New Zealand to join U.S. backed WGS program

WELLINGTON — The New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) is joining an international partnership that will give it guaranteed satellite communications for the next 20 years, Defence Minister Jonathan Coleman announced Jan. 18.

The NZDF is joining the Wideband Global Satellite (WGS) program, a network of nine military satellites built by Boeing and operated by the U.S. Defense Department.

Coleman said WGS will increase the NZDF’s access to satellite broadband “more than 20-fold, with guaranteed access and at a fixed price, ensuring better value for money.”

New Zealand will join Canada, Denmark, Luxembourg and the Netherlands in a joint agreement for access to the network in return for partially funding the ninth satellite. Australia has been involved in a similar agreement since 2007.

Currently, the NZDF purchases bandwidth on commercial satellites at spot prices, which can involve a premium of up to 100 percent depending on demand, and which can also limit availability of bandwidth.

The NZDF will spend 83.2 million New Zealand dollars ($67 million) on WGS over 20 years. The country’s current annual spending on satellite communications for the military is about 4.3 million New Zealand dollars, growing at some 10 percent per year.

                                                                                                                                              

                

Australia to Let-Go Foreign Troops: Come Here

SYDNEY - Australia's military is looking to recruit foreign troops, particularly those let go in Britain where the government has announced cutbacks on defense spending, according to a Dec. 27 report.

The Australian Defence Force has struggled to fill recruitment quotas and was seeking highly skilled specialists such as fighter pilots and submarine crews from overseas, The Australian newspaper said.

The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) recently sent a delegation to Britain to look into the possibility of recruiting recently retrenched sailors, it added.

The Australian Defence Force, which is facing competition for personnel - particularly engineers - due to the nation's lucrative mining boom, confirmed that talks had taken place with British officials.

"The Royal Australian Navy has been in talks with the Royal Navy about this possibility and that obviously will depend on those personnel meeting the Royal Australian Navy's requirements," a spokesman told Agence France-Presse.

He did not comment on whether the military, which has some 1,550 troops in Afghanistan, was prepared to fast-track Australian citizenship for foreign recruits, as reported by The Australian.

The development comes after British Prime Minister David Cameron unveiled 8 percent cuts to the armed forces budget and set out plans to reduce the size of the Royal Army, Navy and Air Force by 17,000 troops.

The report in The Australian said Australian Navy chief Ray Griggs assured his British counterpart that Canberra would not recruit personnel the British needed to maintain their capabilities.

The Australian Defence Force was also looking to other western countries, including the United States, Canada and New Zealand, to build up personnel, particularly for its submarine crews, the newspaper said.

On its website, the Australian Defence Force says it "looks to overseas candidates to fill gaps in our services that can't currently be satisfied by standard recruitment."

It said its Navy recruitment program was aimed at "serving or immediately ex-serving officers and sailors of foreign naval forces [not greater than three years since separation from military service] with specific qualifications and/or experience that is directly transferable to the RAN."

Concern Over New Landmine Use as Summit Ends

PHNOM PENH - Over 100 nations hailed global progress on landmine eradication on Dec. 2 but voiced "deep concern" over the fresh use of the weapon in four countries as a large anti-mine summit ended in Cambodia.

Signatories to the 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention expressed "deep concern about new use of anti-personnel mines" in a text adopted after a week-long gathering in the capital Phnom Penh.

It comes after campaigners said last month that Israel, Libya and Syria had joined longstanding offender Myanmar in recently laying the deadly explosives.

Their actions pushed the worldwide use of landmines to a seven-year high in 2011, according to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL).

But member states at the meeting also noted "significant progress" made by several nations to live up to the Ottawa Treaty, which bans the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel mines.

Burundi and Nigeria both announced they were mine-free after completing their land clearance obligations, while Turkey said it had fully destroyed its stockpile of some 3 million landmines, after missing an earlier deadline.

Finland was also singled out for praise after it said it was on the verge of becoming the 159th state to join the convention. Somalia is expected to follow in the coming months.

Meanwhile, Myanmar, which has not joined the treaty, encouraged campaigners by taking part in the summit as an observer, suggesting the country was open for dialogue on its stubborn use of the weapon.

Experts warned that many challenges remained as landmines and explosive remnants of war caused 4,191 new casualties in 2010 globally, including more than 1,000 deaths, according to the ICBL.

