Line of Defence - Autumn 2021

Line of Defence Issue 19 • Autumn 2021

New Zealand’s Defence and National Security Magazine

New Zealand’s Soft Power: Growing, but does it mean anything?

Information Domain: Workforce models for the information age

The Next Three Years: Less deployments, less dollars for the NZDF

Crowded Places Strategy: from development to implementation

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CONTENTS Editor’s Note

Kia Ora and welcome to the Autumn 2021 – and 19th – issue of Line of Defence.

In this first issue of Line of Defence for 2021, we feature plenty of recent industry news and upcoming events in addition to deep diving into several key defence and national security topics.

In Defence, former Defence Minister Wayne Mapp forecasts a decline in NZDF deployments over the next three years, and less money to spend. For the time being, he argues, deployments and spending should be targeted closer to home.

In this issue we feature Rewi Thompson, Serco Defence New Zealand’s Contract Director, who writes about Serco’s crucial role in delivering simulation-based training to young New Zealand men and women to gain their bridge warfare certificate.

Matthew Medley of IFS explains what’s required to keep military equipment, personnel and commanders in sync during disconnected operations.

Line of Defence also catches up with GA-ASI’s Tommy Dunehew to learn more about their Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) systems, including recently completed MQ-9A unmanned aircraft anti-submarine warfare (ASW) demonstrations.

During NZDIA’s IDEAS2020 Part One, Defence told industry its input was needed to deliver the Information Domain – and designing new Defence operating and business models fit for the information age. In our continuing IDEAS series, we take a look at what industry came back with in IDEAS2020 Part Two. Sales of arms and military services by the sector’s largest 25 companies totalled US$361 billion in 2019, 8.5 per cent more than in 2018, according to data released in December by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. We take a closer look at the results.

In International Security, Aotearoa has been hailed as most improved in Brand Finance’s Global Soft Power Index, thanks to our widely lauded COVID response. We assess what this means. We also get acquainted with the new Decoding China Dictionary, which illustrates how key political words mean different things to Chinese and Western policy makers. It makes for essential foreign policy reading, In Homeland Security, Kendra Ross has spent decades at the forefront of the New Zealand cybersecurity industry, writes Joanna Mathers. We learn more about her impact on Women in security. We also interview Massey University intelligence and counter terrorism specialist Dr John Battersby about the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Christchurch terrorist attacks.

I commend the above articles to you, along with the many other fine contributions inside.

Nicholas Dynon Auckland

CONTACT DETAILS Chief Editor: Nicholas Dynon M: +64 (0)22 366 3691 E: nick@defsec.net.nz

Publisher: Craig Flint T: +64 (07) 868 2703 E: craig@defsec.net.nz

Postal and delivery address 27 West Cresent Te Puru 3575, Thames RD5, New Zealand

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Contributors & Interviewees Rewi Thompson Tommy Dunehew Nicholas Dynon Assoc Prof Bethan Greener Dr John Battersby

Chris Penk MP Matthew Medley Hon Dr Wayne Mapp QSO Kendra Ross

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

Dr Peter Greener Dr Bridgette-Sullivan Taylor Dr John Battersby Debbie Howarth Jennie Vickers Hon Dr Wayne Mapp QSO Ruth Currie DSD

Prof Rouben Azizian Dr Reuben Steff Paul Howard John Deal Douglas Pauling John Campbell MNZM Pat Cullen

SPONSORSHIP PARTNERS Serco Defence General Atomics Aeronautical

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UPCOMING ISSUE ASSOCIATION

Winter – June Main themes: Maritime Domain; Regional Security CivSec 2021; APSI Summit; DIAC Awards Copy Deadline: 15 May 2021 Publication: 01 June 2021

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ISSN 2463-5774 (Print) • ISSN 2463-6258 (Online)

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INTERNATIONAL SECURITY

THE DECODING CHINA DICTIONARY! !

EDITED BY MALIN OUD AND KATJA DRINHAUSEN

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Serco Defence New Zealand: Training Navy’s future

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New Zealand’s Soft Power: Growing, but does it mean anything?

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Global arms industry: Sales by the top 25 companies up 8.5 percent

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Treaty of Waitangi and foreign policy

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Big Ideas for a Small Nation?

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Asia Pacific Security Innovation Summit returns to Queenstown

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Line of Defence talks with GA-ASI’s Tommy Dunehew and asks about their Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) systems.

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The Decoding China Dictionary

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New Zealand to conclude Afghanistan deployment in 2021

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Disconnected Operations: Keeping military assets and critical information in sight when ‘Going Dark’

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Report identifies need for controls on autonomous weapons

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Nominations open for $15,000 Land Forces Innovation Awards

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Downer awarded Defence Innovation Hub contract for Muskito

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Policing by consent is not ‘woke’ — it is fundamental to a democratic society

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Nova Systems to deliver Land Engineering Uplift project for NZDF

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Women in Security: Cyber trail blazer Kendra Ross

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Airbus Australia Pacific extends support partnership with NZDF

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Crowded Places Strategy: from development to implementation

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Information Domain: Workforce models for the information age

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Securing our borders, facilities and public spaces

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The Next Three Years: Less deployments, less dollars for the NZDF

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Hits and misses in Christchurch Attacks Royal Commission of Inquiry report

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Defsec Media Limited publishes Line of Defence, FireNZ Magazine and New Zealand Security Magazine premier publications covering industry sectors that help keep Kiwis safe. Find us online www.defsec.net.nz Copyright: No article or part thereof may be reproduced without prior consent of the publisher.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this publication is given in good faith and has been derived from sources believed to be reliable and accurate.

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DEFENCE Serco Defence New Zealand: Training Navy’s future He aha te mea nui o te ao. He tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata. Serco Defence has a long-established tradition in Australia, the UK and North America, but is a relative newcomer to Aotearoa. The faces now working for Serco in Devonport are familiar, though, explains Serco Defence New Zealand’s contract director Rewi Thompson.

Rewi Thompson is Serco Defence New Zealand’s Contract Director.

He joined Serco in 2013 following a 14-year career in the Royal New Zealand Navy in which he reached the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

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As a young man, I wasn’t sure what career I wanted to pursue. That was until around 1998 when I saw Top Gun for the first time. I thought, that’s a good looking uniform! So, without any affiliation at all with the navy, I joined.

I was told that I was going to be an officer and I asked, “what’s that?” The recruiter said, “don’t worry, just crack on and do these tests,” and that was the start of it.

What followed has been a fantastic journey, which those still serving are very fortunate to experience. I served in the Royal New Zealand Navy as a warfare officer, qualifying in specialist navigation and principal warfare.

Eventually I reached a point, as often happens with military personnel, when I no longer wanted to spend time away from my family.

An opportunity came up to work in Sydney for Serco. I left one whānau, the Navy whānau – which is always going to be there for me – and moved to a new whānau with Serco.

I remember being at the airport in January 2013, wondering if I could call my Navy career manager and ask if I could rescind my resignation!

It’s pretty scary when you break that umbilical cord, but I’m so grateful for the opportunities the Navy gave me and glad I was able to make the transition.

Initially I was a senior simulation instructor for the HMAS Watson training contract. It was an interesting time for the Australian Defence Force and the Royal Australian

Navy: they were transitioning away from traditional naval individual training, which occurred at sea with multiple ships. But it was also a time operationally when things had changed, so fewer ships were working together.

As a result of work by key people in Serco and the Royal Australian Navy at the time, the decision was made to outsource bridge warfare training and use simulation as the primary medium to qualify bridge watchkeepers. I was supporting young Australian men and women in warfare training and navigation training, helping them gain their Bridge Warfare certificate.

I eventually took over as the contract manager. Through that period, we had a great team of instructors from many backgrounds: the UK, Australia and New Zealand, delivering a critical service to the Australian Navy. We also had New Zealand Navy students coming across to Sydney, gaining their qualifications alongside their Australian counterparts.

We’ve seen a time in defence forces around the world where it’s increasingly understood that the traditional way of doing things may not be the best or only way. While our core values remain relevant, it’s increasingly important to be open and look at innovative ideas to improve what we do. Serco’s role is to develop innovations which support our customer to do things slightly differently.

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In 2016, Serco asked me to come back to New Zealand, to see if we could replicate what Serco was doing at Watson in Sydney, but in Devonport.

We held many discussions, and through that engagement with the Navy and NZDF, we established our contract and recruited New Zealandbased staff to deliver a very similar service to what we were doing in the Watson contract. We provide training, through simulation, for young New Zealand men and women to gain their bridge warfare certificate.

Whether it’s the Watson contract or our training contract here, at the core of the job is to teach young men and women – naval officers – to drive ships.

These ships are hundreds of millions of dollars – and in some cases,

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billions of dollars – of government warship assets. The key thing is that these young officers are directly responsible to their Commanding Officer for the safety of the ship against collision or grounding – and ultimately responsible for the safety of lives at sea.

Some of these ships have upwards of 150 personnel, so that’s a significant responsibility for a 19 to 22 year old.

It’s a privilege to be able to support them in their journey towards achieving that special qualification.

We never forget that it’s a big responsibility for everyone at Serco.

Every one of our staff, both in Australia and New Zealand involved in this training has an enormous responsibility to get it right. Because when you recommend someone

for their final qualification, it’s significant. You’re saying that they’re safe to drive a ship in any warfare environment, both benign and hostile, in any conditions, both night and day. We absolutely take that seriously.

I am passionate about the work we do. We recruit to make sure that we have the right people to deliver that critical service. I love the balance, working with great people, and importantly, working with the students. Every student is different and has different ways of learning. It is so rewarding when you finally see a concept click with your student.

We are happy with the work we’re doing, but we’re not resting. There’s a lot of opportunity for Serco in the New Zealand defence market, although that’s possibly tempered at present, with COVID-19. However, what won’t change is the requirement to continue to support government agencies.

Everyone is looking for value for money and keeping costs down, while providing key services. This is even more important in the COVID-19 world we’re currently living in. I see opportunities for further organic growth in training alongside new opportunities that will arise.

The most important role for us is to listen to our customer and understand what they need. From that, we can either provide a solution or support the development of a solution that provides value now and in the long term, anticipating the changes or potential changes that may come.

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Global arms industry: Sales by the top 25 companies up 8.5 percent Sales of arms and military services by the sector’s largest 25 companies totalled US$361 billion in 2019, 8.5 per cent more than in 2018, according to data released in December by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

New data from SIPRI’s Arms Industry Database shows that arms sales by the world’s 25 largest arms-producing and military services companies (arms companies) totalled US$361 billion in 2019. This represents an 8.5 per cent increase in real terms over the arms sales of the top 25 arms companies in 2018.

US companies still dominate In 2019 the top five arms companies were all based in the United States: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and General Dynamics. These five together registered $166 billion in annual arms sales. In total, 12 US companies appear in the top 25 for 2019, accounting for 61 percent of the combined arms sales of the top 25.

For the first time, a Middle Eastern firm has appeared in the top 25 ranking. EDGE, based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), was created in 2019 from the merger of more than 25 smaller companies. It ranks at number 22 and accounted for 1.3 per cent of total arms sales of the top 25.

“EDGE is a good illustration of how the combination of high national demand for military products and services with a desire to become less dependent on foreign suppliers is driving the growth of arms companies in the Middle East,” said Pieter Wezeman, Senior Researcher with the SIPRI Arms and Military Expenditure Programme.

Another newcomer in the top 25 in 2019 was L3Harris Technologies (ranked 10th). It was created through 8

F-35 5th generation aircraft landing on an aircraft carrier

the merger of two US companies that were both in the top 25 in 2018: Harris Corporation and L3 Technologies.

Chinese arms companies’ sales increase The top 25 also includes four Chinese companies. Three are in the top 10: Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC; ranked 6th), China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC; ranked 8th) and China North Industries Group Corporation (NORINCO; ranked 9th).

The combined revenue of the Chinese companies in the top 25— which also include China South Industries Group Corporation (CSGC; ranked 24th)—grew by 4.8 percent between 2018 and 2019.

“Chinese arms companies are benefiting from military modernisation programmes for the People’s Liberation Army,” said SIPRI Senior Researcher Nan Tian.

The revenues of the two Russian companies in the top 25, AlmazAntey and United Shipbuilding, both decreased between 2018 and 2019 by a combined total of $634 million.

A third Russian company, United Aircraft, lost $1.3 billion in sales and dropped out of the top 25 in 2019.

According to Alexandra Kuimova, Researcher at SIPRI, “Domestic competition and reduced government spending on f leet modernisation were two of the main challenges for United Shipbuilding in 2019.”

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Aerial view of US Navy aircraft carrier.

Other notable developments After the US, China accounted for the second largest share of 2019 arms sales by the top 25 arms companies, at 16 percent. The six West European companies together accounted for 18 percent. The two Russian companies in the ranking accounted for 3.9 percent.

Nineteen of the top 25 arms companies increased their arms sales in 2019 compared with 2018. The largest absolute increase in arms revenue was registered by Lockheed Martin: $5.1 billion (11 percent in real terms).

The largest percentage increase in annual arms sales—105 percent—was reported by French producer Dassault Aviation Group. “A sharp rise in export deliveries of Rafale combat aircraft pushed Dassault Aviation into the top 25 arms companies for the first time,” explained Lucie BéraudSudreau, Director of the SIPRI Arms and Military Expenditure Programme.

Global footprints The report also noted that the 15 largest arms companies in 2019 are present in a total of 49 countries through majority-owned subsidiaries, joint ventures and research facilities.

With a global presence spanning 24 countries each, Thales and Airbus Line of Defence

are the two most internationalised companies, followed closely by Boeing (21 countries), Leonardo (21 countries) and Lockheed Martin (19 countries).

The United Kingdom, Australia, the USA, Canada and Germany host the largest numbers of these foreign entities. Outside the arms industry hubs of North America and Western Europe, the largest numbers of entities of foreign companies are hosted by Australia (38), Saudi Arabia (24), India (13), Singapore (11), the UAE (11) and Brazil (10).

“There are many reasons why arms companies might want to establish themselves overseas, “ said Alexandra Marksteiner of the SIPRI Arms and Military Expenditure Programme, “including better access to growing markets, collaborative weapon programmes, or policies in the host countries tying arms purchases to technology transfers.”

