Defence chiefs ‘polish their arse on a seat in Wellington’ without learning the lessons of modern asymmetric warfare from Ukraine, says Ron Mark.

Watching the drones fly into Kyiv from his fifth floor room is imprinted on Ron Mark’s memory. 550 drones in one night. 13 ballistic missiles. “Seeing them go through, seeing the explosions in parts of the city – and then visiting one of the sites the next morning.”

Police allowed him under the tape into the bombed apartment building. Then he went to the hospital burns unit where he met a pregnant woman who’d been pulled from one of the units. He got word three days later – the doctors had saved her baby, but not her. “It’s a different type of warfare, and that’s what Europe now knows it has to deal with.”

Mark doesn’t think New Zealand politicians and top brass understand how war has changed. The headline-grabbing former defence minister admits NZ First would have to improve its polling for him to return to Parliament – but either way, he intends to influence defence decision-making.

In an extended interview with Newsroom, he’s expanded on his concerns about Defence Force leadership, the resignation of Defence Chief Air Marshal Tony Davies, and the “woke bullshit” that he claims promoted sunken HMNZS Manawanui’s Commander Yvonne Gray beyond her abilities.

NZ First has published its defence policy, proposing to cancel the purchase of new British or Japanese frigates to replace the ageing Anzac-class HMNZS Te Kaha and Te Mana. This makes unexpected bedfellows out of NZ First and the Greens, who also want to torpedo the procurement.

Two new frigates are estimated to cost $6b to $8b upfront, and the total through-life cost over 30 years is estimated by Just Defence at roughly $22b.

On advice from the Ministry of Defence capability delivery division, the new government will likely choose between two Japanese-designed upgraded Mogami-class frigates, or two or three UK-made Type 31 frigates. Or, perhaps, neither.

Former defence minister Judith Collins previously told Newsroom the British frigates would be cheaper, but it’s thought the fully-specced Japanese stealth frigates would be the frontrunner in the procurement, because they would be interoperable with the 11 Mogamis that Australia is buying and manufacturing.

However, instead of buying either the Mogami or the Type 31, NZ First would invest a much smaller sum in a second amphibious warship capable of supporting swarms of air, surface, and undersea drones, alongside heavy amphibious sealift. 

That would free up Crown capital to buy modular vessels, long-range surveillance systems, a cyber force, more Hercules C-130Js for tactical airlift, and to build up domestic war reserves of essential munitions.

It is a policy heavily influenced by Mark’s visits to Ukraine, which doesn’t even have naval warships. Yet it successfully used anti-ship missiles to sink the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet,  the cruiser Moskva.

Mark says that’s the reality of today’s asymmetrical warfare: “Hybrid warfare is not a movie, it’s not a conspiracy, it’s not a theory, it’s actually happening.”

But the New Zealand Defence Force leadership is stuck in the past. “They spent the last 12 years not in a unit, not on a base, not in a camp, not in the field, but polishing their arse on a seat in Wellington,” he says. “I just wouldn’t have confidence in current Navy leadership right now.

“If you’re going to spend $2 billion on a frigate, what else would you buy to cover your ocean, this vast ocean?” he asks.

He’s particularly critical of Defence Chief Tony Davies, who quit last week over an “inappropriate relationship” with a subordinate. Mark says he wasn’t aware of the concerns when he first promoted Davies, but had been unimpressed by him more recently.

Mark argues the Defence Force has been sitting on 300 surplus vehicles, which had been replaced by newer vehicles. He’d repeatedly asked that they be released so he could ship them to Ukraine where they were “desperately needed” – but Davies had said there were no surplus military vehicles to send.

“Bloody bullshit!” says Mark – and points to an advert on the Turners car auction site last week offering for sale a fleet of unimogs, forklifts, and other ex-Defence vehicles.

If Davies had an inappropriate relationship, he says, then he exposed the whole Defence Force.

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He says the Public Service Commission and New Zealand security services have “no friggin’ idea”. They should have scrutinised Davies’ appointment to Chief of Defence more carefully – and overseas intelligence agencies wouldn’t be so lackadaisical.

“There have been New Zealand Defence Force senior officers who have been compromised by people who who do not have our best interests at heart. Let me put it that way.”

How likely it is that foreign interests might use such information against Davies? Or that a senior officer might be honey-trapped while overseas, in Asia or elsewhere?

“They’ll target all levels, not just senior. Signals intelligence staff are always vulnerable. Unit commanders. Anyone’s vulnerable, and the more senior you are, the more you realise that. But when you’re younger and you’re more cavalier and you don’t think about these things, you can get yourself into situations where clearly he did, and he’s saying he did.

