Up in Arms Over Laying Them Down

When it comes to military matters, New Zealanders are more likely to hear from the minister of disarmament than the minister of defense these days.

Having angered the United States and other allies in the 1980s by banning visits by nuclear-powered or armed warships, New Zealand has opted to be the first advanced nation to virtually scrap its air defenses, a move that has angered many in the country.

The country may be small and far away from just about everywhere, but the left-of-center government believes that it can set an example to the world.

The Labor Party government announced last month that it was junking combat jets in the air force, turning it into a transport service. The small army, meanwhile, is being remade into a peacekeeping force and the navy cut to just two oceangoing warships.

The army also has been instructed to do a feasibility study on setting up a peace school at which soldiers would sit in seminars with aid workers and peace campaigners to discuss methodology and share experiences.

Opponents of the cutbacks contend that the government is pursuing total disarmament by stealth, cloaking its true aim with talk about peacekeeping because most New Zealanders want a strong defense.

“These are peaceniks trying to run the armed forces,” said defense commentator Graeme Hunt. “Every other center-left government in the world except New Zealand is spending more on defense.”

“We have a naive belief that if we run down our armed forces, others will too,” Hunt said.

Prime Minister Helen Clark insists that the changes are justified because there is virtually no chance of New Zealand being attacked. She denies that she is leaving the country almost defenseless, and she rejects the notion that the government wants to withdraw into isolationism.

New Zealand is investing in the army to carry out peacekeeping missions with the United Nations and other world bodies, she said. “This defense strategy is the very opposite of being isolationist.”

Although the government is buying new vehicles and other equipment for the army, defense analysts say little of the money is going toward weapons or front-line combat gear despite an urgent need for such items.

“The army is an orphan army now . . . and they’re deeply concerned about their combat viability,” said David Dickens, director of the independent Institute for Strategic Studies.

Many legislators in the governing party were deeply influenced by the opposition to New Zealand’s military involvement in the Vietnam War in the 1960s and by the movement in the 1980s against nuclear weapons and power.

Matt Robson, the minister for disarmament, said disarmament and arms control are “just as important” as what the country does with the armed forces. Outsiders who say the country is isolationist “are misleading their people and misleading the world,” he said.

Robson has sharply criticized the country’s traditional allies, calling Washington’s foreign policy a disaster.