In the 1993 cult classic Groundhog Day, Phil Connors (Bill Murray) posed the question: ‘What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same and nothing you did mattered?’

Depressingly, it must surely sum up the collective outlook of the world’s climate scientists for at least the past two decades. That frustration has been compounded lately by the ‘mixed bag’ of last month’s UN climate talks in Madrid, the continued assault on the scientific method by the administration of US President Donald Trump, and rolling climate-related global environmental catastrophes.

Globally, 2019 was the second hottest year on record. The previous hottest was 2016, followed by 2015, 2017 and 2018. In Australia, 2019 was 1.52°C above the 1961–90 average—the country’s hottest on record. Rainfall across the continent was also the lowest since recordkeeping began. We have now arrived at a point where, without international action to reduce emissions, global average temperatures will be almost 5°C warmer within the lifetime of a child born today.

The bushfire crisis that’s unfolding across Australia provides some insight into what that dystopian world will look like. So far, 27 people have died, more than 100,000 livestock have been killed, and at least a billion native animals have perished as an area larger than South Korea has been burned. The Australian Defence Force has been deployed en masse at the behest of the National Security Committee of cabinet. What was meant to be tomorrow’s security problem has been catapulted into the here and now.

Our home front has become the climate front line. Slowly—inexorably—climate change is permeating regional security architectures and its institutions.

Rising emissions will result in a more unstable and insecure world that will have far-reaching human, national and international security consequences. Military forces—as in the current bushfire crisis—will be increasingly called upon to respond. Limits will be reached and then stretched when multiple climate crisis events occur simultaneously, especially when overlaid with concurrent traditional ‘hard’ security commitments. It will require new thinking about defence force structures, capability and equipment choices, and training regimes.

Building on the 2018 Boe Declaration on Regional Security (and its affirmation in 2019), the region’s defence forces have become more active in their efforts to respond to climate change.

A gathering of South Pacific defence ministers in May acknowledged the Boe Declaration and emphasised the unique and important role of defence forces in dealing with climate change. Developments at the meeting included a proposal to explore how defence forces can support mitigation efforts. Another was New Zealand’s proposal to hold a defence working group meeting in 2020 focused solely on climate change.

That the New Zealand Defence Force should put its hand up comes as no surprise. It has arguably emerged as one of the world’s leading militaries when it comes to developing a clear strategic response to the climate emergency and promoting global recognition of climate change as a security risk.

Building on its November 2018 defence assessment, The climate crisis: defence readiness and responsibilities, in December 2019, the New Zealand government released an implementation plan titled Responding to the climate crisis. The plan puts the meat on the bone of the NZDF climate response, under four pillars: respond, adapt, mitigate and engage.

While some of the initiatives are business as usual, and some are new, it is the first time the totality of NZDF measures have been presented as a single, coordinated defence response to the threats of climate change. Few militaries have done this.

Initiatives outlined in the plan include developing climate risk assessments and adaptation plans for bases and training areas, embedding climate change considerations into planning for the defence estate and infrastructure, harnessing the Defence Technology Agency to analyse and better understand the operating environment of the Southern Ocean and Ross Sea, acquiring dual-use and multirole military capabilities in support of increased climate-related humanitarian and disaster relief operations, and placing an increased focus on emissions accounting, emissions reduction and energy efficiency.

As the plan notes, it is something of a first cut and the beginning of what will be a long and iterative journey that seeks to ‘grow best practice and raise our ambition over time’. In pursuit of best practice, they would do well to consider the ‘responsibility to prepare and prevent’, a climate security governance framework developed by the Center for Climate and Security and presented at the UN Security Council.

Importantly, the NZDF is also emboldened to take a regional and international lead on embedding and discussing climate security at the highest political-military levels and security forums, including a climate seminar with its ASEAN counterparts later this year. This is bound to have a galvanising effect, bringing confidence to communities across the Pacific that climate change is indeed seen to require a whole-of-society effort.

The military too can be said to be joining the war effort that will be required to combat climate change. The NZDF has set the bar for other defence forces on developing a coherent strategic response to the climate emergency. This is not insignificant, since the politicisation of climate change has often meant that apolitical institutions (such as militaries) have been snookered into lacking a public voice or, worse, being perceived as doing nothing.

Despite recognition at the highest levels and the 2018 Australian Senate inquiry into the national security implications of climate change, the ADF has not been afforded the same degree of movement to act as the NZDF has had on climate change.