Of the 49 countries hosting foreign entities of the top 15 arms companies, 17 are in low- and middle-income countries. “Countries in the Global South seeking to jump-start their arms production programmes have welcomed foreign arms companies as a means to benefit from technology transfers,” said Diego Lopes da Silva, Researcher at SIPRI.

“The Chinese and Russian arms companies in the top 15 have only a limited international presence,” explained Siemon Wezeman, Senior Researcher at SIPRI. “Sanctions against Russian firms and governmentmandated limits on acquisitions by Chinese firms seem to have played a role in constraining their global presence.”

About SIPRI’s Arms Sales report The SIPRI Arms Industry Database defines ‘arms sales’ as sales of military goods and services to military customers domestically and abroad.

Unless otherwise specified, all changes are expressed in real terms.

Comparisons (e.g. between 2018 and 2019 or 2015 and 2019) are based on the sets of companies listed in the respective year (i.e. the comparison is between different sets of companies).

This report is the first of three major data launches in the lead-up to the publication of SIPRI’s flagship publication in mid-2021, the annual SIPRI Yearbook. Ahead of this, SIPRI will release its international arms transfers data (details of all international transfers of major arms in 2020) as well as its world military expenditure data (global, regional and national trends in military spending).

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DEFENCE Big Ideas for a Small Nation?

New Zealand may be widely thought of as a small country, writes Opposition spokesperson, Defence and Veterans Chris Penk MP, but our maritime domain requires us to think bigger, and interoperability with allies is key.

Chris Penk MP is the Opposition Spokesperson for Defence and Veterans, and the Member for Kaipara ki Mahurangi. Prior to entering Parliament, he served in the Royal New Zealand Navy and subsequently the Royal Australian Navy.

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What should our military be doing long-term? And why? How should we be thinking about resourcing the NZDF to ensure we can achieve our national aims?

Considering questions like these is one of the most important tasks of an Opposition spokesperson for Defence.

In answering them, strategic thinking above the usual political realm is required.

As a general rule, politicians tend to focus on relatively small, separate and short term issues (ideally explained in a single soundbite) with good retail political value (ideally resulting in voter support).

The “big picture” requirements of New Zealand’s defence simply must be an exception to this rule. In other words, anyone interested in the long term future of this country must turn their mind to these questions. I’ve been doing that as best I can, even in the hurly burly of day-to-day political life.

My first observation would be that we’ve traditionally thought about our place in the world along the lines that we are a small country in the South Pacific, relatively isolated and insulated from the gravity of world events.

Isolation and insulation is not the reality we face in 2021, however.

We live in an increasingly connected world and, by way of obvious example, we have been forced to react to a certain pandemic and related public health pressures of a transnational and international nature in the past 12 months.

This is a reasonably obvious point, though. The more interesting aspect of the typical Kiwi self-reflection is surely that we invariably consider ourselves a ‘small’ nation.

Simply stated, we must update our thinking to reflect geographic reality.

We need to dismiss the myth that New Zealand and its strategic needs are small. I say this because it makes no sense whatsoever to discuss our borders and other sovereign markers without considering the realms of maritime and air space.

When we view New Zealand this way, the area in question is multiplied many times over. Based on data supplied by the Ministry for the Environment, the whole of our territory is roughly 21 times greater than our land mass.

To put that in context, if we include our Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and continental shelf when we discuss what’s at stake for New Zealand, we are a larger nation than India (also taking into account those factors for that nation).

Obviously the size of our respective populations is another question altogether, but a relevant one nonetheless.

That leads me to my second observation, which is that the way we organise our Defence Force – including its size – needs to be relative to what requires defending.

If that may seem a rather obvious point to make, it is worth considering that discussions of levels of funding for the NZDF – especially when we compare ourselves to other nations’ defence forces – are almost invariably expressed in terms of dollars spent per capita.

Given our small population size relative to our territory, this presents a mismatch with alarming implications.

So, what does our Defence Force need in order to guarantee the safety of resources within our oceans, protect Line of Defence

our sovereign interests and maintain regional order in the Pacific?

Roughly speaking, there are two options.

The first is that we expend a large fortune creating a defensive capability equal to the task. Given that schools and hospitals also rely on public funding – and that the need for that infrastructure and investment is much more readily obvious to the average Kiwi (voter) – this is an unattractive option to any politician.

The second option is to ensure that our defence needs are able to be met in concert with our allies. The word ‘allies’ is one I choose deliberately, in preference to ‘friends’. The latter is practically meaningless in this context.

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At the political and diplomatic level, relationships with other states must be managed carefully in the light of this. However, it’s not my place (in other words, it’s above my paygrade!) to provide a firm view on where our geopolitical interests currently lie, in that sense.

As far as the military is concerned, meanwhile, our imperative must be to ensure that we enjoy a high degree of interoperability with allies and prospective allies.

That being so, my final observation is that all aspects of NZDF’s mandate need to be realised in this way. Our personnel must be recruited and trained in such a way that they will be able to fight alongside our allies. Our

platforms and assets must be acquired and upgraded in ways that make sense in combination with those of our allies.

Our peacetime operations, including exercises, must be undertaken when, where and how our allies need them to be undertaken such that they gain comfort and understanding about our capabilities.

The policies of government and opposition parties alike must be viewed through this lens. I invite readers of Line of Defence Magazine to challenge any politician who fails in their solemn duty to consider the strategic needs of the NZDF in favour of considerations that may be more urgent but are ultimately much less important.

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DEFENCE INTERVIEW

Line of Defence talks with GA-ASI’s Tommy Dunehew and asks about their Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) systems.

LoD: Militaries are increasingly moving away from maritime patrol aircraft and using RPA for maritime surveillance. Do you see the trend continuing?

As Vice President of International Strategic Development for GA-ASI, Tommy Dunehew is responsible for overseeing international capture initiatives across the company’s full line of Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) systems, radars, and electrooptic and related mission systems.

GA-ASI manufactures, supports, and operates a variety of combat and civil use-proven, highly reliable RPA systems, as well as cuttingedge radars, and electro-optic and related mission systems for military and civil applications worldwide.

TD: We do. GA-ASI believes our RPA provide great options for the maritime and overland domains, both as a stand-alone or low-cost, complementary asset. SeaGuardian’s Ground Control Station can share realtime feeds, as well as share collected intelligence with other agencies and command centers on the ground using our System for Tasking And Real-time Exploitation (STARE). This capability allows maritime patrol aircraft to act on specific vessels in the full range of maritime operations, from search and rescue, to law enforcement to Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW). In a time of limited MPA resources, the ability to visualize, task, correlate, and deliver the best product to decisionmakers in a timely manner is critical to maintaining effective control of territorial waters and exclusive economic zones (EEZs).

LoD: Please provide an update on the MQ-9B SeaGuardian interest globally?

TD: MQ-9B has garnered significant interest from customers throughout the world. The UK Ministry of Defence selected MQ-9B SkyGuardian for its Protector Program, and recently concluded the production contract for deliveries to the Royal Air Force.

SkyGuardian was selected by the Australian Defence Force under Project Air 7003, and the Belgian Ministry of Defense signed a contract for SkyGuardian in August.

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LoD: The military UAV market is a rather crowded one, with countries such as China offering their products at a very competitive price. How confident are you about your market prospects?

TD: GA-ASI is the global leader in UAS. Our aircraft have been a key asset in securing the defense of the U.S. and its allies. We’re now approaching 30 years in business and with that, are getting ready to make our first delivery of the new MQ-9B: the world’s most advanced unmanned aircraft. After the UK takes its first delivery of the Protector (MQ-9B variant), we’ll look forward to deliveries to Australia, Belgium and other customers. We’re also very busy on the development side, bringing forward new and innovative capabilities, such as ASW, SelfProtection Pod, and High Frequency Command & Control to name just a few. With that said, GA-ASI will continue to innovate and build the value of our aircraft for our customers.

LoD: Please describe General Atomics’ recent efforts to achieve seamless operations in all classes of airspace for the MQ-9B platform?

TD: The first prototype SkyGuardian RPA flew in November 2016, and has since achieved a number of important milestones on its path to certification and unrestricted airspace access. In June 2018, it became the first Mediumaltitude, Long-endurance RPAS to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, landing at RAF Fairford, UK as part of the Royal Air Force’s 100th anniversary celebration.

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On November 24, 2020, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) completed development and test of the world’s first self-contained Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) capability for an Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS).

In April 2020, we demonstrated a commercial surveying mission in Southern California and Arizona, equipped with a full Detect and Avoid (DAA) system, for NASA’s System Integration and Operationalization program. In September 2020, the Federal Aviation Administration granted Experimental Certification approval to fly the RPAS without a chase plane, making full use of its DAA system to maintain safe separation from all air traffic in nonsegregated airspace.

Most recently, we used that approval to perform a series of maritime patrol validation flights for the Japan Coast Guard operating from Hachinoe, and flying thousands of miles throughout the oceanic airspace controlled by Japan.

In tandem, GA-ASI has been working closely with the UK Ministry of Defence and Military Aviation Line of Defence

Authority towards Military Type Certification for Protector, the UK variant of MQ-9B SkyGuardian. This will be a first for any large RPAS. A Combined Test Team will begin flying production-standard aircraft within the next few months, and GA-ASI continues to amass the evidence needed for certification.

LoD: Maritime surveillance is now becoming a mainstream role for the MQ-9 series of aircraft. Can you describe sensor payload options available to customers?

TD: The MQ-9B SeaGuardian can be integrated with a 360-degree, multi-mode maritime patrol radar (MPR), high-definition Electrooptical/Infrared (EO/IR), Signals Intelligence sensors, Automatic Identification System (AIS), and AntiSubmarine Warfare (ASW) sonobuoy

deployment, processing and control.

This cross-domain maritime sensor suite, augmented by automatic track correlation and anomaly-detection algorithms, enables real-time detection and identification of surface and subsurface vessels over thousands of square nautical miles.

LoD: GA-ASI recently completed unmanned aircraft anti-submarine warfare (ASW) demonstration of sonobuoy dispensing and remote processing on a MQ-9A Block 5.

Do you think this will make the SeaGuardian even more attractive for navies?

TD: Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) is one of a number of maritime capabilities that we believe customers are very interested in. ASW is not just a tactical capability… it is a strategic capability. The ASW test that we 13

DEFENCE completed with the U.S. Navy at the end of 2020 demonstrated the world’s first self-contained ASW for UAS. The successful completion of this test paves the way for future development of more ASW capabilities for MQ9. We look forward to continuing collaboration with the U.S. and global navies as they explore innovative options for distributed maritime operations in the undersea domain.

GA-ASI has already received orders for ASW capability on our MQ-9B SeaGuardian maritime UAS from two international customers, and anticipates demand to be extremely strong for the MQ-9B SeaGuardian with its high-end maritime capabilities and relative low cost compared to

manned maritime platforms. It’s easy to add the maritime and ASW kits to MQ-9B SkyGuardians to transform them into MQ-9B SeaGuardians.

LoD: How does automation, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) add to the operation and PED capabilities of the MQ-9B? TD: GA-ASI is exploring the new frontier of AI-enabled autonomy in keeping with the company’s commitment to responding to the needs of not only the warfighter, but what civil operators would also need to do their missions. GA-ASI was selected by the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC)

to support the Skyborg Vanguard Program. Skyborg will become the foundation of AI and ML autonomous capabilities for a family of future USAF unmanned combat aerial vehicles. To fast track this gamechanging capability, GA-ASI will leverage its Avenger Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) to integrate Skyborg software with GA-ASI hardware in order to prove that a dynamic mix of manned and unmanned aircraft can communicate, collaborate, and fight together. In addition, the CODE Autonomy flights represent a big step on the path to more sophisticated autonomous missions for unmanned aircraft where operator input can be minimized to support optimal manning of multiple products for complex air operations.

LoD: Finally… We saw your announcement about your new SkyGuardian Global Support Solutions (SGSS). What can you tell us about this new warrantee program for MQ-9B?

On September 25, 2020, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) completed the first flight of the Protector RG Mk1 Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS), the fourth MQ-9B SkyGuardian air vehicle produced. The first Protector RPAS will be used to support system testing as part of a combined UK Ministry of Defence, U.S. Air Force and GA-ASI test team.

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TD: Operators of the MQ-9B SkyGuardian and/or SeaGuardian remotely piloted aircraft will be the first eligible to subscribe to an unprecedented new suite of services, SkyGuardian Global Support Solutions. As the world leader in advanced remote and autonomous aviation, GA-ASI knows that its customers do not only require the high-quality capabilities and multimission flexibility of an aircraft such as the SkyGuardian.

They also require a complete life-cycle sustainment approach that improves operational availability and reduces costs. That is why, applying a common, proven practice from the world of commercial aviation, GA-ASI’s Support Solutions suite guarantees uptime, simplifies maintenance and provides highdemand users with all the performance and availability they require at an affordable cost per hour.

GA-ASI’s Support Solutions suite means that users of the SkyGuardian and its sibling SeaGuardian have ready access to spare parts, depot-level repair expertise, engineering field support, program sustainment engineering and more.

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New Zealand to conclude Afghanistan deployment in 2021 The New Zealand Government announced in February that the NZDF’s two-decade and 3,500 personnel deployment to Afghanistan will conclude by May 2021.

“After 20 years of a NZDF presence in Afghanistan, it is now time to conclude our deployment,” said Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in a combined media release with Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta and Defence Minister Peeni Henare.

“The deployments to Afghanistan have been one of the longest running in our history, and I wish to acknowledge the 10 New Zealanders who lost their lives in the line of duty, and the more than 3,500 NZDF and other agency personnel, whose commitment to replace conflict with peace will always be remembered,” the Prime Minister said.

Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta said that although the environment remains complex, the intra-Afghan peace process affords Afghanistan the best prospect of an enduring political solution.

“New Zealand will continue to be supportive of the Afghan Government and its people in the years to come, including as they work through the intra-Afghan peace process in an effort to resolve the decades-long conflict,” Nanaia Mahuta said.

“Together with our partners, New Zealand helped to establish the conditions for the current intra-Afghan peace process. We’ve supported regional security, and helped to improve the lives of the people of Afghanistan, particularly in Bamyan Province,” said Defence Minister Peeni Henare.

