incorporating

SPECIAL ISSUE:

N Z Ready Reactionaries
. .

Practise Repression
WAIAU DAIRY

On patrol for "dissidents" in the North Canterbury town ofWaiau. Exercise Ivanhoe 1990.
Photo credit Chch Star
2

Repression and Low Intensity Conflict:

V.S. Strategy, New Zealand, and Resource Wars

by Dennis Small

"Now that the Soviet threat has receded, [former NATO commander Sir James] Eberle
was candid about the role of security pacts like ANZUS within the Western alliance.
Suchpacts will exist not so much to defend the Westfrom an external threat, he
explains, but to serve as platforms for launching forces to ensure our access to key
resources in the Third World. 'The new divide is not one of ideol(Jgy, but ofprosperity.'
Military alliances will still be needed, he concludes, to confront those who do not
recognise 'the norms of civilisation' about who should be the haves, and who should be
the have nots.

"To McKinnon, this role for security alliances still lies 'somewhere in the future' . "
(NZ Listener, 8 July 1991,p.15)

An Introductory Overview

What did the "capture" in March of this year of Timaru's RichardPearse Airport by more
than 1000 Ready Reactionaries have to do with the US-led war on Iraq?l While George Bush
might deny any "linkage", the NZ military exercise Ivanhoe '91 did have some close links.

The Gulf War was not about the h uman rights and freedoms of a Third World cOlmtry. It
was about oil and power projection. In El Salvador, thePhilippines and elsewhere, the Bush
administration continues to murder human rights and freedoms in its continuing 'Jihad" against
the poor and hungry. US general Maxwell D. Taylor put it like this in 1974: "As the leading
affluent 'have' power, we may expect to have to fight for our national valuables against
envious 'have-nots,.,,2 In 1991, as the world slides further into environmental crisis, the
United States is gearing up for more resource wars. Here in Aotearoa/NZ, Ivanhoe '91 is yet
another training exercise to ensure NZ can play its bit towards global repression and grabbing
more of the world's resources for the already affluent.

ThePentagon has long planned for wars of intervention to secure resources deemed vital
for US industrial and military well-being. Prime focus for such planning has, of course, been
the Persian Gulf, and the Gulf War was its bloody culmination (at least to date). Parallel to this
new type of mid-intensity conflict (MIC) is the "low intensity" war and this is where NZ,
ANWS and Ivanhoe '91 fit intoPentagon strategy.3 (High-intensity combat would be full­
scale war between major industrial powers.)

According to the official public military line, Exercise Ivanhoe '91 is an annual test of the
NZ Ready Reaction Force's ability to deploy to a troublespot within the Southwest Pacific and
deal with low level emergencies.4 Our troops are swooping to the rescue of the government of
the mythical island of Colchis (the Mainland), the capital of which is Timaru. They have to
deal with a "dissident" group, thePeople's Democratic Militia of Musoria. This militia is a
foreign-inspired subvernive guerrilla force with Musoria being a hostile regime on a
neighbouring island. �
 3

l' Previous exercises have made clear the nature of the conflict. It is very much a rich­
versus-poor war with NZ taking the side of the rich. The enemy is poor , coloured, and
troubled by resource and energy shortages as well as population pressures. While the training
scenario is publicly touted as treating some kind of undemocratic foreign-inspired intervention,
in reality it is much more likely to be applied in the context of popular resistance to rule by an
unjust, repressive elite. It is quite clear that the basic scenario relates to conflict over resources
between rich and poor and that the NZ troops are out to repress the poor. There is a definite
built-in bias in this so-called "low intensity" warfare training towards repression and injustice.
This sort of training also has the ominous potential for reactionary application within an
unsettled NZ of the future. More generally, the accumulated weight of evidence demonstrates
the potential of ANZUS for the subversion of civilized values as the Eberle quote, cited at the
beginning, tellingly indicates.

"We have 50 percent of the world's wealth, but only 6.3% of its
population... In this situation we cannot fail to be the object of
envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to
devise a pattern of relationships which will allow us to maintain
this position of disparity ... We should cease to talk about the
raising of the living standards and democratization. The day is
not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power
concepts. "

- George Kennan, Director of Policy Planning, State Dept. 1948

"There are two hundred million of us and three billion of them.

They want what we've got and we ain't going to give it to them."

- President Lyndon Johnson to US troops in Vietnam

HThe escalating setbacks to our interests

abroad, increasing lawlessness and
terrorism, and. the so,called wars of
national liberation are putting in
jeopardy our ability to influence world
events . and to assure access to raw
• •

materials. "
-Secretary of State Alexander Haig,
Time, March 16, 1981.
4
!3J!(;kgmund to Low Intensity Conflict

Basically, Low Intensity Conflict (LIC) is the US's latest version of counter-insurgency
warfare. It was developed as part of the Reagan Doctrine of crushing opposition in the Third
World. The essence of the Reagan Doctrine was an aggressive military and
propaganda/economic/covert action push to roll back perceived Soviet and national liberation
movement threats to US interests. Under the banner of a sweeping, and supposedly anti­
terrorist, rubric, LIC emerged as a key element of this offensive.5

The term "low intensity" is used by the US military to describe a mode of warfare in
which US troop deployment is kept to a minimum. LIC emphasizes the use of surrogate forces,
such as the Contras in Nicaragua, the Afghani rebels or, as in the case of the Philippines,
military and paramilitary forces.

"On a spectrum of conflict, it is fought with relatively less fire-power and less
sophisticated hardware than conventional wars, and tends to concentrate in 'a smaller area'.
More significant, however, is the totality of the war. It involves political, economic and
psychological operations in addition to military warfare. In the words of Colonel John
Waghelstein, 'The military is a distant fourth in many cases. It is total war at the grass-roots
level'. ,,6

There is debate over the exact nature ofLlC. In particular, there are differences over

what is new in LIC as distinct from traditional counter-insurgency practice. Ivan Molloy for
example, has argued that LIC is in fact "notfundamentally a military strategy".7 Rather, "it is
a multidimensional strategy embracing political, economic and psychological elements, with
the military component only a distant dimension. Above all, it is a low cost, protracted strategy
that avoids direct US military involvement by attempting to reverse the strategy used by Third
World revolutionary forces. LIC is thus 'total war' in which the actual military component is
not the fIrst preference. LlC is a conflict between two different political systems rather than
two armies_ Since the US war effort in Vietuam had been ill-suited and inappropriate, in future
the US had to wage a conflict of a far different nature. It had to fight 'People'sWar' with
'People'sWar' - and if necessary, manufacture a 'democratic People's War"'.s Other
interpretations reinforce this assessment.

E
co
.c
.9-
(5

Obvio).lsly, the definition of Molloy and Co. reflects the emphasis of Colonel
Waghelstein.9 From a different viewpoint, LIC is simply an up-dated continuation of the
counter-insurgency tradition applied by the US and its associated forces.lo Certainly one can
trace its roots a considerable way back. El Salvador is a crucial current "laboratory" for Lie. -'"
r Yet, the multi-dimensional approach purportedlY"lo distinctive of UC characterized the
operations of the fountain-head of this country's 'death squad government - in the behaviour of
the ORDEN rural paramilitary and intelligence wtwork. ORDEN served not only as the
foundation of the modem death squads butbut also incorporated programmes "to win
hearts and minds".

Officials of the State Department, the CIA, and the US armed forces conceived and
organized ORDEN, described by Amnesty International as a movement designed "to use
clandestine terror against government opponents" Y

As well as using terror, ORDEN, however, also indoctrinated peasants about the
advantages of the "democratic" system and the disadvantages of the communist system. I2
General Jose Alberto 'Chele' Medrano, an agent of the CIA, organized ORDEN. For his work
in establishing the Salvadoran death squads, Medrano was awarded a silver medal by President
Lyndon Johnson "in recognition of exceptionally meritorious service".!3 Medrano said the
Green Berets helped him plan the ORDEN structure and ideology. The principal objective was

to indoctrinate the people because according to Medrano, "he who has the population wins the
12
war" .12 Later, Medrano recalled that ORDEN was "almost like a religion".

In the Philippines, another laboratory for LIC, the ''Lansdale myth" indicates yet again
that UC's roots lie deep. Edward Lansdale, the US hero of the "dirty war" approach, is credited
with masterminding the downfall of Filipino insurgency in the late 1940s and early 19508.14
Lansdaie was (and is) an inspiration for Reagan/Bush covert instigators such as John Singlaub,
Ray Cline, and Oliver North. Lansdaie's approach, which emphasized psychological warfare,
employed terror tactics and political manipulation. The operation he led was a CIA one and the
later CL.<\-coordinated campaign following the ousting of Marcos surely echoes the Lansdale
legacy.1S "The pattern continues today in the US-advised and -funded counter-insurgency
operations in the Philippine countryside". 16 Ironically enough, Lansdale went on to use the
same techniques in Vietnam, eventnally leading to the United States' fateful entanglement.