The bushfire crisis may be the moment that opens genuine but critically honest policy debate on climate change in Australia, including for the Department of Defence. For ideas on what its response might look like, the ADF could do worse than turn to its Kiwi partner.

New Zealand’s new coalition government has just launched its strategic defence policy statement. The statement carries on many of the themes familiar from past defence policy papers while introducing a number of new priorities. In delivering those themes it makes for intriguing reading, shifting as it does from forthrightness to purposeful ambiguity.

The 2018 statement strongly asserts that New Zealand has ‘no better friend than Australia’ and that it’s ‘committed to responding immediately should Australia be subject to armed attack’. There’s an express emphasis on the ‘obligation’ to support a rules-based order.

However, some things are new. In place of discussions of ‘traditional partners’ or even ‘US alliance partners’, the statement specifically talks of partnership with the other parties to the UKUSA Agreement (known as the Five Eyes, which also includes the US, UK, Canada and Australia). This focus on the Five Eyes allows for some ambiguity when talking about New Zealand’s relationship with the US. (Indeed, what direct mention there is of the US in the statement is cautious, noting the withdrawal of US support for a range of multilateral initiatives while still describing US ‘support’ for regional peace and security.)

There’s also a degree of ambiguity in the claim that ‘world events dictate where the government may deploy the Defence Force at any given time’. Beyond non-negotiables, such as the defence of New Zealand and support for Australia and the South Pacific, it’s in this phrase that the government restates its right to discretion in making decisions to engage out of area. Interestingly, the statement asserts that partnerships ‘from the Five Eyes to NATO and the EU are vital to enabling the realisation of our interests, the promotion of our values and the safeguarding of our sovereignty’ and that the Middle East is a ‘critical theatre of operations’. The strength of the language used (‘vital’ and ‘critical’) could provide impetus for future engagements outside of traditional defence arenas and roles.

The statement identifies a range of ‘complex disrupters’, in which climate change and space and cyber capabilities are placed alongside terrorism as threats to security. Defence roles vis-à-vis climate change focus on humanitarian aid and disaster relief, and are similarly limited in support of efforts to counter terrorism or criminal activities. Most notable is direct recognition that New Zealand’s overall official capacity to engage in the space and cyber domains is underdeveloped. The statement constitutes a plea for the resourcing of new capabilities in those domains, though it seems to assume that this lies within the NZDF’s remit, rather than in a new agency or pan-agency entity.

The statement more explicitly notes whole-of-government relationships. There’s also an express labelling of the ‘Community’ role played by the NZDF. This has long been evident in practice—for example, in Defence’s highly visible post-disaster roles—but hasn’t had the same visibility in policy. The focus on ‘Community, Nation and World’ also emphasises the vastness of the range of potential roles for the NZDF. The call for combat-capable forces, interoperable with a number of ‘traditional and non-traditional’ partners, and trained and ready to respond to a range of other events, constitutes a heady wish list that could be difficult to sustain.

Unprecedentedly forthright language is also used to discuss China. There’s mention that defence relations have been strengthened, and that China is ‘deeply integrated into the rules-based order’. But it’s also noted that China ‘holds views on human rights and freedom of information that stand in contrast to those that prevail in New Zealand’ and ‘has determined not to engage with an international tribunal ruling’.

Useful ambiguity returns, however, in mentions of the risk to open societies of disruption to their political systems through foreign meddling, as well as in mentions of concern about others’ pursuit of spheres of influence. Indeed, this statement includes unprecedented mention of Russia, thereby (like the inclusion of the US under the broader rubric of the Five Eyes) providing a way to discuss concerns in a more generalised fashion.

Ambiguity and forthrightness walk hand in hand in this document, making for very interesting reading. Most interesting perhaps is the emphasis on space and cyber capabilities, in no small part because they could sit well with the New Zealand public if increasing those domestic capabilities can deliver more of the ‘independent foreign policy’ that New Zealanders believe they already have.

Imagine that Australia released a Defence White Paper that refused even in the most veiled terms to discuss China’s destabilising policies in the South China Sea, which didn’t mention Indonesia or Papua New Guinea, and which concluded that ‘Asia has seen some positive security developments in recent years.’

Imagine further that this White Paper offered no substance on equipment acquisition plans, simply pointing to a future statement that may contain details. Imagine a White Paper that says nothing—zero, zip, nada—about Defence spending, not even mentioning the size of the current Defence budget.

