The last of four new Boeing P-8A Poseidon aircraft has landed, substantially increasing New Zealand’s surveillance – and military – capacity. But how they are best deployed is open to debate.
With no end in site to the Ukraine war, and the UN largely powerless, New Zealand now faces difficult military, humanitarian, diplomatic and legal challenges.
The myriad problems with Australia’s new fleet of F-35 aircraft mean pilots aren’t getting the flying time they need and the jets themselves are in danger of becoming obsolete.
While the US has the most powerful military machine in history, it is also incomparably the most expensive – and members of Congress work aggressively to maintain it.
New Zealand’s coalition government has to balance strong martial and pacifist traditions. But ageing equipment and climate change will require taxpayers to fund expensive upgrades for the military.
Trump claimed that ‘we would be punishing ourselves’ by using US arms sales to Saudi Arabia as a bargaining chip over the disappearance of Khashoggi. A look at the arms trade shows why he’s wrong.
Millennials are less inclined than older Americans to intervene abroad, maintain superior military power or believe the US is an exceptional nation. What does that mean for the country’s future?
The most expensive defense program in world history has yielded a multi-role fighter plane that is an inelegant jack-of-all-trades, but master of none.
The outcome of this election may depend more on what we make of it than on what Trump and his advisers intend. Though daunting, the challenge is pregnant with possibilities.