"Our job", Lansdale is quoted as saying dttriug his second stint in Vietnam, "is how to be
revolutionaries without tearing up the social fabric". For Singlaub and Cline, active in the CIA
campaign in the post-Marcos Philippines, the US failure in Vietnam was due precisely to the
failure to apply proPerly the Lansdale approach. Evidently, Singlaub and Cline have beell
involved in setting up death squads ill the Philippines, inspired by the sort of success they saw
as demonstrated by "Operation Phoenix", the CIA murder programme of suspected Vietcong,17
For them the tragedy in Vietnam was that "Operation Phoenix" methods, as well as
"revolutionary" non-military methods, were not far mure comprehensively applied. Irregular,
unconventional warfare is promoted as the effective solution to national liberation movements.

LIC is perhaps best seen as a sophisticated, up-dated synthesis of counter-insurgency

experience. The most significant US military organization involved in the more covert LIC
operations is evidently a highly S!X.'Tet
Activity (ISA) unit run by the Pentagon's Joint Special Operations Agency. According to a
television report, ISA began in 1980 and today has virtually unlimited ac.cess to funds.I8

ISA is said to be the key organization now running the US's secret wars, utilizing c.overt
military action under the cover of the doctrine of "plausible deniability".19 It uses special elite
forces to accomplish particular operations. Most recently, ISA played a critical role in
gathering intelligence behind Iraqi lines during the Gulf War. ISA is probably still stirring up
rebel activity in Iraq in order both to topple Saddam Hussein and to dismember or "Lebanonize" -'"
6
t'" the country so as to permanently',cripple There have been reports of US and British covert
military activities to activate rebellion in lraq.20

Apparently, ISA has gained a big boost thtOugh the Gulf War. It is seen by certain
influential commentators as having the capacity to wage secret wars successfully.18 in contrast,
the CIA is considered as having a demonstrable lack of competence in this sphere. According
to this view, early fiascos like the 1962 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba point forward to an
unimpressive record right thtOugh to the present day. In fact, the Pentagon reportedly even took
control of intelligence work from the CIA in the preparation and conduct of the US led attack
on Iraq.IS CIA collaboration with Hussein's regime in the 19808 had reduced its effectiveness
in dealing with the new antagonistic relationship between the two countries.

Created and developed throughout the Reagan decade, ISA has no doubt drawn heavily
on the experience and advice of men like Singlaub and Cline. In October 1984, Singiaub, as
chairman of a Pentagon policy panel on Central America, recommended an extension of coven
paramilitary and unconventional warfare tOIes for US forces in Central America, the main
testing ground for LIC.21

The CIA continues to play a critical role in the US's dirty warfare. "Providing 'watch
lists' based on technical and hnman penetration of targeted gtOups is a continuing programme
of CIA covert operators. Today, US-advised security services in El Salvador, using the
techniques of the Phoenix programme, operate throughout El Salvador and have taken a heavy
toll among peasants, activists, and labour leaders in that country. In the late 1980s, the CIA
began assisting the Philippine government in the conduct of "low-intensity" operations by,
among other things, computerizing security service records of leftists and assisting in the
development of a national identity card programme. Wherever the CIA cooperates with other
national security services it is safe to asstune that it also compiles and passes on 'Subversive
Control Watch Lists,,,.22 (NZ dissidents take note!)

"Low-intensity Conflict" can mean high-intensity killing. The CIA has been extremely
proud of the success of the massacre of Indonesian communists, leftists, and other groups, it
engineered during 1965-67.23 Former CIA agent Ralph McGehee has revealed that the Agency
in fact wrote a secret study of its operation there and recommended it as a model for future
operations.24 But the CIA has striven fervently to keep its role in the massacre secret. The
mainstream Western media, in their Orwellian fashion, have been keen to help.

When mass killing is the object, then the US is certainly ready to implement it in the most
ruthless fashion. "To prevent counter-revolutionary action from generating further resistance,
the ideal requirement is the sudden mass slaughter and long-term terrorizing of th.e opposition
both active and potential".2 5 L. Fletcher Prouty, head of US Air Support for Covert Operations,
1955-1963, enthusiastically endorsed this method during an interview in the fIlm Allies: The
White House, the CIA and Australia. Prouty also cites a tactic employed in the Philippines by
Lansdale which combined mass slaughter with political subterfuge. During the US campaign
against the Huk uprising, government soldiers were allowed to run amok in villages disguised
as Huks.26 According to PtOuty, this was a technique "developed to a high art in the
Philippines" .27 Prouty was for nine years the focal-point officer for contacts between the
Pentagon and the CIA.

Ralph McGehee considera the 1973 CIA-backed Chilean coup and subsequent slaughter
and repression as an example of the 1965-67 Indonesian model ("Allies" interview). In an
interview with researcher Kathy Kadane, a former US Embassy official and now a State
Department consultant, Robert J. Martens, acknowledged that he probably has a lot of blood on
his hands as a result of his part in engineering the Indonesian massacre. However, in his J
;r opinion: "... that's not all bad. Thel-e's a time when you have to strike hard at a decisive
i
moment".28 In the usual.course of LIC, such "decisive moments" for the mass elimination of
enemies do not often arise. Inste!IJr� the emphasis is on steadily building up an effective
apparatus of repression and mind C:ontrol.
,

The Birth of New Zealand's Rel! \dy Reactionaries

New Zealand's active role ill counter-insurgency warfare goes back to the days of the
Malaysian Emergency.29 Since the war on the Viemarnese there has not been any such active
frontline participation, yet training for counter-insurgency warfare has actually expanded to

generate the hard core of the Army, the so-called Ready Reaction Force. This force is also
ready, of course, for conventional war. Training scenarios indicate a lot of overlap.

The 1978 Defence Review "proposed that a small ready reaction force be created, backed
by a broad range of units comprising both Regulars and reserve cadres to maintain the
framework needed to expand to Brigade size"?O But the Ministry of Defence found that "The
lack of definition of the framework force caused too great a share of resources to be tied up in
infrastructure rather than in operational elements".3l The Ministry opted for a more operational
than support role for the force and announced that it would "establish a deployable battalion
group of 1000-1200 regular force persounel, based in Bumham and maintained at full strength
and a high state of operational readiness".31 'Deployable" referred to the South Pacific.

Former Prime Minister David Lange has remarked that the bureaucracy of our Ministry
of External Relations and Trade is strongly influenced from Washington. He should know.
Plenty of evidence has accumulated over the years demonstrating that the NZ Government
regularly acts as a lacky of the US. In 1985, when Jeanne Kirkpatrick retired as the US
Ambassador to the United Nations, she reported that New Zealand, Japan and Australia were
considered by the US as its strongest allies in the UN.32 Later on, analyses of NZ's voting
record under the anti-nuclear Labour government at the UN showed this country's continued
subservience.33 Only in the opposition to visits by nuclear warships has NZ acted
independently of its Big Brother.

HIn the troubled world which I have

postulated, minor wars gre very prob­
able, although unpredictable as to
specifics. We shall need mobile, ready
forces to deter or, in some cases,
suppress such conflicts before they
expand into something greater. This
task is the primary justification for an
uncommitted central reserve in the
United States ready for presidential use
as an instrument of national policy."
-Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor,
Affairs, April, 1974.
Foreign

Certainly with a fully functional ANZUS our military-related foreign policy subservience
was almost total. It is clear enough that the establishment of the NZ Ready Reaction Force
followed on from a shift in US military doctrine. In the late 1970s, the US government set up a -'"
8
"
"

I" Rapid Deployment Force (RDF). "W11en first conceived in 1977, the RDF was seen as a lean,
1,1
self-reliant strike force designed for nipid insertion into remote Third World battlefields" 34
Enter the proposal for a NZ Ready Re�ction Force in 1978. The Force was formally established
in full-blown form in January 1984.35 i

The ABCA (America, Britain, Canada and Australia) military cooperation programmes
provide the channel for doctrinal and strategic input to NZ.36 The international management
board which oversees the progranlIDes is provided by American senior military officers in
Washington. NZ has associate membership of ABCA through Australia, underlining once
agaln our very subordinate and appendage role in Western military affairs. " ...The NZ defence
forces have retained membership in the ARCA fora following the break in bilateral U S-KZ
security ties in 1985 over the issue of port access for US warships. ,,37

