Comment: To what extent should Australia’s choice of frigate for its needs influence New Zealand’s decision, given our very different requirements?
The first tranche of New Zealand Defence’s Maritime Fleet Renewal considers replacement of its two aging Anzac Class frigates. The New Zealand Government has announced that the Royal Navy’s British-built Inspiration Class Type 31 and the Australianised Japanese Mogami Class frigates are the two that Cabinet will consider in 2027.
Alignment with Australia dominates conversations around New Zealand’s frigate decision. Often, ‘interoperability with Australia’ is confused with ‘same as Australia’ which is unhelpful. Complementary capabilities, which are interoperable with New Zealand’s defence and security partners, makes sense and importantly, provides an operational point of difference that will be more useful than two or three more ships of a capability Australia is already operating. We operate seamlessly now with Australia using very different ships.
Interoperability goes to such features as communications, data sharing, helicopter and boat employment to name a few – there is little interoperability-added value to having the same ship.
Australia is a nation where patrol, disaster relief, projection of forces, above and below-water combat and other maritime outputs are delivered by specialised capabilities; as an example, Australia will be operating two types of frigates to deliver different sub-specialities. New Zealand has a different affordability reality where fewer acquisitions must be able to contribute to the wider responsibilities of the Defence Force including ‘at-sea’ training.
But interoperability is only one part of the test. New Zealand’s decision also needs to reflect what we actually need these ships to do.
The label ‘frigate’ can describe anything from an armed fast patrol ship to an exquisite (expensive) defensive escort protecting high-value units such as aircraft carriers. New Zealand’s decision must be for credible combat vessels that can fight and survive in medium-intensity combat operations. The key comparison between the two reference ships (Type 31 and Australianised Mogami) should be, what can the ship deliver for New Zealand besides combat capability?
Another important consideration is what New Zealand should be getting ready for. While the future is unknowable, it is the duty of decision-makers to imagine it. The world we live in is dangerous and deteriorating. It may not feel like it at home right now, but it’s true. The acceleration of disruptive technologies means predictions about what threats we might face in 10 or 20 years becomes a lottery. So, which attribute decisions about our future fleet would we regret the least in 2045?
Futurists could reasonably expect New Zealand’s future military naval fleet to be called upon to conduct the following types of operations in the coming decades, as now: surveillance, patrol, interdiction, search and rescue, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief – both domestically and regionally – from the Antarctic cold to the equatorial warm seas, regional resilience and security operations, support to other government agencies, support to important security partners across the Five Eyes, and for regional collective security responsibilities. We do these things now because there are bad actors trying to destroy our peaceful way of life and safe and open trade routes. It is not unreasonable to expect them to be part of future operations.
What else? Utility, adaptability and availability would be useful lines of inquiry – what it can do, what else might it do in the future and how dependably available will the ships be? As the future can only be imagined, it makes sense to equip New Zealand’s Defence Force with capabilities with room to grow where possible. For ships this means provision of space, weight, propulsion, cooling, secure spaces and if possible, plug and play capabilities that can be adapted as the threats evolve. The increasing focus on hybrid fleets, where crewed ships operate alongside un-crewed systems, is one example of why adaptability matters. New Zealand cannot know exactly what capabilities its frigates will need to operate in 20 years, but it can choose platforms capable of accommodating them.
Measured against those requirements, the differences between the two options become clearer.
A comparison of publicly available data between the Type 31 and Australianised Mogami classes is instructive. The ships are similar in size and profile such that most New Zealanders could be forgiven for struggling to tell them apart as the differences are not immediately obvious.
The Japanese frigate has great design and warfighting credentials on paper, particularly as an anti-submarine escort. The ship is likely to meet Australia’s needs alongside its other frigate types, however, it will struggle to incorporate significant capabilities outside of its build fit out.
The Royal Navy’s British Type 31 is a credible combat ship that has space, weight and power to spare. This means it will be able to incorporate new capabilities into the ship throughout its life to counter new threat types as they emerge. If these two ship types are similar in cost, buyers’ regret may not emerge until critical adaptation of the ship is needed down the track.
Of course, capability cannot be considered separately from cost. But value for money is about more than the purchase price.
The spending debate allows reflection upon how meaningful investment in maritime security is measured and, for some, whether it should be funded at all. New Zealand’s Defence Force is a national contingent capability, like an insurance policy. We all understand why we take out car and house insurance, to protect our family and assets in case of crisis. The challenge is the same when understanding defence spending. Reducing worry for citizens about future unwelcome events lies at the core of why a government exists. But investment on these terms is a hard sell when cash is tight. An effective insurance policy, like a national security investment, is not measured by how much it costs but the best value for money cover it can provide.
Those who are entrusted to buy capabilities for defence know that all spending of public money must be defendable. Further, those decisions should be defendable throughout the life of the capability, as often, deviations from ‘ideal’ have been normalised, or excused, rather than learned from.
For New Zealand, with a small economy, we must ‘buy well’ at the beginning of a capability and relentlessly unlock previously unimagined attributes throughout its life.
As former United States secretary of defence, general Jim Mattis noted in his autobiography ‘Callsign Chaos’: “A leader’s responsibility is to ensure that when the nation faces its next crisis, it does so with as few regrets as possible”.
The wrong frigate choice now would condemn New Zealand to regretting its decision for decades given the price tag for the maritime part of its security insurance policy.