The current deployment of six NZDF personnel, he said, consisted of three deployed to the NATO Resolute Support Mission Headquarters, and three deployed to the Afghanistan Line of Defence

NZDF personnel boarding a C-130. Image: Ministry of Defence.

National Army Officer Academy (ANAOA).

At the NATO Resolute Support Mission headquarters, NZDF personnel have been supporting Women, Peace and Security initiatives including in gender advisor roles.

This has included assisting in the development of Afghan National Army gender advisers and helping remove barriers for females in the Afghan army, including the establishment of childcare facilities and education and training opportunities.

“Another important element of New Zealand’s support for Afghanistan has been our contribution to training and mentoring a new generation of Officers in the Afghanistan Army,” stated the Defence Minister. “The success of the mentoring programme being conducted with the ANAOA means it is now self-sufficient enough for New Zealand’s contribution there to conclude.”

NZDF mentors have been supporting the ANAOA since its creation in 2013. They have been part of an international mentoring team together with the United Kingdom, Denmark and formerly Australia and Norway.

The academy produces about 75 percent of Afghan National Army officers. In September 2020, the academy graduated its 5,000th cadet.

“Our NZDF trainers and mentors have made a valuable contribution to the academy which has been developing to self-sufficiency, with our support no longer needed,’’ said Commander Joint Forces New Zealand Rear Admiral Jim Gilmour following the announcement.

“We are also proud to have contributed to women, peace and security initiatives in Afghanistan, and look forward to seeing further progress in Afghanistan as this work continues.

“It has been a privilege to support our Afghan partners and serve alongside them over the years.”

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DEFENCE Disconnected Operations: Keeping military assets in sight when ‘Going Dark’ A more distributed operational model poses serious connectivity and logistical questions.

Matt Medley, Senior Product Manager at IFS explains what’s required to keep military equipment, personnel and commanders in sync during disconnected operations.

A Senior Product Manager at IFS, Matthew Medley is a graduate of the US Air Force Academy. He served as a Major in the US Air Force, compiling over 2,500 flight hours in C-130 aircraft. He holds the FAA Airline Transport Pilot and Certified Flight Instructor ratings.

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Military operations, in line with the connectivity developments in the outside world, have become increasingly connected.

Operations are underpinned by a robust digital backbone that provides the connectivity that allows military organisations to take a huge step towards Total Asset Readiness, tying together the thousands of data steps and processes to provide information for military operators to keep updated on the status, whereabouts and availability of equipment and personnel—uninterrupted and in real time.

But many such operations are, from a tactical and strategic planning point of view, becoming more widely distributed than ever before. We can see this in business. Gartner listed ‘anywhere operations’ as one of its top strategic technology trends for 2021, defined as “an IT operating model designed to support customers everywhere, enable employees everywhere and manage the deployment of business services across distributed infrastructures.”

For the military, any connectivity interruption puts immediate pressure on their digital backbone, stretching it to near breaking point. At the critical

moment of service, when a commander is planning a mission to deploy key assets, that person needs to have a totally accurate representation of the equipment at their disposal.

Failure at this crucial moment could compromise mission success and potentially endanger military personnel. It’s these periods of nonconnectivity that the spotlight is now on.

Operational pressures to decrease visibility put connectivity under microscope A recent study from RAND Corporation, an American non-profit global policy think tank created by the Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces, illustrates this perfectly in the context of the Air Force. The study focuses on a set of emerging concepts for ‘distributed operations’ that call for a larger number of airbases to complicate enemy targeting and use a more decentralised command and control approach.

In direct response to increased air and missile threats posed to larger main bases, the study notes that the U.S. Air Force is shifting toward Line of Defence

concentrating on conducting missions from smaller forward operating locations or bases (FOBs). In order to maximise visibility, there needs to be consistent connectivity between a main operating centre or base (MOB) and these distributed FOBs. RAND then rightly highlights that any disruption to this connectivity by enemy attack on long-distance communications systems, including satellites and long-distance fibre, can seriously compromise mission success.

There are also planned instances where units will be conducting operations in ‘dark mode’. A small percentage of top-secret military operations will, by their sensitive nature, take place in a disconnected environment, without outside-world connectivity and with a purposely minimised electronic signature.

For some military units, planned instances of disconnected operations is part of the normal day-to-day business. Think a navy frigate sailing in the South Pacific where it operates Line of Defence

in a disconnected, intermittent, and limited bandwidth mode for much of its detachment unless using satellite.

The key requirement in both of these unplanned and planned disconnected operations scenarios is the ability to aggregate, update and re-sync data back to a MOB as soon as connectivity is re-established — mitigating the impact of any outage.

Data consistency poses the biggest challenge to disconnected operations When units are deployed in limited forward operating environments, it can become challenging to bring full software systems such as those designed for asset maintenance onto the frontline—thankfully most military organisations are able to do that when network connectivity is robust.

Any break in connectivity, however, can hinder communications among units (think requests for resupply) and possibly compromise the integrity of

databases, maintenance software and decision support systems.

But supporting software is often interrupted when a network goes down. Militaries need the ability to continue operating a network at a moment’s notice, even when all outside connectivity is lost, and then incrementally re-sync information such as engineering & maintenance data, technical records and more. Although this may sound simple, this is a very complex undertaking from a data architecture perspective.

Keeping physical and digital asset readiness information back at base Let’s take an aircraft as an example.

When transferring an aircraft from a MOB to a new forward operating node it is not only the physical asset which is being sent! Its logistics support material needs to move with it, from up-to-date technical records to physical spare parts.

During operations, the aircraft’s systems will probably be connected via 17

DEFENCE internet, radio, satellite internet, VoIP etc. 99 percent of the time – but it’s the one percent of time it may spend disconnected which opens potential problems in data consistency.

Without consistent information on what has taken place in the field, such as maintenance, the MOB or home station cannot gain a single version of the truth on the aircraft’s status and availability—limiting a commander’s ability to make decisions, particularly if they’re making decisions about a mission from the other side of the world.

This scenario of course applies to many military assets, you only have to look at naval equipment, which commonly operates at huge scale and in disconnected environments. This scale is only set to increase, as current US Navy plans highlight a force-level goal for an even more distributed fleet architecture, including 382 to 446 manned ships and 143 to 242 large UVs by 2045.

Data exchange must be a two-way street – pull and push Flipping the scenario around, there will also be key equipment updates that will be communicated out from an MOB and need to be received by personnel in an FOB. Entire assets come with an allowable baseline configuration, which will be subject to change and updates on a regular basis.

In defence operations, the Central Engineering Authority (CEA) creates and maintains the maintenance and equipment baselines, and baselines at autonomous bases must remain as up to date as possible.

Continuing the aircraft example, any changes to its allowable configuration or critical technical bulletins must be ‘pushed’ outwards to all operational nodes. Depending on its current status, certain airworthiness updates may directly impact an individual aircraft’s safety and ability to carry out a mission, so they must be accessible for the personnel operating the aircraft on the front line.

Two-way data exchange ensures all parties are viewing timely and accurate information, and this data-driven approach directly translates into better strategic decision-making. The answer to Total Asset Readiness in distributed 18

operations doesn’t lie in “quantity” – for example more maintenance personnel to keep assets running – it lies in “quality” data—consistent, accurate and timely information to drive more efficient asset management.

Containerised architecture essential to provide a complete and secure feedback loop.

To effectively manage disconnected operations, the underlying software infrastructure requires the capability to aggregate, consolidate and store data, while providing physical and software-based hardening against attack. Incremental reconsolidation from supporting software is the most effective way to facilitate a two-way information exchange between an MOB and FOB. Once an asset returns to connected status, supporting software must sync information both ways, establishing a feedback loop to ensure there is an accurate and up to date single version of the truth down to the individual asset level. The other critical requirements to keep all parties updated when information is resynced are scale, security and user experience.

This is where containerised architecture is key and involves bundling an application together with all of its related configuration files, libraries and dependencies required for it to run in an efficient and bugfree way across different computing environments. Containerisation meets the challenges of scale, rapid deployability and being self-contained as secure, standalone software.

Purpose-built software is the way forward in disconnected operations – the rule of three Military operators require purposebuilt software to address the unique challenges of operating from remote and austere environments in the following focus areas: 1. Asset compliance and baseline updates Supporting software should be able to address the core requirement needed to transfer assets between nodes for military operations, including asset transfers (air vehicle and loose inventory), baseline transfers along with the asset, and technical records

transfers along with the asset.

Workflow management functionality should prepare deployments and imports of assets from MOBs to FOBs and inversely from FOBs to MOBs. When assets are transferred, baseline updates and a portion of their technical records are automatically transferred. Conversely, bases can view the batch number their location is using and request an update from MOB or CEA. 2. Technical Records Repository\ In situations where technical records for an asset are created in multiple internal or external systems, command or central maintenance management requires an aggregated view of an asset’s technical records.

A Technical Records Repository (TRR) should enable planners, reliability departments and others to view the full set of historical records for maintenance performed and usage accrued on an aircraft or component.

Bases that perform maintenance can keep the central TRR up to date by sending technical record updates through the built-in workflow manager feature.

3. Integration with core maintenance system This disconnected operations functionality should be fully integrated into core maintenance management software, eliminating the need for data duplication. This integration delivers a complete spectrum of military equipment maintenance management in a single integrated business platform.

Total Asset Readiness – whatever the connectivity status Only when these criteria are met can military organisations execute disconnected operations safe in the knowledge that commanders, maintenance centres and frontline personnel have a consistent picture of the status of the equipment at their disposal.

When the critical moment of service arises to deploy a military asset in a disconnected setting, it’s the underlying software architecture that can be the difference between mission success and failure.

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Report identifies need for controls on autonomous weapons A new report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) highlights the need for human control over life-or-death decisions in warfare.

Loss of human control over life-or-death decisions Autonomous weapon systems (AWS) have attracted criticism because due to their ability to autonomously select and attack targets. According to SIPRI’s and ICRC’s definition, an autonomous weapon system is any weapon system that once activated can select and attack targets without human intervention.

Ensuring that humans remain in control of the use of force, especially life-or-death decisions in warfare, needs to be the key priority in setting limits on AWS, according to a new report from SIPRI and the ICRC released last June.

“The main concern is that AWS are triggered by the environment and the user does not know or choose the specific target,” said Vincent Boulanin, Senior Researcher, SIPRI. “That unpredictability can make it challenging for AWS users to comply with international humanitarian law, address fundamental ethical concerns and maintain military control.”

The report argues that a common understanding of human control is an important step in mitigating the risks of AWS, and it offers an in-depth discussion of what type and degree of human control is needed and when that control should be implemented.

Necessary control measures According to the report, three types of control measure on AWS are identified as necessary for ensuring human control over the use of force, focusing on the design of the weapon, the environment it is used in, and the way that the user interacts with it.

“The type and degree of human control needed has always been the difficult question,” commented Netta Goussac, Associate Senior Researcher, Armament and Disarmament, SIPRI and former Legal Adviser, ICRC. “The control measures identified in this report provide practical guidance for determining limits on autonomous weapon systems.”

The report is the first of its kind to outline specific control measures that can compensate for the unpredictability of AWS and lower the risks for civilians and fighters, taking into account different scenarios.

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Call for an international policy response According to the authors, the practical control measures identified in the report should inform an international policy response, whether in the form of a new treaty, standards or best practices.

“The ICRC and others have been calling for a concerted international response to the risks of AWS,” said Neil Davison, Scientific and Policy Adviser, Legal Division, ICRC. “The pace of military technology developments, including in artificial intelligence, only increases the urgency for states to agree on where the boundaries must be placed,” he stated. “To avoid serious risks for civilians and fighters, strict constraints will be needed.”

The report provides policymakers with practical guidance on how to translate the need for human control into concrete limits on the design and use of AWS, taking into consideration legal, ethical and operational concerns.

The report is a cooperation between SIPRI and the ICRC and financially supported by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.

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DEFENCE Nominations open for $15,000 Land Forces Innovation Awards Innovative individuals and companies in the land domain have until 16 April to enter the prestigious LAND FORCES Innovation Awards, to be presented at LAND FORCES 2021.

Organised by the not-for-profit AMDA Foundation and supported by the Queensland Government, LAND FORCES International Land Defence Exposition 2021 is set to take place at Brisbane’s Convention and Exhibition Centre between 1st and 3rd June.

Presented in collaboration with the Australian Army, LAND FORCES is an international industry exposition to showcase equipment, technology and services for the armies of Australia and the Indo-Asia-Pacific.

AMDA is now calling for nominations for the LAND FORCES Innovation Awards, which will be presented at the event and awarded across three categories: • LAND FORCES 2021 National Innovation Award • LAND FORCES 2021 SME Innovation Award • LAND FORCES 2021 Young Innovator Award (including a $15,000 cash award).

“The awards reflect our altruistic purpose, which is to promote the development of aviation and Australia’s industrial, manufacturing and information/communications technology resources in the fields of aviation, aerospace, maritime, defence and security,” said Ian Honnery, CEO of the AMDA Foundation.

“Since we launched the Awards in 2012, we have presented nearly $400,000 in SME Innovation Award Grants and Young Innovator Awards, to encourage and reward excellence by our small companies and emerging engineers and scientists.”

“Australia’s defence industry is now recognised by the Department of Defence as a Fundamental Input to 20

Defence Capability (FIC) and Defence is putting ever-greater emphasis on industry innovation,” said Mr Honnery.

“Industry’s ability to deliver for Defence and the ADF is underpinned by its ability to innovate and bring to the market new defence products and services. That is what our awards seek to encourage.”

The awards are open to Australian companies or the Australian subsidiaries of overseas parent companies. The innovation could be anything from a new product or service to a new approach to business. Entries will be judged on originality and their understanding of user needs.

The LAND FORCES Innovation Awards stand alongside similar Innovation Awards presented biennially at the AVALON Australian International Air Show and Aerospace & Defence Exposition at Avalon Airport and the INDO PACIFIC International Maritime Exposition in Sydney.

These are still the only awards specifically created to recognise and

reward innovative Australians in these critical sectors of our national economy.

