The New Zealand Army (Māori: Ngāti Tūmatauenga, "Tribe of the God of war"), is the land component of the New Zealand Defence Force and comprises around 4,500 Regular Force personnel, 2,000 Territorial Force personnel and 500 civilians. Formerly the New Zealand Military Forces, the current name was adopted by the New Zealand Army Act 1950. The New Zealand Army traces its history from settler militia raised in 1845.
New Zealand soldiers served with distinction in the major conflicts in the 20th Century, including the Second Boer War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Malayan Emergency, Borneo Confrontation and the Vietnam War. Since the 1970s, deployments have tended to be assistance to multilateral peacekeeping efforts. Considering the small size of the force, operational commitments have remained high since the start of the East Timor deployment in 1999. New Zealand personnel also served in the First Gulf War, Iraq and are currently serving in Afghanistan and several UN and other peacekeeping missions. They have just been withdrawn from East Timor and RAMSI in the Solomons. New Zealanders, colloquially known as Kiwis, are citizens of New Zealand. New Zealand is a multiethnic society, and home to people of many national origins. Originally composed solely of the indigenous Māori, theethnic makeup of the population has been dominated since the 19th century by New Zealanders of European descent, mainly of Scottish, English and Irish ancestry, with smaller percentages of other European ancestries such as French, Dutch, Scandinavian and South Slavic. New Zealand has an estimated resident population of around 4.47 million as of June 2013, although around 220,000 of those have been resident in the country for less than five years. New Zealand’s historical alliances and enduring close ties with ISAF nations made it likely from the outset that NZDF personnel would be sent to support the ISAF mission in Afghanistan. On 21 September 2001, Prime Minister Helen Clark announced that New Zealand intended to send troops to Afghanistan. As New Zealand is a parliamentary democracy, this decision was sent to a vote on 3 October in which all political parties were able to argue for or against the motion to offer …New Zealand Special Air Service troops and other assistance as part of the response of the United States and international coalition to the terrorist attacks that were carried out on 11 September 2001 in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania… This motion was passed 112-7. At the time, a poll estimated that 67% of New Zealanders supported military action in Afghanistan. In September 2001 the NZDF already had around 800 personnel deployed on operations worldwide, so limiting our initial contribution to SAS soldiers would allow us to maintain these other missions with regular force troops. Furthermore, the SAS were trained to conduct longterm operations in the field, and had a reputation as highly skilled, effective soldiers. If, as the US stated, the objective was to hunt down Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, sending the SAS was the logical choice for New Zealand to make. The first New Zealand special forces officially entered Afghanistan on 9 December 2001, and were expected to be deployed for 12 months. Further SAS contingents were sent in 2004 and 2005 (for six months each), and then from 2009 until 2012. Lance Corporal Willie Apiata won the Victoria Cross for bravery in 2004 after risking his life to rescue a wounded comrade. He became New Zealand’s first Victoria Cross recipient since 1943. ew Zealand’s involvement in Afghanistan began in 2001 “as part of international counter-terrorism operations directed against Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida, and the Taliban following the 9/11 attacks in the United States of America.”14 Before we outline the process leading up to the Government’s decision to deploy troops to Afghanistan, we provide a brief overview of the international community’s response to 9/11. This response was within the framework of the Charter of the United Nations (the UN Charter), the starting point of which is that states should settle their international disputes by peaceful means but which then recognises certain exceptions.15 On 12 September 2001, the day following the 9/11 attacks, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1368. This resolution recognised the right of individual or collective self-defence and condemned the attacks as acts of international terrorism which were a threat to international peace and security. The resolution called on the international community to bring those responsible to justice and to work together to prevent further attacks.16 Resolution 1368 was passed against the background that a Taliban Government held power in Afghanistan and permitted al-Qaida leadership to live and operate training camps there. As Cornelius Friesendorf observed: “… al Qaeda, under the leadership of Osama bin Laden, supported the Taliban financially to the point