PNG Defense Corporation with Israel is Significant for Indo-Pacific
by DAVID KAWAGE BITNO Papua New Guinea Defence Force (PNGDF) is the unified armed forces of PNG originating from the Australian army in 1973 before Independence and having its precursors in the Pacific Island Regiment. Today the PNGDF is a small force consisting of a Land Element, an Air Operations Element and a Maritime Operations Element. It is a joint force tasked with defending Papua New Guinea and its territories against external attack, as well as having secondary functions including national-building, internal security tasks, civil emergencies and humanitarian responses. The current manpower of more than 3,600 defence personnel compares to a ratio of 1: 188 soldier against our neighbour Indonesia with almost a million soldiers of 675, 500. There are times when the military of both countries faced-off with each other with conflict upsurge in the borders. The size of the PNGDF is to be increased under the Defence White Paper 2013 to 5,000 personnel by 2017 then to 10,000 by 2030