By Colin James
Leaving East Timor after last month's "emotional" visit, Foreign Minister Phil Goff emphatically declared that F-16 fighter planes would have been irrelevant in that venture.
For strike capability, he said, armed helicopters would have been more useful.
It was one more nail in the coffin the new Government has been assiduously building for the 28 F-16s Max Bradford last year contracted to buy from the United States.
Derek Quigley, whose select committee report questioning the value of the F-16s was enthusiastically embraced by Labour last year, is hard at work in the undertaker's back room.
But now the skeleton is being rattled.
David Dickens, director of the Centre for Strategic Studies - which Labour in its election manifesto said it might use to "foster greater non-governmental defence and strategic analysis" - will next week publish three briefing papers raising important issues about cancelling the F-16 contract.
The main points are:
* Australian jet strike capability was needed close to East Timor to deter threatened Indonesian attacks, including by jet fighters.
* New Zealand cannot be sure others will supply air cover on demand.
* The F-16s would fill large gaps in Australia's air defence.
* Attack helicopters can destroy tanks, vehicles and point to targets. But that is all they can do.
* Reactions from Australia, the United States, Singapore and Malaysia would be "muted" to a changed F-16 decision.
But those "muted" reactions would conceal anger if the cancellation was not accompanied by a commitment to a new capability outside the present 10-year capital plan or 20-year capital estimate.
Labour and the Alliance want an Army-based force principally geared to international peacekeeping.
They see fighter aircraft as peripheral to this, and believe spending on fighter aircraft would take money needed to modernise the Army.
The Coalition partners also say they do not have enough money to meet the previous Government's spending commitments - a claim hotly denied by National spokesmen Bill English (Treasury), Simon Upton (foreign affairs) and Wayne Mapp (defence).
Dr Dickens weighs in with the National MPs.
"The defence capital plan provides for both the F-16s and $400 million of new Army equipment," he says.
The Ministry of Defence's briefing papers to new minister Mark Burton show some of that equipment is in or close to the tendering process.
Dr Dickens also joins those who argue that the F-16s being bought are "world class" and "would be accepted into any United Nations, coalition or bilateral military arrangement."
He says the F-16 is "a force multiplier" for New Zealand forces because "sea and ground forces unversed in working with air power are of limited utility," and for Australia because it expands joint air strike capacity.
Australia has only three squadrons of F-18s and one of F-111s.
But is the F-16 a necessary multiplier or just a toy for the boys, as Government ministers imply?
They say the Air Force's Skyhawks have never been used in combat and that the F-16s are most unlikely to be so used.
As well, they say, the F-16s are irrelevant to peacekeeping and expensive to boot.
"Strike aircraft played no role from the New Zealand point of view in this [Timor] theatre," Mr Goff said on January 17.
Wrong, says Dr Dickens.
While the Indonesian cabinet invited the United Nations Interfet force to East Timor, the cabinet was not in control of the military, which threatened Interfet with high-tech forces, including jet fighters.
This threat "was capable of inflicting serious damage to Interfet's warships, logistic support ships and unarmed transport aircraft."
But the Indonesians were deterred by a display of sea and air power which included Australian fast jet fighters.
New Zealand Skyhawks, stationed permanently at the naval base of Nowra, New South Wales, and exercising with the Australian Navy, were potentially also contributors.
"East Timor reinforced lessons learned on other peacekeeping operations," Dr Dickens says, including that ground forces "must be able to call in heavier naval gun fire and close air support at short notice."
And, he says, attack helicopters, which Mr Goff mentioned as more relevant to Army operations, are not enough.
They are unrivalled in their capacity to destroy tanks and vehicles and point out targets but "that is all they can do."
And they can operate only in conditions of air superiority, which requires other aircraft.
But why not rely on the Australians for that part, as in East Timor? For two reasons, one military and one political, says Dr Dickens.
His military reason is that allies cannot be relied on to automatically provide the backup.
Again, East Timor demonstrates his point, he says.
The United States is over-stretched by other longstanding commitments. Australia does not have the air strike capacity to defend itself.
"If Australia is directly attacked, the United States might provide only limited military support," Dr Dickens says.
"This is a direct consequence of the United States' massive security commitments that cover much of the Northern Hemisphere.
"East Timor starkly illustrated the limits of the United States' capacity to support a smaller ally not covered by its core security umbrella."
Allied to this is New Zealand's commitment to the defence of Australia, which Dr Dickens says is central to the transtasman closer defence relations agreement.
Ground troops are no use in that role, whereas frigates, F-16s and Orions "have the capacity to add 20 per cent to Australia's capacity to defend itself."
"At the heart of the F-16 issue is a decision. Does New Zealand want to help Australia?"
Mr Burton rejects this language of attack.
Instead, he wants to concentrate on cooperative and complementary operations, such as that in Timor, with New Zealand specialising in some roles.
Dr Dickens' political reason for not leaving air strike capability to the Australians is credibility in the eyes of friendly nations. "Politically, the F-16s signal New Zealand's commitment to the defence of Australia and its willingness to remain engaged in regional security," he says.
This factor is important in Southeast Asia, where New Zealand is involved in the Five-Power Defence Arrangement with Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and Britain.
In Canberra, much would depend on whether the F-16 cancellation was accompanied by a commitment to buy new capability outside that included in the 10-year defence plan approved in 1998 and the 20-year capital estimate in the 1997 white paper.
If it did, the Australians would be sympathetic.
Buying $650 million worth of attack helicopters would fit that criterion, Dr Dickens said in an interview.
Leaving open the possibility of buying strike aircraft when the Skyhawks fade out in 2007 would amount to a cut equivalent to the cost of cancellation and the difference between any deal then and the current contract.
In any case, ministers' talk of reprioritising defence spending suggests moving items on the existing list around, rather than replacing F-16s with another new commitment.
Dr Dickens' interviews with "influential sources" in Australia - he talked to more than 30 such sources there and in the United States and Southeast Asia - suggest public and private responses would differ if no new commitment is made.
Australia's public response would then be one of "exact correctness" - "unlikely to deviate from the stock phrase that New Zealand is responsible for its own affairs."
But behind this polite facade would be a cost in politicians' willingness to stand up for New Zealand's interests on contentious social, immigration and trade issues, and a questioning of whether Australia could spend scarce resources exercising with New Zealand forces - which would reduce capacity for peacekeeping missions.
Sources in Australia have told Dr Dickens that Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer's affable response to Mr Goff in January was in this vein.
In Washington the public response would be formal and muted. But behind the scenes, New Zealand would be seen as a "state that does not honour its contractual obligations" and there would be "a high degree of caution in dealings with New Zealand."
One point Dr Dickens does not mention is jobs. If the F-16s are cancelled and Labour does not mean to buy strike aircraft when the Skyhawks run down in 2007, some, possibly much, of the New Zealand aircraft servicing industry might be in danger.
People in these jobs are members of the engineers union, which contributed heavily in money and organisers to Labour's election effort last year.
The F-16s have a long shadow.
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