that the Taliban became dependent on al Qaeda and Bin Laden’s personal wealth.” New Zealand responded to the call of the United Nations in 2001 for assistance in Afghanistan, as did many other nations. Then Prime Minister Rt Hon Helen Clark announced in a media release on 21 September that New Zealand would make a military contribution. (The first deployment of NZSAS arrived in Kandahar in December 2001). A parliamentary debate about this decision was triggered on 3 October 2001, when the Prime Minister moved the following resolution:26 The international community considered that it was necessary to re-build the capacity of the Afghan people to conduct their own government and their own defence and to support the reconstruction and development of the country.36 One result was the increased focus on PRTs, which led to New Zealand troops being deployed in Bamyan province as the NZPRT from 2003 until April 2013. As Sir Angus Houston, the former Australian Chief of Defence Force, told the Inquiry, “[t]he PRTs were central to ISAF efforts across Afghanistan and were the heart of the counter-insurgency effort, or more widely known as COIN.”37 On 8 July 2003 the New Zealand Minister of Defence, Hon Mark Burton, announced the new NZPRT commitment.38 The Minister said the NZPRT had a focus “on enhancing the security environment and promoting reconstruction efforts.” The NZPRT was more of a security and reconstruction force than a combat unit, albeit that it undertook security patrols which, on occasion, did lead to combat. The NZPRT consisted both of military personnel and civilians. In 2012 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) became the lead agency for the NZPRT, taking over from the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF).39 From that time until the NZPRT ceased operations in 2013, NZDF’s senior officer in the NZPRT deployment took the title of “Senior Military Adviser to the PRT” as well as Commanding Officer of CRIB (the NZDF operation name for the NZPRT deployments).40 Between 2004 and 2011 “NZDF was involved in more than 200 projects, large and small, that assisted the people of Bamyan.”41 The NZPRT’s official purpose was to establish a stable and secure environment in which local people could rebuild their province with the support of the Afghan Government, New Zealand and other donors. The New Zealand contribution included police resources, development assistance, education, governance, justice and the rule of law, health, humanitarian assistance and reconstruction elements.42 In addition to the ongoing NZPRT deployment, in 2009 the NZSAS was deployed to Afghanistan for the fourth time, as part of ISAF. This was consistent with other nations’ involvement and reflected the focus of the international community on state-building in Afghanistan. As we noted earlier, Operation Enduring Freedom was a United States-led coalition combat operation, part of the United States’ global war on terror, while ISAF was a NATO-led coalition operation, concentrating on security assistance and helping Afghan authorities rebuild key government institutions. Both operations ran concurrently in Afghanistan for more than a decade. United States forces could be assigned to one or both operations and the Commander ISAF was also the Commander of United States Forces in Afghanistan (USFOR-A). The international community recognised that progress was needed on security if proper governance arrangements were to be established. Development assistance could not succeed without effective security, proper governance, application of the rule of law and the absence of corruption. Achieving these was essential for a proper functioning state, but proved a major challenge. The decision to deploy the NZSAS in 2009 was made by the National-led Government of Rt Hon (now Sir) John Key.46 In February 2009, the Cabinet had decided to extend New Zealand’s existing commitments in Afghanistan (principally the NZPRT) from 1 October 2009 through to 30 September 2010. Cabinet also agreed that there should be a review of New Zealand’s commitment in Afghanistan beyond 30 September 2010, with the results to be provided by mid-2009. In March 2009 the Government received a request from the United States for a further deployment of the NZSAS to Afghanistan, beginning in September 2009. This was one of several requests made by ISAF and United States authorities, the most notable of which was in a telephone call from United States President Barack Obama to Mr Key47. The proposal was that the NZSAS would, at least temporarily, replace the withdrawing Norwegian Task Group. Like the Norwegians, the NZSAS would partner with the Afghan Crisis Response Unit (CRU) in a mentoring role.48 In his evidence, Hon Dr Wayne Mapp, who was the Minister of Defence at the time, said that the United States military hierarchy regarded the NZSAS highly as a Tier 1 Special Forces group—well trained, professional and capable of handling difficult missions successfully.

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