a residual agent that can be enacted at a later time. Similarly, with the complexity of modern connectivity, traditional perimeter defence approaches to IT security are not enough. Continual monitoring and analysis across the environment are needed. Without increased investment and vigilance, military forces are at risk of what the head of the Australian Department of Defence’s Information Warfare Division describes as being “taken out of the fight before it even starts.”
The military is just one element of national power. Mike Pezzullo, the Secretary of Australia’s Department of Home Affairs, identifies one of the seven key national security challenges as cyber-attack against critical infrastructure.
Preparedness for such an attack is hampered by a broad culture in which devices are willingly integrated into networks without considering exposure to harm. Additionally, many in our society are entirely reactive to cyber-attacks, including big business and Government, thinking that there are minimal risks and then, when it happens, expecting someone else to do something about it.
Pezzullo points out that there is no Leviathan function to maintaining public order in the cyber world. Other than for ‘serious’ attacks, such as on critical infrastructure, in most countries there is no great likelihood of an effective
response. This lack of action emboldens attackers, whether they be nation states, organised crime or individuals.
Without attribution, there isn’t even clarity as to who should do something about it. Inadequate imposition of costs on attackers will make the cyber environment incredibly volatile into the future. We see even serious security professionals advocating for businesses to be allowed to ‘hack back’.
However, the answer is not more offensive capability, but rather better defences. Even rudimentary risk management should lead private and public sector organisations to improve their cyber security, and the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) has identified a range of mitigation measures. However, the level of compliance to even the highest priority mitigations remains low and there is a growing call for regulatory measures to enforce better security.
There is also advocacy for better international cyber cooperation, given nation states’ obligations to do something about attacks that originate from their territory. Otherwise, nation states may opt for more brute force responses, which would create even greater instability.
Similarly, military systems need to be better protected through a cyber-worthiness regime consistent with the level of threat and the consequences of inoperable or unpredictable combat systems. This, combined with realistic cyber training and cooperation between like-minded militaries, should improve resilience in the cyber domain. Many technology advances needed to achieve the Third Offset Strategy are in the cyber domain. Thus, the same capabilities for advantage in warfare could also be a vulnerability.
Mitigations to these vulnerabilities may include sovereign supply chains and human-on-the-loop arrangements. Ultimately, assurance within the cyber domain will rely upon development of trusted intelligent agents, providing the visibility and speed needed to maintain a watch of less trusted systems.
The three newest domains of warfare will evolve and be even more challenging in future. The air domain, previously dominated by a dogfighting mindset of manoeuvrability, is being transformed into an environment in which manned assets will be separated and engage at long distances.
Conversely, the cyber domain has transformed from the early days of perimeter defences, to an environment in which we are immersed in potential threats. The space domain is becoming chaotic and risky, and requires efforts in space environment and traffic management, otherwise military forces may need to hedge through services from other domains.
In all three domains, success will come to those who have a relative mastery of key technologies, such as those supporting autonomy, AI and cyber security. To assure our future security, we need to be innovative and invest in technology research and STEM education.
This article is based on a presentation delivered in Rotorua at the Asia Pacific Security and Innovation Summit 2019.
Despite media suggesting that all roads to foreign political interference lead to Beijing, Hon Heather Roy writes that only a broader understanding of the issue will ensure the resilience of our electoral system. A National Security Strategy and an independent National Security Adviser would help.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1892 short story The Adventure of Silver Blaze was based around the kidnapping of a prize race horse and the apparent murder of its trainer. Fictional detective Sherlock Holmes solves the case; pointing out to Police the guard dog at the stables didn’t bark, thereby implying the intruder was not a stranger.
The analysis error identified by Holmes– using what is evident rather than all information (or, making assumptions based on partial evidence) – has been applied in many disciplines. Doyle’s story has some relevance in considering electoral interference.
The most recent discussion on foreign interference in New Zealand politics centred around the conduct of the Government members of the Justice Select Committee earlier this year.
Tasked with a triennial review of the electoral process the committee called for submissions on the 2016 local body and 2017 general elections. After submissions closed, Justice Minster Andrew Little asked the committee to “look at the resilience of our electoral system against foreign interference risks”.
China expert, Professor AnneMarie Brady asked to appear before the committee to make a submission on the extended terms of reference. Chair Raymond Huo and the three other Labour MPs on the Justice Committee blocked Professor Brady’s entreaty. It seems only the SIS and GCSB were invited to present to the committee on the extended terms, the public being excluded by omission.
Media pressure following National MP Nick Smith raising the issue publicly forced an embarrassing U-turn by Raymond Huo. Submissions were subsequently called for from the public and Professor Brady was then invited to submit on foreign interference after all.
The fracas also highlighted a conflict of interest – Raymond Huo had previously featured in Professor Brady’s research on Chinese influence in New Zealand. To have denied her the opportunity to participate in a subject she is considered expert in is an affront to the democratic process. The decision to exclude hearing from all except the security agencies was also an abuse of the checks and balances Parliament’s select committees provide our democratic process.
Months later, Huo finally did the right thing and recused himself from chairing Professor Brady’s submission.
However, to fixate on China or any country for that matter takes us back to ‘Silver Blaze.’
History shows there have always been attempts to influence elections around the world and that will not change. From ballot box stuffing to tampering with voting machines or other forms of corruption, whole studies have been conducted.
One such study shows that the most prolific ‘interferer’ is the United States, followed a distant second by Russia.
Technical interference can be identified and guarded against. What cannot be so easily addressed is when ‘the dog does not bark’ i.e. the influencer is known to the audience and believes the message to be legitimate. Thus, the crime is successful and goes undetected.
Electoral shaping has always existed; from union officials telling members how to vote through to preachers in the pulpit doing the same.
What has changed is the reach and versatility of digital media.
Anyone anywhere in the world can speak to the New Zealand voter. They can conceal their identity and their intent while basing their message on data about the audience gleaned from open source intelligence such as Facebook. Voters in a specific Twitter feed or SubReddit find themselves agreeing with most of what is posted.
This echo chamber effect creates credibility for the message as there are few, if any, discerning voices. The challenge is to differentiate between legitimate political campaigning and electoral interference.
In discussing communication channels during the official election period, the subject of foreign language media appears. Chinese and Indian language speakers in New Zealand have a plethora of TV, radio and print media options, as do a number of other ethnic groups.
There are also several religious TV and radio channels. Most New Zealanders don’t understand what is being said on Maori TV or the Te Reo channel. On demand streaming provides a vast range of other political channel options.
Should we worry about these? Perhaps, but it would be a waste of time and a huge ‘own goal’ attack on our democracy.
