NZ Defence Minister signals big defence hike at Munich Security Conference
Judith Collins tells the international security policy gathering in Germany 'we can’t depend on one nation’s taxpayers' to protect the rules-based international order.
New Zealand’s Defence Minister Judith Collins has signalled the country’s military spending is set to increase amid rising geopolitical tensions.
New Zealand Defence Minister Judith Collins told the Munich Security Conference on Sunday, 16 February that countries involved in the West’s security architecture had to step up because of China’s “aggressive stance” in the Asia-Pacific region and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Everybody has to increase defence spending, we have to do it and we can’t depend on one nation’s taxpayers, we all have to step up,” she said.
In May last year, Collins announced $571 million in defence spending to improve pay and upgrade equipment, to be mostly spent over four years.
Total Defence spending for the 2024/25 financial year, including capital and operational expenditure, amounts to over $4,949 million.
In Context has contacted the Defence Ministry seeking clarification over Collins’ remarks.
Collins was a participant in a discussion titled The Connected Security of Europe and Asia at the annual three-day event in Germany on international security policy.
The south Pacific nation is a NATO partner and part of the Indo-Pacific 4, alongside South Korea, Japan and Australia.
She was joined on the platform by South Korea’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Cho Tae-Yul, Japan’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Iwaya Takeshi, and NATO Deputy Secretary-General Radmila Šekerinska.
The livestreamed talk was based around the prevailing NATO narrative that the security of the Indo-Pacific was indivisible from the security of the Euro-Atlantic and that the outcome of the Ukraine war had implications for the region. The ministers also agreed that military industrial production in the Asia-Pacific region to support NATO capacity must increase as “theatres of conflict” merged.
The conference, held each year since 1963, was dominated by calls for increased military spending within the EU and NATO countries, led by NATO General Secretary Mark Rutte, US Vice-President JD Vance, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and EU Foreign Affairs and Security Policy head, Kaja Kallas, as well as Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky.
Von der Leyen said on Friday that a ‘bold approach’ was needed, to significantly increase EU spending on defence from an average of 2 percent of GDP to over 3 percent. The EU spent 320 billion Euro (US$336 billion) on defence last year, up by over a third since 2021.
Scholz told the conference on Saturday evening that increased military spending was necessary and that hikes may need to be financed through loans, as citizens would not stand for billions in cuts to public services from domestic budgets to fund them.
Further increased military spending in New Zealand would also likely be highly unpopular as thousands of public sector jobs continue to be cut, including within the country’s struggling national health service.
Collins in weapons talks
Collins also held bilateral meetings while in Germany. She met with her Ukrainian counterpart Rustem Umerov on the sidelines of the conference and was reported to have discussed potential New Zealand investments in Ukraine's defence industry.
Umerov posted on his Facebook page that the pair: “Discussed global security challenges. Stated that the Russian aggression changed the security environment not only in Europe, but also in the Asia-Pacific region.”
He said discussions with Collins included potential investment in Ukraine’s defence industrial base through the ‘Danish model’, a mechanism for financing weapon procurement involving Denmark overseeing Ukrainian defence contracts and enterprises.
Umerov also thanked New Zealand for its contribution to the Drone Coalition, an initiative by Latvia and the UK, established in February last year to support Ukraine’s war effort.
“We aim to expand defense co-operation, including through consultation and sharing of experience. Ukraine is ready to share the technologies and knowledge of modern warfare,” he wrote.
Cook Islands-China deal addressed
Collins also briefly addressed New Zealand’s disapproval of the Cook Island’s signing of a strategic partnership agreement with China last week, reiterating the Government’s view that it had not been adequately consulted over the deal. “There is enormous (geostrategic) competition in the Pacific region… We’d like to see this agreement, as would the people of the Cook Islands,” she told the conference event.
The Cook Islands, a protectorate of New Zealand, has a 200-mile (370km) exclusive economic zone around each of its 15 islands, which includes its mineral-rich seabed. It maintains it is entitled to choose with whom and how it conducts economic and diplomatic relations. Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown last week said New Zealand “didn’t need to be in the room” when the agreement was made.
After the event, Collins posted on X (formerly Twitter): “I advised the MSC that the Blue Pacific is sparsely populated with an underwater continent with enormous wealth on the seabed. The mineral wealth around the ‘ring of fire’ is such that it is like having an enormous treasury with a very small lock.
“Old style ‘cold war’ commentators are naive to think that the Pacific is without threat.”
Collins is expected back in New Zealand on Tuesday, 18 February.
Vance and Zelensky comments
The conference heard notable contributions from keynote speakers, including Zelensky, who on Saturday called for the establishment of a European army, not to replace NATO but to work alongside it. Addressing the prospect of peace talks and a negotiated settlement to the conflict, he said: “Ukraine will never accept deals behind our backs, without our involvement.”
