Kia ora and welcome to the Autumn 2026 edition – and 39th issue – of Line of Defence Magazine! Yes, that’s right, we’re just one magazine away from our milestone 40th issue and 10th anniversary edition!
In this edition, we’re privileged to be joined by contributing writers former Defence Minister Hon Dr Wayne Mapp QSO, Massey University’s Dr John Battersby and Nicola Macaulay, former NZ Army Officers Ben Morgan and Graeme Doull.
Some excellent updates and messages also from Line of Defence sponsors Serco, GA-ASI, Ventia, Babcock, and Brightstar. These leading organisations make our publication possible.
In this first issue of Line of Defence Magazine for 2026, Graeme Doull backs up his two-article contribution in the Summer edition with another two great articles. We actually released his piece on the QAMR and 1st Battalion amalgamation several weeks ago, and it’s been our highest-performing post on LinkedIn ever, with a staggering over 48,000 impressions and an impressive 135 reactions. It’s clearly elicited some strong sentiment.
Read or download the 48-page full-colour Autumn 2026 edition:
In his second piece, Graeme writes that although democracy does not require conformity, it does require a shared baseline of reality, and that baseline’s being eroded. A sobering assessment but with clear, practical takeaways.
In his latest Line of Defence article, senior contributor Wayne Mapp points out that New Zealand still has no specific plan for how it will reach its 2% of GDP Defence spend target. In order to spend an additional $16.5 billion over the next eight years, he suggests that we’ll need one soon.
The Trump administration has recently demonstrated its penchant for regime change, but in his latest editorial piece, John Battersby places the shoe on the other foot, writing that if Trump’s behaviour was exhibited by any other country’s leader, the White House would be building a case for regime change.
John’s Massey University colleague Nicola Macaulay suggests that the New Zealand Government has been aligning ever more closely with AUKUS by stealth, and that greater transparency is needed as more rubber hits the road.
My article on NZ’s retail crime statistics presents evidence indicating that our post-COVID retail crime hike has been largely a case of statistical blow-out driven by big changes in how retail security incidents are reported. Informed by the skewed data, big and unnecessary decisions have been – and are being – made by government around legislative changes and policy interventions and by retailers around security tech investments.
All this and much more in this issue of Line of Defence, including recent NZDF news, Sweden’s new crisis and war preparedness framework, Ben Morgan’s lessons from the evolution of indirect fire for potential future conflict in the Southwest Pacific, and the latest Defence Industry news.
Nicholas Dynon, Auckland.
