DEFENCE
The Interview: Andrew Bridgman, Secretary of Defence In this exclusive interview with chief editor Nicholas Dynon, Secretary of Defence Andrew Bridgman talks Defence Assessment, Defence Capability Plan review, international engagement, and the Ministry’s key priorities in 2021/22.
ND: A new Defence Assessment has been in progress for a while now. Will there be an unclassified version of that available and when might we expect to see it?
Andrew Bridgman is Secretary of Defence and Chief Executive of the Ministry of Defence. A public servant since 1991, he was previously Chief Executive and Secretary for Justice (2011-19).
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AB: The Defence Assessment is being worked on. We’re at the final stages of preparing it and we hope to be putting it up to Ministers for consideration over the next quarter. What I can say is that we really continue the themes of the last Defence Assessment, which is around climate change and geostrategic competition. It endorses the work that went into the Strategic Defence Policy Statement 2018. In that sense it is thematically the same, but it will have different emphases. There are two key things about the document. One is that it’s the view about the challenges for New Zealand from a Defence lens. That’s important because government has a number of instruments of statecraft that they can use at any one time, whether it be diplomacy, trade, or aid, and defence is one of them; so we’re very conscious that this is our view of the world. The second is that the Defence Assessment for us is important in that it feeds ultimately into capability decisions. It’s about, “Here are the challenges that we think New Zealand faces through a Defence lens, and here’s the role that Defence could play, and here are the capabilities it needs to undertake the tasks that Government asks of it.”
ND: The Minister indicated that the Defence Capability Plan (DCP) was being reviewed, but that “We are not cutting back on the DCP.” When are we likely to hear the outcome of the review? AB: There are two aspects to this. The first is that the Ministers are looking at the Defence Capability Plan in light of the fiscal constraints that have occurred due to the global pandemic since that plan was launched in 2019. Defence Capability Plans are always very long term; they are always 10-15 year plans and things change over that time. Governments always look at them at any point in time in light of what the situation is fiscally, and that’s what they’re doing at the moment. I couldn’t give you a timeframe on that but the plan and the projects within it will be looked at in light of what other priorities Government needs to consider. Ultimately, regardless of the fiscal situation, what people need to understand is that each purchase is presented to Cabinet on its own merits. You need to demonstrate the overall value of capabilities like the P-8As, Bushmasters and the Hercules to Government. In one sense the Defence Capability Plan acts as a guidance mechanism. The second thing – and this has probably gotten a bit lost – is that at the moment we have capabilities worth $5.6 billion under acquisition, with the critical ones being the
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