NZ's foreign policy shift adds to piling flashpoints (2024)

Opinion: There is quite enough going on to be alarmed about here in Aotearoa at present without imagining new alarming events. But equally there is no point in pretending that we are immune to global political tension, nor in ignoring that such tension is growing.

Along with Tiriti rights, environmental crises and social inequities, we are about to add a further flashpoint for political conflict. These flashpoints are all more complex, deep seated and potentially divisive than the daily fare and point scoring of Parliamentary politics. They are exacerbated by significant headwinds facing the economy. Each of these flashpoints are being met with a mixture of denial and backward thinking across the main political parties.

There are those who hope for social cohesion, but any serious reflection of human history and society will encourage such a hope against reality. Sometimes you have to wade through a dangerous river to get to the other side. Right now we are adding big potential for division over foreign and defence policy.

The Cluster Government is moving us more clearly into the camp of the US and its allies in global politics. They did not begin this. The previous administrations were making similar if more tentative moves within the Aukus and ‘Indo-Pacific’ redefinitions of alignments in Oceania, while engaging in flirting – if not foreplay – with Nato in Europe.

It would be surprising if this set of relationships did not keep warming, held back as they are not by any basis of principle but purely and simply by the importance of our trading relationship with China.

The alignments do not only apply in this part of the world. More immediately pressing in military terms are conflicts in Europe and the Middle East. The immediate aggressors in these conflicts are mixed, though essentially fulfilling the wishes of one or another imperial power or military/industrial complex.

Across the board we seek again to align with US interests much as we did with our previous colonial boss Great Britain. There always seems to be an “axis of evil” of one composition or another to align against, starting with disinformation – or as it used to be called, propaganda.

To those who say these conflicts are a long way from here, there is always the hidden but real answer that such distance did not stop this place itself being taken over by European interests. Colonists’ awareness of this helped them to build gun emplacements to protect against Russia within 50 years of Te Tiriti.

In its earlier colonial period New Zealand joined to one level or another pretty much any military conflict our colonial masters entered. (And behaved in similar fashion itself locally and regionally whenever the opportunity presented from Parihaka to Samoa).

But in the last half century or so Aotearoa developed a more independent and non-militaristic approach to the globe. We abandoned peacetime conscription as young people resisted it and opposed first nuclear testing and then any nuclear presence actively.

While they eventually became mainstream, every single one of these peace and independence views came initially from unions and people readily accused of being communists. As early as 1938, Australasian maritime unions blocked exports of “pig iron” to Japan in support of peace while business and political leaders were appalled at the disruption to change. The impetus and momentum for peace and independence came always from communities not the elites.

My point here is that these far from exhaustive notes should encourage people who prefer peace to militarism. Militarism starts from seemingly innocuous “security” arrangements then shifts to government spending allocations, alliances and commitments. The earlier and more actively such arrangements are challenged, the better.

Our military capability is now very constrained as a result of some decades of placing a low value on being involved in armed conflict. That relative consensus is about to be challenged around the standard catchphrases of security and responsibility etc. This stance in favour of peace and independence has been to some extent at least cross-party. That will be challenged.

For my part I’m heartened by previous Prime Minister Helen Clark calling out some of the potential for backsliding. One can only hope her previous colleagues will toughen up though they started the slide. I recall David Lange cynically if humorously expressing the view that under his government there was no need for anyone to invade us “because Roger will happily sell us anyway”.

I would not go that far, though another sometime politician Bob Jones advocated in 2013 that “New Zealand should abolish its armed forces” which reflected an extension of his New Zealand Party’s position in the 1980s for a substantial reduction in defence spending. I recall him once suggesting at that time that a simple radio signal saying “we surrender” in appropriate languages would be effective. Perhaps the Act Party might discover this genuinely libertarian impulse?

I think we will see more and more co*cktail colonels on parade telling us where “our interests” lie. Speaking of lying, they will disavow any intent to militarism. But we should not believe this. We are gradually being enmeshed in a web of technology and political alliance that is not in our interests.

So we should be taking an active interest in opposing it.

(Note: This column was not written by a Russian or Chinese chatbot. Mind you, it was not written by a Pentagon bot either).