Doctrine is what commanders use to co-ordinate their actions and battlefield operating systems. It is our common template and what maintains our edge over potential opponents.

Doctrine also guides our future direction. It's a way of changing our organisational structure, to develop training and leader development programmes and to ensure we have and use the right equipment.

What determines our Doctrine?
Doctrine is developed on a number of levels: military, operational, and tactical:

Military Doctrine is determined by international events, technological changes, government policy, outputs required of the Army, available resources, and allies doctrines. Because we cannot dedicate the resources to write our own doctrine, we adopt the ABCA (American, British, Canadian and Australian) doctrine.

Operational Doctrine applies to particular operations and is derived from military doctrine. The NZ Army's operational doctrine is based on the United States Army's Field Manual 3-0 Operations, which also guides ABCA member states.

Tactical Doctrine serves to ensure that all commanders have a common foundation on which to base unit tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs). NZ Army tactical doctrine is based on a variety of Australian Army publications. Where existing doctrine does not reflect New Zealand capabilities and equipment, TTPs relevant to New Zealand are developed (Any doctrine used by NZ Army must be compatible with the doctrine used by ABCA partners).

Foundations of NZ Military Doctrine*

*Link to NZDF website