Counter-insurgencylRapid Dep!oyment/Mid-IntensityiLow Intensity

Michael Klare, a prominent critic and researcher of US military policy towards the
World, aptly described the RDF as "an army in search of war".38 Indeed, the RDF quickly
into the Middle East Comman d. Primarily designed from the outset for intervention to secure

oil supplies, the RDF concept was put into full effect with the Gulf War. In resurrecting

counter-insurgency, the early Reagan Doctrine strongly emphasized the military solution. Klare
sorted out four components39: (1) Preventive Medicine - "The identification, arrest, and
imprisonment (or outright assassination) of suspefted dissidents before they can organize
insurgent cells"; (2) Urban counter-insurgency - .Earlier counter-insurgency had focused on
the threat of ntral guerrilla warfare. "This shift reflects both the growing urbanization of Third
World societies, plus the fact that revolutionary movements are increasingly aiming their
organizing efforts at the underemployed and impoverished inhabitants of the shantytowns
which encircle most Third World cities". The answer was militarized police repression. "This
approach, already fully tested in cities like Buenos Aires, Belfast and Manila, is now being
refmed for use in other countries including many in the industrialized world that are likely
to experience urban disorder in the years ahead" [emphasis added]; (3) Rapid deployment­
"The need for a massive and rapid deployment of troops in order to overcome insurgent forces
before they can win support from the indigenous population and thus trigger the kind of
protracted (and ultimately futile) struggle encountered in Vietnam". Hence, the RDF;
(4) Massive fire-power - Instead of slow escalation, blast the enemy with maximum weaponry
from the start. The Gulf War has been its high peak. �"
 q

",. Current US doctrine on military intervention in the 'I'hird World is flexible according to
the perceived threat. Grenada and Panama elicited invasions; and Iraq a high technology
blitzkrieg. Meantime, Central America and the Philippines evoke open LIC and various other
theatres suffer more covert warfare techniques. Of course, the same theatre can quickly
undergo more than one form of warfare. As earlier indicated, Iraq is now probably subject to
covert warfare conducted by the US and Britain. During the Reagan era, counter-insurgency
doctrine developed more than one form. The rapid deployment policy reached an intense form
in Grenada and Panama, and its most savage impact in Iraq.

Here perhaps, the term "counter-insurgency" is not appropriate at all, since these were
conventional invasions. But we can certainly see some of the elements of this "Blitzkrieg"
approach in Klare's outline above of the main components of early Reaganist counter­
insurgency policy. Indeed, the official Pentagon description of low-intensity warfare includes
the invasion of Grenada.

A relatively small-scale rapid deployment version might be considered suitable in some

situations and so NZ's Ready Reaction Force has its place. Whatever the likely or actual degree
of conflict intensity, rapid deployment may be an applicable option for intervention. In the
1980s LIC developed along its own path and rapid deployment has been just one tactic in its
."
' armoury.
"' ''�
" . Ready Reaction NZ Style

The NZ Ready Reaction Force is "equipped and trained for land operations up to as high
a scale of intensity as can be foreseen in the circumstances of the South Pacific".4o Until
recently, the 2-1st Battalion, Royal NZ Infantry Regiment at Burnham was the core of the
battalion group. It had sufficient Special Air Service (SAS) persounel "to meet any counter­
terrorist requirement and to support the battalion group in the field".40 "Should the battalion
group prove an insufficient response, it would be used as the foundation for expansion using
Regular and Territorial Force manpower to produce a brigade group of up to three infantry
battalions".4o This brigade-size group came to be known as the Integrated Expansion Force,

Throughout the 19808 the NZ armed forces practiced counter-insurgency. For instance,
in 1983 the Ready Reaction Company conducted an exercise called "Civil Concord" at Oxford
in Canterbury on "military-urban control teclmiques".41 This exercise was thefrrst to be held in
a NZ town outside of Waiouru which has a major army base. Civil Concord involved the
soldiers guarding key installations in the town against an armed "enemy" supported by an
itinerant population which was "hostile" to council officers and the police.41 The rest of the
local residents were supposed to be ambivalent.

It was very significant that Civil Concord encouraged the participation of civilians in a
military exercise. At a public meeting a few weeks beforehand, local people were told by the
army that "all ages and occupations would be welcome in the war games".42 In the exercise,
patrols intercepted local children carrying fish and chips to the "enemy" at roadblocks. Soldiers
questioned residents and searched their vehicles. Captured "dissidents" were handed over to the
local policeman. Residents could refuse to take part but obviously an effort was made to
include as many as possible. In general, Oxford residents evidently supported the exercise.
Some did protest however. One protester, Ms A. Kennedy, stated at the time, "We are opposed
to the ANWS alliance, and we would like to draw people's attention to the counection between
world poverty and the arms race".41 Counter-insurgency, Ready Reactionaries and LrC are, of
course, designed to ensure that ANWS arms suppress the poor. �
10

Beating up tile Poor, Dark Musoriims

i'"

A constant theme up to the present day in many of the exercises is action against the
"Musorians". "The Musorian forces are what the army call an updated notional enemy".43 In
the big command and communications exercise Truppenamt 82, Musoria was a country
(actually the South Island) which had "grown sick of being a poor cousin of its energy-rich
neighbour North Island", and had invaded. Truppenamt 82 had a strong conventional war
dimension illustrating the considerable overlap between conventional and counter-insurgency
exercising.

ANZUS came to the rescue. To quote again from the newspaper report, "The name
Musoria was coined by the Australians. It apparently has no particular significance. The nation
is characterised as a developing country with a totalitarian government. North Island is a
democratic nation with a reasonably strong economy based on primary production, and it has
taken a lot of trouble since the mid-1970s to become self sufficient in energy. Musoria­
troubled with population pressures and its own energy shortage - began making increasingly
militant demands for access to the North Island's resources. There were propaganda attacks on
North Island, and a series of provocative incidents involving Musorian trawlers during 1981,,43
White against coloured; rich against poor; gross inequalities engendering competition for scarce
resources - all leading to a resource war scenario. NZ's role in the system of Western
repression of the Third World is made explicitly clear here. The same scenario recurs
repeatedly in later counter-insurgency exercises.

The usual tired propaganda ploy is trotted out. The enemy is totalitarian and communist.
whereas ANZUS represents democracy and responsible government. Meantime, NZ has
connived at Rabuka's overthrow of democracy in Fiji, to say nothing of repression in East
Timor and other similar examples. Participants in such exercises are thus indoctrinated with a
resource war mentality which still somehow casts the Musorians as the bad guys. The starving
millions, sick of Western repression, are hitting back at the "enemy" which has the affluence,
much of it built and maintained on the backs of these millions, to enjoy what it calls
"democracy". Franz Fanon would understand.

Another ANZ1JS exercise in Australia, "Kangaroo '83" gave an insight into the nature of
the resource conflicts at issue. The aggressors this time were the "Kamarians" who had
"become increasingly belligerent after moves by the Australian Government to deny them
access to their traditional fIShing zone and to impose strict tariff barriers on aluminium
imports".44 In NZ the Oxford Army exercise carried out in North Canterbury in September
1983 was quickly followed in November by the counter-insurgency Exercise Lothlorien on the
West Coast of the South Island and then by the "Northern Safari" exercise on Great Barrier
Island in March 1984. As part of the Northern Safari exercise the island off the Auckland coast
became an independent country called "Aotea" which had a large mythical neighbour called
Musoria.42 The latter infiltrated Aotea and inspired revolution and so Aotea appealed to NZ for
help. Again, army personnel held a public meeting beforehand " - requesting assistance from
the local people; explaining how the roads were to be upgraded, free medical and dental
services would be available, plus other desirable goodies to be offered when they took over the
island for their' games '" .42

What is quite sinister here is that the actual bribes for local resident participation are an
integral part of LIC. US civic action for Philippines counter-insurgency illustrates this. To cite
one report: "Simultaneous with the rise of death squads in Davao, a United States Navy hospital
ship - the USNS Mercy - sailed into the city harbour ostensibly on a mission to provide medical
services to indigents. ,,45 This report points out that the mission was from the start a combined JI
;r US-Philippines military manoeuvre to enhance thei r image in the eyes of local residents. It
pertinently quotes Major General William P. WilliJer, head of the Academy of Health Science,
who is on record as saying, "Military medicine is the least controversial [sic], most cost­
I
effective means of employing military forces in SU ,port of US national interest in low-intensity
conflict situations".46 .'

Ghurkas participated in Northern Safari bec;ause, according to the army, their dark
complexions were ideal for the role of the Musori,ms.42 Local resistance to the exercise was

considerably stronger than that evinced at Oxford. i

In November 1984 a riot exercise was held at Burnham military camp near Christchurch.
It was officially called "a routine training exercise in counter-insurgency techniques in urban
areas". It involved the 2-1sI Batralion.47 A number of soldiers in civilian garb played the role
of protesters in the exercise. They threw rocks, smoke grenades and Molotov cocktails at their
fellow soldiers. Asked why one group called themselves "protesters", an army spokesman
said, "Counter-insurgency takes many different forms".47 He added that "In counter-insurgency
warfare you never know who [sic] you are dealing with really".4 7 Up to 120 men at Burnham,
and about 100 at Papakura, were training once a year in this type of public disturbance exercise,
At the time of the November 1984 Burnham exercise, critics suggested that this sort of training
might be related to dealing with protests against South African Springbok rugby tours. This
was denied.

