New Zealand wants to expand Indo-Pacific military deployments to show it is “pulling our weight” with increased spending on its armed forces, the South Pacific nation’s top military official said.
Defence Minister Judith Collins raised the prospect of welcoming increased warship visits to the country, deepening combined training and other cooperative efforts with its traditional defense partners, including Australia, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States.
“So, we’re open for business, we’re back in the world, and we’re pulling our weight,” Collins said in late May 2025 at the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore.
The New Zealand government announced in April 2025 that it would boost defense spending by $5 billion during the next four years, with the aim of nearly doubling it to 2% as a share of gross domestic product in the next eight years amid growing international tensions. The new spending significantly boosts the defense budget and follows its first national security review in 2023.
The review called for more military spending and stronger ties with Indo-Pacific nations to tackle issues such as strategic competition between the West and China and Russia.
The USS Blue Ridge, the command ship of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, visited Wellington in May 2025 and further visits from partners could be expected, Collins said. The Blue Ridge was just the third U.S. warship to visit in 40 years.
When asked about Chinese concerns at New Zealand’s more assertive military posture, Collins said Beijing realized that Wellington had “actually got a spine,” but doesn’t “think China stays awake at night worrying about us.”
Military analysts say that New Zealand must improve its ability to sustainably project power given its small, aging Air Force and Navy. New Zealand maintains an independent foreign policy but remains part of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network with Australia, Canada, the U.K. and the U.S.
Deployments of its four new Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft are being closely watched, given how they can help other countries plug gaps in the hunt for Chinese submarines, analysts say.
Collins said New Zealand and Australian pilots now can fly each other’s P-8 and transport planes — a sign of growing interoperability. Collins said the P-8s already had flown toward Canada, and she expects further patrols in the South China Sea and Indian Ocean. “I think you’ll see quite a lot of that,” she said. “We go everywhere. Everywhere where we’re wanted, we go, if we can.”