No doubt, some in the intelligence community would see the solution being ever more resources to allow them to monitor what is being said in foreign language media. That would be a mistake. They are of no more or less concern than what our own friends and allies are up to behind the scenes. We would be naïve to think that they aren’t actively pursuing their own nation’s best interests in regard to New Zealand politics.
Given the seemingly insurmountable scale of channels for foreign entities (both nation state and
non-state actors) to conduct political information operations in New Zealand, what is to be done?
By far the most important thing we can do to build and maintain a resilient democracy is to ‘teach the dog to always bark.’ New Zealand is best served when we have a cohesive government held to account by a strong opposition. We also need a fearless media prepared to speak out as journalist Thomas Coughlan did on the Huo case.
The recent raids by Australian Federal Police on ABC offices and journalists is the exact opposite of what will build our defence against foreign interference. Even the Australian Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition have distanced themselves from the AFP action. We have seen our own version of this with the New Zealand Police raid on the home of Nicky Hager.
The strength of democracy is directly related to our ability to defend it. New Zealand is the poorer for having no National Security Strategy. If we did have one and the supporting independence of a National Security Advisor, foreign political interference would be part of their remit.
The final part of the solution is a resilient voter. It’s said that Kiwis love politics but hate politicians. In order to change this attitude a few other things have to occur. More people need to stand for office at all levels so our representatives traverse a genuine cross-section of the population.
One of the impediments to this happening right now is the personality-based ‘gotcha’ politics which is off-putting to many aspirants. The media have a role to play in this, as do politicians themselves. We need to encourage greater engagement – particularly in regard to voter turnout.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly of all, we should consider teaching civics in schools. By the time young people reach voting age they should be well informed about what a healthy democracy looks like including being able to recognise when someone attempts to influence their vote inappropriately. In the land of the blind, even the one-eyed man is king.
Safe and Secure Facilities and Public Spaces conference provides a first-of-its kind forum for exploring the security of public facilities in New Zealand from a range of traditional and emerging threats.
New Zealand-based organisations and facilities now have even greater reason to sharpen their focus on a wider range of dangerous and significant threats.
After the horrors visited upon Christchurch, thinking must shift to encompass all possible incidents and scenarios, including terrorism. Whilst owners and operators of public facilities, tourism, educational and transport operations previously focused considerable attention on response to natural disaster, now they must factor in significant humanderived threats.
Around the world, ‘soft targets’ and crowded public spaces such as stadia, shopping precincts and major events have been targeted with increased frequency. Public safety has been breached by random attacks. Whilst law enforcement and security services are responsible for wider threat surveillance, it is the owners and operators of facilities who must play their part to keep people safe.
Many organisations are now reviewing their site, visitor and operational security and safety – or considering doing so – in light of the changed security context.
Hosted at Wellington’s Te Papa on 12 and 13 August, the new Safe and Secure Facilities and Public Spaces conference promises valuable insight into what’s required to properly be prepared.
This conference will examine how operators and owners, along with other stakeholders, can effectively mitigate the risks and decrease the security
vulnerabilities whilst maintaining the necessary public and/or visitor access and experience.
The conference will draw together people concerned with safety and security at:
• Government facilities
• Local government facilities, council offices, stadiums, pools, parks, beaches, museums and shopping precincts
• Hospitals and health facilities
• Transport facilities, hubs and vehicles
• Schools, universities and education facilities
• Tourism and travel operators
• Critical lifelines and infrastructure: refineries, tank farms, ports, oil companies, water and gas
• Private facilities open to the public: pools, gyms, shopping malls and commercial buildings
• Private facilities profiled as higher targets: churches, mosques, temples, religious organisations
• Stadium and large sporting, concert and park event operations
Key topics covered include:
• International best practice security risk management
• Predicting and responding to physical threats, including new hostile vehicle mitigation solutions
• Cyber threats and their potential impact on your operations
• Crowded places and target profiles
• What makes your facility a target?
• How to protect crowded places from terrorism or other threats
• Vulnerability assessments and
applying lessons learned
• Effective collaboration with facilities and emergency services
• Managing security and incidents in the new era of social media
• Effective counter-measures solutions
• Keeping people safe at major events
• Harnessing interagency cooperation at mass events
Conference speakers include Sydney Opera House’s Dave Crossley, Melbourne Cricket Ground’s Mark Oxnam, Air New Zealand’s Ellen King, Auckland War Memorial Museum’s Sir Kenneth McKenzie, Auckland Live’s Dean Kidd, Regional Facilities Auckland’s Glenn Simpson, Counties Manukau DHB Anton Venter, and AUT’s Willy Taylor, among others.
Among the 24 speaker presentations will be a panel discussion featuring Dave Crossley, Dr John Battersby of Massey University’s Centre for Defence and Security Studies and Chris Kumeroa of Global Risk Consulting, on the importance of the private security sector working in collaboration with government within the context of national security. Chairing the conference is Nicholas Dynon, Chief Editor of Line of Defence
This is a first-of-its-kind conference in New Zealand featuring a who’s who of local physical security and emergency management specialists. To view the details, including the full speaker line-up, visit conferenz.co.nz/ safe.
What motivates cyber terrorists? Why do they selectively engage in cyber terrorism over other terrorist acts. And how can they be detected before acts of cyber terror occur?
Barnaby Pace, Head of Department - Postgraduate and Research at Otago Polytechnic explains.
In its broadest context, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation views cyberterrorism as any “premeditated, politically motivated attack against information, computer systems, computer programs, and data which results in violence against noncombatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents.”
As an extension of this, Marc Rogers describes a cyber terrorist as an “individual who uses computer/network technology to control, dominate or coerce using terror in continuance of political or social objectives.”
Unfortunately, contemporary movies and popular media would have us believe that cyber terrorism is set purely in the realm of cyber-attacks on military and government instillations, however this is not the case.
Who are cyber terrorists?
Cyber terrorists can be divided into two major groups: those individuals or groups within an organisation (insider threat) and those outside (outsider
threat) (Figure 1). As you’ll see, there is overlap between these categories, however for simplicity these are presented here as discrete groups.
Insider Threat
Individuals within an organisation, or insiders, typically fall into one of three categories: disgruntled employees, criminals or those individuals who are seeking financial gain, or lastly, unintentional cyber terrorists. It is estimated that the threat from inside an organisation accounts for 20 percent of cyber-terrorist activity but can cause up to 80 percent of the damage.
