US commander visits as military integration with 'kill chains' advances
Photo:
US Air Force / Keith Keel
An American army commander visiting New Zealand has praised how the United States and New Zealand Defence Force are developing an integrated network, at the same time as the latest example of this integration comes to light.
The latest example is a project to connect this country's so-called "battle lab" into a combined command-and-control system, including experiments in what US strategic command called
"dynamic targeting kill-chain automation"
.
The visit of General Ronald Clark this week with the head of the NZ army, Major General Rose King, focused on the strengthening of the two armies' strategic partnership.
Clark said the legacy of standing side-by-side in conflicts continued as the two forces built an "integrated landpower network" to preserve peace in the Indo-Pacific.
"Discussions focused on building further interoperability, advancing combined readiness initiatives, and the US Army's recent transformation efforts," NZDF said in a media release.
General Ronald Clark, Commanding General of United States Army Pacific and Major General Rose King, Chief of the New Zealand Army.
Photo:
NZDF
One "key" to the army networking was a joint US-led command-and-control system, called CJADC2, said documents newly released under the Official Information Act.
They show King has what is called a "capstone" (top priority) order to advance Interoperability with the US and other partners like Australia (this is one among six capstone orders).
The King-Clark meeting came during the 30,000-strong army exercise
Talisman Sabre
in Australia.
Talisman Sabre had "demonstrated growing interoperability across air, land, maritime, cyber, and space domains", NZDF said.
The battle-lab integration comes under the US Air Force, which this week ordered another
half billion dollars of new technology
to advance the project.
The NZDF said in response to RNZ inquiries, that it began participating in the Combined Federated Battle Lab network
(
CFBLNet) this year.
However, official US reports state New Zealand personnel took part in targeting experiments for it last year.
They also began last year taking part in the US army's main integration initiative, Project Convergence, where experiments have linked New Zealand sensor and firing systems into a wider network.
The multinational forces, particularly those of the Five Eyes partners - the US, Australia, UK, Canada and New Zealand - have have been working in earnest since last year to set up a mega-network, the Combined Joint All-Domain Command-and-Control (CJADC2) network.
This is essentially to develop technologies to find targets and shoot them more quickly and accurately.
The mega-network is being
built to overlap
with nuclear command-control-and-communications, Pentagon documents show.
An F/A-18E Super Hornet, attached to Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 195, taxis on the flight deck of Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73) while underway in the Timor Sea, 16 July 2025, in support of Talisman Sabre.
Photo:
US Navy / Seaman Apprentice Nicolas Quezad
"The NZDF involvement in these initiatives is a function of the need to be able to work alongside our military partners," the force told RNZ in an OIA response.
"The NZDF is not a driver of the initiatives, and no NZDF project matches or mirrors the scale or nature of the United States' projects."
Green Party defence spokesperson Teanau Toiono said pursuing interoperability with the US was too costly.
"We're opposed to this US-led military regime but even if you look at it from an economic perspective, it's also expensive," Toiono said on Thursday.
The growing integration was negative; "because what's good for the US, I don't think is good for us and I don't think it's good for the Pacific region".
The Defence Force rejected RNZ's request for details about all recent integration moves, saying this required too much work.
Even if it did that work, a lot of this was about combat capabilities and interoperability so was "classified information and would not be made public".
King said in a release about Clark's visit that this country could not contribute mass and scale, but had soldiering quality to offer.
"To that end, it's been great to be able to share some insight with General Clark and his team around how we go about training our people."
She offered as an example a years-old, oft-delayed project to build a "Network Enabled Army" to improve digital communications and command-and-control interoperability, that would advance under the government's new defence capability plan.
The USS America (LHA 6), steams alongside US Navy ships from the America Strike Group, Royal Australian Navy, Republic of Korea Navy, Royal New Zealand Navy, French Navy and Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force as part of Talisman Sabre 25, on 20 July.
Photo:
US Navy / Petty Officer 2nd Class Cole Pursley
The US air force's main contribution to the mega-network is called the Advanced Battle Management System; the army's is Project Convergence; the navy's is Project Overmatch, which New Zealand joined in February.
The US Air Force battle-labs experiments have involved New Zealand personnel in testing if new human-machine approaches are faster and better.
A US unit "pitted current warfighter systems and procedures against new technologies to gather insights and streamline operational and tactical C2 [command and control] processes to speed up the kill-chain and decision-making timeline", a
US Air Force
report said.
The
Pentagon's
"CJADC2 concept has challenged US joint and combined forces to prioritise achieving decision advantage over potential adversaries, to retain our warfighting advantage and enhance the deterrent effect of a powerful military".