“You regret those and you pay the price down the line, and that’s regretful for everybody concerned. But it’s it is what it is, and he’s had to front it, and he’s done the right thing by resigning.

“It does come back to checks and balances on systems, because a minister does not need to find out that someone’s got something over his Chief of Defence Force.”

Mark is also critical of interim Defence Chief Mathew Williams, who he believes persuaded the Ministry of Defence and Government to buy the five US-made Seahawk helicopters, even though they’re so heavy that they can’t be used from the HMNZS Otago and Wellington offshore patrol vessels, and even require pricey structural refits to the Anzac frigates.

Mark acknowledges a conflict of interest: he worked previously for UK manufacturer Leonardo, which had pitched its AW159 Wildcat helicopter but lost the tender to Seahawk manufacturer Lockheed Martin.

It’s this Defence Force leadership who Mark says he primarily blames for the Manawanui sinking – not Commander Gray. He points to the Court of Inquiry finding that while Gray was qualified for command generally, she lacked the specific platform endorsement for Manawanui.

He says that should provide her a get-out-of-jail-free card in her court martial – because Navy chiefs had issued her a waiver allowing her to command Manawanui without the appropriate endorsement. “You had a raft of other women, men, potentially diverse candidates who would have been qualified. This one wasn’t. Why specifically did you sign off on this? Because I think potentially that’s where her defence lies.”

He insists he doesn’t have a problem with women in leadership. He points to Lieutenant Commander Lorna Gray who manoeuvred the HMNZS Otago through mountainous 20-metre waves and floating ice in the Southern Ocean, or Chief Military Intelligence Officer Colonel Angela Fitzsimons who led a UN peacekeeping mission to Mali – two officers whom he says he’d trust absolutely.

“I don’t care if someone is a three-legged five-eyed toad. If you’re qualified, if you’ve got the experience, if you’ve got the background, if you’ve commanded other vessels or been second in command of another vessel, and you’ve been specifically honed and brought up through your career to lead you to this point. Then that’s the way it should be.”

But he insists the Defence Force is instead being compromised by “DEI” promotions. He acknowledges he was a champion of diversity when he was defence minister – but says that was needs must.

“I was part of a Labour-Green coalition government, and I wanted to get $5 billion worth of procurement through. So part of it is that I needed to present the Defence with a face that Cabinet ministers would be happy with.

“But the other part of it is, you know, I don’t care if you’re gay, homosexual, or what-the-hell-ever. The only only thing I care about is that you have the skill, the experience, the ability to do the job.

“Look, a bullet doesn’t care what you got between your legs, and the crew on your ship, at the end of the day, are looking at you as the skipper – as the best qualified person for the job. They don’t care what your bedroom activities are.”

NZ First’s policy proposes a cross-party defence compact to agree procurement plans. As Kevin Hackwell writes at Newsroom, that could be challenging: National and Act want to replace the frigates, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori don’t, and Labour has refused to commit.

National’s defence spokesperson Paul Goldsmith says that if NZ First were serious about Defence, they wouldn’t have put Ron Mark in 16th position on the party list. “National is committed to implementing the 2025 Defence Capability Plan, which represents the biggest investment in defence in a generation.”

But Labour’s defence spokesperson Damien O’Connor agrees he would want to work with NZ First and other parties across Parliament, given the long-term nature of defence objectives.

O’Connor urges caution before signing up to buy either the Japanese Mogami-class frigates or Britain’s Type 31 Frigate. “The timeframes for some of these things are so long that what are good sound propositions at the start become redundant at the end of the process,” he says.

“These are very expensive pieces of equipment. They would be expected to operate and be effective for a long period. We have to make sure they are versatile enough to deliver on the possibilities into the future.

“We can’t make a true judgment on that until we can look under the bonnet and then talk directly with the people who have been progressing the Defence Capability Plan.”

Even though I agree with Ron Mark on most defense issues... cancelling the frigates is something I disagree with...  

New Zealand is in a totally different situation than Ukraine. First we have no boarders with other countries so. Our nearest neighbor is Australia and our only ally. We have sea lanes to protect. to have sea drones this far from a base you would need a capital ship which can be hunted and stopped.  The frigates also have many other duties during peacetime as as well as in conflicts.  Yes we need to adapt to modern drone warfare, and every thing learnt from Ukraine, but you have to keep all the other parts 

If you have a drone ship you need escorts for it that can defend them while they are do their operations, defend them from submarines, air defence, and other vessels, and a Frigate is the smallest for this. else you again as you say just wasting money and lives in a conflicts.