“Nothing can prepare you for the job,”
according to Chief of the NZ Defence Force Lieutenant General Rhys Jones. “It’s
a lot wider, deeper than [three] Service chief’s roles stacked side-by-side.
There’s a lot of work as Chief of Defence Force (CDF) that you have to do in
relationship management that can’t really be explained.”
“The experiences of previous CDF’s don’t match the amount of
internal cultural change that we are doing, the personal engagement, the
leadership I’ve had to put in to that”
“It’s different to what I thought,”
LTGEN Rhys Jones said, which is hardly surprising for his
tenure as CDF began on January 24, 2011 anything but quietly.
“In the first week we had a soldier killed in Afghanistan;
within the first month the Christchurch earthquake, one of the biggest natural
disasters in NZ’s history and followed up by the Rena [oil tanker running
aground off the NZ coast].
“More recently have come more casualties in Afghanistan and
the withdrawal and winding down of three major operations, Afghanistan,
Timor-Leste and the Solomons.
“As well there’s ‘Future 35,’ the development of the NZ
Defence Force’s (NZDF’s) longer-term strategy: Instead of focussing where we’ve
been, we’re shaping it to where we’re going over the next 25 years plus.”
Inevitably CDF also has lead a drastic ‘savings’ program:
“We’re marching through that, it’s been a tough time, a busy time, but
everyone’s really put the effort in and we are achieving pretty well on that.”
Some 200 personnel discussed the Force 35 strategy over a
July weekend and ADM asked what took place.
“The objective of that weekend was aligning people. This is
the start point for this journey, we want you to sit on this train and we want
you to go as far as you can on that journey.
“How do we start getting people in to that mentality, how do
we start thinking about the doctrine, about the way we operate, what are the
changes that need to occur in our process? What are the equipment and
organisational changes? What are the educational bits that we will need to
influence? I think there was an expectation that they would be given a whole
lot of documents.
“That was one of the first things we needed to address; we
are not giving them a plan, we’re giving them a ‘Well, here’s the start line and
this is the intent as to where we’re going, but you need to help us find our
way through that.’”
Finding a way through prompted ADM to ask about attrition
rates which briefly exceeded 21 per cent during 2012.
“Air Force attrition rates are now back to normal. Army and
Navy attrition rates continue to fall back to manageable levels, so we’ve
turned that tide.
“The Air Force is really slaved to the aviation industry and
their retention rates are dependent on that much narrower sector, but Navy and
Army trades are readily absorbed in to the community and they are snapped up by
employers.
“Navy was hit really hard though by the Australian mining
industry; we lost a whole lot of people, but it is now stabilising and a lot of
people have come back. We are getting back on an even keel again, but it did
hurt us and it will continue to hurt us as there are still hollows in certain
areas.”
What about replacing the fleet tanker Endeavour?
“We’re looking at two broad options. The first is a simple
tanker replacement, but we would prefer to actually start looking at a
replenishment ship for the [joint amphibious task force — JAFT], which means it
isn’t just an at-sea refueller, but is capable of supporting operations ashore
and carrying stores for a joint force.
“Other militaries are starting to talk about that type of
capability but currently there aren’t any ships that can do that; so we will be
the first, of many, if we do that. We desire to go there, but there’re other things
that we need to spend our money on, so it’s not going to be ‘we will take that
option at all costs’”
How, asked ADM, was JATF devised?
“It was part of the vision I devised. Our region is a
littoral environment that we need to be able to master and dominate. Most large
militaries are moving towards the ability to be able to move strategically and
operationally, to insert forces, to extract them, to choose the moment for
engagement. For a small military that makes sense.
“An amphibious capability and concept creates the cultural
aspect of working in a joint environment but it’s also one of the most complex
operations you can do. If we can master that, then we can be pretty adaptable
to most other environments. We know what we want to achieve, so what does that
mean in terms of structure, training, equipment, number of people,
infrastructure, recruiting targets, financial models, simulation. Those are the
type of things we are trying to corral in to one focus.”
JATF will demand excellent communications; how are NZDF’s
Satcoms?
“Rather than setting up our own network or having a sole one
for us, we are buying into a constellation, so it’s a subtly different
strategy. In many ways it is probably fortunate that we had to delay for now we
have an opportunity to invest in a system that will allow global communications
because we are buying into a satellite community, rather than just one
satellite.”
