Well, it's been a long wait, but finally the US is calling out New Zealand for its lack of defence spending. Currently, New Zealand cannot even secure its own air space and it has naval vessels tied up because it has no crew for the ships. And even if crew existed, it's doubtful NZ could even find the money to pay them, within existing budgets.
I've often written about this parlous state of affairs. I have tracked the decline in NZ defence spending to the start of NZ's MMP (Mixed Member Proportional) method of choosing political leaders. From that date, 1996, defence spending started to fall off a cliff. The reason for this is easily explained; to form a government, the various parties contesting elections must form coalitions and make deals. Defence is always the unwanted cousin, and so is quickly traded away. Thus, now NZ's military barely exists.
The current NZ government plans may as well be filed under, believe it when you see it. They're all talk, making endless announcements of announcements, going to do this, intending to do that, conducting consultations, examinations, it is most unseemly.
However, the only issue I have is with the way the US is going about this; it won't have the desired effect. Usually, NZ is spoken to behind the scenes, quietly. With the approach the US Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, is taking, don't expect NZ to spend more on American equipment.
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