Ambassadors Roundtable Series- New Zealand Event Summary

The George Washington University’s Homeland Security Policy Institute (HSPI) hosted Roy Ferguson, New Zealand’s ambassador to the US, on June 5th, 2007 for a roundtable discussion on New Zealand’s security policies.

New Zealand is an island nation of four million people separated from its nearest neighbor by over a thousand miles of ocean. While its small size and geographic isolation might hint at little involvement in international security issues, Ambassador Ferguson firmly believes that New Zealand’s interests and security require its active involvement in world affairs. As a small country, he argued, New Zealand can only achieve its goals through cooperation with friends and allies. As a trading country, New Zealand has long depended on regional and global stability and security for its livelihood. Most importantly, the Ambassador noted, an open democracy like New Zealand cannot secure itself only by implementing protective measures at home; instead, security at home means that “you have to make the world a safer place.”

New Zealand is, for example, working towards this goal by helping to bring stability to Afghanistan. New Zealand participated in the overthrow of the Taliban, deploying special operations forces to Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002, and was the first country after the US and the United Kingdom to take responsibility for stabilizing an entire province. Ambassador Ferguson described the work of the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) that New Zealand has maintained in the northern Hazarajat region of Afghanistan since 2003. New Zealand troops in the PRT have focused on establishing and maintaining key relationships with local leaders and communities, reconstruction aid, disarmament, and security reform. The Ambassador highlighted a particularly successful approach: troops in the PRT will often undertake long-range, long-term patrols – up to thirty days or more – in order to maximize their presence in and build ties with local communities.

New Zealand has also been heavily involved in stabilization and nation-building missions in the South Pacific region. The Ambassador described his region as being at a crossroads: the beauty, diversity, and cultural wealth of the South Pacific coexists with poverty, environmental degradation, political instability, and violence. This leaves not only the unstable countries – Fiji, Tonga, East Timor, and others – vulnerable to warlordism or transnational crime and terrorism, but also threatens their neighbors. As a result, New Zealand has worked closely with Australia and other regional partners to bring stability to these countries. New Zealand sent a stabilization mission to Papua New Guinea in the mid-1990s and, since 2003, has maintained police and defense personnel in the Solomon Islands as part of an international effort to stabilize that country and build a functioning democratic system. Ambassador Ferguson described efforts to restore order, build local police capacity, restore the economy, and build an independent judiciary. The Ambassador said that their efforts have had some success, but cautioned that stabilization work, even in a country as small as the Solomon Islands, is slow and difficult work.

Frank Cilluffo, director of HSPI, commended New Zealand for avoiding the “bunker mentality” that some stabilization missions take on, prioritizing operational security over building ties with local communities. The key, he said, “is gaining trust at the lowest levels of society.” Ambassador Ferguson agreed, saying that New Zealand has been very lucky in Afghanistan in that the Hazara people, with whom New Zealand’s PRT works, were staunchly opposed to the Taliban and welcomed foreign intervention. He also said that the stabilization mission in the Solomon Islands had the support of local people, who enjoy the return of law and order, but warned that losing the support of the local population could doom a foreign intervention.

As part of its work to bring stability to the region and to counter the threat of religious radicalization, New Zealand has initiated a regional interfaith dialogue. Seeking to strengthen religious moderates and isolate extremists, each year New Zealand invites delegations of leaders from every religion in the region to discuss the issues facing those religions, especially interfaith issues. The Ambassador said that while New Zealand has been fortunate to avoid the threat of domestic religious radicalization so far, it seeks to be active in combatting its spread to the South Pacific region.

Ambassador Ferguson also discussed New Zealand’s efforts to prepare for the possibility of an outbreak of pandemic influenza. The Ambassador cited New Zealand’s geographic isolation, its small, dispersed population, and its small number of ports of entry as advantages in preparation. But even New Zealand, he said, cannot rely on favorable geography to protect it in a globalized era. As a result, New Zealand has worked to improve communication and coordination between and among government agencies responsible for emergency preparedness and response. The Ambassador also described efforts to improve public awareness of emergency preparedness through education. New Zealand has long educated its public on emergency preparedness, inserting into every phonebook instructions on the emergency plans and supplies each family needs to survive New Zealand’s regular earthquakes. The government is now looking at ways to build on those efforts to inform the public on how to prepare for influenza.

Frank Cilluffo and HSPI were most pleased to host Ambassador Ferguson, who provided a wealth of information on New Zealand’s approach to a range of security issues that impact countries around the world. Both Mr. Cilluffo and Ambassador Ferguson highlighted the close relationship between the US and New Zealand, including intelligence sharing and joint operations in Afghanistan, that forms an important component of the transnational response needed to meet today’s security challenges.

The Ambassador Roundtable Series on International Collaboration to Combat Terrorism and Insurgencies is cosponsored by HSPI and the Inter-University Center for Terrorism Studies. The series is an effort to engage ambassadors, heads of state and cabinet level officials in an ongoing dialogue on the counterterrorism efforts around the world.

For further inquries, please email hspi@gwu.edu with the subject Ambassadors Roundtable Series Inquiries