The Minister of Defence, Mr O'F1ynn, said the exercise was part of routine annual
training in "peacekeeping short of the use of frrearms".48 However, shots were fired in the
particular 1984 exercise witnessed by journalists. Mr O'F1ynn's comment that the exercise was

training in peacekeeping demands serious scrutiny. NZ forces have been used in peacekeeping
efforts over the years, for example in the Middle East and, most recently, Angola, and there is
always the possibility of being caught in riots and in ambivalent situations involving hostilities.
However, the accumulated weight of evidence clearly shows that the main thrust of training is
ANZUS-related and LIC directed. While peacekeeping efforts are to be welcomed, our role has
been small-scale. Our participation in peacekeeping work is only very subsidiary to the
extensive and explicitly counter-insurgency interventionary trllining which our armed forces are
undergoing.

The year 1989 saw the first practical test of the Integrated Expansion Force. "Operation
Golden Fleece" was set in the Taupo and Napier areas of the North Island. A newspaper report
graphically painted the picmre: "Communism is rife in Colchis. Foreign 'Musorian' troops
have joined dissident Colchians, gathering in their web some lOCals as spies to bring down the
Colchis government. That body has invited neighbouring New Zealand's troops to overthrow
the threat".4 9 Colchis was supposedly an island based on Taupo and N apier and the battle was
Ha low-level terrorist insurgency". The report continued, "Locals recruited with the promise of
some fun and a beer add wild cards to the game plan".49 In the exercise, Minginui served as Ha
known enclave of local Musorian sympathy".

Although a LIC exercise, "Operation Golden Fleece" took a large-scale form with a
heavy conventional war orientation. It involved a combined air and sea "invasion" of the North
Island with 7800 members of the Armed Forces taking part. Exercise participants included
more than 500 people from other nations - Australia, Brunei, Canada, Malaysia, Singapore,
Tonga and Britain.50 During 1989, NZ was excluded from active participation in a big
Australian military exercise - "Exercise Kangaroo 89" which included US forces. But,
significantly enough, NZ was invited to send observers to the Australian exercise and to join in
command post training as part of the overall preparations for "Kangaroo 89". -'
12

?' Also very significant and again ominous in �lport was the institution for "Golden Fleece"
of a so-called "Media Support Unit". At the time it !was reported that the Armed Forces were
experimenting with a new organization euphemistically described as "intended to help reporters
in a war rone, but at the same time keep the militm'J aware of what the journalists are
writing".50 The Media Support Unit's job is to deal with the technological capacity of modern
communications which enables journalists to bypass military control. Under this regime
accredited journalists receive briefings and official access to certain areas. Their articles are
vetted. Non-accredited journalists are subject to access constraints. The Media Support Unit is
staffed by personnel from Defence public relations.

So even the reporting of the exercises themselves has become subject to military
censorship, control and psychological warfare. On the world stage, the orchestrated propaganda
associated with the Allied attack on Iraq demonstrated just how successful such manipulation
could be and how highly susceptible the mainstream media are to its techniques. The public
relations marketing of LIC is indeed very much a part of LIC itself and the involvement of local
people must be seen in this context Since LIC is so much devoted to the process of "winning
hearts and minds", training for LIC, as pointed out above, actually enables the Armed Forces to
practice these particular components on civilians, including the media.39

Some citizens have still proved immune and have continued to protest. During "Golden
Fleece", an aircraft even bombed "an army camp with water-filled balloons".51 The group
concerned called itself the People's Front of Kolkis (cited in the media as "a previously
unknown group"). The Council of Trade Unions also criticized the Anny for preparing to fight
on the wrong side.52 As the CTU indicated, the LIC scenario had NZ forces suppressing a
populat movement, rather than keeping the peace or defending NZ.

b'anhoe • The Good White Knight?

The most recent major exercises have been the "Ivanhoe" ones. In March 1990, Ivanhoe
90 covered several parts of Canterbury. Minister of Defence Mr Tapsell said it was
coincidental that this exercise focused on the engagement of the Ready Reaction Force with
"dissidents" when dissidents were active in Bougainville.53 According to the Minister, since
there was political unrest in parts of Southeast Asia, NZ's politicians had to be alert. South
Pacific intervention may have a wide meaning. A photo caption in a newspaper article showed
two soldiers on patrol in a "town where dissidents won over some of the locals residents to their
cause".53 In one incident in the month-long military exercise, a bomb factory was found in an
old house. The ensuing encounter with the enemy saw three dissidents dead and at least 9
Ready Reactionaries killed by booby-traps.53 Other houses were also destroyed.

Another newspaper report drew the following scenes of some of the action: "Road blocks
with armed NZ soldiers, angry protesters insisting the Kiwis go home, mock funerals and
carefully planned confrontations have become routine sights in the Burnham-West Melton ateas
this week. The activity is part of the Anny's biggest exercise this year involving about 1500
personnel from the three services in a test of the military's ability to deal with 'low-level'
security threats. Exercise Ivanhoe 90 has projected the province of Canterbury into a fictional
island somewhere in the South Pacific, with NZ troops there at the request of the local
government encountering hostility from dissident factions H.54

The press report continued: "Soldiers fTOm the North Island have been brought in to the
area to play the part of dissidents. Local civilian volunteers have also been recruited. Some of
the North Island 'enemy' soldiers ate working on local farms by day and carrying out their
subversive exercise roles by night to aid realism".54 An exercise spokesman said Ivanhoe 90 .,;I
Roadblock at Waiau by Scorpion tanks. Civilian vehicles were checked by members of the
Queen Alexandra squadron, Waiouru. Exercise Ivanhoe 1990. Photo credit Chch Star

r---- . . - - --'-'"

Army exercise
(The Press, 26 March 1990)

I Sir, - Jenny Easton (March 12) appears to have deliberately

misrepresented a military exercise code-named "Ivanhoe" taking
place in Canterbury. As is quite usual, the exercise is carried out in
a purely hypothetical situation. It is not based on New Zealand
Forces "invading another country to put down a popular uprising."
The exercise is designed to test mobilisation and deployment of the
Ready Reaction Force, communications and logistic support.
Special emphasis has been placed on interacting with the police and
other civilian authorities and an opportunity is being taken to perfect
basic soldier skills which might be of value to our regular
peacekeeping missions abroad. As well as police participation, and
in keeping with our mutual assistance programme and the regular
interchange of representatives, there are small contingents from
Australia and Tonga taking part. It is noteworthy that the exercise
has the full support of local residents, many of whom have
voluntarily given up their own time to take part in the exercise.
Yours etc.,
Peter Tapsell
Minister of Defence
March 22, 1990
.� was a further chance for the AmlY to pracl.ict' its .in direct contact with civilians unlike pasI
exercises conducted in a "conventional" selljllg mvolvlng opposing armies. "Under the exercise
scenario a stale of emergency was declared 011 island or Canterbury, with open hostility
4
from groups of armed dissidents".5 If them wt're armed di�sidents, there were also apparently
unarmed protesting dissidents. "One of the slaged confrontations in the exercise had NZ
soldiers encountering hostile protesters, waving placards and pelting the soldiers with real eggs
and flour bombs" .54 Peacekeeping or putting down popular resistance? This particular scenario
is open-ended, but in context obviously geared to repressive intervention. Incidentally, notice
the unusual reference in the newspaper report quoted above to "armed dissidents". There
seems to be a military calculation to deliberately smear democratic dissent with the stigma of
violent protest.

This article started with some comment on the Ivanhoe 91 exercise. In the '91 exercise
55
about 1600 soldiers took part. As well, the exercise included various Territorial Force units
and an attachment of Australian infantry soldiers from 2-41h Royal Australian Regiment. The
army said that the exercise was for practice in low-level operations. Activity ranged over large
areas of Canterbury, Otago and Nelson.

An exercise lasting over three weeks during February and March, Ivallhoe 91 sought
volunteer participants from rural communities and small towns within the exercise area to role­
play political dissidents and rebels.56 It was refmed from the previous year's exercise in order
to test the capability and flexibility of the Ready Reaction Force. Observers from some Pacific A

Vehicle check for amlS or other items stowed ill civilian car boot by dissidents. Bemused
vehicle owners apparently were not under suspicion as dissidents, but appear to be under armed
guard nevertheless. Exercise
Photo credit Chch Star
 15

l" countries were present 57 TIJl: exercise cost the army $80e,000 but budget restraints affected it,
shortening it by a week.58 Fqr the purposes of this latest exercise, the central North Island and
the South Island became mythical Pacific islands, with a commercial sea-tow barge transporting
army vehicles and field guns [from the former island to the latter.59

The commander of the Ready Reaction Force, Colonel Rick Ottaway, said he was pleased
with the reception Timam people had given the soldiers.6o One of the exercise's operations was
the cordoning off of a town.61 Civilian participation took an interesting turn with one woman,
Joy Lowe, a farmer, even writing an article on her experience for The Press.62 She helped the
rebel forces. She was enthusiastic about it all - "Three weeks of the most exciting back-to­
childhood, adrenalin-pumping adventures - secret meetings, assassinations and ambushesd2
However, she did come to identify with the civilian victims of war and the rebels won her
sympathy.