Delegates vowed to keep up demining efforts despite "difficult financial times".

"In the midst of global economic turmoil there is a concern that states will forget they have an obligation to support each other," Kerry Brinkert, director of the secretariat of the convention, told AFP.

Host country Cambodia, one of the world's most mine-affected places, was promised more funding by Austria and New Zealand.

Cambodia received $24.3 million in aid for its demining activities last year, down from $33.3 million in 2009.

Lockheed Martin Unveils Australian Cyber Lab

CANBERRA - Lockheed Martin has unveiled its latest NexGen Cyber Innovation and Technology Centre (NCITE) facility in Canberra, joining existing sites in the United States and United Kingdom.
The 10 million-Australian dollar ($10.38 million) center, known as NCITE AU, occupies a reconfigurable, 900-square-meter area of the company's new headquarters in the nation's capital. When fully operational, about 200 people will work in the facility.

The official opening will occur in March, when the center will reach full operational capability. The company said it will link with the other two labs and bring together leading technologies and talent in a secure environment.
"The investment in the NCITE AU demonstrates Lockheed Martin's long-term commitment to Australia and the desire to serve its national security requirements." said Raydon Gates, chief executive of Lockheed Martin Australia.
"It will provide us with a base to service customer needs in both the civil and military markets, along with a platform to leverage industry partner and Lockheed Martin technologies to create rapid prototypes to speed innovation of solution delivery, while providing seamless advanced cybersecurity," he said.
"Networks and platforms must be defended against breaches," added Curt Aubley, Lockheed's vice president and chief technology officer of cybersecurity and NexGen Innovation. "By building trust and resilience in the systems we build and use for ourselves, Lockheed Martin and its industry partners can assure our customers that we have the capabilities and technology to do the same for them."
According to Aubley, the facility will also be part of a Global Cyber Innovation Range.
"We will be able to conduct offensive and defensive control testing and wildfire work on the Internet," he said. "It is a separate network where we can train offensive versus defensive, so we can rapidly learn in a safe and secure environment."
It will operate three private and one public computing clouds and operate to a secret level, Aubley said.
Lockheed also is considering incorporating a Systems Intelligence center in the facility in the future.
Other NCITE facilities, together with Systems Intelligence centers, are located in Gaithersburg, Md., and Ampthill, U.K.
The company also announced the imminent formation of what is tentatively known as the Global Innovation Alliance to harness the resources of leading technology providers in Australia. Inaugural members of the alliance will include Australian National University (ANU) Edge, Computer Associates, Dell, Glasswall Solutions, Hewlett-Packard, McAfee, Quintessence Labs, Schneider Electric and Taskey. Other organizations also are reportedly interested.
"By bringing the combined strengths of leading universities such as the ANU together with industry partners to address the challenge of cybersecurity, we can accelerate the development of effective solutions to growing threats without boundaries or limitations," said ANU Edge Professor Mick Cardrew-Hall, speaking on behalf of Canberra-based IT service providers.
"To defend against advanced persistent threats, we need to build effective security ecosystems based on collaboration, knowledge sharing and the rapid uptake of best practices," he said.
Cyberspace threats were recently added to consultative arrangements within the Australia, New Zealand, United States Treaty and the Australian government is fast-tracking a cybersecurity white paper, that was flagged in the defense white paper of 2009.

Air Vice-Marshal Graham Lintott

After five years on the job as leader of the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF), Air Vice-Marshal Graham Lintott will leave his post at the end of April to become Wellington's defense attaché in Washington.

Chief of the Air Force Graham Lintott speaks to the media in Palmerston North, New Zealand. (Marty Melville / Getty Images)

Lintott joined the RNZAF in 1973 and became a pilot. He flew Sioux and Iroquois helicopters in New Zealand and served in Singapore before becoming a member of the Air Force's Red Checkers formation aerobatics team.
He attended several courses overseas, including the Australian Defence Force Joint Services Staff College and the Royal College of Defence Studies in the U.K., from which he graduated in 2001.
Promoted to air commodore, he spent the next few years at HQ Joint Forces New Zealand, and in late 2004 was appointed assistant chief, Strategic Commitments and Intelligence, HQ New Zealand Defence Force, in Wellington. He was promoted to his current rank and appointed the chief of Air Force in 2006.

