Kia ora and welcome to the Summer 2023-24 issue of Line of Defence Magazine!
It’s amazing to think that with this final edition for 2023 we celebrate the 30th issue of Line of Defence overall since the inaugural issue of the magazine rolled off the printing press in April 2016!
In this post-election issue we are honoured to have among our editorial contributors no less than four New Zealand Defence Ministers past and present, including Dr Wayne Mapp, Mark Mitchell, Peeni Henare, and Judith Collins.
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Ms Collins stands to be among our most important Defence Ministers ever, writes Wayne Mapp, with an historic opportunity to build up our naval defence capability and to realign our defence relationships. Ross Browne argues that a key opportunity available to the new minister is the chance to initiate system and cultural reform to capitalise on New Zealand’s wider innovation system.
If there is one thing we can do above all others to help us advance, writes new Defence Minister Judith Collins, it’s ensuring that we support innovation and embrace technology, including considering how AUKUS Pillar II may be part of the mix. For his part, Opposition Spokesperson for Defence Peeni Henare writes that he intends to constructively challenge the government on matters relating to defence on behalf of New Zealanders and Defence personnel in particular.
Ms Collins takes on her new role in a year in which conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East have presented challenges of moral resolve to the international community, and which have demonstrated the application and effect of novel technologies on the ground.
Hamas’ deadly 07 October attack on Israel and the latter’s devastating response is the context for the an article by Dr Bianca Baggiarini, who argues that Artificial Intelligence enabled technologies may have increased the speed of warfare, but that AI has also spectacularly failed to deliver greater precision and less civilian casualties.
In his second article for Line of Defence, Ben Morgan suggests that new technologies, such as the cheap precision-strike weapons we’re seeing being used by Ukrainian and Palestinian forces, will influence stabilisation operations elsewhere and challenge current assumptions over the ability of Australian ‘fires’ and logistics overmatch to protect deployments in the South West Pacific,
Taking an historical perspective, new contributor Kyrylo Cyril Kutcher argues the 2022 invasion of Ukraine is a recent example of Ruscism-fuelled expansionism, and that the international community’s failure to notice the pattern established by Russia in previous conflicts has set a dangerous precedent.
There are several more articles of note in this issue of Line of Defence, and we hope you find this issue to be among our best yet. Enjoy your summer reading, and wishing you the compliments of the season!
Nicholas Dynon, Auckland.