Earlier, European elites expressed shock and disgust at US Vice-President JD Vance, after he used his address at the event on Friday to criticise a lack of democratic practice in the EU, including overt censorship and the cancellation of Romania’s general election.
“If you are running in fear from your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you…Unfortunately when I look at Europe today, sometimes it’s not so clear what happened to some of the cold war’s winners,” Vance said.
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius called the comments unacceptable.
“Democracy does not mean that a vociferous minority will automatically be right and they can decide what the truth is,” he said.
“It does not mean that anyone can say anything and democracy must be able to defend itself. I am happy to live in a Europe where this democracy is defended every day against its internal and external enemies.”
Hawkish Co-Chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations and former Swedish prime minister, Carl Bildt, posted on X (formerly Twitter): “If the intention of the speech was to alienate Europe, I think it could be described as successful.”
Pushback from China, India
There was notable pushback from key BRICS nations at the event to Western notions of democracy and security, urging the peaceful acceptance of a new multipolarity in the world replacing US unipolar power.
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the conference on Friday, February 14. “Will multipolarity bring chaos, conflict and confrontation? Does it mean domination by major countries and the strong bullying the weak? China’s answer is, we should work for an equal and orderly multipolar world.
“This is another major proposition put forward by President Xi Jinping, and it represents our sincere expectation for a multipolar world. China will surely be a factor of certainty in this multipolar system, and strive to be a steadfast constructive force in a changing world.”
Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar challenged Western ‘double-standards’ and criticised ambassadors and NGOs for interfering in Global South nations and for the imposition of liberal values on societies that had their own.
“I would challenge the equation of liberalism in a kind of an international way with democracy,” he said.
“I do think the BRICS societies have their own cultures, their own values, their own ways of doing things. The idea that there is one truth and one judgement and one norm and that this should be preached, propagated and evaluated and judged, I think that is one of the biggest issues we’re having today in politics… There is a reaction in many parts of the world to self-appointed custodians, people who’ve never fought an election, have nothing to do with democracy, actually telling the rest of the world what is right and what is wrong in democracy. It is to me inevitable that it will be challenged.”
Collin’s said “Old style ‘cold war’ commentators are naive to think that the Pacific is without threat.”. Isn’t it the opposite? It is old style ‘cold war’ commentators who think the Pacific is threatened (by China). They are right about one thing and that’s there’s a threat but the threat comes from the old style ‘cold war’ thinkers who have not yet adapted to the 21st century reality that the US century of world domination is no longer sustainable
"Collins also briefly addressed New Zealand’s disapproval of the Cook Island’s signing of a strategic partnership agreement with China last week, reiterating the Government’s view that it had not been adequately consulted over the deal. “There is enormous (geostrategic) competition in the Pacific region… We’d like to see this agreement, as would the people of the Cook Islands,” she told the conference event."
Will the New Zealand government commit to revealing the details of agreements it is negotiating with other states even while negotiations are under way? Will it commit to revealing the details of all agreements it has already entered into with other states? No, it will not. Therefore it has no right to demand such transparency from the government of the Cook Islands.
Collins went on to say "the Blue Pacific is sparsely populated with an underwater continent with enormous wealth on the seabed". So is that what it is really all about? Is it just like the cause of "Ukrainian freedom" which now seems to be tied up with deposits of rare-earth metals in that country? Does Ukraine have to pay with both blood and treasure for the privilege of being a pawn of Anglo-American imperialism? Are the Cooks being threatened with military intervention because they have the audacity to think that they should decide how to use their own resources?
Collins also argues for more money to be spent on the New Zealand military. More than double the present rate of expenditure if Donald Trump is to be given his way. Yet that is rather odd coming from a government which focuses on effectiveness, efficiency, achieving targets and so on.
Because we have to ask "What has the New Zealand military ever achieved for us?". It has been involved in quite a few wars in the past half century, and has won none of them. It suffered a humiliating loss in Vietnam, failed in Iraq (while fraudulently claiming victory), was trounced in Afghanistan, is staring defeat in the face in Ukraine and a probable drubbing from Yemen. To top it off it managed to sink one fifth of its operational naval fleet on a reef off Samoa. If any other department of state had such a record of complete and unmitigated failure going back fifty years, would it have even more money thrown at it?
All this illustrates the astonishing contradictions of the colonialist regime. It pretends to stand for the rights of nations and peoples, yet tries to bully the government of the Cook Islands, not to mention its own people. It demands transparency from others but offers none of its own. Like a dog in a manger it accuses China of coveting the wealth of the Pacific, yet clearly wants that wealth to go to its own patrons in Washington and Canberra. It calls for peace and the rule of law, but seeks to expand its military at the command of a man who is the very antithesis of the rule of law. It claims to seek "value for money" in all its operations but for the military there is no accountability, whether moral or financial.
Time for us to be rid of Ms Collins and Messrs Luxon, Seymour and Peters before they can do even more harm.