Q. The RNZAF is receiving new A109 and NH90 helicopters and improved C-130 and P-3 aircraft over the next 12 months. What does this involve?

A. Both the C-130 and the P-3 projects are much more than just minor upgrades; they really are new aircraft with regard to systems, and we have a complex introduction into service (IIS) task ahead of us.
On top of the four additional fleets - "additional" because we have to fly the legacy aircraft concurrent with the new ones - are a range of simulation devices that we have not had before.

Q. How will these new platforms and systems affect deployments?

A. The economic crisis continues to challenge us. I never underestimate the resources it is going to take, and we have been preparing for [the new platforms] for some years now. We know where the stress points are.
Over the next three to four years, we will not really be in a position to deploy our [new aircraft] without compromising the IIS task. If we do have to deploy, and the IIS program is delayed by weeks or months, then so be it.

Q. The New Zealand government's 2010 defense white paper forecast that the next 25 years will be more challenging than the past quarter-century. What does that mean for the RNZAF?

A. [It] means continuing those key roles that all air forces have - carrying things, sensing things and engaging targets.
We have limited capabilities in the engagement role, but we certainly are very well-equipped for ISR [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] and transport. By the 2020s, we may be looking at additional ISR platforms.
Additional capabilities may not be able to be delivered in an earlier time frame because of the economic situation, but that is a temporary thing. I think the next decade is going to be a period of holding the line. After that, the economy will grow and we can grow with it.

Q. What future is there for remotely piloted vehicles (RPVs) in the RNZAF?

A. The RNZAF has imagery analysts deployed in Afghanistan with the Royal Australian Air Force RPV operation, so we are gaining experience right at the front end of that operation.
Because of our geography and climate, we should be looking at RPVs of at least Predator size and capability that, for example, can get down to the Southern Ocean and the Antarctic to conduct surveillance.
It is going to be around 2025-2030 [before] we are thinking of augmenting the P-3 with RPVs and integrating them into a full spectrum ISR or ISTAR [intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance] capability for New Zealand.
I am not sure New Zealand will ever be able to afford a [national] Global Hawk-style RPV, but perhaps we could share such a capability with another nation.

Q. What practical regional cooperation exists between the RNZAF and its allies?

A. We share the duties of surveillance in the South Pacific with the Australians, the French and the Americans. We engage in a broad range of exercises and activities throughout the Asia-Pacific region, and the Five Power Defence Arrangements are particularly important to us.
We have cooperative airlift agreements in place with Australia, and now with the U.K. and NATO, where we contribute and offset each other's air transport,making better use of the global capability to our mutual benefit.

Q. How are the RNZAF's Antarctic operations?

A. The RNZAF has been operating in the Antarctic since the 1950s in support of the U.S. and NZ Antarctic research programs. None of our aircraft can get down there, miss the approach and [then] get back to New Zealand.
In the last couple of years, we were launching P-3s from Invercargill, flying 11- to 12-hour sorties with only about an hour on station in the Ross Sea. It was a grossly inefficient way of doing business. Now we refuel our P-3s at the U.S. McMurdo base, which enables us to spend more time on station. We have just cleared our B757 for Antarctica operations; they carry passengers and [thus] free up the U.S. [Antarctic-bound] C-17s to carry more freight. In the future, you'll see bothC-130s and B757s supporting our Antarctic program.

Q. What air power trends and capabilities have caught your eye?

A. I think it comes back to the RPVs and the flexibility and utility of those platforms and their growth in the future. You have already seen a multirole Predator in terms of surveillance and carrying missiles; it can truly do the whole ISTAR mission. I think the extensions and applications of that sort of capability is another exciting dimension for air power.
Cyberwarfare is going to affect us all in the future. It's a national issue. Air forces, armies, navies and other government agencies have to focus on that threat in the future. I think that environment might become more challenging than it is currently.

Q. Do you envisage new roles for the RNZAF?

A. I don't think so. If you take it back to what air power is all about - seeing, transporting and engaging, I think that is what we will continue to do.
How we deliver those capabilities, what hardware, what software, what mix of piloted and remotely piloted aircraft, how we command and control them, how we better integrate into the joint operations arena at all levels - those are the things that will change, other than cyberspace operations, which could overarch everything.