The first of these categories, the disgruntled employee, can cause issues by releasing organisationally sensitive information or data on the internet, which can be accessed by competitors or fellow employees. Alternatively, they may have integrated an automated programme, known as a ‘logic bomb’, which will create issues as the result of a predetermined event. For example, if the employee does not appear in the payroll system, then the ‘planted’ programme will reformat the company database.
Those individuals who fall into the second category, criminals, are financially motivated and will misuse organisational assets and manipulate computer systems for financial gain. This includes the copying and selling of organisational information or electronic data for monetary gain.
The final insider threat’ category is the unintentional group. These are those individuals who unintentionally delete files resulting in loss of information or data, or who open files or redirect to unsecured internet sites
that contain malware that infects the organisational internal network. One area of particular concern with this group is ‘spills’. Spills are the result of an individual unintentionally uploading or publishing organisationally sensitive information on an unclassified system.
Outsider threat
Individuals, whether acting alone or as a member of a group external to the organisation they are ‘attacking’, can be categorised into three classes dependent on their level of organisation, motivations, or level of ability. These categories include: organised attackers, hackers or hacktivists; and ‘script kiddies’ or ‘noobs’ (Figure 1).
Organised Attackers: as with threats for the insider, organised attackers can be further divided into several sub-groups: terrorists, hacktivists (which will be explored further below), national state actors and criminal actors. The first of these, the terrorist, is an actor who breaks into computer systems to steal, change or destroy information, with parallels to ‘traditional’ terrorists who employ terror as a means of political or religious weaponry.
National state actors, as the name would suggest, act on behalf of government agencies. Criminal actors are organised groups of professional criminals, who, in this context, operate in cyberspace.
Hackers/Hacktivists: Dependent on motivation, which will be discussed later, hackers can be classified as either ‘white hat’ hackers or ‘black hat’ hackers. ‘White hat’ or ‘ethical’ hackers are actors who are computer security specialists who use their skills to access protected systems and networks to identify any systems vulnerabilities so improvements can be made.
Black hat hackers are the opposite; actors who use their knowledge of computing and systems skills to breach computer systems and networks. As with the concept of cyber terrorism, popular media has formed a stereotypical view of this group.
A further, less well known and defined group, grey hat hackers, form a group between the black and white hat hackers. Hacktivists are actors who gain unauthorised access to computer systems and networks to further a social, religious or political goal.
Script Kiddies/Noobs: ‘Script kiddies’ or ‘noobs’ are actors who are unskilled that utilise scripts or programmes developed by others, to access computer systems and networks. In a report prepared for the US Dependent of Defence, script kiddies were defined as:
The more immature but unfortunately often just as dangerous exploiter of security lapses on the Internet. The typical script kiddie uses existing and frequently well-known and easy-to-find techniques and programs or scripts to search for and exploit weaknesses in other computers on the Internet— often randomly and with little regard or perhaps even understanding of the potentially harmful consequences. (Mead, 2006).
Each of these groups are driven to perform acts of cyber-terrorism for different personal or collective reasons. To explore the drivers for these actors we need to consider their underlying motives and motivational behaviours.
Motivation can be viewed as the driving force behind behaviour that leads individuals to pursue certain things and avoid others; and it has two principle components: (i) what individuals want to do and (ii) how strongly they want to do it.
There are several different theoretical approaches that can be taken to guide our understanding and interpretation of motivation, and an examination of teach will help in our understanding of the motivational forces that underpin cyberterrorism:
1. Psychodynamic theory: distinguishes between conscious and unconscious motive.
- Achievement motive, the need to excel
- Affiliation motive, the need for social bonds
- Autonomy motive, the need for independence
- Nurturance motive, the need to nourish and protect others
- Dominance motive, the need to influence and control others
- Exhibition motive, the need to make an impression on others
- Order motive, the need for orderliness, tidiness and organisation
- Play motive, the need for fun and amusement
2. Behavioural theory: people are motivated to repeat behaviours that lead to reinforcement and to avoid other behaviours.
3. Cognitive theory: people are motivated to perform behaviours that they value and that the behaviour can attain.
4. Humanistic theory: based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which range from the need for basic survival through to the need that guides behaviour once the needs lower down the hierarchy have been fulfilled.
5. Evolutionary theory: evolution selects animals that maximise their inclusive fitness.
Contemporary thinking suggests that behavioural, cognitive and evolutionary theories offer the best conceptual models for the motives that drive cyberterrorism.
In each theoretical domain, social interactions between actors is a contributing factor, even in the case of the ‘lone’ cyberterrorist. Social motives can take several forms, which are outlined in table 1.
One or more of these examples of social motivation can be found in the psyche of the cyber terrorist. As an example, consider dominance motivation. In this instance, the actor is driven to have a measure of control or influence over the action of others, such as in the case of political or religious ‘claimed’ cyber terrorist acts.
The motivations of a cyber terrorist vary in much the same way as those that are as shown in Figure 2. Inadvertent and inaction outcomes are often the result of unintentional actions of employees or those actors, such as script kiddies, who are ‘trying it out’ without any malice intent.
The key motivation of deliberate acts of cyber terrorist can be grouped into three principal classifications, all of which have been referred to above under the definitions of organised attackers and hackers/hacktivists. These are political motivations, economic motivations and socio-cultural motivations.
One of the primary motivations of cyber-terrorism is the determination to express or show support for a certain political viewpoint, which drives the actor’s worldview. These attacks are carried out to make their political view known.
Examples of this type of motivation include the destruction, disruption or seizing control of targets, espionage, and making political statements, protests, or retaliatory actions.
Economic Economic, or financial, gain is better reflected in the domain of cybercrime, however it includes the theft of intellectual property or other economically valuable assets, fraud, industrial espionage and sabotage, and blackmail.
From a financial perspective, cybercrime via forced entry to bank accounts or the impersonation of banks could be driven by the motivation to fund further terrorist activities.
Socio-cultural motivation covers several behavioural drivers with examples ranging from attacks with theological, personal or humanitarian goals through
to motivations including fun and curiosity, or a desire for publicity or ego gratification. Those actors motivated by religious drivers parallel those who are politically motivated as mentioned above.
This group also includes actors who are socially motivated, or driven by their peer group. Some actors do this for the simple ‘thrill’ of making a successful cyber-attack on an organisation, where others are wishing to demonstrate their abilities at hacking and gain recognition from their peers, allowing them to earn respect and honour among their online hacking communities.
Cyberterrorism offers features which make it an attractive approach to terrorists. There are several reasons for this approach over more traditional methods, each of which provides further motive to be engaged in cyberterrorist acts.