The US team leading this was "currently working with Australia and New Zealand to connect their Battle Labs", the air force said last year.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero
,
a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NZ Herald
an hour ago
- NZ Herald
US firm Anduril to build autonomous submarines for Pacific security
The warfare technology manufacturer Anduril Industries has a plan in place to protect the Pacific Ocean, beginning with making its extra-large autonomous submarines in Australia. The privately-owned United States company recently raised US$2 billion at a US$30.5b ($51.6b) valuation. 'We're basically on a war footing,' Anduril's senior vice-president of
NZ Herald
3 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Trump's tariff moves suggest Indian and US co-operation over China can no-longer be counted on
Until that point, his Administration had been angling to reduce India's trade barriers but said nothing about its two years of buying Russian oil at a wartime discount. Before the shock of Trump's announcement in April of sweeping global tariffs, the world's two largest democracies seemed to be enjoying the friendship that its leaders had forged. At a meeting with Trump at the White House in February, India's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, described India's intention to become one of the world's most advanced economies, with the US as a partner. 'In the language of America, it's 'Make India Great Again' — Miga,' he said. 'When America and India work together, this Maga plus Miga becomes a 'mega partnership for prosperity.'' Trump smiled. Left unmentioned but lingering just out of sight was China, the only country with a population to rival India's and an economy to stand in its way. China is also far and away America's most important economic competitor. Together, the US and India were seen as ready to use each other to try to restrain China's might. Total trade between the US and India was roughly US$130 billion last year. India's top exports to America include pharmaceuticals, auto parts, electrical goods, and gemstones. Modi's confidence in enlisting the US in its economic rise was well grounded. US administrations have been courting India as a geopolitical ally for more than a quarter of a century, since India announced its nuclear arsenal as a deterrent, it said, to China. And American dollars have poured into India as China's economy has matured and become more assertive. The Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine were the catalysts for a surge in investment. Multinational companies grew excited about doing business in India, to reduce the risk of exposure to China as it girds for a trade war with the US and possibly a real war with Taiwan. Manufacturing and professional services led the way. Wall Street followed, banking on the future growth of India, with its relatively young population and enviable political stability. But over the past week, Trump's escalating attacks on India have suddenly undermined this joint venture and sent reverberations throughout the business worlds of both countries. Today, an executive order by Trump said that India would face an extra 25% tariff starting on August 27 if it continued to buy oil from Russia. That levy on Indian goods imported into the US would come on top of a 25% tariff Trump announced last week, which is set to take effect tomorrow and on its own ranks as one of the highest rates in Asia. India's Foreign Ministry responded to Trump's executive order, reiterating that the country's motives for importing oil from Russia were tied to the energy needs of its 1.4 billion people. It was 'extremely unfortunate that the US should choose to impose additional tariffs on India for actions that several other countries are also taking in their own national interest,' the ministry's statement said. Indian officials had signalled over the weekend that they did not intend to stop buying Russian oil. With his tariff threats, Trump has thrown months of trade talks between both countries into question. Just a couple of weeks ago, negotiators and business leaders sounded upbeat. Even with some difficult details to be settled, the expectation was that India and the US mean too much to each other to let a global trade war tear them apart. US President Donald Trump with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, on February 13. With threats of tariffs up to 50%, Trump seems to be scrapping America's plan to turn India into a counterweight to China, declaring instead that it was a 'dead economy'. Photo / Eric Lee, The New York Times Modi was one of the first world leaders to visit Trump in Washington after he returned to the White House in January. The two men had long shared what was by all appearances a close relationship. As political leaders, both are regarded as strongmen. The US was earlier wary of Modi, who had been denied a visa to the US on the grounds that he played a role in the deadly anti-Muslim riots in 2002. But he was embraced when he became Prime Minister in 2014. Part of the calculation was based on security and the possible future of military alliances across Asia. Yet, India's attractive qualities as a partner in defence always hinged on the promise of its economy. Companies such as Apple have poured billions into India, which in 2023 eclipsed China in population, with eyes on India's domestic market and its capacity to export manufactured goods to the US and elsewhere. Those investments were supposed to be better than profitable; they were supposed to reduce or eliminate everyone's dependence on China to be the factory of the world. The 25% tariff alone, already much higher than those imposed on Asian competitors including Vietnam, Japan, and South Korea, would reduce the viability of such a trade. A 50% tariff would kill it. Yesterday, Trump took aim at two other industries that were explicitly being developed in India as an alternative to China. Pharmaceuticals, where India has world-beating advantages and sells more than US$10b a year to the US, is to face a special tariff that could eventually reach 250%, Trump said, to be announced 'within a week or so'. Eli Lilly, as one of many American corporations that have invested in India, for example, recently invested US$3b in an Indian factory. India makes nearly 40% of the generic drugs bought in the US. Trump's plan is to bring back manufacturing to the US, which is also the reason he has given for imposing another special tariff on semiconductors. Unfortunately for Indian and American companies, and some in East Asia too, everyone has been spending to make India competitive in this sector. Micron, based in Idaho, has taken advantage of Indian government subsidies to put US$2.5b into building chipmaking facilities in Modi's home state of Gujarat. High finance has also followed brick-and-mortar businesses. The Indian stock market has been on a bull run, finding