For more on the eligibility criteria or to submit an entry for the LAND FORCES Industry Innovation Awards go to: www.landforces.com.au.

The 2018 award winners included: National Innovation Award: Boeing Defence Australia – for developing the Currawong Battlespace Communications System, a mobile, scalable system that provides huge transfer capacity of voice, graphics, video and text data needed to support real-time situational awareness for deployed commanders and their staff.

SME Innovation Grant: Droneshield – for developing the lightweight DroneGun Tactical, designed to counter hostile or threatening UAVs by jamming their control signals.

Young Innovator Scholarship: Mr Angus Bean – Industrial designer (and now Chief Technology Officer) at Droneshield, who led the design team that created the DroneGun Tactical and other miniaturised counter-UAV products.

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Downer awarded Defence Innovation Hub contract for Muskito Downer Defence Systems (DDS) awarded a $3 million contract through Australia’s Defence Innovation Hub to partner with several companies to deliver the Muskito capability for LAND 154 Phase 4.

“Muskito is an integrated Counter Improvised Explosive Device (CIED) concept that will use autonomous systems and machine learning to detect threats above the ground and below the surface, and then flag them to an operator via a visual interface,” said Downer Defence Systems’ Executive General Manager, Andrew Foster.

“It is part of the capability requirements for Army’s LAND 154 Phase 4 – the Joint Counter Improvised Explosive Device Capability Project,” he said.

The Defence Innovation Hub contract will see DDS working as the Prime Systems Integrator with Australian industry partners Urban Circus, EPE, and Insitu Pacific to develop a Muskito prototype and then deliver a technology demonstration for Defence.

“IEDs and other related threats have been the scourge of Australian and allied service personnel in their operations overseas in recent decades, and we are grateful to be given an opportunity to play a role in helping to mitigate that threat,” Foster said.

“This contract underscores the Government’s commitment to working with industry to create genuine and sustainable sovereign industrial capability. The future of the defence industry is about being self-reliant and creating enduring employment opportunities for Australians,” he said.

Downer Defence Systems will act as Prime Systems Integrator and implement its Machine Learning capabilities in the detection of surface and subsurface threats, and provide overall project management to integrate the technology into the Muskito Mission System.

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As partners, Urban Circus will develop the system that converts the sensor data into a visual reference for the operator, and Insitu Pacific will deliver the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that will integrate with the unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) to provide tactical data.

Partner EPE will draw upon its Force Protection, CIED and Route Clearance domain expertise to support the initial conduct of a concept of operations workshop. EPE will supply innovation and integration support aligned to the provision of the HDT Hunter Wolf UGV, the Cobham Ground Penetrating Radar and a number of other technical systems.

Dr Ben Guy, Chief Executive Officer of Urban Circus, said: “The future of work is to work visually. As an Australian owned and operated global leader in 3D visual systems, we are delighted to be working with Downer and Defence with this important work.”

“EPE is very pleased to partner with Downer and the Defence Innovation Hub on the Muskito program, which aligns perfectly with our focus on the delivery of Force Protection solutions,” said EPE’s Managing Director, Warwick Penrose.

“The Muskito Program will harness EPE’s CIED domain expertise, technology partners and innovative engineering to deliver a sovereign Australian capability that will protect ADF personnel deployed in nonpermissive operational environments,” he said.

“During the time we supported the ADF with unmanned aerial ISR services in Iraq and Afghanistan, our team witnessed the destructive and devastating effects of IEDs,” said Insitu Pacific’s Managing Director, Andrew Duggan, “we welcome the opportunity to be part of this Australian team to develop a worldclass counter improvised threat solution.”

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DEFENCE Nova Systems to deliver Land Engineering Uplift project for NZDF Nova Systems awarded New Zealand Defence Force contract to deliver the Land Engineering Uplift project to build, grow and support military capability within the defence force.

After completing initial work to develop a suite of Land Engineering Policy documents for the NZDF, Nova Systems announced on 18 February that it had been awarded the contract to deliver the next phase.

“The NZDF wants to develop the Land Engineering environment into a world-class, contemporary system that provides clarity and commonality across the defence force,” said Ade Morris, Nova Systems Senior Systems Engineer and Project Lead.

“Nova Systems knows the defence business and we know how critical an effective Design Control System is in supporting the complex defence mission.

In an early March LinkedIn post, and just a fortnight after its Land Engineering announcement, Nova announced its appointment as a supplier to the New Zealand Ministry of Defence Technical and Support Service Panel.

“Nova’s appointment to the panel builds on our ongoing support to New Zealand and acknowledges our deep in-country expertise in Operational Concept definition, Systems Engineering, and Test and Evaluation across all the domains,” stated the post.

“The work we do will ensure there is rigour around all elements of the Land Engineering and Maintenance Support System (LEMSS), assuring the safety and effectiveness of NZDF equipment.

“What we will deliver is an end-to-end, seamless document 22

structure traceable from the Chief of Defence Force to all elements of Land Engineering and Maintenance Support System to include policy, processes and procedures, authorised and published.”

This project draws on Nova Systems history of providing Systems Assurance support in New Zealand and Australia to customers operating complex systems across Defence and Industry.

“The Land Engineering Policy Development Project was delivered within two months and on budget; this was an enormous effort which created an eight-chapter, 83-page, technical document,” said Lieutenant

Colonel Brian Mills, NZDF Director Land Engineering Defence Logistics Command. “Nova Systems provided outstanding services in terms of quality, timeliness and customerresponsiveness.”

“This is a really exciting opportunity to continue working closely with the NZDF to solve the complex challenges they are facing in the Land Engineering space,” added Geoff Comber, Nova Systems NZ General Manager.

“We look forward to continuing this partnership and to provide outcomes that are above expectation,” he said.

Nova Systems is a New Zealand company specialising in the provision of engineering and management services, supporting New Zealand’s Defence Force and Government since 2014.

Nova provides industry and government with independent expertise in delivering complex projects and solving technologically challenging problems. Its in-country New Zealand team is made up of exdefence personnel with professional knowledge and expertise in specialist areas directly related to defence systems.

Nova Systems is a member of the New Zealand Defence Industry Association (NZDIA), and has been nominated three times for the Minister of Defence Award of Excellence to Industry.

Geoff Comber, General Manager Nova Systems NZ.

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Airbus Australia Pacific extends support partnership with NZDF Airbus signs Provision of Air MRO Services: Service Block 2 agreement with NZDF to continue its Blenheim-based P3, C130 and SH-2 maintenance support.

Airbus Australia Pacific announced on 5th February that it had entered into an agreement with the NZDF to deliver Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul support to at least 2022.

Building on the success of its long-term partnership with the New Zealand Defence Force, Airbus has secured the work plan for the next two years of P3 Orion, C130 Hercules and SH-2 Seasprite maintenance activities, based in Blenheim. More than 200 Airbus employees work in New Zealand, in direct support of the NZDF. “The ongoing trust placed in us by the New Zealand Government is testament to the commitment and long-term view of our Kiwi teams in delivering for our customers, every day,” said Andrew Mathewson, Managing Director Airbus Australia Pacific.

“New Zealand’s Defence Force is agile in their operations, and we are proud to work alongside them in their daily activities. As they look to transition their Air Force fleets in the years to come, Airbus will be there to provide support.”

This agreement follows Airbus’ 28 January signing of a contract to provide a digital services focus for the maintenance of the Air Refueling Boom System (ARBS) on the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) KC-30A Multi-Role Tanker Transport (A330 MRTT) fleet.

Based on the Airbus suite of digital services SmartForce, this service is intended to support the operator in reducing maintenance costs and improving fleet availability by optimising the fault diagnosis and troubleshooting tasks for the ARBS of the tanker aircraft, based on data analytics applications.

The Central Data System allows operators to draw on the flight data recorded by the Mission Recording System and provides information outputs about issues registered during the flight and recommended maintenance actions to fix them.

Within the KC-30A Enterprise, the Central Data System is a joint development built upon a long-standing collaboration among Airbus, the Commonwealth of Australia and the Australian KC-30A Through Life Support (TLS) provider Northrop Grumman Australia, in sharing data and defining the architecture of the system.

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Future proposed development of the capability will allow customers who apply this technology to their fleet to be able to extend the ARBS analytics to entire aircraft level diagnostics.

“Since the launch of SmartForce in 2018, Airbus is fully committed to support the digital initiatives of our customers,” said Stephan Miegel, Head of Military Aircraft Services at Airbus Defence and Space.

“The Central Data System delivers a significant capability benefit for the KC-30A aircraft and demonstrates the strong commitment within the KC-30A enterprise to innovation and improvement,” commented RAAF Group Captain Scott Parry, Officer Commanding Heavy Air Lift Systems Program Office.

SmartForce is a suite of services enabling military operators to exploit aircraft data to improve troubleshooting, optimise maintenance effort, predict maintenance actions and plan smartly for material demand and improving the fleet availability. SmartForce capitalises on the new power of big data analytics coupled to secured connectivity to maximize mission readiness.

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DEFENCE Information Domain: Workforce models for the information age During NZDIA’s IDEAS2020 Part One, Defence told industry its input was needed to deliver the Information Domain – and designing new Defence operating and business models fit for the information age.

As an exercise in early engagement, last year’s IDEAS 2020 Part One was roundly lauded for providing industry with an opportunity to be involved from the starting blocks in discussions around a range of new Information Domain capability areas.

The initiative was itself an acknowledgement of the centrality of industry to the mission of standing up the new information domain.

By the end of the event, Ministry of Defence and NZDF Information Domain Directors had left industry with the challenge of answering key questions around the future Defence Operating Model: What types of operating models, relationship models and workforce models are needed to support the new domain?

Industry’s responses to these questions are detailed in the NZDIA’s soon-to-be-released consolidated IDEAS 2020 Insights Package, and in the presentations and transcripts available in the members-only area of the NZDIA website.

In this article, we feature an excerpt from the Insights Package that explores how in IDEAS 2020 Part Two industry and academia responded to the call to provide its ideas around future Defence workforce models.

Future workforce models According to former MOD Information Domain Director Nick Gillard, because Defence is looking at new ways of doing business, it is focussed on good workforce 24

modelling, and it believes that industry has a role to play in helping the organisation to achieve this.

“From a workforce perspective, it’s a competitive market out there – we are just but one organisation across government and across the private and public sectors, who are looking for these skillsets and these people,” he said during IDEAS 2020 Part One. “Will the ‘cyber-warrior’ look different? Are they deployable? Are they New Zealand based? Are they uniformed? Are they civilian? All these kinds of questions are up for discussion.”

He called on industry to help Defence to articulate its point of difference within the skills and labour market, to help in terms of organisational design and the policies and processes that will enable the NZDF to recruit, retain, and remunerate for the information future.

Digital and Data literacy In his presentation, Constantine Macris, instructor of cyber systems of the United States Coast Guard Academy, cites leading US cryptographer Bruce Schneier’s 2013 warning that the world was moving towards an age of ‘digital feudalism’.

“We don’t have this intimate relationship with the technology that we use every day, Macris explains, “and because of that, it’s become unattainable.” This increasingly compels us to align ourselves with digital feudal lords who “take something in exchange for providing

you protection in a dangerous and complicated digital world.”

Alex Matthews from Xequals believes that digital literacy is no longer optional. He echoes Macris’ sentiments in relation to the severing of humans’ relationship with technology. “The divide in technical knowledge, in leadership, and in management is becoming more and more accentuated and stressed as the world relies more and more on digital systems.”

According to Jordan Morrow, Global Head of Data Literacy for Qlik, despite 92 percent of business decision makers saying that it’s important for employees to be data literate, only 17 percent are encouraging or strongly encouraging change.

Qlik’s study found that only one in four decision makers are confident in their data literacy skill set, and one in three C-level leaders are confident. At entry level it’s about one in five.

“If we are lacking those data literacy skills as an organisation how can we confidently say to ourselves we are data-driven?” Morrow asks. “How can we even evolve our culture to be data-driven if the workforce is not comfortable using data?”

From the cybersecurity perspective, Checkpoint Software Technologies’ Ashwin Ram makes the point that basic awareness training constitutes a security control that addresses a major vulnerability – an organisation’s own people. Given that the majority of malware is delivered via email, it’s imperative that “your security Line of Defence

awareness training reflects the latest phishing attacks and educate your users about the latest threat trends.”

The importance of simulation Several IDEAS 2020 Part Two speakers noted the effectiveness of simulation in training enabled by advances in the immersive, experiential technologies of virtual and augmented reality.

Director of the Human Interface Technology Lab at the University of Canterbury, Rob Lindeman, explains that these immersive technologies tend to lead to better situation awareness.

Using a case study centred on Fire and Emergency New Zealand’s (FENZ) Air Attack Supervisor Training Simulator, he comments that the virtual reality high fidelity simulator elicited very similar results to the real world in terms of the variability of trainee heart rates.

Lockheed Martin’s David Fallon notes that in the context of multidomain operations, simulation can enable Defence to “conduct the types of activity you need to have with all of the traditional domains, but [to] also add in the newer domains of the EMS [electromagnetic spectrum], the human cognitive space, and of course space as well.”

Replacing People “Using people as the primary mechanism to fight an automated cyber adversary and refusing to leverage the power of modern software based advanced analytics to fight software based modern cyber threats,” says Major General John A. Davis, “is like bringing a knife to a gunfight.”

President and Chief Financial Officer of Dispel Ian Schmertzler agrees. “Good people with the very best of intentions have been building, procuring, and deploying systems, which are based on a butts-on-seats model, which simply does not remain sustainable, either monetarily or logistically when put under pressure.”

“If we look at intelligence collection at scale, during IDEAS 2020 Part One, the phrase used over and over was, ‘We have not been given any additional staff.’ The solution that had been proposed was to outsource human intelligence and open-source intelligence harvesting to New Zealand based contractors.”

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“We don’t have enough skilled coming out of university,” says Callaghan Innovation’s Vic Crone.

“Now, that’s not entirely a bad idea, but you don’t have to lose control over your intelligence harvesting capabilities. You can now run 3,000 MTD [Moving Target Defence] networks with pattern of life infrastructure supporting them with a single employee.” This isn’t a staffing problem but rather an automation problem, and the market has solutions for it.”

