Short on evidence, methodology, and analysis, the NZSIS’s latest threat report is not its best effort, writes Damien Rogers, Associate Professor of International Relations and Security Studies at Massey University.
It’s good to see the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS) release its report on New Zealand’s Security Threat Environment earlier this month. While they get an A+ for presentation, there is a lot more work to do on its substantive elements.
The report describes four important security problems confronting New Zealand today: foreign influence; espionage; insider threat; and terrorism and violent extremism. It then illustrates the ways in which each of these security problems might impact on New Zealanders and our democratic institutions.
This is a promising start, but rather than decontextualise these problems and render them in the abstract, the report needed to put the evolution of these problems in a broader historical context because their causes and intensifiers are complex, dynamic, and worth knowing.
The report also needed to evaluate the likelihood of associated harms and the magnitude of their impact, as well as differentiate among them to show why they are national security priorities. It needed to take a step back, identify, and account for the major events and ongoing trends in contemporary world affairs that might make these problems more likely to materialise or more harmful to New Zealanders if realised.
“… the New Zealand Government now refers to sociologists, demographers, and indigenous educationalists as though they were security experts when, clearly, they are not.”
As well, it needed to consider, and describe for New Zealanders, all the possible responses to these four problems and their likely outcomes before justifying the courses of action chosen by the NZSIS to treat them. Finally, the report needed to evaluate the extent to which the NZSIS has the operational capabilities and resources required to manage these problems.
While methodology is mentioned, the report doesn’t describe the analytical process that informs its assessment. This means it cannot be tested by independent experts. The report mentioned it relied on academic research, but no sources are listed. It also stated academics and subject-matter experts were consulted but does so without naming them.
This obfuscation deserves remedying because the New Zealand Government now refers to sociologists, demographers, and indigenous educationalists as though they were security experts when, clearly, they are not.
The appointment of co-directors to He Whenua Taurikura is a case in point. One wonders how exactly two academics, without bone fide expertise in Terrorism Studies or Security Studies more broadly, were invited onto the selection panel in the first place but then ended up in taking the roles they were seeking to fill before gaining control of the research funding.
“The report uses key concepts like ‘strategic competition’ and ‘Indo-Pacific’ which are US terms that our diplomats and security professionals have seemingly adopted without question. The story reads like it is supposed to reflect and endorse US foreign policy. “
Some of the report’s judgements are questionable too. Let me quote one example: “The NZSIS maintains its assessment that the most likely form of violent extremist attack would be an individual who has self-radicalised, taken steps to avoid detection, and acted alone.” This isn’t a judgement reached by analysing data and assessing trends. It is merely an obvious reckoning made in hindsight. This sparks a concern that the ‘generals’ here are preparing for the last battle they lost.
Overall, the report is too descriptive, insufficiently analytical, and missing too many key elements needed for a comprehensive and authoritative assessment. If my postgraduate students turned this into me to grade, I’d give it a C+ and encourage them to try much harder.
While the report lacks evidence to support its claims, the series of case studies are an interesting feature. However, they aren’t case studies. They are, in fact, vignettes.
Collectively, these vignettes tell a story about China and Russia as threats to New Zealand and to the international order. But nowhere in this story is it acknowledged that China and Russia are singled out here as top security priorities because they challenge US hegemony.
Nowhere in this story is it acknowledged that the international order, which New Zealand diplomats and security professionals so desperately want to preserve, creates and sustains the deplorable conditions needed for Israel to attack civilians in Gaza, massacring over 40,000 Palestinians. This grisly and macabre consequence of the US-led rules-based international order is simply written out of the story.
The report uses key concepts like ‘strategic competition’ and ‘Indo-Pacific’ which are US terms that our diplomats and security professionals have seemingly adopted without question. The story reads like it is supposed to reflect and endorse US foreign policy. This raises important questions about the integrity and independence of New Zealand’s foreign policy when its military and intelligence services are so closely integrated with, and in some cases embedded in, the US national security apparatus.
Ultimately, the report’s credibility depends on the NZSIS’s ‘next steps’ since its Director-General, Andrew Hampton, says it is “a starting point for a healthy conversation on keeping each other safe and secure.”
In addition to transparency, the intelligence and security agencies need to actively foster an informed citizenry capable of making their own judgements on security problems and on the performance of their intelligence and security agencies. They also need to start investing in the expert knowledge on New Zealand security that would obviously deepen their understanding of the problems they are obliged to manage.
What the NZSIS will do next, however, remains to be seen.
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