Deep Sabre rattling

Te Kaha during a hook-up with American vessel USNS John Ericsson. Now, NZ's involvement in Exercise Deep Sabre is being taken as a positive sign.

New Zealand's involvement in a military exercise with the United States has been interpreted by some as a warming of relations. But Geoff Cumming discovers it's more a case of mutual flexibility.

The might of the New Zealand Defence Force is once again alongside the big players in the war against terror. An Orion, a liaison officer and two customs staff stand proud among 2000 military, customs and coastguard personnel from Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Russia, Britain and Singapore.

Oh, and the United States, after the Bush Administration waived restrictions on its troops mixing with ours for an exercise off Singapore under the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI).

Their simulated mission is interdiction - intercepting ships suspected of carrying materials that could be used for weapons of mass destruction.

Our involvement in Exercise Deep Sabre has caused a flurry of static in political and diplomatic circles and excited media interest.

Those who read tea leaves and study entrails for any sign of a thaw in relations between Wellington and Washington are on heightened alert.

But the timing may have caused too much to be read into our participation - coming a month after outgoing US Ambassador Charles Swindells urged the two estranged partners to lock heads, a month before the election and in the week David Lange died.

The Dominion Post led with the story on Wednesday, saying the waiver was "extremely significant." TVNZ followed, saying (incorrectly) it was the first time the waiver has been granted.

Politically, it's a blow for National, which has tried to exploit the rift in the weeks since Swindells' valedictory speech.

Labour could claim that our participation vindicates its stance that New Zealand can maintain the anti-nuclear policy and remain a very, very, very close friend.

But Labour, too, is anxious the event is not blown out of proportion. It's a quantum leap between dispatching an Orion to Singapore and clinching a free-trade agreement.

While our involvement is taken as a positive sign, most observers see it as - at best - an incremental step towards the comprehensive dialogue called for by Swindells.

What happens after the election is what counts.

Foreign Minister Phil Goff had it about right when he told the Herald that to leave New Zealand, a PSI partner since June 2004, out of the exercise "would not have been a credible position".

Ron Smith, director of international relations and security studies at Waikato University, says it suits the Bush Administration to have us in Singapore.

"The Americans regard the PSI as crucial to reducing the danger of a nuclear strike on their territory. You can understand why they would want to have anyone willing to participate.

"I don't see any significant change in New Zealand's relationship with the US. It just means they see the PSI as sufficiently important to be flexible on this point.

"From our point of view we can be flexible without [compromising] our stance. Let's call it mutual flexibility."

Professor Hugh White, head of the strategic and defence studies at the Australian National University, says the involvement of as wide a range of countries as possible helps lend legitimacy to the PSI, which is aimed at potential weapons shipments from rogue states such as North Korea and Iran. But a question mark hovers over the legality of intercepting ships on the high seas when countries are not officially at war. "The PSI is a good idea but it does stretch the boundaries of international law along the way."

White sees no hint of a US mellowing over our anti-nuclear stand. "It's quite an established principle that the US will make an exception to policy where it's in US interests."

He cites examples of New Zealand's operational involvement with the US - the SAS involvement in Afghanistan, use of Navy frigates in the Arabian Gulf and our role in East Timor, where the US had a peripheral role.

"The US will have made an on-balance judgment - on the one hand the priority of its now 20-year-old policy, and on the other hand wanting to maximise PSI participation."

But he expects the US to make more exceptions to its policy over time.

Peter Cozens, director of the Victoria University Centre for Strategic Studies, says it's significant the waiver is for an exercise rather than an operation. "It's a bit like a security clearance - we've been given a clean bill of health to operate in an exercise environment with US forces."

He says while our Defence Force has stood alongside the US many times in pre-operational training in the last 20 years, he is unaware of a waiver being officially given for an exercise.

"The difference between an operation and an exercise is enormous. It tests not only the operational capability of the units but ensures you are all singing off the same song sheet.

"For us to work with the largest military in the world in an exercise is vital ... "

Yet it's hardly the first time. In March 2001, the Herald's Australian correspondent Greg Ansley revealed New Zealand troops were placed in highly sensitive posts in Colorado and Hawaii during exercises co-ordinated by the US Space Command.

The frigate Te Kaha and an Orion were nominally part of the US Pacific Command during the July 2000 exercises to develop space-based weapons technology. Army units and other defence staff also took part.

Air Force Hercules aircraft are understood to have taken part in exercises in Canada with US participation.

Army officers are sent to the US Central Command in Tampa, Florida, though this is officially tied to our operational role in Afghanistan.

A US Embassy spokeswoman told the Herald, on Wednesday, that for the past 20 years the US had waived restrictions on exercising with our Defence Force "case by case when it was in the US interest to do so".

But the embassy went further, linking these occasional waivers to Swindells' suggestion that both countries discuss a less ad hoc arrangement as part of a comprehensive dialogue.

Cozens sees our role in Operation Sabre as a significant "feeler of acceptance" in light of Swindells' plea. He says the outgoing ambassador's speech found resonance among diplomats both in Washington and Wellington.

"[Participation] may very well have been in the planning stages before, but [the July 4 speech] gave it that little bit of carry to make it happen.

"Hopefully in future New Zealand will be able to operate with the USA as and when the need arises in future exercises. It doesn't mean we need to operate every time."

NZ and the PSI

The exercise followed US Ambassador Charles Swindells' valedictory speech.

* As the United States searched for ways to stem the flow of potential "weapons of mass destruction" in the wake of September 11, the Bush Administration came up with an equally unattractive title: proliferation security initiative.

* Participating countries work to minimise shipments of WMDs and raw materials using diplomacy, intelligence and, potentially, by intercepting shipments.

* Britain, Australia, Germany, France and Spain were among early signatories in 2003 and New Zealand joined in June last year.

* Concerns remain about the legality of boarding ships and seizing cargoes on the high seas.