ADM asked if CDF was satisfied with RNZAF safety standards
following the fatal Iroquois crash in April 2010 and the resulting
investigations.
“Most lessons are learned from mistakes being made. I am
satisfied the Air Force have learned those lessons. The one thing I am very
proud about is that we have torn ourselves apart to ensure we have learned all
those lessons. However, even with the changes we are making, we probably don’t
have a perfect system because we don’t know where the next issue is going to
arise. But I am happy that we do not whitewash things over, we do address the
issues.
“It is not ‘safety-first’; it is ‘safety always’ in
everything we do. Safety always needs to be considered, but it can’t always
take precedence. We’re in a risky business, we have to work and train and
prepare for dangerous and difficult environments. We need to have people used to
operating there, because when we go into combat operations where people are
actively trying to kill us they need to have that same mentality.”
What is that status of NZ’s Light Armoured Vehicles
(NZLAVs)?
“We are part of the Light Armoured Vehicle User Group and
that’s been very useful for us. The Canadians and the Americans have learned
lessons on (LAV) operations. We have the Stryker hull but the Canadian turret,
so our NZLAVs are amongst the best-protected in the world.
“The first of our upgrade programs is scheduled for later in
the decade, 2017/18, then we have another upgrade program in the mid-2020s. All
of our LAVs are the turreted version and we are going to reconfigure some and
take their turrets off and make them much simpler for non-Armoured Corps people
to crew/command their specialist vehicle. We’re talking about ambulances, C2
vehicles, specialist engineering vehicles, mortar carriers, things like that.
“That allows us also to use the turrets we take off as
permanent trainers, permanent simulation systems, that we can use around the
country, allowing reservists to be trained and maintain currency.
“Also we will put the vehicles through a self-protection
upgrade program, one batch at a time, so we always have a group of vehicles at
the latest level of protection.”
ADM asked if NZ company Skycam remains the sole provider of
UAVs to the NZDF.
“We have had three steps in our [Skycam Kahu]
experimentation program. Learning how to fly and operate the platform itself.
Secondly, an examination of what type of surveillance we might want on it – and
we have largely gone through that – and the third one is the integration of the
information into our C4I and that’s the level we are now interested in.
“We have got Kahu to an operational level and we have
deployed that to Afghanistan and are continuing to learn lessons about its
robustness, its usefulness and it continues to add value to all three aspects
of the experimentation program.
“We have also bought some much smaller tactical UAVs,
helicopter-based ones that are commercially available, that can be used at
section levels and in urban areas. We have also used or borrowed Raven UAVs in
Afghanistan.
“Kahu isn’t that suitable for the RNZN so they are looking
at others that might be more able to operate from the deck of an Inshore Patrol
Vessel that doesn’t have a helicopter deck.”
Is humanitarian aid and disaster relief (HADR) now level
pegging with combat as a reason for deployment?
“HADR is always the most probable thing we are doing, but it
is not and I don’t think it will be the determinant of what we are and what we
have. So HADR will influence our contingency plans; we need to ensure that the
military capability we have can cover those things.
“For example, our Hercules are good aircraft but they can’t
land at every airfield in the Pacific, such as Pukapuka [in the Cool Islands].
So when we replace the C-130Hs we will need to consider whether the ability to
land at all those small airstrips for disaster relief is a requirement.
“HADR is an important part of our training and it is
something we need to be able to do. Because we have been engaged in the new
security issues – human security, fisheries protection, nation support – what
we do and the capabilities we have are going to be influenced by those things
to a greater degree than many other militaries.”
Submarines are multiplying regionally; how is the NZDF’s ASW
capability?
“It is an issue in Future 35, one of the emerging threats,
one of the emerging technologies that we need to be able to counter. Those
risks and capability needs are put on to the table and then we prioritise
those. It is impossible for us to counter every threat, every issue and that’s
where we need to balance things up; for example, between ASW and cyber warfare.
“It is always management of risk as we go forward. Also, how
fast could we adapt, or how fast could that risk go from latent to an extant
risk? Submarine proliferation in the area is growing, but is it a greater
priority than overland surveillance or other surveillance that we might need to
have in our region?”