Ready Reaction in the 1990s: Problems, Challenges and Prospects

63
The present government's White Paper on defence assessed the global strategic scene.
It indicated the increased likelihood of regional conflicts.64 "There will be a continued
diffusion of power in the world, and the arms that support it. While the msjor powers will
continue to dominate, gradual adjustments through the working of technological forces will
tend to dilute their influence. Opportunities will emerge for other states to establish local
hegemonies. Third World nations will have increasing access to advanced military technology
and weaponry which will gradually diminish control by the traditional powers. With this will
come pressures from developing countries for reordering international political, economic and
military agendas. ,,65

Although the government no doubt woul4 be loath to admit it in its true terms, this is as
revealingly explicit an acknowledgement of imperiallsm as one could expect from such a
document. Onr government recognises that military power keeps the poor in their place, but
that there are growing threats to the stability of this system.

Of course, the increased dangers of msjor regional conflicts, of spreading militarization,

of nuclear proliferation, of chaotic instability, are indeed. serious and real enough concerns for
all of bumankind.66 As world peace authority Dr Frank Bamaby stresses, unless we discover
how to control technology and use it for benign purposes it will destroy us.67 The only way we
can control technology is through reordering the international economy to achieve a far more
cooperative and equitable sharing of the world's resources according to the imperatives of
sustainable development. But this is exactly what US and NZ policy is fIrmiy against.68 So­
called developed countries, with about 20 percent of the world's population, consume 80
percent of the world's diminishing resources.69 The Western (and Japanese) ruling elite want to
maintain and extend this controL

Yet increasingly, too, divisions are growing within Western societies including NZ.
Those who see themselves entitled to the benefits of civilization's "haves", like Sir James
Eberle (see quote at beginning), are hecoming more embattled and correspondingly more
belligerent. That such racist barbarism can be opeuly expressed shows the extent to which the
Western mask of democracy and concern for human rights is now hecoming detached from the
brutal reality underneath. Revealingly, the key NZ government minister seems to publicly
afftrm Eberle's predicted future role for ANZUS. This is damning in itself. -'"
16
;r The real enemy has always been the Third World and the poor.70 LIC Ready Reaction is
designed for flexible mobile war-maldng on the world' s starving millions. Military emphasis
has now openly shifted to this objective.

"The economic counterrevolutioll directed by the World Bank/IMF has been accompanied
by the reorientation of US foreign policy from the 'Communist Threat' to the 'Terrorist
Threat' from the Third World Since it was flrst articulated by the Presidential
Commission on Long-Term Integrated Strategy in the document 'Discriminate Deterrence'
in January 1988, a consensus on the Third World as the strategic enemy has been forged in
the US national establishment. And the US military structure is being transformed from a

nuclear-strategic one aimed at the Soviet Union to one geared for surgical intervention
in the Third World. The new 'Containment Doctrine' represents a foreign policy
stripped of any pretense at idealism. It is meant to legitimize intervention in support of the
counter-revolutionary economic programs. Intervention will be directed at popular
movements and popular uprisings generated by the pain inflicted by these programs. The
new 'Containment Doctrine' is also meant to reunify North America around a new
'enemy' to counter the rapid erosion of the cohesion of US society as it is ripped apart by
its own conflicts and contradictions. ,,71

The Gulf War victory marches expressed this last-mentioned component of the new
Doctrine.

Ready Reaction incorporates a growing role for U S allies. The Gulf War again illustrated
this. "During the 19808, Britain set up its own 'go anywhere anytime' Third World intervention
force. ,,72 This rapid deployment, long range force has practiced in Belize and Oman. In July
1984 it "simul!lted an exercise in which a friendly African government asked for Britain 's help
to put down an internal revolution by sending in British airborne troops".72 Some oth.er
European countries have their own forces for direct intervention including Italy, and France's
'Force d ' Action Rapide ' (FAR).72

Military cooperation programmes among the white Anglo-Saxon club, the ABCA
programmes, have been especially geared "in recent years to land warfare in the low- and mid­
intensity range. This has been the result of a deliberate policy decision by the ABCA armies to
complement, vice duplicate, the effort of NATO, which has been oriented toward developing
doctrine and tactics for high levels of warfare".73 Of course, as in the Gulf, Ready
Reaction/Rapid Deployment can well be directed to mid-intensity warfare. In fact, ready ...;;4
 17

" reaction/rapid deployment is moving dangerously towards a mid-intensity level as Third World
regional threats are seen to emerge. 3 These powers include Iran, Syria, India, North Korea,
Brazil and Argentina.

"The United States should reorient its forces and traditional policies away
from an almost exclusive concentration on NATO to better influence politico­
military outcomes in the resource-rich and strategically located Third World
areas."
(Colonel James B. Motley in Military Review, Jan 1985, p. 9.)

An acute danger lies potentially in the fact that low-intensity conflict is not a big profit­
maker for the arms industry because it does not use up large quantities of high-tech weaponry. 74
Given the ready abundance of such weaponry, there is likely to be a strong propensity to
escalate to heavy fire-power. A deteriorating militarist American economy has to devise crises
like that in the Gulf. 7S Such intervention could trigger nuclear war, especially given increasing
nuclear proliferation. 76

As well as the push by LIC public relations, paramilitary, unconventional warfare is

being promoted insidiously by a stream of publications which may raise questions as to the
ultimate source of sponsorship andlor funding in a number of cases. "To the CIA, propaganda
through book publishing has long been a successful technique. ,,77 (And that statement was
written back in 1974.) If "Soldier of Fortune" magazine glamourized the killing of culturally
different peoples, these CIA publications advocate the value to the West of irregular warfare
strategies. 78 Operation Phoenix-style methods are justified, rationalized and whitewashed.79
"Dirty war" techniques are seen as being demanded by the very nature of modern conflict.

Confronting the 19908, NZ's Ready Reaction Force has some problems in committing
effective intervention. It is concerned about its lack of air defence and aerial reconnaissance.so
Senior commanders say the ability of the Force has been weakened by spending restrictions on
defence.so "Since the 1987 Defence Review the military has been focusing on low-level
operations in the South-West Pacific, what the report described as New Zealand' s area of direct
strategic concern. ,,81 But equipment deficiencies like observation helicopters allegedly affect
the Force's ability 10 perform even its planned low-level role. Ironically, money allocated for
the new frigates seems to have been at the expense of the Ready Reactionaries. -'"
18

I'" Another problem, given the relatively small size of NZ's armed forces, is the difficulty of
combining ready reaction with the capacity to wage war on a conventional footing. 8 1 In
addition, the challenge of maintaining a more independent capacity, necessitated by NZ's
nuclear-free stance, has created a very awkward planning situation, given the demands of still
trying to fit into the framework of a much larger allied effort.82 The National government has
further stirred the defence debate with its strong pro-ANZUS bias, obviously intending to lead
us back into the nuclear fold. 63 A militarist Australian defence adviser, Dr Peter Jennings, has
criticized NZ's capabilities. His criticisms are worth noting because they reflect the typical
ABCA-partner arguments to push NZ back into full ANZUS membership. 83 Pressing for NZ to
get a much closer relationship with its ANZUS partners, Or Jennings said that the NZ
government must acknowledge it could not act alone to fight a counter-insurgency war in the
islands. 83 Dr Jennings is probably right and NZ's interventionary capacity would necessarily be
tallored to a joint military operation. The implications are clear. Resistance to ANZUS is
essential to prevent our being dragged into Western Ready Reaction repression overseas.

Terrorism, SAS, and Dissidence

Terrorism is identified as the most likely external threat to NZ territory. 84 "Deterring and
countering terrorist threats require specially trained and equipped forces at high states of
readiness. The NZ Defence Force maintains counter-terrorist teams within the SAS. They are
trained for fast, covert action to disarm terrorists. ,,85 The high state of alert during the time of
the Gulf CrisisIWar indicates the Third World terrorist threat perceived by NZ's
security/military command.

According to Brigadier Bret Bestic, the commander, Land Force Command (and SAS,
including the counter-terrorist unit which works with the police), " ...terrorism is the weapon of
the weak and cowardly... " "Any person who uses terrorist tactics and claims by killing innocent
people [sic], that maiming, kidnapping and torture are the legitimate acts of a freedom fighter is
simply manipulating the facts. A terrorist is a terrorist - period. And to describe them as
anything else is bull." s6 Since Special Forces are the "dirty" warriors and getting dirtier, one
might wish Bestic's defiuition of "terrorism" to include Western sponsored terrorism like the
Central American death squads and nuclear strike threats. But the NZ armed forces' doctrine of
terrorism is the simple Western version: terrorism is what is done to us, not what we do to
others; our terrorism is beuign, theirs is evil. We are the democratic freedom fighters; the
enemy are the uncivilized, envious "have-nots" described by Sir James Eberle and General
Maxwell Taylor. Our military terrorism, when economic/political covert action fails, thus
ensures our control of the levers of power.