Impossible, you cry! No government could get away with that. Allow me to introduce New Zealand’s Defence White Paper 2016, a policy statement that plumbs new depths of vacuity in its desperation to say nothing offensive to outsiders nor to commit Wellington to a precise course of action.

Previous New Zealand defence white papers have had considerably more substance. The document released this week, however, suggests that our Kiwi siblings are going through some kind of existential crisis about the shape, purpose, cost and direction of New Zealand Defence.

The White Paper has some rather confused messages about New Zealand’s strategic outlook to 2040. It claims:

‘By 2030 Asia is expected to have surpassed North America and Europe combined in terms of global power, a measure defined by gross domestic product, population size, military spending and technological investment.’

But ‘Asia’ isn’t a single actor wielding power. It’s a grouping of many states with conflicting strategic objectives. ‘Power’ isn’t a measure of size but rather a state’s willingness to use it. The White Paper points to the enduring nature of terrorism, resource competition, WMD proliferation and information technology as features shaping New Zealand’s strategic outlook. It’s an odd list, producing policy gems like ‘the adoption of technology has a number of advantages in the military context’, but missing other factors such as the rise of Asian nationalism, climate change and any serious discussion of military technology trends.

The document points to some ‘positive security developments in recent years’ in Asia without saying what those might be, but then says ‘tensions in the region are greater than they were five years ago.’ On the South China Sea the New Zealand statement can’t bring itself to say that Chinese assertiveness is undermining security. Rather we have a comment that Wellington ‘does oppose actions that undermine peace and erode trust.’

New Zealand will address that by increasing international defence cooperation because ‘through continued, meaningful engagement, New Zealand develops familiarity with those with whom its relationships may be less established.’ The documents notes that ‘over half of New Zealand’s maritime trade passes through the South China Sea’ but there is no expression of Wellington’s willingness to exercise freedom of navigation or overflight rights, only the limp observation that such rights have ‘been tested in recent years.’

On Australia, the White Paper solidly says that ‘Australia is New Zealand’s most important bilateral partner. New Zealand has no better friend and no closer ally. … While a direct armed attack on Australia is unlikely in the foreseeable future, should it be subject to such an attack, New Zealand would respond immediately.’ But there’s a distressing lack of detail in how New Zealand might work with Australia. Closer interoperability is only to be pursued ‘where relevant [to] ensure Defence capabilities are complementary and compatible.’ There’s no acknowledgement of the industry synergies that might work both to Australia and New Zealand’s advantage in ship and vehicle building and sustainment.

The geographic area getting most of the limelight in the White Paper is, surprisingly, Antarctica, which is mentioned 35 times. By contrast Australia gets 31 mentions, China only 14 and Indonesia and PNG aren’t mentioned at all. One of the few precise force structure commitments in the document is to ice-strengthen the planned third offshore patrol vessel and replacement naval tanker.

Australia will only benefit from Wellington’s increased commitment to Antarctic operations, but no thought seems to have been given to how the two countries might jointly approach this task. The bigger problem overall is that Antarctica is hardly a compelling rationale to sustain the New Zealand military. Servicing New Zealand’s presence down south is a useful secondary task, but nothing more than that.

The White Paper squibs New Zealand’s most urgent task, which is to come up with a practical plan addressing the block obsolescence of most big ticket equipment items in the Defence Force. On replacing the P3 maritime surveillance aircraft, the White Paper says only that an ‘air surveillance capability’ is required. Likewise a ‘Littoral Operations Support vessel’ is needed and that will be used to transport ‘land combat capabilities including personnel, helicopters and light armoured vehicles that can be deployed (by sea) for up to 36 months.’ (Yes, readers—36 months!)

ANZAC frigates must also be replaced, but all the White Paper can say about this major acquisition is that ‘Work on options for the replacement of the frigates will begin well before they reach the end of their service life in the 2020s.’

The answers to all of those force structure challenges will apparently appear in ‘a Defence Capability Plan scheduled for release later in 2016.’ Perhaps the White Paper should have been held for release until then. Gerry Brownlee, the Defence Minister, advises that the total cost will be ‘close to $20 billion over the next 15 years.’ It’s not clear how much analysis has gone into that figure, but the White Paper makes clear that Defence’s job is to design the future force around that target rather than come up with a capability driven cost estimate. There is, in any event, not a single financial data point in the ‘Affordability’ chapter on which to plan a future spend. There are, however, plenty of sentences that read like this:

‘Defence is working with other government agencies to formalise a process for updating and reviewing its assumptions related to a range of external factors that have a heavy influence on forecasting costs.’