Philip Quade sees things in terms of demand and supply. He considers automation and integration part of the cybersecurity solution because of its potential to decrease the demand side of the equation. “The more that we can use machines and automation to better take care of the mundane or large volume tasks in our network the more it’s going to reduce the demand on people to serve these machines.”

Career Pathways “We don’t have enough skilled coming out of university,” says Callaghan Innovation’s Vic Crone. “So how are you using apprenticeship models in terms of getting people out of school?

How are you using midlife re-skilling programs?”

In many instances, she notes, many people don’t want to work for one organisation. “They love working for multiple organisations, so… how are you sharing that talent rather than saying that you have to own everything – because you don’t have to own it all anymore yourself.”

Acknowledging the defence industry’s diverse, high quality talent pool, and history of training and re-skilling people, Datacom’s David Eaton believes that cybersecurity talent needs to be seen through a trade lens.

He suggests that defence sector organisations create pathways for their own talent for whatever stage people are at – whether they’re students or whether they’re mid-career – to create the cybersecurity talent pool they need.

“Ultimately, I think what I’d like to see happen in the defense sector is that it’s focused on what does a sector response look like for cybersecurity operations. Utilising talent pathways, utilising suppliers that have experience in this like Datacom. What does that look like and how can we make that work and improve the cybersecurity posture across the whole of the sector.”

Palo Alto Networks’ Sean Duca points to his company’s Academy program that develops certified network engineers. The program has accumulated close to a thousand different education partners that provide this as an offering to all of their students, and it’s open to the NZDF to partner with.

Taking an historical perspective, Philip Quade comments on the power of the Guild model to establish a large pool of apprentices, and coach them “until they became eventually journeymen and the very best of them became masters. It’s a great model that we can apply to our cybersecurity domain where we can welcome many, many more people in at the apprentice level.”

“We need to stop automatically putting down computer science degree as a prerequisite for some of these jobs that we’re defining… we need to come up with more people and give people more chances to enter our domain.”

“It used to be that the way you served your country was by putting on a uniform, and that was the recognised and fantastic way to serve your country, says Quade. “But I believe that cybersecurity now is a field that allows us to serve our countries in other ways, specifically to help protect our critical infrastructures, whether it be energy, transportation, water, banks, you name it.”

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DEFENCE

The Next Three Years: Less deployments, less dollars for the NZDF Former Defence Minister Wayne Mapp forecasts a decline in NZDF deployments over the next three years, and less money to spend. For the time being, he writes, deployments and spending should be targeted closer to home.

Hon Dr Wayne Mapp QSO was New Zealand’s Minister of Defence and Minister of Science and Innovation from 2008 to 2011.

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The final withdrawal of NZDF personnel from Afghanistan will take place this May. By then New Zealand will have fewer NZDF personnel on overseas deployment than at any time over the last 25 years. It is therefore timely to look ahead for the next three years, being the current term of this government.

The next three years is likely to be a time of minimal deployments overseas, and also a time of relatively modest defence procurements. Let’s look at each of these in turn.

Over the next three years there will be a lot spoken and written about the rise of China’s military power.

However, China’s rise will not affect NZDF deployments. It is unlikely that New Zealand will join the freedom of navigation exercises in the South China Sea. Other than regular freedom of navigation exercises, China and US tensions will not result in major new deployments in the region, except for a possible build-up of US air and naval assets on their existing bases in Guam and the Northern Marianas.

Although there is already much talk about the military threat to Taiwan, the actual prospects of an invasion are minimal. China does not have the military capability, neither do they have any real incentive to do so. The risks vastly outweigh the gains. Any action, at least within the next five to ten years, will be little more than sabre rattling.

What else could happen that will engage New Zealand?

The situation in the Middle East is unlikely to get worse, certainly not on the scale of the last 20 years. More likely it will remain similar to the present, or in fact, improve. It is likely that Iran-US relations will get better as the US rejoins the Iranian nuclear deal.

In that case, the NZDF is unlikely to be further engaged in Middle East Affairs.

This leaves two scenarios. The first being continuing instability in the Sahel region. New Zealand might contribute a small number of forces under UN auspices. The other scenario is continuing climate and natural disasters in the South Pacific. These tend to be dealt with as they arise and from out of New Zealand.

The South Pacific may well be the forcing issue for the NZDF. Since international deployments outside of the South Pacific are unlikely, there will be an incentive for the NZDF to build skills that are relevant to HADR. There will be opportunities for HADR deployments to provide permanent benefits for the host nations, particularly civil infrastructure for the more remote South Pacific Islands. For instance, an airfield for Tokelau.

There will also be opportunities in New Zealand for the NZDF to expand the range of things they do. The Limited Service Volunteers (LSV) provides military style training to young people who gain from adventurous activity undertaken within a disciplined environment.

The LSV concept could be expanded so it reaches a wider group.

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HMCS Harry DeWolf alongside Halifax Shipyard in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Courses could be shortened but reach deeper into the community, particularly for young people who would never have access to the wide range of activities that military style training can offer.

Defence procurement is likely to be much more limited over the next three years compared to the last three years. The previous Minister, Ron Mark, succeeded in replacing both the C130s and the P3s of the RNZAF. The new aircraft will cost more than $4 billion. Such largesse will not be available in this term of government.

The impact of Covid on government debt levels will be sufficient of itself to prevent such large purchases.

However, the core equipment of the NZDF is not getting any younger. The frigates are approaching 25 years in service. Both have had major upgrades, and they will be expected to remain in service till 2035, when the oldest, HMNZS Te Mana, will be 38 years old.

The Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPV) will also be over 25 years old in 2035.

Planning for their replacement needs to get under way now with actual contracts being let around 2025.

In my last column I argued that the replacement of the frigates and the OPVs, need not be done on a like for like basis, and that combat capable frigates may not be the most suitable ships for New Zealand. It is not only a question of cost; it is also an issue of utility.

Lockheed C-130H Hercules. Photo courtesy RNZAF

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The Canadian Navy and Coast Guard are acquiring eight Arctic capable Harry DeWolf class OPV’s of 6,600 tonnes at a unit cost of C$600 million, which is virtually the same in New Zealand dollars. These are versatile vessels with helicopters and landing craft.

If it was decided that the principal theatre of operations for the RNZN should be the South Pacific, extending from the Antarctic to the Equator, then capable OPVs may be more useful than frigates.

Four vessels of the Harry DeWolf class of OPV could be acquired for the same price as the four P8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft.

The purchase price could be spread over a longer period than the aircraft purchase. The build cycle of the Canadian ship builders would mean the first of the New Zealand vessels would not start till 2028.

A substantial amount of the work could be contracted to New Zealand companies.

Each defence minister has the opportunity to make his or her mark on the portfolio. In these more constrained times, the choices may be more difficult than for previous defence ministers. However, there are some real opportunities for Peeni Henare, though he may need to think more widely than his predecessors needed to do.

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INTERNATIONAL SECURITY New Zealand’s Soft Power: Growing, but does it mean anything?

Aotearoa has been hailed as most improved in Brand Finance’s Global Soft Power Index, climbing six places to 16th in the rankings in the wake of its widely lauded COVID response.

But what does it mean? asks Nicholas Dynon.

The Brand Finance Global Soft Power Index 2021 was launched at a recent Global Soft Power Summit virtual event. Keynoted by former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the summit featured a stellar line-up of former foreign ministers as well as Harvard international relations professor Joseph Nye, the widely acknowledged originator of the soft power concept.

For the 2021 Index, responses from over 75,000 members of the general public in 102 countries were complemented with a survey of 778 experts in over 40 countries, including academics, NGOs, government officials, business leaders, and media.

While Germany took out top place, New Zealand was the fastestimproving nation in the rankings, jumping to 16th place, thanks to positive international perceptions of the way it’s handled COVID. Other notable performances in the rankings include the US, which has lost its position as the world’s soft power superpower – dropping to 6th.

Japan is the top-performing Asian nation and second overall.

Australia is the only new entrant in the top ten as traditional powerhouses – UK, France, China, Russia, India – received mixed reactions to their pandemic responses. Top placed Middle East contender UAE ranked 17th, bolstered by a probe to Mars and its handling of COVID-19.

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New Zealand’s COVID response recognised “In the COVID response, it is fair to say that women leaders did an excellent job,” said Hillary Clinton, “not just in New Zealand and Germany, but in Finland, and in Norway, and in Denmark, and other places where their leadership, exemplified by Angela Merkel and Germany as your number one nation brand for soft power, listened to the science.”

“New Zealand has benefited from Jacinda Ardern’s empathetic leadership throughout the COVID-19 pandemic,” observed Rebecca Smith, Director of New Zealand Story, who was a Global Soft Power Summit panellist.

“Swift and decisive action in shutting borders and enforcing mandatory quarantine left the nation free of COVID-19 for months, while other nations saw daily case rates in the thousands,” wrote Steve Thomson, Insight Director, Brand Finance.

“Perceptions of New Zealand have no doubt been bolstered as nations such as the UK and the US cede their usual place as leaders in public health, with both battling repeated waves of the virus among loosened restrictions and ongoing debates about lockdowns.”

According to Thomson, Aotearoa recorded strong results across the board, with increased scores for almost all of the index’s metrics, with only a slight drop in the areas of ‘Culture & Heritage’ and ‘People & Values’. This strong

result is likely accounted for, he writes, by increased mental availability. With positive global coverage of its COVID response, New Zealand “has likely been at the forefront of the public’s mind and has therefore benefitted from positive associations generated by stories of its pandemic response.”

Prime Minister Jacinda Arden’s leadership, he continues, “is perhaps at the heart of New Zealand’s increased recognition in [the areas of ] Influence, International Relations, and Governance.

In relation to the pandemic, survey respondents were asked to rate how they perceived nations’ handling of COVID-19, and specifically their efforts in stimulating their economies, protecting the health and wellbeing of their citizens, and cooperating internationally, including the provision of aid.

At the other end of the spectrum to New Zealand, ranking at bottom placed 105th is the United States. “With the most cases and COVID-19-related deaths globally,” writes Thomson, “the world’s largest and strongest economy has encountered harsh criticism and questioning on the global stage.”

“The question is if we can recover our soft power, and I think the answer is yes,” commented Global Soft Power Summit panellist, Professor Joseph Nye. “If America continues making progress on vaccines and can get the pandemic under control, coupled Line of Defence

Professor Joseph Nye.

with a sharp economic recovery, then our prospects look good. So, if I were to comment on what the Global Soft Power Index will say next year, I believe the US will be back on an upward trend.”

A soft power aide memoire ‘Soft power’ has become a ubiquitous buzzword for describing the image or ‘non-material’ aspects of a nation’s power relative to other nations, and part of a much-debated way of seeing national power as a combination of hard and soft power.

In his seminal 1990 work, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power, Professor Nye introduced his concept of ‘soft power’ as the power wielded by a state through harnessing the resources of “its culture (in places where it is attractive to others), its political values (when it lives up to them at home and abroad), and its foreign policies (when they are seen as legitimate and having moral authority)”.

In Nye’s conception, a country’s soft power relies on reputation and attractiveness to be effective – it’s about shaping the preferences of others through influence rather than coercion.

The concept contrasts with hard power, which refers to the use of military and economic means to influence the behaviour or interests of other actors – coercion as opposed to attraction. Hard power seeks outcomes through a carrot or stick approach Line of Defence

as opposed to agreement, whereas soft power aims at outcomes through understanding and acceptance of another’s policies or position. It’s about winning hearts and minds.

In the cut and thrust of the international system, however, soft power is dismissed or minimised by many international relations commentators as little more than branding. They would suggest, for example, that the US’ woeful performance in 2021 soft power rankings means little against that country’s continued hard power (economic and military) dominance.

It’s important to note that Nye’s is not the only conception of soft power, and Brand Finance’s Global Soft Power Index is not the only soft power metric. Other well-known indices include the UK-based Institute for Government and Monocle Magazine’s Monocle Soft Power Survey and London-based Portland Communications and University of Southern California Center on Public Diplomacy’s Portland Soft Power 30.

Further complicating the soft power rankings space is the existence of several other indices in the related fields of nation branding and country reputation management, which measure similar – yet distinct – aspects of a country’s international image.

Country reputation management is largely the domain of public relations consultancies, which extend the methodologies of corporate reputation management to the reputations of nations and governments. Nation branding, on the other hand, is a sub-discipline of marketing that aims at maximising a country’s brand relevance and value among global consumers.

In contrast to these, the concept of soft power is a product of neoliberal thinking in international relations, yet the lines between soft power and its close nation branding and country reputation cousins are blurry, and the terms are often used interchangeably.

Perhaps nowhere is the overlap more obvious than in the case of Brand Finance’s Global Soft Power Index itself – a purported measurement of soft power delivered by consultancy better known for branding metrics.

There’s a lot of overlap, but the basic distinction between soft power, nation brand and country reputation can be explained: while nation brand is concerned primarily with which countries you’d prefer to buy from or visit, and soft power with which countries you are most influenced and impressed by, country reputation is about which countries you are more likely to trust.

Does soft power matter?

“A strong nation brand and positive soft power perceptions allow a nation to promote itself as a place for people to visit, invest in, and build a reputation for their quality of goods and services,” writes Brand Finance’s Thomson. It also allows a country to rise in the esteem of its neighbours, market its resources and compose the face it presents on the international stage.

“However, it is often overlooked that a strong nation brand and soft power can deliver better outcomes at home. Primarily it encourages domestic tourism, the consumption of domestic goods and services (rather than imports). Less tangibly it also just makes people feel better about their country.”

Thomson also points out that a nation’s attractiveness and soft power can impact most brands and businesses – “especially those with very clear national origins and associations.”

According to Nye, the potential utility of soft power extends well beyond branding, trade, tourism and international likeability.

A state is more able to influence others, he argues, if it is perceived as credible and its policies as attractive.

Support for policies gained through the exercise of soft power, for example, can assist in the building of international military coalitions and alliances. It can assist in the taking of the moral high ground, and thus can support a state in exercising its instruments of hard power.

Ultimately, Nye argues that soft power is “a means to success in world politics” for those that know how to leverage it. With New Zealand flying high in soft power rankings, the now relevant question becomes how will New Zealand leverage it – and do we know how to?

