Raising the level of constructive debate on all things security is a useful role for businesses to consider says a long-time military officer as senior writer Viv Posselt reports.
Jon Broadley lays a wreath on behalf of Cambridge RSA at the Anzac Day service at the Town Hall in 2022. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
A global environment increasingly beset with military threats, trade challenges, cyber-attacks and risks to maritime security means Kiwis can no longer consider geographical distance to be an adequate buffer.
Threats to our security and way of life are real, and New Zealanders need to forego thoughts of hunkering down and isolating themselves.
“The bottom line is that we cannot afford to,” says Jon Broadley, a business advisor and long-time military officer who is also a brigadier in the New Zealand Defence Forces (NZDF) and vice-president of the Cambridge RSA.
After a 22-year fulltime military career, Broadley transferred to part-time Territorial Force Army Reserve. He is now a business advisor with Strategy+Ltd, and has an extensive background in business, defence and logistics. In 1996, he was made a member of the British Empire (MBE) for his work during a peacekeeping deployment to Yugoslavia.
In his address to a Cambridge U3A meeting recently he urged Kiwis to be cognisant of the many security challenges currently facing New Zealand.
Jon Broadley salutes at Anzac Day commemorations in Cambridge. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
Terrorism, plus related interstate and internal conflicts around the world threaten global populations, he said. The Global Peace Index last year identified 56 major conflicts, the largest number since WW2, involving 92 countries or 47 per cent of the 195 countries across the world.
Cyber-attacks, occurring at an estimated 100 to 250 global attacks a second, pose another threat to New Zealand, while other collective international security challenges include maritime security, including piracy, and the increase in provocative activity from North Korea and China.
“To put it bluntly, globalisation has made the impacts of global events local,” he said. “As a trading nation, one that relies on freedom of navigation, access to markets, international rule of law and strong international institutions, we have nothing less than a vital stake in the international system.
“It is a system that has helped ensure our economic prosperity as a trading nation that is far from the world’s markets. Of our $90 billion export earning last year, China took about 26 per cent, the US and Australia about 13 per cent each, and ironically the UK only about 3 per cent, so our prosperity is inextricably linked to our exporting partners across the globe.
“Therefore, we must care when one country invades another in Eastern Europe, when instability in the Middle East is supported by countries such as Iran and Yemen, and when groups of foreign fighters and pirates pop up in various parts of the world. We must be cognisant of the South China Sea and southwest Pacific security debate to ensure we understand its potential impact to New Zealand’s economic interests.”
Broadley said at 30 million square kilometres, New Zealand’s Economic Exclusion Zone is one of the largest of the world. Monitoring that area, as well as providing assistance when needed to Pacific Island nations, adds to security concerns closer to home.
He said the exact role New Zealand and the NZDF will play in the future is a government matter, “but raising the level of constructive debate on all things security is a useful role for all of us”.
Cambridge businessman and Royal New Zealand Defence Force brigadier Jon Broadley, centre, salutes at the Cambridge Anzac Day Commemoration Service last month. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