Firstly, cyberterrorism is considered a cheaper approach compared to traditional terrorist methods. Compared with the purchase of weaponry, such as firearms and explosives, computers are inexpensive, easier to purchase, and require no licence or registration.
Secondly, cyberterrorism provides a degree of anonymity with the use of online ‘screen names’ or guest user log ins. The lack of physical barriers in cyberspace removes geophysical blockades, such as borders and customs agents, and makes it difficult for security and government agencies to identify the real terrorist.
This anonymity also further depersonalises the criminal act being undertaken, removing any moral or ethical connections with the intended recipient.
Thirdly, cyberspace provides a vast number of potential targets, unmarred by physical barriers, as discussed above. These potential targets include computers and computer networks of individuals, public utilities and governments. According to Gabriel Weimann (2005), the sheer number of potential targets ensures that terrorists will find weaknesses or areas of vulnerabilities to exploit.
Fourthly, Cyberterrorism can be undertaken remotely and requires less travel then traditional forms of
terrorism. This also makes it considerably easier to recruit and retain supporters. Further, there is no requirement for physical training and less risk of mortality, which significantly increases the potential number of terrorists.
The threat of cyberterrorism can take many forms and come from any physical location that has access to the ever-growing virtual world society is creating around itself. Such threats can occur internally or externally to an organisation as the result of an organised attack or from an individual wishing to express their worldview or simply to impress their peers.
To understand the motivation of a cyber terrorist consideration needs to be given to what is driving the behaviour. To this end, an examination and understanding of cyber terrorist psychological profiles is needed. What has been presented in this paper is an overview of the potential theoretical models that could be used in the development of such profiles with an emphasis on social motives.
Further, these social drivers have been considered in the traditionally known categories of political, economic and socio-cultural. It is crucial to understand the reasoning given as to why cyberterrorism is utilised as a means of achieving an actors’ desired objective over traditional approaches to terrorism.
A psychological human sciences approach to cyber terrorism offers the mechanisms by which counter-terrorism strategies can be developed beyond the mere consideration of the ‘tools of the trade’, and allow for a greater understanding of the actors behind cyber-attacks.
The emergence of new fields of research, such as cyber psychology and the application of social physics to ‘big data’, are paving the way forward and offering new approaches to combat potential cyber terrorism attacks through the use of behavioural profiling and the analysis of predicative data indicators.
As cyber terrorism evolves so too must our approach. The examination and understanding of motivation is one such approach that will offer insight to the underlying drivers for such behaviours and how to predict and prevent them.
Intake One of the Women in National Security Mentoring programme has proven an overwhelming success, with Intake Two to come, writes Navlene
National Security Workforce Senior Advisor at the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.
The first intake of the Women in National Security Mentoring programme has proved its worth, with mentees saying some of the key benefits of the programme were job promotions, growing confidence, recognising their value in the work environment and tapping into new support networks.
Programme lead, Navlene Singh of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC), said the programme has achieved its objectives for participants, which were to reduce women’s isolation in the sector, boost confidence and increase the visibility of female role models in leadership positions within the security sector.
Building on the success of the programme, the DPMC is now planning a new intake for the 20192020 year.
The 12-month programme is a pilot initiative developed by the National Security Workforce (NSW) team within the DPMC. It was launched in February 2018 by Prime Minister, and the Minister for National Security and Intelligence, Rt Hon Jacinda Adern, at the NSW Showcase. (Line of Defence’s Summer 2018 issue describes the programme in detail).
The mid-point survey results highlighted a strong desire for the programme: the Wellington programme received an outstanding Net Promotor Score of 87 and the Auckland programme a very respectable score of 47.
The Wellington mentees and mentors completed the 12-month structured programme in May, with a closing event held at Parliament. Rebecca Kitteridge, DirectorGeneral of the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service and one of the 11 Security and Intelligence Board Chief Executives that sponsor the programme, addressed mentees and mentors.
Rebecca is also the programme’s matron, which for her meant that she had a vested interest in ensuring the programme met the needs of the participants. She emphasised how the dividends the programme has kickstarted will have benefits beyond the formal end of the programme.
“You may not see it now, but when you reflect back on your career journey, those of you who have actively participated in the
Singh,programme, whether you’re a mentee or mentor, will remember key, pivotal moments that either changed your perspective or pushed you in the direction you were searching for,” she told mentees.
The closing event also featured a mentee-mentor panel discussion where mentees and mentors shared some of their key take outs: you are never too old to learn; everyone has something to give and can learn from one another; everybody has a sense of worth and value to add – you just need to tap into it.
The Auckland mentees and mentors will completed their 12-month programme in June.
Navlene Singh recently spoke about the programme at the Women in Public Sector Summit on 25 June, and an end of programme survey is underway, which will draw out further successes the programme has delivered.
The mentoring programme is one of many initiatives the National Security Workforce team has been working on to help attract and retain the right mix of knowledge, skills and capabilities for current and future priorities and demands.
The next iteration of the mentoring programme is currently on hold. Plans are underway for Intake Two, but no dates have been confirmed just yet.
Expressions of interest for those interested in participating in the programme are welcome and can be sent to: nsw@dpmc.govt.nz
Diplomats play an often overlooked yet absolutely vital role in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief coordination, writes HE Jesus S. Domingo, Philippine Ambassador to New Zealand, Cook Islands, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga.
An oft-overlooked stakeholder in the resilience and response spheres are diplomats. We perform behind-thescenes yet critical roles. Diplomats are the ‘gatekeepers’ of international crisis cooperation, including Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response (HADR) provided by militaries.
Foreign ministries and their diplomatic missions are the front line of interaction between countries, and they spearhead discussion and resolution of matters pertaining to entry and exit of personnel, vehicles, equipment, medicines and other materiel. Provision of resilience-building development and humanitarian assistance between countries also entail the negotiation capacities of diplomats.
Another role performed by diplomats is looking after national expatriates and migrants in their respective countries of assignment, through our Embassies, High Commissions and Consulates.
The Asia Pacific Region, and the entirety of the planet for that matter, need to brace themselves for both natural and man-made disasters of increasing frequency and magnitude. This has direct implications for New Zealand’s defence and diplomatic establishments in the context of resilience and response. I have had the privilege of working on these agendas with New Zealand officials both in the Philippines and here in Wellington.
Super typhoon Haiyan, which hit the Philippines in 2013, is indicative of a new normal. Violent typhoons have hit and continue to plague the Western Pacific, and will be of greater concern
to Wellington given its Pacific Reset. New Zealand had provided muchappreciated HADR to post-Haiyan operations and for other natural disasters in the region.