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INTERNATIONAL SECURITY Treaty of Waitangi and foreign policy In this excerpt from her inaugural foreign policy speech to the diplomatic corps, Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta explains the connections between the Treaty of Waitangi and New Zealand’s foreign policy.

Te Tiriti and foreign policy I am reminded that the expectation imbued in our founding document sets out the framework between the Crown and Māori for mana (respect and authority) to be recognised and kawanatanga (governance) to be exercised in a manner that would affirm tino rangatiratanga (sovereign authority) so that all people can prosper.

The principles of partnership and mutual respect embodied in the Treaty provide the foundation for how New Zealand can conduct its foreign policy.

Our Treaty experience has taught lessons about managing and creating enduring relationships. Embracing differing world views can assist to address the complex issues of social exclusion, civil and racial unrest, inequity and poverty.

The pathway to finding solutions in the international domain can be rocky, just as reconciliation here has had its challenges, twists and turns.

We understand that a societal culture based on shared understanding, the blending of different perspectives, diversity of thought and actions taken towards nationbuilding are important building blocks for peace and prosperity.

The same is true, I believe, for diplomacy.

Outcomes will be stronger and more enduring if they are built through dialogue, shared understanding, and taking account of a range of diverse perspectives.

Aotearoa New Zealand’s identity is drawn from our Polynesian heritage. I call it “tirohanga Maori”, or a Māori world view, with its vibrant culture and deep affinity with the natural world.

Then there are the Western institutions on which our country is founded that aligns New Zealand internationally.

As New Zealand has grown to understand its unique and independent identity, so too has our sense of responsibility.

We can offer a mature approach to dialogue aimed at progressing regional and global priorities, which is, born from a cultural perspective.

It is my intention to take a values-based approach to foreign policy and work collectively in pursuit of our core interests, which include: • an international rules based order, which gives all countries a voice and provides frameworks that promote stability; 30

Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta

• keeping New Zealanders safe, promoting regional stability; • international conditions and connections that aid our prosperity, including supply chain resilience; and • global action on sustainability issues such as climate change where solutions depend on international cooperation.

Upholding special responsibilities in the Realm and Antarctica are also core elements of our foreign policy.

We are in Te Pēwhairangi – the Bay of Islands – the place where the signing of New Zealand’s first international treaty occurred.

It confirms our enduring commitment to the importance of international rules and institutions.

Kororareka – Russell reminds us that it was a staging post where some of New Zealand’s earliest international trade relations were formed.

We each have our own story but the institutions, rules, trade conditions and relationships form the foundation of our foreign policy.

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Asia Pacific Security Innovation Summit returns to Queenstown Asia-Pacific Security Innovation Forum (APSI) continues its series of annual eponymous summits with the Asia Pacific Security Innovation Summit 2021 to be held in Queenstown on 7-8 April.

Envisaged as a forum for discussion on regional security issues, and as a platform for the development of innovative problem-solving approaches, the APSI summits aim to contribute to the development of relationships in the AsiaPacific region that are more resilient to both external and internal shocks, and thus more safe and secure.

This year’s discussion will be focused on how to strengthen security resilience through partnerships and alliances.

The first APSI summit took place in Rotorua in April 2019 and saw the participation of a host of highly qualified speakers on a wide range of issues affecting the security environment in the Asia Pacific region and beyond. The second Summit, held last year in Queenstown, featured an international speaker line-up that included Lieutenant General Olivier Rittimann, General Andre Lanata and Major General Gert-Johannes Hagemann.

With several speakers participating virtually, the agenda for this year’s summit features: • Opening remarks by Lieutenant General Olivier Rittimann, NATO Defense College, Italy.

• Security Challenges and Strategic Arms Reduction: Guy Roberts, Former US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, Biological Defense Programs; and Hunter Stires, Fellow at Hattendorf Center for Maritime Historical Research, US Naval War College.

• Non-traditional security threats and their impact: MAJGEN (Ret) John Hartley AO, Institute Director and CEO at Future Directions International, Australia.

• Addressing contemporary threats to national security: Simon O’Connor, Member of Parliament; and Nicholas Dynon, Chief Editor of Line of Defence Magazine.

• Implications of hybrid threats for the Australian Defence Force: AVM (Ret) Dr Andrew Dowse AO, Edith Cowan University, Director Defence Research and Engagement, Australia.

• Strengthening Security Resiliency Through Partnerships and Alliances: GEN Paolo Ruggiero, Italian Army, Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Transformation.

• Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific Vision: Providing a path for peace and security in the region: COL Shigehiro Noshita, Japanese Defence Attaché to Papua New Guinea and Army Attaché to Australia, Fiji and New Zealand.

• Conflict and Resolution: CCP’s aggressive moves in Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir: MAJGEN Ravi Line of Defence

LTGEN Olivier Rittimann, NATO Defense College.

Arora, CEO and Chief Editor Indian Military Review.

• Regional security and Indo-Pacific, Taiwan’s Perspective: Bill Chen, Representative from Taiwan.

• Developing host nation capabilities to protect and advance mutually beneficial objectives: LTCOL John Black, US Marine Corps.

• Australia’s pushback and the weaponisation of COVID -19: Professor Sascha Dov Bachmann, University of Canberra.

“The APSI is a timely and dynamic platform for the advancement of defense and security diplomacy,” said Philippines Ambassador to New Zealand Dr Jesus Domingo.

“It uniquely brings together stakeholders from the diplomatic, military and other critical security sectors. APSI is an initiative which contributes to world peace and stability - very much needed in these increasingly uncertain times,” The missions of APSI are to facilitate security cooperation for peace, not war; and to facilitate cooperation on issues of common interest, including the human and social aspects of security; and to enhance awareness of security developments, including through early warning, with a view to preventing crises. For more information, visit https://www.apsisummit.com.

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INTERNATIONAL SECURITY

The Decoding China Dictionary A new dictionary of international relations terms seeks to illustrate how key political words mean different things to Chinese and Western policy makers. It makes for essential foreign policy reading, writes Nicholas Dynon.

Rolling off the virtual press in early March and just in time for the National People’s Congress and the 14th Five Year Plan is The Decoding China Dictionary, a guide to understanding the Chinese meaning of key terms in international relations and development cooperation.

Published by the Swedish Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law and co-authored by a group of China specialists, the dictionary tackles a selection of frequently used terms that mean very different things when used

by China and EU states, both how they are defined and their underlying political priorities and values.

“Does China mean the same as the West when talking about democracy, cooperation, or human rights? We explain these and 12 more core terms of international relations,” stated contributor Marina Rudyak, a China scholar at Heidelberg University, in a recent tweet.

“The intended users of the dictionary are policy-makers and institutions in Europe who are engaged in dialogue and exchanges with China,” wrote editors Malin Oud and Katja Drinhausen in an introduction to the dictionary. “It is our hope that this dictionary will serve as a point of reference for strategy development and communication with Chinese counterparts.

New Zealand needs to up its game The dictionary’s editors point out that Europe’s recognition of China’s rise to global-power status “has not been matched by much investment in knowledge about the country.” The 32

numbers of students taking Chinese languages or area studies at European universities are falling, and there has been no growth in the number of European diplomats and policy-makers proficient in Chinese.

It’s a problem that also afflicts New Zealand. Several years ago, former Executive Director of the New Zealand China Council Pat English stated, “there are only two students learning Chinese for every $1 million of our exports to China, compared to 63 for French. Just 4,218 New Zealand secondary students studied Chinese in 2014, compared to more than 20,000 who studied French.

A 2018 report prepared for the New Zealand China Council

by Professor Martin East of the University of Auckland noted there had been improvement. He identified strong growth in students studying Chinese, but that the growth slowed in secondary school.

“Growth is evident in both the numbers of students taking Chinese and the number of schools offering Chinese”, he stated, which supported the assertion made at that time that Chinese had become the most popular language taught in New Zealand primary/intermediate schools.”

Chinese is a challenging language to learn for a range of linguistic reasons, and rates of student attrition are significant. Very few continue Mandarin studies on to university, and fewer still ever gain the competence to engage with the language at the deep level needed to interpret the complex policy concepts that inform Beijing’s terminological cannon.

Managed out of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the China Capable Public Sector (CCPS) programme is an initiative to develop a China-savvy New Zealand public sector.

The CCPS’s China Capable Public Sector Masterclass, a fiveday programme facilitated by the New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre (NZCCRC), is recognised as an essential programme for developing New Zealand public sector capability.

The masterclass will convene this year on 12-16 April, 16-20 August and 1-5 November, and will feature Australian Sinologist Geremie Barmé as a keynote speaker. Barmé developed the idea of ‘New Sinology’ as a model for studying China, a model that stresses the importance of the ability to read, write and speak Chinese for true China literacy.

But how well positioned is New Zealand’s policy making ecosystem in terms of true China literacy? Is the bench deep enough to provide for a multitude of China-literate voices to meaningfully debate and develop good China-focused policy independent from our betterresourced allies and strategic partners?

“That expertise is needed more than ever,” assert the dictionary’s editors. “Chinese ideas are increasingly making their way into UN documents, where international norms and principles such as the rule of law, human rights and democracy are imbued with new meaning and “Chinese characteristics”.

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THE DECODING CHINA DICTIONARY! !

EDITED BY MALIN OUD AND KATJA DRINHAUSEN Changing meaning According to editors Malin Oud and Katja Drinhausen, any of the concepts discussed in the dictionary filtered into the Chinese official CCP language in the decades of ‘reform and opening’ that commenced in 1979. In the 1980s and 90s there was a prevailing sense among Western commentators that reform and opening would lead to a convergence of values.

“When Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997, it was hoped that a further convergence of values and systems would occur. And indeed, the term human rights was introduced in the Chinese Constitution in 2004, hailed as a new era of constitutional rights protection. Democracy, freedom and the rule of law are now Line of Defence

part of the canon of core socialist values being promoted under Xi Jinping.”

“At the same time, these concepts have undergone a major revamp to make them compatible with the CCP’s political and ideological system. Under Xi, measures to define and safeguard a Chinese value system not reliant on liberal ideas have intensified.”

As the dictionary’s editors point out, Chinese officials are now told to guard against constitutional democracy, universal values and civil society in their liberal sense, and that liberal or “Western” values are a threat to China’s unity and political stability.

According to Oud and Drinhausen, China’s rise in a multipolar world means increasing competition over international values and standards.

“The rules-based world order and multilateralism rely on a global consensus on what the norms underpinning the international system entail. When the meaning of terms like the rule of law, human rights, democracy and sovereignty become blurred, international norms are undermined.”

“To enable informed engagement with their Chinese counterparts, European actors need to be able to understand the official Chinese meaning of frequently invoked concepts and key terms in international relations and development cooperation.”

For the same reason, The Decoding China Dictionary would be a worthwhile addition to New Zealand Government foreign policy reading lists.

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HOMELAND SECURITY Policing by consent is not ‘woke’ — it is fundamental to a democratic society Policing by consent – rather than by punitive approaches – is entirely in step with the fundamental ethos of democratic policing, writes Massey University Associate Professor Bethan Greener in The Conversation.

Bethan Greener is Associate Professor in Politics at Massey University. Her books include The New International Policing (2009), Internal Security and Statebuilding: Aligning Agencies and Functions (with W.J. Fish in 2015) and an edited collection Army Fundamentals: From Making Soldiers to the Limits of the Military Instrument (2017).

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National Party justice spokesperson Simon Bridges has accused New Zealand Police Commissioner Andrew Coster of being a “wokester” whose commitment to “policing by consent” is out of step with the law.

The claims were in response to Coster’s avowed belief that police need to engage with the community in a nuanced manner, which includes the wider principle of policing by consent.

Coster has also recently said the police “can’t arrest our way out of the gang problem”.

But Bridges should know consent is a fundamental requirement for democratic policing. In the absence of public consent, we would have an occupying force, not a police force.

Modern police forces in liberal democratic states are a recent creation.

Unlike the standing armies that formed alongside the sovereign state in the 1600s, policing (at least in the way we understand it in Western democracies) came late to the fray.

Policing by consent As European monarchs struggled to imbue diverse regional groups with a sense of nationalism and national loyalty, countries such as France, Spain and Italy created a more militarised and mobile “continental” model of policing. These utilised “gens d’armes” — armed people — to establish constabulary forces.

In the UK, however, a different model of policing evolved. In the early 1800s, citing disorder and rising crime, British Home Secretary Robert Peel argued for the creation of a unified

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the centrality of these principles to their work and ethos.

As well as Commissioner Coster, Police Association president Chris Cahill has directly referenced Peelian principles in emphasising the importance of consent: Of Peel’s nine principles, I believe the second to be the most important and the foundation of a fair and accepted police service – “to recognise always that the power of the police to fulfil their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour, and the ability to secure and maintain public respect”.

Sir Robert Peel

policing force that would seek to use minimum force to maintain law and order.

A nine-point summary of Peel’s 1829 instructions captures his core principles, including an emphasis on the need to prevent crime and disorder.

Seven of the principles emphasise, in different ways, the need for the public to approve of and co-operate with the police for them to successfully carry out their mission.

This is the heart of the concept of policing by consent: the public as a whole gives consent to the idea that some members of the community are trusted to have and exercise the powers required to keep the peace on behalf of the community.

Robert Peel’s legacy These ideas were taken further by the UK’s first police commissioners, Charles Rowan and Richard Mayne, who were charged with developing a metropolitan police force for London.

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England was a constitutional monarchy, with a representative assembly, which meant attempts to build a police force had to secure the passage of the requisite bills through parliament, as well as overcome any public scepticism.

Rowan and Mayne therefore made concerted attempts to secure the legitimacy of their nascent police force in the eyes of the populace. In time, this process led to the ideal of the English police officer – the “British Bobby” who lives in, protects and serves their community.

This idea of consent remains fundamental to policing in the UK as well as the countries that adopted this Peelian model, including New Zealand.

So the police have, at least in theory, always been based on a philosophy of policing by consent.

This is not new or “woke”. It is nonetheless interesting that the New Zealand police have recently reiterated

Approval and consent Yet while the police in New Zealand have typically enjoyed strong approval ratings, it is also clear this has differed across various communities.

