New Zealand officials drew heavily on Australian defence documents to produce the 2025 Defence Capability Plan, which indicates the country’s intended military acquisitions and development for the next 15 years.

Under this plan, New Zealand will increase military spending as a share of GDP from 1.59% in 2022 to more than 2% by 2033.

Of the five overarching “effects” that the New Zealand Defence Force intends to deliver under the plan, four derive from the list of six “capability effects” in Australia’s _2024 National Defence Strategy_. For example, the first effect listed in the Australian publication is the ambition to “project force”, denoting the military’s capacity “to deter any attempts to project power against Australia”. Similarly, in the New Zealand document, the first effect named is “to project force to deter adversaries”.

Relatedly, both countries aim to strengthen their militaries’ capabilities to engage in long-term conflict abroad. The Australian Defence Force plans to be able to “sustain protracted operations during a conflict”; the NZDF aims to develop the ability to “sustain combat operations concurrently,” for instance “to sustain land combat operations for at least 24 months".

The two remaining overlapping capability effects comprise surveillance (“situational awareness”) and countering influences of US-designated adversaries in the Asia-Pacific region – described as “hold[ing] a potential adversary’s forces at risk” (Australia) and “deny[ing] opportunities for actors that seek to challenge the existing regional strategic balance” (New Zealand).

In addition to these capability effects, at least 20 of New Zealand’s 28 “major investments” for 2025 to 2028 are linked to Australia’s 2024 Integrated Investment Program. Suggesting that New Zealand’s military strategy is subordinate to subimperial Australia’s — and by extension that of Australia’s “closest ally and principal strategic partner,” the United States — this document does not mention New Zealand at all. In contrast, the Defence Capability Plan refers to Australia 33 times.

New Zealand’s most expensive intended acquisition is a fleet of some five new maritime helicopters, projected to cost more than NZ$2 billion. These aircraft will replace the ageing fleet of eight SH2G(I) Super Seasprite helicopters, which can conduct anti-submarine warfare. This plan appears to be related to Australia’s addition of 13 MH‐60R Seahawk maritime helicopters to its existing fleet of 23, with a core capability of the Seahawk being to “provide airborne anti‐submarine warfare capabilities".

The second most expensive planned purchase is NZ$1 billion-plus “military enterprise resource management software". This technology will consolidate into “a single source of […] data” key military processes including “workforce management and payroll, logistics, supply and asset management, finance and engineering”. In doing so, the software will enable the NZDF to “competitively operate in a combat situation as well as maintain interoperability with Australia".

Referring to a similar acquisition, Australia’s Integrated Investment Program includes “a consolidated enterprise resource planning and management system” to be utilised “across Defence". This software will “standardise information processes including logistics, maintenance, human resources and finance to improve the efficiency, agility and speed of Defence’s business operations".

Officials make no secret of their plan for New Zealand “to act as a force multiplier with Australia”, which includes developing “a more greatly integrated ‘Anzac’ force". This objective covers key aspects of military operations – including policy, strategy, capability, joint exercises, and the wars in which Australia and New Zealand may participate. Wellington’s plans with Canberra include “deepening alignment and coordination on policy and strategy development", “growing the interoperability and integration of our respective forces", and “expanding our combined operations and activities in the […] Indo-Pacific".

Although the document frequently refers to New Zealand’s military alliance with Australia, both countries’ overriding aim is to support the United States as the genocidal superpower escalates its antagonism of China. Revealing this intention, Australia’s and New Zealand’s documents identify China as a primary security threat.

According to Australia’s National Defence Strategy, “entrenched and increasing strategic competition between the United States (US) and China […] is being accompanied by an unprecedented conventional and non-conventional military build-up in our region, taking place without strategic reassurance or transparency". Correspondingly, New Zealand’s Defence Capability Plan states, the “Indo-Pacific is a primary geographical theatre for strategic competition, most visibly between China and the United States […]. Of particular concern is the rapid and non-transparent growth of China’s military capability".

Consistent with this hawkish position is Wellington’s shared terminology with the United States’ _2022 Nuclear Posture Review_. In the section on use of nuclear weapons in the so-called Indo-Pacific region, American officials articulate their goal to “leverage Ally and partner non-nuclear capabilities that can support the nuclear deterrence mission. In advancing these goals, we view the expertise, capabilities, and resources of our Allies and partners as ‘force multipliers’ for strengthening deterrence” (emphasis added). In other words, New Zealand intends not only to be a “force multiplier with Australia". Rather, “nuclear-free” New Zealand’s and Australia’s conventional capabilities will continue to constitute part of the United States’ nuclear threat against China.

In this role, New Zealand will join with Australia to participate in further US-led provocations of China. More specifically, the NZDF will provoke its largest trading partner by “exercising our rights and obligations under […] the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas” [sic], which the United States has not even ratified.

This reference to rights and obligations under UNCLOS refers to transiting the Taiwan Strait and conducting military and surveillance actions in exclusive economic zones of countries such as China. Exemplifying this weaponisation of international law, in September 2024 the fleet tanker and replenishment ship HMNZS Aotearoa sailed through the Taiwan Strait with the Australian destroyer HMAS Sydney. Subsequently, an NZDF press release stated that the action was “consistent with […] the right of freedom of navigation as guaranteed under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea".

New Zealand’s support for American provocations of China as a force multiplier with Australia explains officials’ attempted resurrection of Wellington’s ANZUS military alliance with the United States. Although New Zealand remains an ally of Australia, the United States suspended its alliance with New Zealand in 1986 after the latter refused entry to nuclear-armed and nuclear-powered vessels. Reflecting this decades-long arrangement, the Defence Capability Plan 2019 makes no mention of ANZUS.

However, the 2025 publication’s second of three defence policy objectives is to “enhance the ANZUS alliance with Australia and New Zealand’s most important security partnerships”, for example, its partnership with the United States. Implicitly articulating support for this development is the United States’ National Defence Authorisation Act for the 2025 fiscal year. The subsection on “Defence alliances and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific Region” directs the secretary of defence to “continue efforts” introduced in the NDAA for 2022 to foster “bilateral and multilateral co-operation with Australia, consistent with [the ANZUS treaty] between Australia, New Zealand, and the United States of America” (emphasis added).

New Zealand’s substantial duplication of Australian military documents suggests that officials care little for the Defence Capability Plan’s first policy objective: to “protect and promote the security of New Zealand and the immediate region". Rather, they prioritise the second one: strengthening its purported security partnerships. This focus persists despite New Zealand’s most powerful security partner’s leading role in producing what officials consider to be the region’s “most challenging and dangerous strategic environment for decades”. Consequently, their primary contribution to addressing this threat is to exacerbate it.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.