NZ joins new group that 'might be answer' to US exhausting weapons in a war

New Zealand has joined a new United States-led Indo-Pacific group that "directly supports" America's national industrial defence strategy to boost "warfighting" capabilities.

The US says the new Partnership for Indo-Pacific Industrial Resilience is about "better integrating our defence industries".

The 13-country group was set up in June and had its first meeting, hosted by the US military, in Honolulu in October.

Defence Minister Judith Collins called it a "discussion forum".

However, US reports show it has four workstreams that include help to co-produce hypersonic and other missiles with Japan and Australia, and drones with Korea, and fix US Navy ships at shipyards in Asia.

In local briefings, officials told Collins and Foreign Minister Winston Peters that the New Zealand Defence Force wanted to help in the workstream on improving military supply chains. Collins has agreed.

The influential Atlantic Council, in an article about the group, said: "In a war against China the US could quickly exhaust its weapons. A new Indo-Pacific defence initiative might be the answer."

It said an example of US vulnerability was how it used up a year's production of a type of counter-ballistic missile in one go on 1 October helping Israel.

The Partnership for Indo-Pacific Industrial Resilience includes some NATO countries and is modelled on a heavy armaments forum set up to bolster Ukraine in the Russia war.

New Zealand has quietly joined the group at the same as a public debate carries on over whether to join Aukus Pillar Two, itself a pact of sharing advanced military technology.

Last week, a top US official said about PIPIR: "We are creating the first ever consortium to support defence armaments requirements across the globe, unlocking new sources of supply, capturing new production arrangements, and ensuring that we can increase the time-on-station of key assets and platforms with smarter logistics and forward repair and upgrade."

New Zealand had earlier signed a Statement of Principles on which the new group is based.

Neither this signing, nor joining the new group, was announced by the government. RNZ has reported it based off documents released under the Official Information Act.

The papers show the first thing that officials told Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins about PIPIR was that "enhancing defence industrial and supply chain resilience is a priority of the United States".

The officials then quoted US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, in a speech on 1 May when New Zealand and others signed up to the principles:

"We're breaking down national barriers and better integrating our defence industries," he said.

This would "fortify" the shared capacity of the military industrial bases.

The officials told the two ministers in mid-September this was a non-binding, ad hoc arrangement.

"New Zealand proposes to leave open the option of engaging in all of the workstreams ... to be determined on a case-by-case basis ... New Zealand's priority would be to participate in the supply chain resilience workstream," they said.

At the first meeting of PIPIR two months ago, US Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante said: "PIPIR will help strengthen our collective ability to produce and sustain warfighting capability in the Indo-Pacific."

Military trade news media in the US, which analyses Department of Defence moves, explained: "As weapons demand surges amid the Ukraine war, conflict in the Middle East and rising power of China, the Pentagon has been casting about across the world in search of new partnerships for weapons production."

Collins, asked by RNZ why the country had joined PIPIR, issued a short statement on Sunday.

"The Partnership is a discussion forum which seeks to mitigate defence supply chain challenges such as those caused by the war in Ukraine and the global pandemic. New Zealand recognises the importance of international collaboration to reduce or avoid supply chain risks, enable rapid responses to any disruptions, and to limit their impact," she said.

Peters referred RNZ's questions to Collins.

Officials had told the ministers that PIPIR "is a good initiative" and that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade backed joining it, the September briefing released under the Official Information Act said.

Expanding industrial capacity, reducing barriers to trade flow and opening channels for "new entrants" would all benefit New Zealand, they advised.

The risks of joining PIPIR were blanked out.

The group's four workstreams were around supply chains; military "sustainment", which includes ship and other repairs at non-US shipyards; weapons and other production; and policy and "optimisation".

PIPIR would offer "access to new markets for defence contractors", reports said.

The New Zealand Defence Force has about 60 capital projects on the go, though only 2 percent of its spending is on local contractors, with most on giant multinational contractors. It is also strapped for cash and told MPs last week it has had to pause or stop a "raft" of activities - including those around building relationships with allies.

Supply chains have become a key focus among core Western allies, with the US, UK and Australia recently signing a memorandum of understanding on supply chain resilience. That extended beyond defence to telecommunications and other critical sectors.

Australia and New Zealand on Friday in Auckland signed an updated joint statement on closer defence relations, aimed at the two defence forces becoming "much more integrated".

"Everything that we're doing, we're looking to see how we can be more interoperable with Australia," Collins said on Friday.

Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles said the focus was to maximise coordination around "newer innovative defence technologies".

The New Zealand Defence Force has held over 30 tech-related meetings with core allies since January.

This is also the thrust of the controversial Aukus Pillar Two agreement, which the Labour Party recently said it was opposed to joining.

Marles said that Pillar Two was not "a club", and its use to cooperate on military tech was "a fair way down the track".

Peters has said the heated debate about Pillar Two was misguided, since New Zealand had not even been invited to join by the members of Pillar One: The US, UK and Australia.

The 13 signatories to the statement that set up PIPIR included Australia, Japan, Canada, Korea and Singapore. Official reports said the group also included some NATO countries, though it has not been established just which ones.

The Greens say the country should tread carefully over PIPIR.

"There's no such thing as a free lunch in foreign relations, so our country should tread carefully before signing up to military tech pacts, particularly ones that commit us to militarisation or unnecessary wars and undermine our independence," said its foreign affairs and defence spokesperson Tuiono Teanau.

"This is also the reason why we oppose New Zealand joining the AUKUS Pillar Two agreement."

The Labour Party said it did not have a position on New Zealand joining the new group PIPIR.

Other moves

The US' new national defence industrial strategy in January stressed that America must work more with allies to "boost defense production, innovation, and overall capability".

Measures involving New Zealand include:

• US Congress voted in late 2022 to encompass New Zealand within its National Technology and Industrial Base.
• More than 30 meetings in 2024 between NZDF's tech wing, and US, UK and/or Australian representatives, many about an unspecified "memorandum of understanding".
• A US-NZ emerging tech dialogue begun mid 2024, covering military and civilian tech. One push is to "focus on opportunities to address regulatory and legal issues pertaining to the technology partnership".
• Space sector collaboration, begun earlier this year at the US-NZ Space Dialogue.
• NZDF training Japan in satellite monitoring in mid-2024 within a US-funded hub.

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