The Christchurch mosque shootings of 2019 are a tragic manifestation of man-made calamity. The compassionate and purposeful response of the New Zealand Government, as well as the citizenry of the country as a whole has raised the global bar for dealing with the aftermath of terrorist acts.
In turn, New Zealand has received support from the world community in its time of need. The Christchurch and Kaikoura earthquakes of 2011 and 2016, respectively, saw the arrival of numerous assisting overseas HADR teams. The 2019 mosque shootings united the world in sympathy and goodwill towards New Zealand.
In the case of Haiyan, I was the Philippine Foreign Ministry’s officer-in-charge for coordinating international assistance. In that capacity I worked closely with the then-NZ Ambassador to the Philippines, H.E. Reuben Levermore. I had the privilege of assisting the Ambassador in coordinating the landing of the RNZAF C-130 aircraft that conveyed NZ’s HADR material and personnel contributions.
This entailed obtaining flight clearances for the landing of the aircraft, and approval for the entry of personnel and humanitarian goods, which included working vis-à-vis our airport, customs and military
authorities. Kiwi civilian and military personnel joined treaty allies and other international providers in contributing HADR.
During the operations I also had the honour of meeting an RNZN officer serving onboard HMS Illustrious, which was leading the British HADR efforts in response to Haiyan.
After Haiyan, NZ shared its expertise in resilience-building by despatching Civil Defence officers to train Philippine local authorities in Kiwi-style disaster management, focusing on the development of ‘Community Hubs’. Other resiliencebuilding assistance was provided by the NZ Government, the NZ Red Cross, and by Kiwis serving in the UN system and with other international governmental and non-governmental entities.
Among the more important considerations in HADR and international disaster response in general is the ‘trigger’ mechanism – how a state gets access to external assistance.
It’s not quite simple or straightforward a proposition as one may think. The international humanitarian architecture had long assumed that in the event of a major disaster exceeding a state’s capacity to manage, the said state would make a global appeal for help.
Much of the world’s stand-by civilian humanitarian assistance is placed under the United Nations system, particularly the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (OCHA). An affected state generally must make a formal written request to the UN Secretary-General to avail itself of such assistance.
However, an affected state may not necessarily ‘pull the trigger’ right away as would be expected by humanitarian providers. Such was the case with Myanmar in the wake of Cyclone Nargis (2003) and with the Philippines for Haiyan.
In the case of Myanmar, diplomats reached an agreement with Yangon that foreign assistance would be coordinated in a tripartite manner by the Government of Myanmar, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the UN. In the case of the Philippines after Haiyan,
Manila questioned the need for a direct appeal to the UN. Diplomats then crafted a mutually acceptable remedy –instead of the Philippines being made to make an appeal, the UN would make an offer of assistance.
Another consideration is the dynamics of civilian versus military humanitarian assistance. Generally, it is much easier for military HADR to come into an affected country provided the said country has the necessary administrative arrangements. Such was the case with Haiyan and the Philippines.
The Philippines had been conducting frequent military exercises with its defence treaty partners, the United States and Australia. Immediately after Haiyan, a HADR coordination group was established called the Multi-National Coordination Centre (MNCC) based in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Command and General Staff College (CGSC).
The MNCC had at its core the AFP and partner country military staff who coordinated exercises with the US and AU, and had easily expanded to encompass military cooperation with the other HADR-providing countries. A key advantage of HADR assistance is that it is exempt from the usual Customs – Immigration – Quarantine (CIQ) restrictions placed on other aid providers.
However, other considerations come into play. If a given HADR provider does not have a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) governing carrying of weapons, the arrival of armed personnel may cause challenges.
Such was the case with HADR provider ‘country X’, which had despatched an air force plane carrying relief teams and goods – but with armed crew. X did not have a SOFA with the Philippines. The solution, again brokered by diplomats, was that the crew may fly in with their sidearms. The caveat was that the said sidearms may not be carried outside the plane after landing, but the AFP would provide an armed escort when the crew disembarked.
By contrast, civilian humanitarian assistance had to run a veritable gauntlet of regulatory screening. Unless a provider has full diplomatic immunities, incoming assistance is subject to CIQ screening. Additional restrictions were placed, for example, by health authorities, who limited the quality and quantity of medical assistance that could be provided.
As the Philippines grants visafree privileges to many countries, particularly developed nations, it is difficult to screen well-meaning but un-needed humanitarian volunteers. The latter can potentially turn out to be a net burden rather than an asset as some volunteers come insisting on
availing themselves of AFP transport from Manila to the disaster-affected areas.
Others represent skill and abilitysets that have a time-bound utility, such as search and rescue teams. They were generally not needed beyond two weeks immediately after the impact of Haiyan.
Also, some parties sought to provide banned and unneeded assistance, such as containers of used clothing. The preferred mode of assistance on the part of the Philippine government was cash, as food, medicines and other relief goods were generally available in-country.
As the Philippine international assistance focal point, I had to shuttle between the Foreign Ministry, the MNCC and the mandated disaster management authority, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC).
I also had to troubleshoot problems cropping up with international civilian providers.
Coordination among military HADR providers was generally smooth and efficient. Dealing with civilian humanitarians was a mixed story.
UN-coordinated assistance was usually systematic, as there had been also a long history of cooperation between the UN-OCHA, other international humanitarian assistance providers, and the NDRRMC. If the military side had the US/AU joint exercises as ‘muscle memory’, our cooperation with the UN had been built with its ‘Humanitarian Cluster Approach’.
This approach saw the pairing and synergy on the ground between Philippine and UN/international stakeholders for particular concerns. For example, a ‘Health Cluster’ was established between the Philippine Department of Health and the UN’s World Health Organisation (WHO).
ASEAN is credited for having the first legally-binding regional framework for disaster management,
the ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response (AADMER). The framework has in turn established the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance, or AHA Centre, which is charged with advancing resilience and response cooperation among the ten members of ASEAN.
NZ, in turn, is an ASEAN Dialogue Partner country. A good start, but the ASEAN framework has two key limitations.
First, much of the world’s civilian humanitarian assistance capabilities are coordinated through the UNOCHA system, which in turn would be accessed by the concerned country. While some assistance is being given by donor countries for the development of the AHA Centre, the bulk of emergency civilian assistance that would be given to an ASEAN country in need would be channelled through UN-OCHA, or bilaterally, not necessarily via ASEAN.
Second, as shown in the case of Haiyan and the Philippines, much of the emergency humanitarian assistance would be conveyed as bilateral HADR by militaries, including ASEAN member-states. The AHA Centre is at this point not mandated to deal with such forms of assistance.