enthusiastic new buyers among middle-class Indians. That made foreign investors eager for private deals. Stephen Schwarzman, chief executive of Blackstone, a New York investment firm, said this year that it was putting US$11b into Indian data centres to fuel the global artificial intelligence boom. A Mumbai-based investment professional, who was not authorised to speak publicly, said there was much more at stake in these investments than their dollar value. Bets like Blackstone's are about the future of business between India, China, and the US, he said, and bring expertise from one economy to another. India was benefitting from that. But now it looks like a vulnerability. The rupture of the relationship has generated huge uncertainty. Who wants to be responsible for making the next big bet? Some parts of the US-Indian equation look relatively secure. The trade in goods between the two countries has never been as important to their economic relationship as their trade in services and other people-to-people exchanges. Indians are just as present in American boardrooms as American-trained Indians are in Mumbai's corner offices. One aspect of this exchange, the proliferation of globally integrated, high-end offices in India — first in information technology and then across the professions — has remained a bright spot. Worth US$65b last year, it is more valuable than the total trade deficit in goods. China does not hold a candle to India's ability as a hub for office work other countries send its way. As frightening as the new tariffs are for many Indian factories, most American investors who have built stakes in India are not yet fleeing. They do, however, remember what happened in 2020, when India and China traded blows at their border and 24 soldiers were killed. Almost overnight, Chinese companies were forced to ditch their Indian investments at a loss. A war of words and tariffs is different, of course. However, Indian and American co-operation around China is no longer something that anyone can count on. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Written by: Alex Travelli Photographs by: Saumya Khandelwal, Eric Lee ©2025 THE NEW YORK TIMES
1News
5 hours ago
- 1News
Trump to put additional 25% import taxes on India over Russian oil purchases
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday to place an additional 25% tariff on India for its purchases of Russian oil, bringing the combined tariffs imposed by the United States on its ally to 50%. The tariffs would go into effect 21 days after the signing of the order, meaning that both India and Russia might have time to negotiate with the administration on the import taxes. Trump's moves could scramble the economic trajectory of India, which until recently was seen as an alternative to China by American companies looking to relocate their manufacturing. China also buys oil from Russia, but it was not included in the order signed by the Republican president. As part of a negotiating period with Beijing, Trump has placed 30% tariffs on goods from China, a rate that is smaller than the combined import taxes with which he has threatened New Delhi. Trump had previewed for reporters on Wednesday that the tariffs would be coming, saying the US had a meeting with Russia on Wednesday as the Trump administration tries to end the war in Ukraine. ADVERTISEMENT Trump had not spoke about the new tariffs Thursday, but he posted on Truth Social that special envoy Steve Witkoff's talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin were 'highly productive". The Indian government on Thursday called the additional tariffs 'unfortunate". The morning's headlines in 90 seconds, including privacy concerns over road user charges, possible changes to Wellington's waterfront, and one of the biggest sports memorabilia heists ever. (Source: 1News) 'We reiterate that these actions are unfair, unjustified and unreasonable,' Foreign Ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said in a statement, adding that India would take all actions necessary to protect its interests. Jaiswal said India has already made its stand clear that the country's imports were based on market factors and were part of an overall objective of ensuring energy security for its 1.4 billion people. Ajay Srivastava, a former Indian trade official, said the latest tariff places the country among the most heavily taxed US trading partners and far above rivals such as China, Vietnam and Bangladesh. 'The tariffs are expected to make Indian goods far costlier with the potential to cut exports by around 40%-50% to the US,' he said. ADVERTISEMENT Srivastava said Trump's decision was 'hypocritical' because China bought more Russian oil than India did last year. President Donald Trump, right, speaks with India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a news conference in the East Room of the White House (Source: Associated Press) 'Washington avoids targeting Beijing because of China's leverage over critical minerals, which are vital for US defence and technology,' he said. In 2024, the US ran a US$45.8 billion (NZ$77.1 billion) trade deficit in goods with India, meaning America imported more from India than it exported, according to the US Census Bureau. American consumers and businesses buy pharmaceutical drugs, precious stones and textiles and apparel from India, among other goods. At the world's largest country, India represented a way for the US to counter China's influence in Asia. But India has not supported the Ukraine-related sanctions by the US and its allies on Moscow, even as India's leaders have maintained that they want peace. The US and China are currently in negotiations on trade, with Washington imposing a 30% tariff on Chinese goods and facing a 10% retaliatory tax from Beijing on American products. The planned tariffs on India contradict past efforts by the Biden administration and other nations in the Group of Seven leading industrialised nations that encouraged India to buy cheap Russian oil through a price cap imposed in 2022. The nations collectively capped Russian oil a US$60 (NZ$101.13) per barrel at a time when prices in the market were meaningfully higher. ADVERTISEMENT The intent was to deprive the Kremlin of revenue to fund its war in Ukraine, forcing the Russian government either to sell its oil at a discount or divert money for a costly alternative shipping network. The price cap was rolled out to equal parts scepticism and hopefulness that the policy would stave off Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. The cap has required shipping and insurance companies to refuse to handle oil shipments above the cap, though Russia has been able to evade the cap by shipping oil on a 'shadow fleet' of old vessels using insurers and trading companies located in countries that are not enforcing sanctions. But oil prices have fallen with a barrel trading on Wednesday morning at US$65.84 (NZ$110.99), up 1% on the day.