According to the US 1990 "National Security Strategy" issued by the White House, Third
World threats are everywhere and the main enemy is "instability".74 This instability, of course,
owes much to the fact that the West has consistently refused to reform the international order.
High levels of consumption, or a militaristically oriented desire fot high levels of consumption,
constitute the driving force underlying the central economic feature of imperialism, the desire to
reallocate resources in an exploitative way on an international scale. Current Western
imperialism over energy and other resources was quite predictable.87 The axis of world conflict
has indeed swung from East-West to North-South as the over-developed countries line up
against resource-rich but poverty stricken Third World countries. In proclaiming his "new
world order", President Bush declared the end of the "Vietnam Syndrome" (which was the lack
88 The sad irony is that the US is locked in
of will for military intervention in the Third World).
a resource war syndrome, when instead it could be leading global initiatives for an equitable,
sustainable future. 89 -'"
 19

i'" Even in the West, however, the number of "havesj" is diminishing. Deteriorating socio-
economic conditions, declining growth, increasing environmental pressures ... could lead to
overwhelming unemployment and impoverishment. Urban guerrillas have been predicted for
NZ. For example, such predictions have been made to the effect that "NZ will see urban
guerrillas in action within the decade if the economic and social ills which beset the East Coast
(and parts of the Bay of Plenty and Northland) are not fued".90 The future potential for violent
social conflict involving the SAS and other LIC Ready Reaction Force units should certaiuly be
a major incentive for positive socio-economic reform. Already the anti-terrorist squad has been
deployed against criminals with the recent storming of a Turangi house.91 Increasing violent
crime is likely to provide many more opportunities for training the anti-termrist squad.
Reactionary domestic politics produces these social consequences. Competition for resources
within our society is intimately linked with a resource war outlook toward our Third World
neighbours.

So far as military action is concerned, "Although the NZ SAS has not been deployed
operationally since Vietnam, the unit remains at an extremely high state of operational
readiness. ,,92 It maintains " special links" with similar forces in the British, Australian and US
armed services, including the US Delta Force, a highly secretive elite unit designed for Third
World killing missions.92 The NZ SAS tradition is obviously oriented to the Vietnam myth of
the value of irregular warfare a la Lansdale and Singlaub. A reporter also notes that, "Talking
with former SAS personnel produces an across-the-board admiration for Steve [SitiveniJ
Rabuka of Fijian coup fame".!f� There is even an association of former SAS members. In late
.

1987 more than 2000 former members of the SAS lived in NZ and about 1 100 had joined the
association.93 The SAS unit at the time was about 100 strong.92

Until the ANZUS fallout for NZ, the NZ SAS took part in special warfare exercises in the
Philippines. Australian Defence Department documents referred to these exercises as coming
under the ANZUS Treaty.94 "The Australian SAS regiment has helped train Filipino Special
Forces in abduction and assassination techniques" during such exercises.94 This information
was disclosed from documents obtained under the Australian Freedom of Information Act. The
assassination and abduction techniques practised in the Philippines were similar to the sort of
training being given by US Special Forces to the Contra gnerrila
l s trying to overthrow the
Nicaraguan government. In his role at the time as NZ Secretary of Defence, Mr Denis McLean
even criticized MarCos and his army for "not being tough enough on his own people".95 This
Cold Warrior is now NZ's Ambassador to the US. Meanwhile, the murders of Filipino
dissidents continue including those perpetrated by the paramilitary vigilantes backed by US
covert instigators.96 Is this tough enough , Mr MeLean? One of the ironies in the establishment
of NZ's Ready Reaction Force is McLean telling the CIA-linked Georgetown University's
Centre for Strategic and International Studies that the formation of the Force did not signal any
aggressive intent.97 Members of Ray Cline' s Georgetown University centre must have smiled
with satisfaction.

A most disturbing aspect of Ready Reaction exercising, as already indicated, is the

treatment of dissidence. Ready Reactionaries regularly deal with a local population divided in
loyalty. NZ locals are enticed into playing the role of "dissidents".

The use of t he term "dissident" is indeed a most peculiar one. According to my

Shorter Oxford Dictionary, "dissident" is simply " one who disagrees" . There is nothing
to suggest violent disagreement. In modern times, " dissident" has been most prominently
applied in political usage to those brave women and men in Russia who resisted
communist party rule. Its strange use in military training exercises like Ivanhoe '91
confinns the repressive character of this training and deepens suspicions as to its .J4
20
I" applicability to an unsettled N Z or the future. Peacemaking, not warmaking, is what NZ
and the world need.

It cannot be stressed enough that LIC training involves the psychological conditioning of
the public. The intent of such warfare goes far beyond just overseas intervention; it is also
directed at generating support by "winning hearts and minds" in the base country with an eye to
possible future use there too. In a review of Ivanhoe '91 practice in the Golden Bay area, Helen
Kingston observed that, "the Army was in fact hoping that there would be some local protest:
they wanted to incorporate it into the exercise".98 She notes that, in contrast with the last
exercise in the area in 1987, the Ready Reactionaries "were also involved quite openly in
dealing with peacefnl civilian demonstrations and are being trained to deal with the general
public 'in a way that the public finds acceptable "',99 This tralning involves distinguishing
between armed insurgency and peaceful protest. But Helen Kingston pertinently poses the
question as to whether such training is aimed at dealing with riots or protests in our own
country given the widening wealth/poverty gap.99 Most assuredly, it is also so directed at this
objective. l OO (See Tapsell's letter reproduced earlier.)

Peacelink pointed out that the so-called "resistance groups" organized among the locals
could well be called "vigilantes, death squads, or worse".99 The creation of paramilitary groups
like the Salvadorean ORDEN and the Filipino vigilantes under the umbrella of civic action or
civil defence is indeed an LIC strategy with ominous overtones, both here and abroad. This
privatization or "civilianization" of counter-insurgency has taken a terrible human toll,
especially in Central America. IOl A group of former CIA officers, the Association for
Responsible Dissent, headed by Philip Roettinger, estimates that "at least 6 million people have
died as a consequence of US covert operations since World War n".l02 Does this please our NZ
Cold Warriors?

Terrorism is at the core of this counter-insurgency approach. CIA and Special Force
manipulation of ethnic, class and regional divisions has spawned conflict across the globe.

Those predictions of urban guerrillas in NZ referted to earlier should be kept in mind.

The Western Security elite has long been planning for contingencies which include internal
unrest - times of turbulence and disintegration.103 Recall Michael Klare's identification of
"urban counter-insurgency" as a key component in Reaganite Ready Reaction strategy; and how ';'
 ?1

". it "is now being refined for use in other countries including many in the industrialized world
that are likely to experience urban disorder in the years ahead".

Western military strategy has more and more moved 10 Ready Reaction and this has been
reflected in the development of NZ'g armed forces. The National government is trying to take us
further with its White Paper pushing aggressive Ready Reaction deployment to remote
locations, as in the recent war against Iraq.l04 Official opposition to dissent and dissidents over
Ready Reaction is not restricted by any means to the National Party. In a television interview,
the present leader of the opposition, Mr Mike Moore, asserted that he is in favour of the military
having the death penalty for treason. lOO He made clear he sees it needed for a new type of war
problem in the Pacific terrorism. Our involvement in some Pacific Island state crisis might
-

involve dissent here at home . Moore presented his argument in a typically confused fashion but
he seemed to be saying such dissent mighl influence some of our military. Since this could not
be tolerated, the high command should have the right to shoot a few soldiers in order to
encourage the rest.

Moore referred darldy to the possibility of certain people in NZ trying to help those
whom the Ready Reactionaries might be up against So divided opinion in NZ evidently
necessitates the death penalty. If my memory serves me right, Mike once sonnded off about the
possibility of Muldoon sending out the special forces to hunt down dissidents. Maybe, given
the nature of politics, it might be Mike himself one day giving the orders. Again, we see the
likelihood of intervention overseas leading to repression of internal dissent. Mike' s mind has
not only been transnationalized by the multinationals but militarized as well by LIC
propaganda.

Perhaps one comforting aspect of NZ LIC training is that the Red Cross has been
involved in seeing the Geneva Conventions applied-106 But is this possible "cooptation"? The
NZ government ratified the two additional Protocols to the Geneva Convention in Febrnary
1988. "The Protocols relate to rights of civilians in internal conflict and to situations where
dissident forces operate alongside civilians, often the case in guerrilla warfare. Although NZ
has ratified the Protoco!s, some of the major powers, such as the US, have not yet done so. In
,, 107
late March [1989J, Australia also failed to gain ratification of these important documents . . .
.

The Golden Fleece exercise tested out these Protocols in the field. How serious will
commitment to them be in the years to come?

So far as NZ's Ready Reactionary preparedness goes, the 1991 Budget cuts have hurt.
About 330 soldiers will transfer from Burnham to the North Island, leaving 750 to 800 soldiers
at Burnham, according to the commander of the Ready Reaction Force Colonel Rick
Ottaway.108 The Force' s headquarters are moving from Christchurch to Linton where the 1st
Battalion will become the core of the Force, a function previously performed by the Burnham­
based 2-18( B attalion. Other units of the Force are also moving north. Budget Defence
spending cuts have effectively chopped total Defence forces' vote by 8%.109 Such cuts reduce
the credibility of our defence role as part of a Western allied force. It is to be hoped that this
might eventually encourage NZ to look at more constructive roles in helping deal with conflicts
in the southwest Pacific.

