VZCZCXRO3894
RR RUEHAP RUEHNZ RUEHPB RUEHPT
DE RUEHWL #0568/01 2191941
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 071941Z AUG 07
FM AMEMBASSY WELLINGTON
TO RUEHNZ/AMCONSUL AUCKLAND 1424
RUEHBY/AMEMBASSY CANBERRA 4906
RUEHDN/AMCONSUL SYDNEY 0558
RUEHBN/AMCONSUL MELBOURNE 0101
RUEHPT/AMCONSUL PERTH 0020
RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING 0346
RUEHPB/AMEMBASSY PORT MORESBY 0665
RUEHSV/AMEMBASSY SUVA 0609
RUEHUL/AMEMBASSY SEOUL 0258
RUEHAP/AMEMBASSY APIA 0372
RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO 0639
RUEHJA/AMEMBASSY JAKARTA 0058
RUEHKL/AMEMBASSY KUALA LUMPUR 0179
RUEHGP/AMEMBASSY SINGAPORE 0499
RUEHML/AMEMBASSY MANILA 0533
RUEHIN/AIT TAIPEI 0083
RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 4540
RHHMUNA/CDR USPACOM HONOLULU HI
RHHJJAA/JICPAC HONOLULU HI
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC
RHEHAAA/NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHDC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 WELLINGTON 000568 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
STATE FOR D (FRITZ), EAP/FO, AND EAP/ANP 
NSC FOR VICTOR CHA 
SECDEF FOR OSD/ISD LIZ PHU 
PACOM FOR J01E/J2/J233/J5/SJFHQ 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV NZ
SUBJECT: AUSTRALIAN REGIONAL SECURITY REMARKS GET NO REACTION FROM 
GNZ 
 
REF: A. CANBERRA 1021B. CANBERRA 1020 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY: The July 5 Australian White Paper on 
and expressions of willingness by both Australian Prime Minister 
John Howard and Australia's Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd to deploy 
the military to help stabilize the Pacific region has not yet 
received an official reaction from the New Zealand Government. 
However, these Australian comments underscore fundamental 
differences in the defense strategies of New Zealand and Australia 
in the Pacific. 
New Zealand regional security experts have told post that the 
instability in the immediate Pacific region helps 
forge a complementary relationship between Australia and 
NZ that actually has benefits for the greater region and thus ensure 
its prolonged existence. They cautioned, however, that the very 
challenges to bring the two countries together in a uniform strategy 
of regional stability will not be easily resolved. End Summary 
 
BACKGROUND: Australia's DOD 2207 Defense Update 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
¶3. (SBU) Australian Prime Minister John Howard has used 
the July 5 release of the Australian Department of Defense's 2007 
Defense Update to speak publicly about Australia's strategic future 
and implications for its national security policy (see ref A). 
Howard stated that the prospect of failed states, terrorism, 
transnational crime, and mass migration of refugees in Australia's 
Pacific neighborhood all represented a substantial threat to his 
country's national security. Howard further noted that such crises 
in the region would require that his government continue to employ 
it's actively 
interventionist policy of using both Australia's soft power, in the 
form of aid programs and humanitarian relief, and its hard power, in 
the form of direct military intervention, to address regional 
instability. 
 
¶4. (SBU) In outlining the opposition party's regional security 
policies (ref B), Australian Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd offered a 
similar assessment regarding the threats facing Australia. Like 
Howard, Rudd also vowed to commit Australia military resources to 
intervene in the Pacific region if elected Prime Minister.  Rudd, 
however, gave greater weight to employing Australia's soft power 
to stabilize and secure the region.  Rudd supports 
regional aid programs and humanitarian relief, but wants to goes 
further than Howard on soft power. Rudd advocates a greater hands-on 
"winning-the-hearts-and-minds" approach where Australia directly 
intervenes at a community level in affected Pacific states to help 
alleviate shortfalls in such areas as education, healthcare and 
economic development. 
 
No official reaction from GNZ as yet 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶5. (SBU) The GNZ has not yet publicly reacted to either Howard's or 
Rudd's statements, or even the Australian Department of Defense's 
2007 Defense Update. According to 
a New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade official there 
is no plan to do so in the near term. 
Even in a speech by Minster of Defence Phil Goff to the 
New Zealand Defence Force Command and Staff College, delivered a 
week after the release of the White Paper, 
no reference was made to the either the Howard or Rudd statements or 
to Australia's regional security policy. 
 