Two days prior to Christchurch mosque shootings, I had briefed the High Commissions and Embassies of the Wellington Diplomatic Corps on a project linking them with Multicultural New Zealand (MNZ). MNZ coordinates the various Multicultural Councils (MCCs) and Newcomers Networks around the country, bodies which bring together migrants and ethnic communities on a local level, working closely with NZ districts and cities.
The project, the MNZInternational Volunteer Network (IVN), seeks to establish lines of communications and collaborations between the Corps and the MNZ stakeholders. The utility of such partnerships would be twofold: enabling the diplomatic missions to engage in cultural and public diplomacy at the local level, while at the same time allowing them to reach out to their respective nationals more thoroughly around NZ.
The latter dimension proved to be of immediate relevance as diplomatic missions in Wellington scrambled to ascertain whether or not any of their citizens and compatriots were affected by the March 15 shootings. Given the grave nature of the incident the NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) had reached out immediately to the concerned Embassies and High Commissions.
However, there will be other critical situations in which diplomatic missions are not necessarily informed right away as to the conditions of their nationals. Such a situation was the Kaikoura earthquake of 2016. While the response to the earthquake by NZ was immediately exemplary, informing missions as to the nationalities of affected persons is not necessarily a priority activity.
The MNZ-IVN could help remedy this for future crises. Diplomats in
Wellington could directly contact the concerned local MCC in the event of another calamity in order to get realtime information on the situation of their respective nationals. The local MCC would be in a good position to help monitor the whereabouts and conditions of particular ethnic communities.
In turn, the Philippine Embassy is introducing the concept of Multiculturalism and the MCC-IVN to the Philippines. There are about 60,000 Filipinos in New Zealand, most of whom are NZ citizens or permanent residents. About 2,000 Kiwis reside in the Philippines.
Our concern is more on the role of NZ and the Philippines in terms of natural disasters, particularly on international cooperation and the role of diplomats. The reality is that a – if not the – key to effective resilience and response is maximising HADR preparedness and cooperation with the assistance of diplomats to help iron out the ‘devil in the detail’.
A good if not best practice of sorts was illustrated by the Philippines’ military MNCC. The success of the MNCC stemmed from the many years of annual joint military exercises held by the Philippines with the US and Australia.
While the AHA Centre is an important resilience and response stakeholder, it is rather limited as to what it can do in the event of another Haiyan-type disaster, as it does not deal with military HADR. Also, the UN system engages with but does not necessarily control bilateral military HADR assistance; it is mainly done through bilateral arrangements.
What is key therefore is to maximise inter-military HADR cooperation and the establishment of clearer stand-by arrangements for HADR, somewhat analogous to the stand-by arrangements for UN Peacekeeping deployments.
Some of the relevant initiatives along these lines include (i) the Changi Regional HADR Coordination Centre (RHCC) based in Singapore, (ii) the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM+) process, and the (iii) Pacific Environmental Security Forum (PESF) of the US Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM). To be all-encompassing for the Asia-Pacific region, (iv) the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) should also be engaged for comprehensive HADR.
In order to advance meaningful resilience and response cooperation for NZ and the Philippines, diplomats play a critical role in helping to navigate the myriad of stakeholders, frameworks and considerations.
The key obstacle for the resolution of the South China Sea disputes, writes Minh Tran – a PhD student at University of Canterbury, is the radical difference in perspectives between China on one side and the other claimants on the other side.
The South China Sea is one of the largest semi-enclosed seas in the world, covering an area of sea of some 3.5 million square kilometres. Its littoral states include Brunei, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, and Vietnam. It is connected to the Indian Ocean by Malacca Strait and separated from the open Pacific Ocean by the islands of the Philippines, Taiwan, and Borneo.
There are two main archipelagos in the South China Sea: the Spratly Islands located in the South and the Paracel Islands located in the North, and depending on how an island is defined, it is estimated it is home to between 150 and 300 land features.
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development estimates that roughly 80 percent of global trade by volume and 70 percent by value is transported by sea. Of that, 60 percent of maritime trade volume passes through Asia, with the South China Sea carrying an estimated one-third of global shipping.
The sea is also one of the richest marine life areas in the world, representing about 10 percent of the world’s fish catch. In addition to marine living resources, the South China Sea is proven to contain abundant oil and natural gas reserves. For this reason, the sea is sometimes described as a “second Persian Gulf.”
The strategic importance of the South China Sea, however, goes beyond the transport routes and the resources the sea offers. The sea constitutes also a natural
barrier between its littoral countries – especially China – and the open oceans.
The South China Sea is disputed among six claimants, including Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam. However, Brunei is mostly left off the list due to its small scale of disputes. Taiwan is also omitted in various statistics due to its unclear sovereign status.
The Paracel Islands have been bilaterally contested between China and Vietnam while the Spratly Islands have been disputed either entirely or partly by China and the other five claimant states. All of them except Brunei have a physical presence in their respective claimed areas of the sea.
Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei base their claims over the land features and the waters largely on the principle of proximity. Vietnam and the Philippines also use historical reasons and arguments of discovery to support their sovereignty claims over land features in the sea. In contrast, China claims nearly the entire South China Sea based mainly on its historical “nine-dash line” claim.
China currently occupies all of the Paracel Islands, while the Spratly Islands are occupied by various claimants. By 2019, the 48 land features in the Spratly Islands were occupied by five claimants with Vietnam controlling the most – 21 features, followed by the Philippines
with 9 features, China with 7, Malaysia with 5 and Taiwan with 1.
During the last several decades, China, the Philippines and Vietnam have reclaimed land and built military bases to assert their sovereignty. However, China’s efforts on this front have been the most aggressive.
According to the US government, since 2014, China has reclaimed more than 3,000 acres in the Spratly Islands. China says its reclamation projects are to meet its civil and defence needs.
While China’s reclamation of the reefs grabs most attention, its pace of building activity is what has astonished some experts. According to one US source, there are currently 2,155 buildings on the islands and artificial islands of both the Paracels and Spratlys, of which 1,652 were built by China alone.
According to the source, China’s military bases on man-made islands in the disputed South China Sea are virtually complete. What we can do now is to wait for China’s next move, possibly in the form of deployments of marines, jet fighters, long-range missiles, and other weaponry.
How does China justify its behaviour in the South China Sea disputes? China claims that the South China Sea belongs to China since ancient time, and looking through this lens, China believes that it has never been a trouble maker but rather a victim in the disputes.
What China is doing is to find ways and means to recover their lost territories and to prevent their precious
natural mineral and maritime resources from being stolen by other claimants.
