US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth is on his first tour of the Indo-Pacific region amid controversy around use of a unclassified chat app that inadvertently included a journalist. Photo: Alex Wong / Getty Images / AFP
The top US commander in the Indo-Pacific has given a glimpse of a war with China playbook, as US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth heads around the Pacific after revealing actual war plans to a journalist.
The latest developments on defence operation in the region come as Australia unveils an acceleration of defence spending, while New Zealand's government will not yet say how it will respond.
Luxon would not give any details on the size of defence spending at his post-Cabinet media conference on Monday.
"I'm not going to pre-empt that conversation because when we talk about it, I want to be able to open it up properly and actually talk it through with the country."
The Australian government has made no secret of its weapons outlays, and in last night's federal Budget accelerated the spending of a billion dollars on weapons. About $700m is going into anti-radar missiles from US contractor Northrop Grumman in a "warstock uplift" that puts more stress on speed.
Hegseth is part of a Trump administration that turned global calculations on their heads with the break from NATO last month. He left for his first tour of the Indo-Pacific region amid controversy in Washington yesterday, writing on X:
"The Indo-Pacific is our priority theater, and we're strengthening our deterrence, readiness, and alliances."
US media revealed yesterday that Hegseth was among top officials who discussed strike plans against Houthi rebels in Yemen using an unclassified chat app that inadvertently included a journalist.
"The Trump Administration accidentally texted me its war plans," headlined the article in The Atlantic.
At his first stop in Hawaii - headquarters of Indo-Pacific command (INDOPACOM), Hegseth quickly hit back:
"Nobody was texting war plans and that's all I have to say about that."
He next heads to the Philippines, Japan and Guam, where the US is pouring billions into new missiles.
"The Indo-Pacific Command is shifting priorities to make sure we are deterring threats in the future," Hegseth said in Hawaii.
"President Trump's been focused on that. Re-establishing the warrior ethos, rebuilding our military and ultimately re-establishing deterrence. It's critically important."
Close cooperation with regional allies was critical, he added.
The tour is around the time of some big military exercises that include New Zealand, including Freedom Shield in South Korea, and the US Army's drone experimentation exercise in California and the wider Pacific in March and April.
The US government is pouring billions more into the Pacific Deterrence Initiative than the Pentagon has requested.
Part of this would fund missiles in Guam, and drone experiments, and other money would go into "military construction investments west of the international date line", which runs just east of the Chatham Islands, to "enhance ... the capacity and capabilities of US Allies and partners", said a 2024 US government document.
It labelled the People's Republic of China "its pacing challenge", a formal designation that refers to an adversary that poses a long-term but also immediate risk to US influence and power.
INDOPACOM op commander Navy Admiral Samuel Paparo said the US would win asked if war with China broke out today.
But he added that old and new technology - including ships planes, missiles and drones - would all be crucial.
"Fighters are the infantry of the air. If you don't hold the air, you don't hold the high ground, and if you don't hold the high ground, you're dead," Paparo told military commentator Ward Carroll on Youtube in November, before Donald Trump took power.
China's 370-vessel Navy had only 83 ships large enough to be a major concern, and America's 290-strong fleet had more practice and could get aircraft carriers in place quickly.
They had been short of guided missiles, as weapons inventories were drained by Ukraine and the Middle East, and needed "action to rebuild those magazines".
Paparo, who also briefed the Brookings Institute, has previously been quoted saying he wants thousands of drones to make a "hellscape" for China in the seas around it.
"We are in the middle of a new epoch of warfare, where smaller, unmanned capabilities are going to have a lot of relevance, particularly in tight geographies" like the South China Sea, he told Carroll.
But navies still needed big ships to deliver the drones.
He stressed how alliances were key, and Taiwan was a game changer.
"If the PRC were to change the facts on the ground in Taiwan with force then all of our relationships in the Pacific, all of the security relationships we have, will come into question."
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