Well, that will keep people busy then.

Overall New Zealand’s Defence White Paper 2016 looks like it was hit with a series of unhappy compromises around the language of its strategic judgements, and was unable to land its targets for force structure decision making. Australia has been down this track before, so we shouldn’t get smug here.

Canberra and Wellington should surely have some hard discussions about the things we could be doing better together. For all our talk about being family, the ANZAC relationship is a persistent underachiever, marked more with the protection of comfort zones than any aspiration for excellence. We must do much better than this.

Does New Zealand have a more realistic view of its strategic environment than Australia? Given that many hard-headed Australian strategists think that New Zealand freeloads on Australia’s security efforts, even raising such a question will strike many as preposterous.

And yet it’s worth thinking about what price our cousins across the Tasman have paid since they effectively gave up the pretence of being a ‘serious’ military power and an effective ally of the US. Has a queue of hostile powers formed off the coast of a defenceless New Zealand now that they finally have a chance to put their long-held invasion plans into practice?

Clearly, the very idea is risible. It’s equally improbable for Australia, of course. But unlike the Kiwis, we are about to spend a possible $30-40 billion on new submarines, and something like $25 billion on F35 fighter plans that are plagued with problems. The only thing certain about either of those projects is that they’ll cost significantly more than we were originally promised.

But even if the new hardware actually works as promised, what good will it actually do us? Is it actually possible to make a plausible argument for that sort of spending at a time when most public expenditure is under intense review and the economy is experiencing mounting problems?

That’s one of the many things that sets security questions apart, of course. Unlike other areas of government spending, the defence of the realm remains relatively immune from funding cutbacks. On the contrary, at a time when security has become something of a national and international obsession, suggesting that the same sort of cost-benefit analysis ought to be applied to defence as other government portfolios looks foolhardy and even unpatriotic.

But is it? Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the defence debate is that there isn’t one. Despite the eye-watering sums involved, which the country apparently can no longer afford, there’s been next to no discussion of their actual necessity or the circumstances in which the planes, subs and other assets might actually be used. The only questions about the new acquisitions, it seems, are how many and who should build them?

Even the ALP toes the national security line. No one wants to look wimpy, irresponsible or unreliable when it comes to defence. On the contrary, some Labor luminaries like Kim Beazley have been at the forefront of championing defence issues generally and the alliance with the US in particular; an enthusiasm that culminated in the ill-fated  decision to commission the Collins-class submarines.

Despite the fact that those boats seemed to spend more time out of the water than under it, the safety of the nation didn’t seem to be noticeably impaired. In reality, the only real security threats Australia has faced over recent years have been from terrorism and illegal boat arrivals – if the latter actually is a security threat as such. It’s not obvious what even effective submarines and fighter planes could do about either of those problems.

Plainly the world is not a peaceful place and the security of Australians is occasionally threatened by those that would like to do them harm. Good intelligence and a capacity to intercept unauthorised arrivals—be they asylum seekers or terrorists—are clearly valuable and appropriate assets that are entirely in keeping with the scale of the threats this country faces.

But what about our obligation to the notional guarantor of our security? It isn’t unrealistic or disloyal to suggest that the US will do whatever it sees as being in its national interest, whether or not this happens to coincide with ours. Australia should do likewise. If the US wants to contain, confront or abandon us to China they will do so for reasons that make sense to them.

The key point to emphasise in this context is that Australia can make absolutely no difference to the outcome—or even likelihood—of a possible conflict between the US and China, with or without our expensive new military hardware. In such circumstances, it’s an awfully expensive way of reassuring the Americans about our reliability as alliance partners.

That’s where the New Zealand experience becomes instructive. Not only have the Kiwis suffered no evident diminution to their national security since they left the ANZUS alliance, but they have concentrated their efforts and limited capabilities where they really might make a difference, in economic development. The fact that New Zealand wasn’t any longer a formal ANZUS partner can also only have helped their successful conclusion of a trade deal with China well in advance of us.

Genuinely independent middle powers are actually attractive partners for friend and putative foe alike. They also have more potential diplomatic leverage than countries whose every move is an all too predictable reflection of, and supplement to, that of its principal ally.

Outsourcing effective responsibility for foreign and security policy wouldn’t be wise even if we could afford its implications and obligations. It looks even more indefensible, unnecessary and unproductive in the current environment. New Zealand’s experience suggests that Australia’s future defence direction is at least worth debating.