Q. What can the RNZAF usefully demonstrate to other Air Forces?

A. Perhaps people can learn lessons around the multirole, multiskill approach necessary in a small air force, including how we train and employ our people.
New Zealanders just have a natural way of engaging constructively with different cultures. Take our operations in Timor Leste, in the Solomons, in Afghanistan. There is an element of force protection, there is an element of war fighting, but there is also an element of constructive engagement. And whether that is engaging with the coalition or the host nation, we are damn good at it.

Q. What experience of the U.S. military will you take with you to Washington?

A. More than a decade of engagement with the U.S. defense industry, especially with the P-3, C-130 and Seasprite. My practical experience includes flying [U.S. Navy] helicopters in Antarctica, managing the F-16 acquisition project, education with the [U.S. Naval] Postgraduate School and, recently, a very close relationship with the Pacific Air Force HQ in Hawaii. I have worked with U.S. forces in Rwanda, Sinai, Afghanistan and in Kyrgyzstan and have been involved with the intelligence community during my time as head of [RNZAF] Strategic Commitments and Intelligence.
I am very much looking forward to being at the forefront of our relationship development with the U.S. defense and military organization. While we are at different ends of the size spectrum, we share common values, common standards, and our people always engage and operate well together.
By Nick Lee-Frampton in Wellington.

Service profile

Personnel: 3,185, including 2,592 active-duty troops, 185 reservists and 408 civilians.
Aircraft: Six P-3K Orions, five C-130H Hercules, two Boeing 757-200s
Helicopters: 13 UH-1H Iroquois, five Bell-47G Sioux helicopters, five SH-2G Seasprites that deploy with the Royal New Zealand Navy. The Iroquois and Sioux are to be replaced by eight NH90 and eight A109 helicopters over the next couple of years.

Australia and NZ Expand Defense Cooperation

WELLINGTON - New Zealand Defence Minister Wayne Mapp and his Australian counterpart, Stephen Smith, held their annual meeting Feb. 10 here and announced that Australia will have access to New Zealand's amphibious ship HMNZS Canterbury through a joint forces initiative.
"Today's meeting provided both countries with the opportunity to discuss strategic defense and security priorities in the region … and to give our respective defense organizations the strategic guidance they need for our essential and growing bilateral cooperation in 2011," Smith said.

The ministers asked secretaries in their respective departments to produce a joint report by July 31, detailing preliminary proposals to improve bilateral engagement structures and strengthen strategic bilateral exchanges.
The report is expected to detail proposals to ensure cost-efficient cooperation, notably complementary military capabilities, and the efficient implementation of ANZAC policies.
The ministers noted that the Pacific-focused Ready Response Force (RRF), initiated in September 2009, will be finalized in March, with New Zealand Defence Force personnel to be placed at the Deployable Joint Forces Headquarters in Brisbane.
"We have agreed that, to maintain a robust capability to respond to regional contingencies, the Australian and New Zealand defense forces will jointly develop and exercise plans under the RRF for a common response to contingencies, including humanitarian assistance and disaster relief," Mapp said.
The ministers also announced the sharing of key capabilities, including HMNZS Canterbury, as part of the RRF banner, with a view to early opportunities to exercise planning functions and amphibious interoperability.
"HMNZS Canterbury's amphibious-lift capability will be particularly important in our region over the next few years [as] the Royal Australian Navy faces challenges in amphibious capability," Smith said.
"The integration of HMNZS Canterbury in this way is a practical example of ANZAC cooperation which can benefit our region, particularly in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief," he said.
The ministers also highlighted the successful reinvigoration of the Australia-New Zealand Airlift Agreement, an initiative developed at the previous defense ministers meeting in Sydney in 2009.
As well, Mapp announced that New Zealand will provide a maritime surveillance adviser to the Cook Islands in support of the patrol boat given to that country by Australia.
In addition, both countries will expand their cooperation in English language training for regional militaries, starting with Vietnam, to increase the number of personnel eligible for training courses in New Zealand and Australia.

WELLINGTON: The New Zealand parliament in central Wellington was evacuated and surrounding streets cordoned off Thursday after a suspicious package was found near the building, police said. Police said a suitcase was found in bushes near the distinctive building, known as the Beehive, early Thursday afternoon. "Specialist police are currently travelling to the scene to examine the package," police said.