Source: Radio New Zealand
US Space Command emblems. Supplied
The Defence Force has taken part in a wargame with the United States based on a Russian nuclear blast aimed at taking out satellites.
The classified exercise was run by the American space warfighting agency, alongside 60 companies.
About the same time, the government put out a new NZ-US space dialogue that aimed to expand commercial and military space co-operation.
New Zealand had also signed up to “accelerating defence industrial cooperation” through a US-led 16-nation group in the Indo-Pacific.
The US partners of the NZDF – its Space Command and US Space Force – had also released a vision of space in 2040 that imagined China developing an AI-driven ‘Supermind’ that could strike with “unmatched speed and lethality”.
In the here-and-now, the force’s leading general told US lawmakers recently that space systems were critical to the ‘Epic Fury’ war in Iran.
‘Forced us to prepare’
The desktop wargame in March focused on a “worst-case” scenario of weapons of mass destruction in orbit.
“Reporting about Russia’s plans to launch such a weapon… has forced us to prepare,” said the general in charge, US Space Command head Stephen Whiting.
Commander US Space Command General Stephen Whiting (L) and Chief of NZ Air Force Air Vice-Marshal Darryn Webb in September 2025. Supplied / NZDF
Exactly what went on remained secret, but participants, including the NZDF and more than 60 companies, “shared innovation, courses of action, and new and interesting ideas on how to deter the use of nuclear detonation in space”.
Whiting has designated 2026 the “Year of Integration” of the US Space Force, with both commercial partners and America’s ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence group partners.
NZ is part of Five Eyes and also a member of the elite US-led Operation Olympic Defence space security group.
The wargrame was the first of four in Space Command’s new ‘Apollo Insight’ commercial integration series.
“These partnerships are not symbolic,” Whiting said. “They accelerate innovation, expand warfighting capacity and increase operational tempo that government alone cannot achieve.”
‘Overwhelming American firepower’
The US warned allies two years ago that Russia might put a nuclear weapon in space.
Last month, Senate Armed Services Committee chair Republican Roger Wicker said he was particularly concerned that the current US space and nuclear strategy “does not address space and nuclear threats with anywhere near the urgency they deserve”.
Since the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty’s (New START) nuclear weapons limits expired in February, there was now no verifiable agreement to cap nuclear arms for the first time since the early 1970s. Last year, US President Donald Trump ordered the Pentagon to resume testing nukes, in place of simulations, for the first time in 33 years.
After Wicker’s call to up their game, the US Space Force this week put out a report on what 2040 might look like.
The 2040 report stressed how vital integration with allies was across surveillance, warning and targeting and stated, “Success means that the Space Force dominates the domain in the long tradition of overwhelming American firepower.”
‘Accelerating defense industrial collaboration’
RNZ asked the NZDF what benefits New Zealand gained from taking part in the Apollo wargame and if it gave any undertakings to the US.
On 20 March, New Zealand re-affirmed its commitment to “accelerating defence industrial cooperation” through the US-founded 16-member group PIPIR (Partnership for Indo-Pacific Industrial Resilience).
In late 2024, RNZ revealed NZ had joined this group and, earlier, that America had unilaterally inserted New Zealand into its defence-related national technology industrial base or NTIB.
“We agreed that PIPIR continues to make tangible progress toward addressing barriers and accelerating defense industrial collaboration to promote a stronger, more resilient, more integrated, defense industrial base,” a joint statement from the group’s second annual meeting said.
The group was working on getting more drone motors and batteries made, and a support hub in Australia for P-8 Poseidons, which the NZDF flies.
A P-8 Poseidon arrives at RNZAF Ohakea. CPL Rachel Pugh / Supplied
Expanding ‘space situational awareness’
Also last month, the US and New Zealand governments signed a new space dialogue that mentioned the military directly once.
“Both sides also discussed opportunities for further cooperation to address space-related threats to shared security interests, including military space cooperation and managing the risks to ground-based space infrastructure.”
It had more to say about the commercial side, such as, “They decided to work closely together to address regulatory constraints that hinder effective cooperation, commercial engagement, and mutual benefits.”
It also talked about expanding “space situational awareness, launch and re-entry”. While satellites were already key to missile defence and targeting systems – and to the Trump administration’s Golden Dome – defence documents showed that another key was space situational or domain awareness monitoring systems which include one the NZDF runs for the US in Auckland that produces unclassified reports on satellite movements.
Recently, the Senate Armed Services Committee talked about the threat from China and recommended expanding the Pentagon’s commercial space-or-ground-based monitoring systems.
On rocket launches, the dialogue said the partners “acknowledged New Zealand’s geographic advantages have enabled frequent and responsive launches”. Responsive is a term used for rapid launches.
US lawmakers got a report last month looking in part at what spaceports in other countries it could use for military and spy launches. It had not been made public, although RNZ has sought a copy.
‘Diversified spaceports’ and ‘select niche competencies’
The report on what 2040 might look like said China would remain the No.1 threat.
Its “vision for victory” said allies and partners would operate as “integral nodes within the decision lattice… preserving the continuity of Joint All-Domain Command and Control”. Command and Control or C2 is central to data-integration partnerships the NZDF now has with each of the US navy, army and air force.
The NZDF told MPs recently that the data-crunching software in military platforms would dictate how good weapons were in future.
New Zealand has signed up to the US army’s Project Convergence; it also has the NGC2 (Next Generation Command and Control) battlefield tech system, and had to report back to lawmakers by 31 March on NGC2 with details about how it was mandating “interoperability with NATO and Indo-Pacific allies as a requirement in its new command and control software program”, a congressional report said.
This month as part of these data-powered-military moves, the US army launched a new data operations centre, called ADOC. The NZDF was scheduled to join a US army exercise with emerging technology in mid-2026.
The Phantom Echoes badge showing the names of the Five Eyes countries, including New Zealand. Supplied / Northrup Grunman Space Logistics
The 2040 report Saltzman had put out envisaged allies offering “rapid launch and diversified spaceports”.
“Allies in the Indo-Pacific will seek to contribute through geography and select niche competencies,” it said.
It emphasised a future where US and allies’ systems were integrated with each other, and human decisionmaking integrated with machine speed, to break adversaries’ “long range kill chains”.
Whiting’s fellow space general, Chance Saltzman, released the 2040 report this week in a speech at US Space Force’s largest space symposium in Colorado. Last year, Defence Minister Judith Collins gave the keynote speech there, but successor Chris Penk was not there this week.
Saltzman talked about bringing “commercial services to the fight”.
“Today, the Department of War is implementing new initiatives to unshackle our industry partners and continue putting our space industrial base on a wartime footing,” the head of US Space Force said.
‘Bodyguard’ satellites
The second Apollo Insight wargame – otherwise known as a ‘Campaigning with Commercial Partners’ tabletop exercise – in June 2026 would focus on manoeuvre warfare.
“Participants will explore how commercial, industry and allied partners can enable these approaches, and help challenge traditional methods of operating in space,” said Space Command.
It was worried about China building “bodyguard” and “inspector” satellites that, unlike traditional ones, were not fixed in space, conserving fuel, but moved around.
Whiting used his Colorado symposium speech to warn that China’s first experiment in refuelling a satellite in low earth orbit had shifted space “from a relatively permissive environment into one where US satellites could be tracked, targeted or interfered with during a conflict”.
In response, US and partner satellites had to be built to move more, he said.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