The New Zealand Police is the descendant of the Armed Constabulary that played a role fighting against certain iwi in the 19th-century colonial wars rather than providing them with a citizen-based consensual police system.

Contemporary statistics still show an imbalance in policing of and for Māori. Prominent Māori activists have long called for and continue to call for reform of the justice system as a whole.

Coster’s emphasis on thoughtfully engaging with different communities appears to be an attempt to ensure all parts of New Zealand society approve of the police, and consent to be policed by them.

Moreover, recent research into justice and policing suggests that heavily punitive approaches, except in very select cases, are expensive and counter-productive. Research also increasingly demonstrates that incarceration does not significantly affect crime and disorder statistics.

An agency that is, to quote Bridges, “much less about arrest, much less about catching gangs and criminals”, but which is more about preventing criminality in the first place, is therefore entirely in step with the fundamental ethos of democratic policing.

This article was originally published on The Conversation and is republished here under a Creative Commons — Attribution/No derivatives license.

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HOMELAND SECURITY Women in Security: Cyber trail blazer Kendra Ross Kendra Ross has spent decades at the forefront of the New Zealand cybersecurity industry, writes Joanna Mathers, and the sector is all the better – and more diverse – for it.

Kendra Ross is General Manager at Duo, a division of Sektor. She is cofounder of the 1st Tuesday security professionals’ network and its offshoot, Project Wednesday.

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When the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) suffered a data breach in January this year, the media had a field day. The news that a thirdparty provider, “secure” file sharing provider Acellion, had been hacked was met with consternation from many, as commercial and personal data was accessed by cyber criminals.

While RBNZ wasn’t the target itself, the fact that such a seemingly locked-down organisation could be so readily compromised was a wake-up call: none of us are safe from online criminal activity.

Kendra Ross, general manager of online security distributor Duo and cofounder of cyber security professional support group 1st Tuesday Security Network, is well versed in this type of breach. She’s been in the cybersecurity game decades and understands the huge amounts of damage that can be caused when cyber criminals get through the walls of digital security.

“Cybercrime can have a devastating effect on business and individuals,” she says.

“As an example, we’ve recently seen people affected by crimes involving fake invoices, with losses ranging from several hundred to half a million dollars. And due to the privacy law requirements, we are hearing more about this than ever before.”

In dollar terms, the global figure of cybercrime numbers in the trillions.

And it’s becoming the crime of choice for organised crime rings – it’s safer than drugs and often far more profitable.

For Ross, cybersecurity is as much a passion as a career. A university drop-out (she didn’t enjoy the theory and wanted something practical to sink her teeth into) her first job was a sales support role at Epson.

But she’s always been a “geek at heart” and started wholesale technology distributor Duo with a business partner in 1996. They soon saw opportunities for expansion to Australia, but this wasn’t to be a success.

“We made loads of mistakes. We were trying to work remotely, but we didn’t understand the Australian market, the different rules of each state, and this was all happening around the time of the GFC. It almost sent us bankrupt. We had to shrink our business from 18 to three.”

But the self-proclaimed “dyslexic thinker” wasn’t to be defeated that easily. Looking around for new opportunities, talking to customers, partners and end users, she discovered that cyber-crime was emerging as a major threat.

So, Ross set about investigating ways in which her business could pivot to create opportunities in the underserviced sector.

The answer came in the form of IronKey. An encrypted USB flashdrive, funded by Homeland Security and the FBI. Duo gained the rights to distribute the product, and soon garnered an excellent reputation in the field.

Concurrently, Ross started to look for ways in which to broaden Line of Defence

the company’s portfolio in the space, seeking a group that may offer ideas and support. Sadly, there wasn’t one.

In 2008, when Duo released IronKey, cyber-security was still in its infancy in New Zealand. Technology was developing apace, and cybercrime alongside it, but there wasn’t an official (or any) industry body or group where people could share their knowledge. Ross decided to remedy this.

1stTuesday Security Network offered a space for IT security professionals to share knowledge and learn from experts in the field. Now in its 12th year, the growth of 1st Tuesday mirrors the growth of the cybersecurity industry as a whole.

“When we started, we would get about 20-30 people attending each month,” she explains. “Now we get over 100 people every month.”

Just as the size of 1st Tuesday reflects the industry nationwide, so does the gender makeup. The group (and its offshoot Project Wednesday, started for those who are new to the industry and to cater for the overflow from 1st Tuesday) is approximately 20 percent female.

This percentage is possibly higher than the industry wide numbers, which Ross claims sit at around the 10 percent mark: “Diversity is something the industry lacks.”

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This is significant, both for gender equality and cyber security as a whole.

Ross refers to cyber-security executive Jane Frankland’s book InSecurity, which she views as an astute analysis of the current male-dominated paradigm.

“InSecurity puts forward the argument that lack of diversity makes us all less safe,” says Ross.

It postulates that women and men are fundamentally different: women are more risk averse, compliant with rules, and embracing of technology changes than men. She also claims that women have more intuition, plus the ability to remain calm in times of crisis.

The upshot of this is, in Frankland’s view, that a lack of women in cybersecurity roles equals greater risk of threats being realised – to the detriment of all.

It’s not just gender diversity that matters in the cybersecurity industry, Ross says. In a world where millions of attacks occur every minute, ethnic diversity and diversity of thought are also vital.

“If you just have one type of person working in cyber-security, they will be missing things that people with different ways of thinking may identify,” says Ross.

She says the role, while often seen as tech-heavy, actually requires thinkers of all sorts.

“We have seen people coming into our company with degrees in music, marketing people who are skilled at messaging and storytelling. There are so many different roles in cybersecurity, and there is a huge skills shortage across the world.”

The past year has been uniquely challenging for all of us, and further outlined the need to a robust workforce that tackles cybercrime.

With Covid-19 necessitating remote work, cyber security threats widened significantly.

Digital transformations that may have been in the pipeline were fastforwarded as work moved from the office to home.

But the speed with which this was expediated opened up organisations to major security threats, with sensitive information being shared to remote devices that didn’t have the appropriate layers of protection.

Ross says that the pandemic highlighted just how underinvested many organisations and individuals have been in cybersecurity. The convergence of physical and the digital with the development of internet of things (IoT) has compounded this.

For canny cyber criminals, there are opportunities everywhere.

The classic Kiwi “she’ll be right” attitude extends to cybersecurity, she 37

HOMELAND SECURITY

says. “A lot of people make the mistake of thinking they are too small to be a target, but what they don’t realise is that they might be part of the supply chain; that cyber-criminals might be using them to get to a much bigger target.”

“You see people setting up IoT devices with their default user names and passwords, and not changing them. People at all levels, including consumers, need to come to the party and be aware of the importance of protecting their information.”

Covid-19 also highlighted just what data was important for organisations.

“A lot of businesses don’t know what their ‘crown jewels’ are when it comes to data. This is a big part of what Duo does, working out which data is the most important and how to protect it.”

Ross says that New Zealand’s cybersecurity landscape has been greatly enhanced by the development of Cert NZ, established in 2016. The national Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) is part of an international network that provides information and advice around cyber risks, as well as 38

collating risk reports and presenting them in a quarterly publication.

The most CERT recent report from the third quarter of 2020 showed no let-up in malicious online activity: in fact, the opposite. In Q3 cyber-attacks rose by 33 percent. There was $6.4m of direct financial loss (up a whopping 255 percent from Q2) reported.

Phishing led the activity, with 1064 reports; followed by malware then scams and frauds. Individuals, organisations, and IT professionals are all able to report to CERT. The threats are increasing, but the perennial skills shortage means that many of these can slip through the gap. Ross says that this is the biggest issue within the industry, and she is committed to educating people around the possibilities of this as a career.

Ross is involved with Year 13 students; educating them around the opportunities to be found in the cyber security sector.

“There are so many different roles in the sector, including nontechy roles. We get students together in a room with partners across New Zealand (including Ernst and Young,

Deloitte, Trade Me, and many others) and get grads to talk about a day in the life of a cybersecurity professional.”

When it comes to women and cybersecurity, Ross is passionate about the opportunities it offers.

“Women have the opportunity to blaze their own trail. We are still pioneers,” she says.

She admits that working in such a male dominated industry comes with some challenges, but these can be surmounted.

“You do need to have resilience and a good support network. And there are great women in security groups where women in the sector can find help and advice from people in the same industry.”

Duo was bought out by business tech company Sektor in July 2019, but Ross continues to head Duo as general manager. In 2016 she was granted a Massey University sponsored New Thinking gold award; she was also asked to be a guest speaker at a graduation ceremony for the university.

“I thought it was very good of them, seeing that I didn’t actually complete my degree!” she laughs.

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13 - 14 April 2021 | Vodafone Events Centre, Auckland

TOP 3 REASONS TO ATTEND: • Be at the forefront of the latest concepts and technologies related to border security and safety in public spaces • Leading experts share on the delivery of security, health & safety at quarantine facilities • Keeping up the momentum on key counter-terrorism issues and strengthening international cooperation and collaboration

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HOMELAND SECURITY Crowded Places Strategy: from development to implementation Recent discussions between New Zealand Police and the New Zealand Security Association around Protecting our Crowded Places from Attack: New Zealand’s Strategy is a positive development, writes Nicholas Dynon.

Nicholas Dynon is chief editor of Line of Defence Magazine, and a widely published commentator on New Zealand’s defence, national security and private security sectors.

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Published by Police on 17 September 2020, Protecting our Crowded Places from Attack: New Zealand’s Strateg y forms part of the New Zealand Counter Terrorism Strategy, also published in 2020 by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Recent engagement between Police and the NZSA is unprecedented, yet has been welcomed by the security industry. There is no history of ongoing liaison between Police and the NZSA, and no established mechanism for engagement. No input had been sought by Police from the NZSA or the private security sector in the formulation of the Strategy.

A 23 February meeting attended

by Police, NZSA, and a small group of industry representatives was convened by the NZSA to talk crowded places and the potential for industry involvement.

A quick recap on the strategy New Zealand’s Crowded Places strategy builds on the body of work trail-blazed by the UK Protecting crowded places from terrorism guidance of November 2014, the US Department of Homeland Security’s Soft Targets and Crowded Places Resources, and Australia’s Strategy for Protecting Crowded Places from Terrorism, which was launched on 20 August 2017 by then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Released without such fanfare, the timing of the New Zealand’s strategy appears to have been delayed initially by the first anniversary of the Christchurch mosque attacks and then by the disruption of the COVID

pandemic and last year’s national election. It remains a little known document.

The strategy sets out a consistent approach to promote the safety of crowded places. It explains what crowded places are, the risks they pose, and how businesses, event organisers, sports clubs, charities, community and religious groups, central government agencies and local government can help to keep people safe.

It introduces guidelines and tools to help owners and operators of crowded places reduce the chance of an attack occurring, and lessen its consequences, using methods that are proportionate to the threat.

As part of the Strategy the Police has established three groups: (i) a government Crowded Places Advisory Group New Zealand (CPAGNZ); (ii) a private sector Business Advisory Group New Zealand (BAGNZ); and (ii) a Community Advisory Group New Zealand (CAGNZ).

According to the Strategy, these advisory groups “will contribute insights and ideas gathered from the sector they represent, related to making New Zealand’s crowded places more resilient.

It is expected that these groups will share appropriate information received back to the sector they represent.”

Business Advisory Group involvement?

During the 23 February meeting, Police’s comments that they had formed the view that the security industry not be represented in the Business Advisory Group (BAGNZ) Line of Defence

Protecting Our Crowded Places from Attack: New Zealand’s Strategy Te Whakamaru i Ō Tātau Wāhi Kōpiripiri mai i te Whakaekenga: Te Rautaki a Aotearoa

because of a conflict of interest (i.e. the industry “has a product to sell”) was met with some concern.

That this would create the somewhat ironic outcome of having representatives from various industries – except for the security industry – advising the police and sharing intel on a significant area of security, was not lost on attendees.

According to Police, its position is consistent with the approach taken by the Australian Government not to involve the security industry in its Crowded Places Business Advisory Group.

The NZSA will likely continue to liaise with Police on this matter with the view of having the Association represented on the BAG. In the meantime, the NZSA is also establishing a Crowded Places Special Interest Group (CPSIG) of security providers to provide industry guidance to the NZSA. Line of Defence

Approved provider panel?

Briefly discussed at the meeting was the potential establishment of a panel of approved providers of crowded places security advice. The strategy encourages venue owners and operators to contact the police for advice on how to implement its guidance, and to consider seeking the advice of a private security provider.

Police and NZSA appear to hold a shared view that there may be value in a structured arrangement that might provide for a panel or register of security professionals credentialed to provide crowded places advice.

The NZSA has proposed a tiered panel structure that reflects the venue risk tier levels listed in the Assoication’s recently published Event Security Code of Practice, and which are derived from the marking system used in the Crowded Places Strategy’s Self-Assessment Tool. The Association has sought feedback on these.

The real challenge faced by the industry is to develop an agreed view on relevant skills/qualifications/ experience for the mooted panel and its possible tiers.

At the centre of this challenge is the fact that there is no ‘go to’ security consultant qualification and no universally accepted benchmarking of skills. Existing NZQA security qualifications are loose fitting, and the NZQA New Zealand Diploma in Security (Level 6) has receded into irrelevance on the back of negligible take-up rates.

The Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Act 2010 – the legislative basis of New Zealand’s security licensing regime – prescribes no real professional requirements for licensing as a security consultant.

As an occupation group, security consultants evidence their expertise by pointing to one or more of any number of disparate sources, including former policing or military careers, private security experience, portfolios of previous work/clients, risk management qualifications, overseas qualifications and experience, internationally recognised security certifications, such as ASIS International Board Certifications, and/or esteem among peers.

Evidencing security expertise specific to crowded places may prove tricky.

Once the above expertise maze has been navigated through, those developing the panel concept will then be faced with the further challenge of identifying who might evaluate applications for the panel and how applications might be evaluated.

As complex as they may seem, these are good challenges to be faced with.

There is considerable talent and expertise among New Zealand’s private security consultants, and they are naturally best-placed to advise venues on how they can best secure their premises and keep their staff and visitors safe.

Conversations between Police and industry such as those had during the meeting of 23 February are a real step forward in terms of discussing the challenges and the potential answers.