China’s historical claim of sovereignty in the South China Sea China’s claims of sovereignty over the South China Sea islands and reefs rest on the basis of “historical rights” of ancient Chinese, who allegedly traversed the waters “more than 2,000 years ago” or, more specifically, since the year 200 B.C. As China claims the South China Sea as its “historical water”, this predates and therefore precludes any possible claims from other nations as well as the application of modern international laws relating to territorial disputes, including United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
China most often uses its “04-First” logic to back up its claim of sovereignty. Firstly, China claims it was the first country to discover the South China Sea. According to Beijing, as far back as the Qin and Han dynasties (200 B.C.), China engaged in
large-scale ocean navigation, trade and fishing in the South China Sea. It was in their frequent navigation through the sea that the Chinese people became the earliest people to discover and then settle in the islands. For that reason, China’s claim of sovereignty over the South China Sea islands predates that of other nations.
Secondly, China also claims that it was the first country to give names to the islands, islets, reefs and shoals, such as Qianli Changsha, Wanli Shitang, Wangli Changsha and Nan’ao Qi, as well as the South China Sea itself.
Thirdly, according to China, it was the first country to exercise administrative jurisdiction over the islands of the South China Sea. The Chinese government set up administration over, and divided islands in the South China sea into four groups: the Dongsha (East Sand), Zhongsha (Central Sand), Nansha (South Sand), and Xisha (West Sand) Archipelago.
Lastly, China argues that it was the first country to develop the sea’s islands, including building structures, surveying, drawing maps, and other activities.
Besides its “04-First” argument, Beijing also contends that its historical claim has been recognised by the international community through various international treaties and declarations, including the Cairo Declaration of 1943, the Potsdam Declaration of 1945, the Treaty of San Francisco in 1951, the SinoJapanese Peace Treaty in 1952, among others.
Central to China’s claim is the argument that it has exercised “absolute control” of South China Sea waters, islands and reefs since the Han Dynasty, with “countless maps” allegedly attesting to these assertions. However, available evidence suggests that prior to the twentieth century, China had no territorial claims anywhere past Hainan island at the northern end of the sea.
Up until now, the only recognisable map from China justifying its territorial claims in the South China Sea is the nine-dash line map. This map was first issued in 1935 by Republic of China’s Land and Water Maps Inspection Committee and reissued later by the victorious People’s Republic of China.
The map, however, has never possessed defined geographical coordinates nor any official explanation of a legal basis underlying its claims. The map was first publicised to wider audiences by Beijing when it submitted a Note Verbale containing the map to the UN in 2009. Once again, without supporting legal explanations.
Besides this map, there is not a single ancient map supporting China’s territorial claim in the South China Sea. In addition, there is currently no official presentation from China featuring any such “countless maps” in its numerous announcements on the subject.
The possible explanation for Beijing’s strategic ambiguity is that it aims to achieve optimal space for
manoeuvring without being bound by legal certainties or definitions. By keeping the claim ambiguous, it hopes that its modern Navy transformations would render that ambiguity to its advantage in due time.
Contrasting China’s claim, available ancient maps, both from China and abroad, such as the “Huangyu quan lan tu” (Atlas of the Chinese Empire) of 1717, show Hainan island as the southernmost point of Chinese territory. Other maps from the Qing Dynasty going back to the Tang Dynasty [618 - 907 AD] also show that
China had no territory beyond Hainan Island.
In addition, although Beijing provides evidence arguing that it was the first country to discover the South China Sea and its land features, the Chinese government and its scholars have provided only loose historical descriptions of activities by Chinese fishermen and naval craft in the South China Sea.
For example, China argues that its frequent and large-scale ocean navigation, trade and fishing through the sea means that Chinese people
were the first to discover and then settle in its islands. However, about 2,000 years ago, this sea was already a busy transport route crisscrossed by many peoples. It is thus not at all clear why Chinese historical claims should have a preference in comparison with other claimants.
As mentioned earlier, China views the South China Sea as its “historical waters” and that the Paracel and Spratly Islands and other land features within the nine-dash line have belonged to China since ancient time. This perspective leads China to believe that there is actually no territorial dispute in relation to the sea as this area is China’s lost territory. From this perspective, Beijing also arrives at an altogether different understanding from other claimants.
The South China Sea disputes is a complicated issue and there are various factors contributing to their dynamics and complexity. However, above all, it is China’s perspective of its absolute sovereignty in the South China Sea and its claim of “historical water” that is the main obstacle for the possible resolution of the South China Sea disputes.
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Andreas Santosa. Professor Faculty of Agriculture, Bogor Agricultural University.Most people living in low and middle income countries spend much of their household income on food. If developed countries spend on average less than 10 percent of household income on food, people in developing countries spend around 40 to over 50 percent of their income on food.
In much of Africa, people spend close to 50 percent and even more of their household income on food, in Asia it’s around 40 to 45 percent, and in Latin America less than 40 percent. Around 70 percent of developing countries also depend on imports for their staple foods. This makes developing countries more vulnerable to political instability due to food price increases.
Several factors can contribute to food price increases, such as bad weather that results in reduced agricultural production, food scarcity due to governmental policy failure, diminishing public food stocks, and an increase in the international price of food. Many changes in government, including through revolution, began with a food crisis that triggered social unrest and political instability.
The European revolutions of 1848 were themselves triggered by a food crisis. A long period of drought from 1845 to 1847 devastated agricultural production in Europe. Food production declined drastically and food prices skyrocketed. Social unrest and protests were started by poor workers and peasants, which snowballed into a mass movement against the monarchial governments.
Originating in France in February 1848, the movement swept across Europe and more than 50 countries were affected, and it remains the most widespread revolution in European history.
Tens of thousands of people were killed, and governmental reforms were forced in Austria, Hungary, Romania, Denmark, Netherlands, French, Germany, and Italy. Although it is proposed by some historians that several major factors contributed to the revolution, the food crisis was the single most important factor.
From the mid-19th century to the 1970s, agricultural production increased significantly over population growth, which led to a decrease in food prices and the disappearance of food-related social unrest.
In 1972, world food production declined for the first time since World War II, with widespread drought reducing global grain production. In Southeast Asia, especially in Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines, rice production declined. Thailand, the world’s leading rice exporter, banned rice exports, and no rice was marketed worldwide for most of 1973.
During 1973 and 1974, global food prices doubled in just a few months and caused the world food crisis, which ended in 1975. It did not cause a mass movement or government change, but in the late 1970s –following the food crisis – austerity programs did trigger food riots and social unrest in many countries. The riots were not caused by food scarcity but by the reduced capability of people to afford food.