WELLINGTON 00000568  002 OF 003 
 
 
Post has been told off the record that the lack of an official 
response or comment from GNZ should not be construed as opposition 
to views espoused. 
 
NZ-Australia divergent in method, convergent in principle 
--------------------------------------------- ------------ 
 
¶6. (SBU) Howard's statement about Australia's strategic future did, 
however, underline the clear differences in 
the defense outlooks of New Zealand and Australia in the Pacific. 
Whereas Australia prefers a stronger military component to missions 
in the region, New Zealand traditionally gives more emphasis to the 
police and civilian-led components of these endeavors. 
 
¶7. (SBU) In many cases, the disparity in New Zealand and Australian 
defense methodologies is shaped by availability of resources. 
Although NZ's defense resources have increased over time, it is 
limited compared to that of Australia's. New Zealand's defence and 
foreign policies also reflect the views of the Government of the 
day. The centre-left Labour-led Government firmly believes in 
multilateralism and multiculturalism.  Since coming to power in 
1999, it has worked to re-configure the NZ Defence Force (NZDF) to 
take advantage of what its regards are innate NZDF strengths - its 
multicultural nature (many 
in the NZ armed services are of Maori origin and Maori 
culture of deeply interwoven in NZ military life) and 
good pre-deployment training. These traits particularly predispose 
the NZDF to being sensitive towards local Pacific populations and 
winning their trust and support. Thus, in the eyes of the GNZ, New 
Zealand is particularly well- suited to support peacekeeping 
operations. The GNZ believes that by better focusing on what the 
NZDF can do well, it can achieve results. 
 
¶7. (SBU) Post sought the opinion of two prominent New Zealand 
regional security experts, Peter Cozens and Dr. Lance Beath, in 
order to better determine a New Zealand reaction to the Howard and 
Rudd statements.  Both 
analysts said they were not surprised by the content of both 
statements. They noted that the statements served to underline that, 
although the respective approaches of Australia and New Zealand may 
appear to differ greatly, Canberra's ultimate goal of stabilizing 
the South Pacific also mirrors Wellington's. 
 
Analysts still expect continued teamwork in Pacific 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
 
¶8. (SBU) Despite not pursuing identical paths in force structure, 
development and defense/security philosophy, Beath, a former New 
Zealand Ministry of Defence official and diplomat and now an 
academic at Victoria University 
of Wellington, told Post that there still can be effective 
cooperation despite the divergence in strategy. Despite 
the differences in the two countries' means, Beath 
believes that the New Zealand-Australia strategic defense 
relationship is a sound co-habitation and that the two governments 
will continue to proceed in unison to address the vital strategic 
problems in their Pacific neighborhood. 
 
¶9. (SBU) As evidence of desiring similar outcomes, Beath noted that, 
given Australian concerns about what some 
of its political leaders and leading analysts have called the 'arc 
of instability' in it's Pacific neighborhood, 
New Zealand's small, balanced Defense Force can be especially useful 
as a complement to Australia's richer military resources. 
 
WELLINGTON 00000568  003 OF 003 
 
 
 
¶10. (SBU) Cozens, Director of the Centre of Strategic Studies, a 
Wellington-based think-tank that focuses on 
New Zealand's strategic security environment, believes 
that the strategic partnership has come into its own in 
the last decade, as Wellington and Canberra have responded jointly 
to Pacific security challenges. He believes that the seemingly 
constant stream of security challenges occurring in the closer 
region will place a premium on cooperation.  These challenges, 
whilst disadvantageous 
for a number of Pacific countries, are conversely helpful for 
superior New Zealand-Australia strategic cooperation, conspiring to 
strengthen rather than harm the New Zealand-Australia strategic 
partnership. 
 
¶11. (SBU) With security challenges in the region 
continuing to fester and new ones appearing in a seemingly regular 
basis, both experts agree that it would be imprudent to assume the 
challenges which drive this elevated Trans-Tasman strategic working 
relationship 
will not easily be resolved. 
 
Keegan