It is, if nothing else, a good start.

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HOMELAND SECURITY Securing our borders, facilities and public spaces Following its successful Wellington debut in 2019, Conferenz’s Securing NZ’s Borders, Facilities & Public Spaces is back for 2021. This time, the event brings a pantheon of renown security and resilience specialists to Auckland.

Shaping today’s security landscape has become a lot more intricate over the past months, with the ongoing threat of COVID reminding us that this issue will continue to evolve in the near future.

Questions are being asked as to what new or additional measures might be put in place to securing our borders, facilities and public spaces, and how understanding further the rights of the public and the obligations at law is critical to delivering effective security and safety services.

The Securing NZ’s Borders, Facilities & Public Spaces Conference will focus on key currents shaping today’s security landscape with

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presentations by renowned local and international practitioners and academics.

The event is set to draw together professionals concerned with safety and security at the border and at facilities where people tend to congregate. The agenda features thought provoking contributions from a wide range of experts from across law enforcement, government, venue operators, risk management and the security industry.

Along with COVID threats and implications for our shared environments, there are other trends emerging. For example, a darker side of social media has arisen - one

which threatens national security and undermines democracy. Nowhere has this been more evident and arguably effective than in the 2016 and 2020 United States Presidential Elections and 2016 BREXIT referendum, but also more recently during the recent COVID-19 pandemic. How these social media implications can be countered is a question to be discussed with Nick Nelson from Massey University.

Cyber-attacks are increasing in complexity and sophistication with international and domestic hostile agents increasingly targeting critical areas of infrastructure. Philip Whitmore, Partner - Cyber Security, KPMG will share current trends in

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cyber terrorism along with tactics for determining the highest risk areas of infrastructure within New Zealand.

Our airports have had to implement many new changes in screening to advanced screening using CT technology/body scanners.

Clinton McCaughan, General Manager Aviation Security, Queensland Airport Ltd - ISS Facility Services will share on The shifting landscape of Australian aviation security.

It is important to note that amongst all the care one can take to protect our personnel, cities and communities – there are the legal parameters to follow.

James Warren & Gretchen Fraser from Dentons Kensington Swan will share with a Legal Clinic: Maintaining public safety within legal parameters – because understanding the rights of the public and your obligations at law is critical to delivering effective security and safety services.

Securing NZ’s Borders, Facilities & Public Spaces is co-located with the National Safety Leaders’ Summit and Wellbeing at the Front-Line events, and features a jam-packed two-day speaker line up, with just some of the sessions including: The shifting landscape of Australian aviation security – Clinton McCaughan, General Manager Aviation Security, Queensland Airport Ltd - ISS Facility Services • Explore the threats to aviation • International and national objectives of Australian aviation security and legislation • Change in screening to advanced screening using CT technology/ body scanners • Recognition of firearms and explosives including dangerous goods Security at national and civic level – funding, collaboration, and strategy – Darroch Todd, Risk Manager, Auckland Unlimited • An understanding of the decisions to allocate funding to increase safety and security in New Zealand is crucial for security professionals, hear about what is being done at the national and civic level to make this country a safer place.

• Analyse strategy used to react to Line of Defence

security threats in the long and short term • Learn how funding is allocated to various departments and services • Gain insight into how New Zealand operates security at a national and civic level Building safer cities – how security technology and architectural design are mitigating harm – Dr Lee Beattie, Deputy Head of School - School of Architecture + Planning , The University of Auckland • With many of New Zealand’s largest cities undergoing modernisation and transformation, building in security and safety features is becoming increasingly common • Innovations in architecture, designing cities to reduce hostile threats • Integrating innovative security technology into public spaces • Hostile architecture, security features designed to reduce antisocial behaviour Cyber-attacks on public infrastructure – the dangers of attacks on infrastructure and the potential physical harm – Philip Whitmore, Partner - Cyber Security, KPMG • Cyber-attacks are increasing in complexity and threat, with international and domestic hostile agents increasingly targeting critical areas of infrastructure • Determine the highest risk areas of infrastructure in New Zealand • Analyse the potential fallout of a damaging cyber attack • Evaluate the current trends in cyber terrorism Reviewing the latest developments in the New Zealand security industry – Nicholas Dynon, Chief Editor - New Zealand Security Magazine • How has the security industry weathered the challenges of 2020?

• Where are we now – what challenges and opportunities are there going forward?

• Examining the private security industries involvement in the delivery of Government managed isolation

• Mapping the impact of the pandemic on major events in New Zealand – what’s on in 2021 and what’s not - what does this mean for the security sector?

Legal Clinic: Maintaining public safety within legal parameters – James Warren, Partner, Gretchen Fraser, Senior Associate, Dentons Kensington Swan • Understanding the rights of the public and your obligations at law is critical to delivering effective security and safety services • Understand your obligations under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 when providing security and safety services • Learn how to avoid breaches of privacy of your personnel and others • Identify other rights and obligations impacting the role of security organisations and their ability to deliver security effectively and within the law (including mitigating areas of risk) Shaping the Enterprise Security Risk Management (ESRM) Architecture and Design Process – Chris Kumeroa, Director, Global Risk Consulting • Reviewing internal and external events that help shape Security Design • Key elements of the Security Predesign Phase • Understanding your organisation’s exposure to security related risks and its security vulnerabilities • How best to articulate your organisation’s risk profile and vulnerabilities to decision makers Curated to address our current fast-changing environment, the agenda will feature thought-provoking contributions from a wide range of experts from across police, law enforcement, government, legal, sports, venue operators, risk management and the security industry. It’s therefore a must for those responsible for security and safety at NZ’s border, facilities and public spaces, as well as event operators and security professionals from across New Zealand.

For more information, visit www. conferenz.co.nz.

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HOMELAND SECURITY

Hits and misses in Christchurch Attacks Royal Commission of Inquiry report Massey University intelligence and counter terrorism specialist Dr John Battersby answers our questions on the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Christchurch terrorist attacks.

LoD: The government has accepted all 44 recommendations of the report of this Royal Commission of Inquiry into the terrorist attacks of 15 March 2019. What, for you, are the standout recommendations?

Dr John Battersby is a Teaching Fellow in the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at Massey University. He is a specialist on terrorism and counter terrorism.

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JB: The government accepted the 44 recommendations ‘in principle’ but the finer detail of what the government’s position is remains to be seen. The report and recommendations, given the budget it had, the resources available to it, and the time it took – was large in volume but less incisive than it could have been, with an almost pro forma set of recommendations often seen in these post event assessments.

Of the more insightful observations the Royal Commission made was the lack of centralised and coordinated Counter Terrorism system – some of us had already published critiques of the public, bureaucratic and political disinterest in CT, but the Commission can be credited with casting a light on the need for a better level of coordination among government agencies which looks - from the outside at least - as a disconnected set of mutually exclusive half-formed parts.

However, the time-honoured recommendation to create yet another bureaucratic body which would add a further set of barriers through which information has to pass, and with which responses need to be coordinated, seldom solves the intelligence-sharing and coordination issues so common in this field.

Firearms regulations and licensing reform is long overdue. The licensing regime has been under-resourced for decades, and successive governments have shown little concern of the risks of an unregistered and growing national recreational arsenal.

The Thorp Inquiry report, which followed the Port Arthur mass shooting in Tasmania in 1996, recommended changes which were ignored; a coroner’s report called for reconsideration of the Thorp report after Jan Molenaar killed a police constable and held police off for three days in 2009. It’s no surprise therefore that our firearms regime features among several recommendations in the Royal Commission’s report. Maybe the government will listen and act this time.

I applauded the immediate cessation of over the counter sales of Military Style Semi-Automatics, but I was less sure that the buy-back and amnesty was required, or required so quickly. Those who surrendered their firearms had not done anything wrong and surely there was a way for government and gun owners to explore a solution which did not pitch them against each other.

Terrorism is the use of violence to influence the political environment inherently connected to a prevailing context– the Royal Commission’s recommendations toward social cohesion (as perfectly reasonable as they may be in themselves) will not socially engineer terrorism out of our society. No amount of policy on social Line of Defence

cohesion would have eliminated the risk Timothy McVeigh, Anders Brevik or Brenton Tarrant presented. These men simply absented themselves from their mainstream societies, as terrorist groups and lone actors have always done and will continue to do.

LoD: Where are the gaps and weaknesses?

JB: The report uses 15 March 2019 as the baseline event defining current and future terrorism. Given the terms of reference, there was a natural orientation to do this, but the Commissioners should have lifted themselves above it. Brenton Tarrant was an Australian, not a New Zealander, and his ‘radicalisation’ was almost exclusively fuelled online through largely US alternative-right, supremacist, and neo-Nazi influences.

He was not drawn by any strong, extremist right-wing community here, Line of Defence

nor did he find or connect with such a community when he got here.

Recommendations on social cohesion may well be taking us into the over-reaction error, common in CT responses – like the gun buy-back, applying a cure to everybody because a single individual was sick. Terrorism needs to be understood as a tactic used by those prepared to use violence – it is not defined by their ideological standpoints.

The Report asserts an inappropriate amount of security sector resource was given to Islamist extremism – and not enough on Right Wing Extremism, yet its own evidence undermines the assertion.

On Pages 400-405 the report cites 9/11 and 32 other international terrorist events as formative in shaping Five Eyes security arrangements between 2001 and 2018. Of these, 24 were militant Islamist attacks killing 4,069 people. Only 6 attacks listed over

the period were carried out by Right Wing extremists, killing 111 people.

On this evidence, it is difficult for the Royal Commission observation to stand.

A far better approach would have been to argue for a dispensing of labels identifying ideology – people can have a religion and uncompromising views yet be no risk to society.

It’s those people who advocate or actively seek to impose their views on the rest of us by threats and acts of violence who pose the risk, and it’s them we need to find a way of focusing our resources on that somehow avoids labelling whole communities as suspects.

Some solutions offered here would have been a major benefit because this is no new problem. The experiences of Muslims in the UK after the 7/7 bombings are almost identical to Irish people living in England during the Troubles.

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HOMELAND SECURITY LoD: Are there areas beyond the terms of reference that might have been useful to look at?

JB: The terms of reference did not require the Royal Commission’s attention on successive government’s lack of attention to administration and resourcing of the Arms Act, or reviewing and amending policy and practice as clear indications of risks presented, as they were with mass shootings at Aramoana, Port Arthur, Raurimu and the Molinaar siege mentioned above.

The Royal Commission’s report mentions Operation Eight, but does not discuss it – due it being outside its terms of reference (but were there lessons here that may have been instructive?). Nor is the jaded and disinterested approach successive governments have taken to terrorism legislation since 2001 included in the terms.

This is all critical context, and consideration of the last 20 years of the evolution and development of modern terrorism could provide a better foundation for future policy than concentration on a singular event.

LoD: The ‘private sector’ is mentioned eight times among the report’s 44 recommendations. What are your perspectives on where the report sees a role for the private sector, and which elements of the private sector are relevant here?

JB: There is a tendency among bureaucrats and politicians to believe they solve problems by appointing people at the top, when often the genuine work is done on the ground where people talk with each other and observe things.

In 1975 it was a simple burglar alarm that alerted police to three men attempting to break into the Horokiwi Quarry north of Wellington. Police responded and caught them – the men later admitted they were going steal gelignite to blow up an overseas diplomatic mission in Wellington.

In 1985 it was a sharp-eyed travel agent who spotted passport irregularities that led to the arrest 46

of two DGSE agents involved in the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior.

Throughout the Northern Irish Troubles, or terrorist endeavours of the Weather Underground in the US, or the Baader Meinhoff Gang in Europe, it was often observant security guards, curious members of the public or police constables who noticed something out of place – and acted, preventing devastating events from occurring.

New Zealand overall has a lazy, complacent and very poor attitude to the risks that geopolitical changes, organised crime, cyberspace, climate change and terrorism will have on us, and while we certainly need leadership and direction in higher places, we all seem to think that security precautions are inconvenient and unnecessary.

This mindset has to change.

What we actually need is a better understanding of security in general, a holistic approach to all risks, a better integration of public and private security approaches – and a genuine understanding that the little person actually matters. You ask which elements are relevant to the private sector, I’m going to ask which elements aren’t?

LoD: What are your thoughts on the ability of government to effectively implement the report’s recommendations?

JB: The government needs to carefully consider which of the recommendations will actually genuinely make a difference. New Zealand has a terrorism history since 1968 of less severity and less frequency than many other countries, a lack of sequenced or organised terrorist violence and a pattern of intermittent and unconnected lone actors, often not linked to any overseas inf luence and usually failing to stimulate any following.

Clear and sensible arms regulations reform should, and I expect will, happen, but the broader based recommendations of social cohesion and coordinated government approaches may struggle to gain traction.

The problem is New Zealand has no clear terrorism risk – it has a potted history of one-time-only lone actors committing one-time-only acts. We also seem to have had a small number of wannabe actors, exhibiting desires to carry out acts of terrorism, but either being careless or incapable of actually doing so before being identified and caught by police.

This creates a very difficult environment in which the government and security agencies need to tread carefully, avoiding our old complacency but at the same time not overstepping the mark of a proportionate and effective response.

LoD: Will New Zealand be safer as a result?

JB: Frankly, I do not believe we are in any greater danger of a terrorist attack now than we were before.

Although, to be sure, we were always at greater risk before than most people realised.

Terrorism risk will not remain static, and is connected to political context. International terrorism trends need to be monitored because cyberspace connects us to everywhere else. Cyber activated and mobilised lone actors driven by one ideology or conspiracy theory or another may emerge at any time – we will see the idiots coming, but the genuinely careful planners and security conscious lone actors we can never be certain to catch.

Old leftist causes have long since died, but inactivity on climate change may well see increasing activism from the left that will drift toward violence to stimulate change, and more nuanced issues such as 1080 or our race relations may undulate as they have in the past.

Overall impetus to any one, or to all of these, could be derived from increasing economic disparity as New Zealand continues its failure to control living costs, fix regional disparities in opportunities and tolerates out of control house prices that threaten to make our children a generation of tenants.

New Zealand will only ever be as safe as our caution and consideration of possible risks allow it to be.

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