Food security and food crisis has played an important role in the history of Indonesia. Less than a year after gaining its independence, Indonesia exported 0.5 million tons of rice to India to help India overcome famine
due to harvest failures in 1946. Food security became one of the important governmental programs following independence.
In the early 1950s, the Indonesian government focused on increasing agricultural production and set food self-sufficiency targets. Several institutions were established and programs launched.
In addition to programs to increase food production, the government launched a program to buy rice during harvest season and distribute it during periods of short supply. The aim of this program was to reduce the potential threat of a food crisis.
Despite such efforts, in late 1959 the rice price was skyrocketing due to a lack of production, and the government could not deliver enough rice to the people. Rice allocations to army personnel and public servants was changed to 25 percent maize and 75 percent rice, but it was difficult to implement and was stopped. From 1958 to 1964 the dependency of Indonesia on rice imports was high.
During this period, Indonesia was the world’s largest rice-importing countriy, with the volume of rice imports between 800.000 and one million tons. A consumer-oriented low rice price policy, enacted to secure political stability, contributed to the low incentive to farmers to increase their production, and the total rice harvested area and production volume declined from 1960 to 1963.
The food crisis triggered food riots and social unrest. From 30 September to 01 October 1965, the Communist Party of Indonesia (Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI) seized power, and six of Indonesia’s top army generals were
killed. On 02 October 1965, General Soeharto took control of the army and put down the abortive coup, and eventually eradicated and banned the PKI.
More than 500.000 people, mostly members of the communist party, were killed and became a dark episode in Indonesia’s history.
In 1967, Soeharto was appointed as acting president, becaming the 2nd President of Indonesia on 27 March 1968.
Rapid and sustained economic growth was achieved during Soeharto’s ‘New Order’ through a focus on agrarian development.
In 1968, the second phase of Mass Guidance (BIMAS) “Gotong Royong” program for increasing food production, was launched in cooperation with several foreign companies from Germany, Switzerland, and Japan, marking a significant departure from the isolationist policies of Soekarno’s Guided Democracy. The program was quite successful, and rice production increased 41 percent between 1967 and 1971.
After 1980, the rate of annual agricultural growth began to steadily decline from 4.3 percent in the years between 1965 and 1980 to 2.8 percent between 1990 and 1996. By contrast, manufacturing, and services enjoyed
high growth at 11.1 percent and 7.4 percent per year between 1990 and 1996.
In 1997, drought caused a decline in Indonesia’s rice production. The price of rice and other food commodities rose uncontrollably and led to a food crisis. In an effort to reduce the price of rice, the Indonesian government imported up to 6.4 million tons of rice in 1998, the largest rice import in history. At the same time, Indonesia was hit by the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98.
The food crisis and financial crisis led to a sharp increase in unemployment and poverty across the country, and a wave of riots and social unrest destroyed thousands of buildings and killed over 1,000 people. On 21 May 1998, Soeharto announced his resignation and his power came to an end despite having won 74.5 percent of the vote in 1997.
The end of the 20th century also ends an era of low food prices. After the start of agricultural free trade under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the introduction of the first genetically modified crops in the mid 1990s, the global agricultural landscape changed. Developing countries had gone from being the most important food producers during the sixties to
eighties to becoming net importers of food.
Food insecurity is now a major problem for developing countries. World production and export of cereals is dominated by North America, Europe, and Australia. Around 50.1 percent of global traded cereal was absorbed by Asia, 21.5 percent by Africa and 18.2 percent by Latin America. High dependence on food imports has become a serious problem for developing countries.
In 2007, severe drought hit Australia and parts of the United States. Wheat production in Australia dropped dramatically as did soybean production in the US. The decline of production in these two important exporter countries resulted in a sharp increase in the price of wheat and soybean, which acted as a locomotive pulling the price of other food commodities up.
By early 2008, the FAO food price index surged 2.2 times higher than 2004 figures, and the world entered its first food crisis of the 21st century. Food riots and social unrest spread across 13 countries in Asia, North Africa and the Middle East, resulting in 84 deaths.
From the second quarter of 2008 until 2009 food prices fell sharply, but this didn’t last long. Drought hit the Russian Federation, and US wheat
and corn production declined, and the FAO Food Price Index jumped to 240 – its highest point – in February 2011.
Widespread food rioting, mass violence, chaos, and regional political instability resulted, particularly so in countries highly dependent on food imports. Tens of thousands of people were killed and government changes occured in North Africa and Middle East in what has become known as the Arab Spring.
Compared to the European revolutions of 1848, the impacts of the Arab Spring were even worse. Millions of people uprooted due to conflict fled to neighboring countries and to Europe, creating the largest refugee crisis since the aftermath of World War II.
Political insecurity in the region became fertile soil for the birth of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
The most recent food crisis occurred in Sudan at the end of 2018 after the Sudanese government increased the price of bread threefold, causing mass riots in Khartoum that spread throughout the country. On 20 December, eight people were killed in the riots. The military ultimately overthrew the embattled administration of President Omar alBashir on 11 April.
It is true that social unrest arising from food crises are not simply about food. Failure to acknowledge this could easily lead interventions to focus only on controlling food price while ignoring political and social drivers.
Historically, widespread unrest is not the result of a long-standing failure in a political system, but rather a sudden failure to maintain security [including food security] to society. During food crises, when the population is unable to access food due to either high price or limited supply, dissatisfaction emerges and popular support to government disappears.
Food crises can also be traced back to the failure of government policies relating to agricultural development. Most countries in the world implement food security as a single concept covering both agricultural development and food policies.
In food security, where the food comes from and how the food is produced does not matter. This is why Singapore in 2018 ranked 1st in the world for its food security index (GFSI, 2019) despite the fact that up to 90 percent of its food supply is imported from other countries.
Food sovereignty is different from food security in both approach and politics. Food security does not distinguish where food comes from, or the conditions under which it is produced and distributed.
Food sovereignty emphasises ecologically appropriate production, distribution and consumption, socialeconomic justice, and local food systems, as ways to tackle hunger and poverty and guarantee sustainable food
security for all peoples. It is focused on creating harmony between farmers and farmers with nature.
Protection of local markets, small-scale and family farmers and international fair-trade is another focus of food sovereignty.
Food sovereignty can be an alternative solution for developing countries to reduce their dependency on food imports, increase resilience against international food price volatility, improve livelihoods of smallscale farmers, and create sustainable, environmentally sound agricultural production.
This article is based on a presentation delivered in Rotorua at the Asia Pacific Security and Innovation Summit 2019.
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