14 DAY TRIAL // Representatives of the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) say their overseas counterparts are far more advanced when it comes to surveillance, reconnaissance, and other cyber capabilities.
That is why the Force wants to spend $NZ600 million ($470 million / €360 million) on the creation of a cyber army over the next 20 years.
According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the NZDF will meet with potential technology suppliers in August. If all goes well, the cabinet will be presented with a business case in October.
Colonel Phil Collet, the manager of the Network Enabled Army program, says the NZDF doesn’t have unmanned aerial vehicles and robots, and they don’t have any advanced surveillance and reconnaissance systems that would help their troops in this regard.
“The capability gap we have is the ability for troops in the field to send and receive data and to be able to display information on electronic maps. That is a capability that is in fairly widespread use across a lot of other Western nations,” Collet said, cited by The Sydney Morning Herald.
In addition to drones and robots, the NZDF also wants to update its radio systems. Several options will be presented to ministers, each with different price tags.
“We are identifying up to potentially $NZ600m over 20 years. A big proportion of that, however, would simply be paying for the replacement of equipment such as radios that we already own,” the colonel said.
Collet says they will look at the maturity and affordability of a technology before deciding whether to implement it or not.
As far as the suppliers are concerned, he hopes that this will create new opportunities for New Zealand-based organizations. However, he believes it’s unlikely that there is a company in New Zealand that could handle the task on its own.