Conclusion

If the fashions of counter-insurgency, including LIC, come and go, the basic pattern
remains the same.101 Similarly, Western military planning to cope with mounting
environmental constraints goes quite a way back. In 1976, in a speech at the annual general ;I
22
;r meeting of the Returned Services Association' s Dominion Council, the then Minister of
Defence, Mr McCready, criticized the advocates of neutrality. He stated, " We cannot be sure
what effect growing over-population, pressu re on the world's resources, and the ever­
widening gap between the developed and undeveloped countries will have in the final
0
quarter of what is already the most turbulent century in our history" . 1 1 Militarist
reactionaries do not try to change the future for the better. They plan to defend the status quo of
wealth and power. Foreign Minister Don McKinnon said Eberle's role for security alliances
lies somewhere in the future . l l l But in reality the government has been preparing for i t for well
over a decade.

Not only must we resist the ANZUS ties to ready reaction, we must be alert t o the dangers
of Australian military adventurism. With increasing militarisation, Australia is becoming more
resource-war minded. A current example is its intention of investigating ways of boosting
Papua New Guinea's defence presence in the resource-rich highlands region, where Australian
2
companies have about $A2 billion in investments. 11

Analysis of the development of the NZ Ready Reaction Force demonstrates its repressive
character. In one sense the resource war has already long been part of the Western tradition. In
another, with the stimulus of environmental awareness, Ready Reactionary strategy has openly
emerged to become a leading force. It may soon become the dominant force. A slide into
resource wars is a rejection of any pretence at humane, democratic, civilized values, a descent
into hell on earth - perhaps humankind ' s last evolutionary gasp.

B rigadier Bestic has declared that Ivanhoe 9 1 in no way resembled any aspect of the
Gulf War. In fact, the two were intimately associated. l 1 3 Elsewhere, Bestic has called for a
better informed defence debate. 1 l 4 He questions the strategic emphasis on the Southwest
Pacific. "Our war graves follow our trade routes", he says.8 1 Public debate needs to confront
the question of whether the consumer society demands future war graves will lie on the sites of
our resource extraction. Let debate indeed begin - our very humanity, the values worth living
by, are at stake. If we fail to overcome the resource war mentality, it will as inevitably destroy
our society from within as any "enemy" would from without.

STOP P I NG T H E WAR AGAiNST T H E T H I R D WORLD

Though the risk of a nuclear Armageddon has diminished, the

peace movement cannot relax: The Pentagon is planning for war
against the hungry and angry and frustrated peoples of the Third
World.

- The Progressive, January 1989

P.O. box 5461 5
Boulder, Colorado 8032 1-4615
USA
 References IIml Notes

1. The Press, 28 February 1991.

2. Michael Klare. 1 98 1 . Beyond the Vietnam Syndrome: UOS. Interventionism in the 19805.
lnstitute for Policy Studies, Washington, DC. p. 22.
3. For Gulf intelVention: Ibid., especially chapters 3, 4 and 5 . For MIC refer to Klare 's article
Behind Desert Storm, The New Military Paradigm. Technology Review, May/June 1 99 1 . pp.
28-36.
4. The Press, 16 February 1991.
5. Ivan Molloy. 1988. A Legllcy oithe Reagan Doctrine: Low Intensity Conflict, in "Low
Intensity Conflict: Theory and Practice in Central America and Southeast Asia" , ed. by Barry
Carr and Elame McKay. La Trobe University, Institute of Latin American Studies, Monash
University, Centre of Southeast Asian Studies. pp. 9-19.
6. Enrique Delacruz, Aida Jordan and Jorge Emmanuel. 1987. Death Squads in the Philippines.
Alliance for Philippine Concerns. p. 37.
7. Molloy, op.cif., p. 13.
8. Ibid., p. 14.
9. Delacruz , op.cit.
10. Barry Cart. Low Intensity Conflict. in Cart and McKay (see ref. 5), op.cit., pp. 29-37.
11. Allan Nairn. 1984. Behind the Death Squads. The Progressive, May. pp. 20-29.
12. Ibid., p. 23.
13. Ibid., p. 2 1 .
14. John Steveru;on. 1989-90. Ugly American Policy and the Myth of 'Magic Man' Lansdale. ln
These Times, 20 Dec 1989-9 Jan 1990. p. 1 8 .
15. Loc.cit. Along with the CIA, the repressive counter-insurgency campaign against the Huk
rebellion was also managed by the Joint US Military Advisory Group (JUSMAG). Enrique
Delacruz, et al., op.cit., p. 7; for post Marcos era see ref. 16.
16. Ramsay Clm, Ralph McGehee, et al. 1987. Right-Wing Vigilantes and US Involvement:
Report of a US·Philippine Fact.Finding Mission to the Philippines. May 20-30, 1 987. p. 12.
See also, Walden Bello, US-Sponsored Low-Intensity Conflict in the Philippines. Food First
Development Report, No. 2, The Institute for Food and Development Policy. December 1987.
Bello emphasizes the ideologlcal/political strategy of US-sponsored UC in the Philippines to
project a refmmist Image, both in the Lansdale-Magsaysay anti-Huk campalgn and the Aquino
anti-New People's Anny campalgn.
17. The Clm, McGehee report refers to the activities of Singlaub and Cline at various points. See
also Doug Cunningham, Singlaub Recrnits his own Army in the Philippines, The National
Reporter. Spring 1987. pp. 6-7.
1 8. Foreign Correspondent, TV1, 1 3 Apri1 1991.
19. Loc.cif.; and America's Secret Soldiers: The Buildup of US Special Operations Forces. The
Defense Monitor, voL XIV, no. 2, 1985. p. 9. Center for Defense Infmmation, Wash. D.C. By
1985 ISA was known to have already operated in some capacity or other in a number of countries.
20. For example, Foreign Correspondent, TVl, 23 May 1991. A BBC report on how the US has
repeatedly betrayed the Kurds disclosed that a CIA radio station in Saudi Arabia had inciWd
Kurdish revolt The fonner head of CIA operations in the Gulf region (1986-1990), Vincent
Cannistraro,. complained that US policy had used the Kurds for its own ends.
21. The New Statesman, 2 Nov 1984, reproduced in Nuclear-Free, Special Issue - CIA Threat to New
Zealand? Jan 1985. This issue and the October 1985 CIA special issue are relevant to the current
article.
22. Ralph McGehee. 1990. The Indonesian Massacres and the CIA. Covert Action Infonnation
Bulletin, No. 35, Fall 1990. P 57.
23. Ibid.: see also Peace Researcher, Nos. 1 3 , 1 8, 19, 28.
24. Ralph McGeh!:e. 1983. Deadiy Deceits: My 25 Years in the CIA. Sheridan Square Publ. pp. 57-
58; Allies: The White House, the CIA and Australia. Documentary film.
25. Dennis Small. State Terrorism. Peacelink, No. 42. July 1986. p. 5.
26. William Blum. 1986. The CIA: A Forgotten ffistory, US Interventions since World War U.
Zed Books Ltd. pp. 4 1 -42.
27. Ibid., p. 42.
24

28. The San Francisco Examiner, 20 May 1990.

29. Major G.J. Clayton, compiler. New Zealand Army: A History from the 1840s to the 1990s.
p. 139. In late 1955 a British-type squadron of the Special Air Service (SAS) was fonned for
action in Malaysia during the so-called "Emergency" there. NZ took part in the Korean War but
this was much more a conventional theatre.
30. Report of the [NZ] Ministry of Defence for the year ended 31 March 1984. pp. 30-3 1 .
31. Ibid., p. 3 1 .
32. The Press, 2 April 1985.
33. See various articles in Peacelink. Nos. 36, 43, 46, 83.
34. Klare, Beyond the Vietnam Syndrome, Op.cif., p. 67.
35. Clayton, op.cif., p. 1 76.
36. Thomas"Durrell Young. 1991. Whither Future US Alliance Strategy? The ABCA Clue. Armed
Forces and Society, Vol. 17, No. 2, Wmter 1991. pp. 284-285. An aside on Young: It is amusing
to note that he refers to "past, outrigin scurrilous accusations 1eveled at NZ's membership in these
fora by some 'peace researchers' in that country" (see pp. 293 & 297 in Whither ) . His target
•..

