For the first time in her service history, HMNZS Te Mana is heading into North Korea sanctions monitoring duty, joining the Pacific Security Maritime Exchange patrols that track evasions of United Nations sanctions on North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. New Zealand has belonged to that partnership since 2018.
The Anzac-class frigate comes into the role straight off Exercise RIMPAC, and won't be doing it alone. HMNZS Aotearoa is sailing with her as a Task Group, taking on sustainment duties for Te Mana and partner nations' vessels while the frigate handles the patrol work itself, with both ships carrying embarked SH-2G(I) Seasprites, RNZAF-administered but flown by Navy aircrew. Commander Joint Forces Major General Rob Krushka frames it as continuity rather than a one-off. "In 2026, this support to monitor and report evasions of the UNSC resolutions imposing sanctions on North Korea continues," he says.
It's a busy few months ahead. The Task Group will support an ASEAN maritime cooperative activity between now and October, with port calls to Australia, Japan, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and the Republic of Korea layered around the patrol work. Elsewhere, the Royal New Zealand Air Force is sending a P-8A Poseidon and personnel to Exercise Bersama Lima in Singapore, while other NZDF personnel head to Indonesia for a multinational ASEAN exercise focused on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief preparedness.
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Headquarters Joint Forces New Zealand turned 25 this year. Krushka described the world as "more uncertain, volatile" when we spoke to him in July, and Director of Operations Group Captain Brendon Clark pointed to exercises running across Southeast Asia and the Pacific as proof of how stretched current planning has become. Two ships, an aircraft, and personnel are now spread across three separate activities in three different countries, coordinated out of the same Trentham headquarters.
Te Mana's sanctions patrol won't be the biggest single mission in that spread, but it's the one with the clearest first, a frigate doing a job the Navy has so far only asked its tanker to do.
Learn more from the New Zealand Defence Force.