included Peace Researcher No. 5 , 1984, pp. 1-4. Young is a national security affairs analyst at
the Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
37. Ibid., p. 281.
38. Klare, Beyond the Vietnam Syndrome, op.cit., p. 67.
39. Ibid., pp. 89-91. Klare analysed the later version of Reaganist counter-insurgency in Low
Intensity Warfare, Counter-Insurgency, Pro-Insllfgency, and Anti-Terrorism in the
Eighties, Klare and Peter Kornbluh, eds. Pantheon Books, 1988. In recent years, Klare has been
director and associate professor of the Five College Program in Peace and World Security Studies
based at Hampshire College in Ambers!, Massachusetts.
40. Defence Review [NZ], 1983. p. 28.
41. The Press, 1 6 Sept 1983.
42. Peacelink, No. 15. Nov-Dec 1983. p. 13.
43. The Star, 8 Nov 1982.
44. The Press, 8 Sept 1983.
45. Delacruz, et al., op.cit., p. 35.
46. Ibid., p. 36.
47. The Star, 24 Nov 1984.
48. The Star, 1 Dee 1984.
49. The Star, 28 Jan 1989.
5.0. The Press, 1 7 Jan 1989.
51. The Press, 27 Feb 1989.
52. The Press, 16 Feb 1989.
53. The Star, 29 March 1990.
54. The Press, 9 March 1990.
SS. The Press, 20 Feb 1991.
56. The Mail Weekender, 9 Aug 1990; The Press, 1 6 Feb 199 1 ; The Press, 26 Feb 1991.
57. The Chch Mail, 1 1 March 1991.
58. Ibid.; The Press. 16 Feb 1991; Another media report said the exercise cost $1 million - The Star,
12 Feb 1991
59. The Press. Ibid.
6.0. The Press, 28 Feb 1991.
61. The Star, 12 Feb 1991.
62. The Press, 3 April 1991.
63. The Detence of New Zealand 1991: A Policy Paper. GoYl White Paper.
64. Ibid., pp. 23-24.
65. Ibid., p. 24.
66. D. Frank Barnaby, ed. 1988. The Gala Peace Atlas: SlIfvival into the Third MiIleniufll. Pan
Books.
67. Ibid., p. 256.
68. As on the military front, the US and NZ work together in trade/economic negotiations, specially
the GATT, to repress the Third World. See, for example, the writer's paper "Sovereig!lty and the
Struggle for Survival: The Transnational Threat to Sustalnability, Food Security and Human
 Rights", presented at the Pacific Institute of Resource Management (PIRM) Seminar on
"Environment, Economics, and Equity" , Wellington, 5-6 Juiy, 199 1 . (Collected papers to be
published by PIRM) See also writer's article on the Western drive towards resource wars in NZ
Envirorvnent, No. 44, Summer 1984. pp. 26-32.
69. Steven Shrybman. The Environmental Costs of Free Trade. Multinational Monitor,
March 1990. pp. 20-22.
70. Noam Chomsky. Nefarious Aggression. Z Magazine, October 1990. pp. 18-29.
71. Walden Bello. Rolling Back Independence. "Third World Guide 91/92", Instituto del Tercer
Mundo, 1990. p. 98.
72. Ben Jackson. Poverty and the Planet: A Question of Survival. World Development Movemem
p. 172. (See ms chapter 7, "War of the Worlds")
73. Young, op.cit., p. 286.
74. Lee Feinstein. Fighting the Next War. Mother Jones, My-August 1990, p. 35.
75. Philip Agee. Producing the Proper Crisis. Peacelink, No. 89, March 1991, pp. 4-10.
76. Joseph Gerson, ed. 1986. The Deadly Connection: Nuclear War and US Intervention. New
Society Publishers.
77. Victor Marchetti and John Marks. 1974 and 1976. The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence.
Coronet Books. p. 203.
78. See, for example, Kevin Generous. 1985. Vietnam: The Secret War. Bison Books, one ofLhe
glossy, colour coffee tsble books in the Bison military series.
79. Ibid.; The Green Beret: US Special Forces from Vietnam to Delta Force. Villard Military
Series, Villard Books, 1986.
80. The Chch Mail, 1 1 March 1991.
81. A feature article by Neil Clarkson on Exercise Ivanhoe, The Press, 3 April 1991.
82. Greg Ansley looked at the question of wbom we may have to fight, The Star, 7 Feb 1986.
83. The Dominion Sunday Times, 24 March 1991; for Jennings, see review of his ANZUS book in
Peace Researcher, No. 22, March 1989. pp. 8-9.
84. Policy Paper, op.cit. (see ref 63), p. 60.
85. Ibid., pp. 73-74.
86. Interview with Brigadier Bestic by Ron Taylor, The Star, 6 Feb 1991.
87. AIan Hodgart. 1977. The Economics of European Imperialism. W.W. Nonon and Co. p. 79.
88. Noam Chomsky. New World Order. The ACTivist, April 1991. Jack Stauder. World Order
and World Economy. in Raw Materials Report, Vol. 8, No. I , 1991. pp. 4-6. AIan Miller. From
an East-West Cold War to a North-South Hot War. Pacific World, No. 19, May 1991. pp. 2-3.
John Pilger. New Age Imperialism. New Statesman and Society, 1 March 1991. Center for
Defense Information. Militarism in America. The Defense Monitor, Vol. XV, No. 3, 1986.
Racism and the National Security State. Covert Action Information Bulletin, No. 36, Spring
1991. New World Order: Tunnel at the End of the Light. CAm, No. 37, Summer 1991.
89. Center for Defense Information. Resource Wars: The Myth of American Mineral
Vulnerability. The Defense Monitor, Vol. XIV, No. 9, 1985.
90. An article by Ron Taylor reviews problems in the East Coast area including Ruatoria, The Star
Sunday, 23 Dec 1 990. See also Peace Researcher, No. 19, June 1988. p. 6.
91. Chch Star, 6 August 1991.
92. Sunday Star, 13 Sept 1987. A look at the NZ SAS by Toni McRae, in light of a book on the SAS,
Dare to Win, by an American former air force man, Darryl Baker, helped by a former British
SAS man with service in Rhodesia
93. The Star, 21 Sept 1987.
94. The National Times, 28 Feb - 6 March 1986. p. 3. This report, by covert action investigator Brian
Toohey, is a revealing insight into certain ANZUS implications.
95. Owen WUkes. Is Denis McLeaIl fit to be NZ Ambassador to the US? Peacelink, No. 90, April
1991. p . 16.
96, Human Rights Violations in the Philippines under the Aquino Government: Report to the
United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Jan to March 1991 , submitted by the
Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (PAHRA). See also Amnesty International
Reports.
97. The Press, 25 June 1984.
98. Helen Kingston. Reactions to the Ready Reaction Force Peacelink, No. 92, June 199 1 . pp. 24.
.
26

99. Ibid., p. 25.

100. Ibid.; More police-like operations are an openly acknowledged consequence of the IOW-level
scenario, The Press, 3 April 1 99 1 . Klare and Kombluh stressed the dangers to democracy of the
emphasis on politicization of the public and deliberate deceit by LIC managers (Low Intensity
Conflict, op.cit., pp. 14-16).
101. Michael McClintock. 1985. The American Connection, Vol. I : State Terror and Popular
Resistance in El Salvador and Vol. ll: State Terror and Popular Resistance in Guatemala.
Zed Books. See especially his assessment of the age of counter-insurgency in vo!. n, Chapter 10.
McClintock, a senior staff member of Amnesty International's Research Division, spent several
years on this study drawing extensively on previously restricted US government documents.
Perhaps the most significant new aspect ofLIC is that it identifies Third World insurgencic,
as the most predominant threat to US security, and the emphasis is on taking the offensive to
overcome the revolutionary peril (Klare and Kornbluh, Low Intensity Conflict, Op.Cif, p. 3).
102. Colman McCarthy. Excesses of the CIA. The Guardian, 20 Dec 1987.
103. Klare, Beyond the Vietnam Syndrome, op.cit., Ch. 2. President Carter's Secretary of Defensc.
Harold Brown, placed emphasis on curbing global "turbulence". Note the stress on countering
"instability" in current US strategic planning.
104. Owen WUkes. White Paper Gives Green Light for Aggro. Peacelink, No. 92. p. 20; "White
Paper" refers to ref. 63.
105. Holmes Shuw, TVI, 14 June 1989.
106. Red Cross News, Issue 2, 1989, pp. 5-7.
107. Ibid., p. 6.
108. The Press, I August 1991.
109. The Press, 7 August 1991.
1 10. The Evening Post, 15 June 1976. For an environmentally aware and humanely concerned view
during this era, see W.O. Whittlestone, "Poverty, War and the Environment", and
"Developmental Aid and Environmental Pressures", in M.R. Stenson, ed. 1975. New Zealand
and the Global Ecological Crisis. NZ Inst. Internal. Affairs, Price Milbum. pp. 1 1 1 - 1 39.
1 1 1. Eberle's statement about ANZUS gives a real insight into the thinking of the Western military
elite. Until recently, Eberle was head of the British Royal Institute for International Affairs
brought here, amazingly enough, by the Public Advisory Committee on Disarmament and Arms
Control (pACDAC). Peacelink, No. 94, August 1991, p. 22.
12. The Press, 13 August 1991.
1 1 3. The Press, 1 6 Feb 1991.
1 14. The Press, 3 April 1991; The Star, 6 Feb 1991.
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