Principled small nation or stalwart ally?
Chapter in Small States and the New Security Environment, 2019
Nicky Hager
There is a great, long-term rift in New Zealand foreign policy, between two very different visions of the country and how it should relate to the rest of the world. The tensions between these competing positions are seen repeatedly running down through New Zealand history. Yet, strangely, this rift is rarely addressed directly in foreign policy discussions.
The two, predominantly opposing policies are support for New Zealand’s long-term membership of an Anglo-American alliance and support for an independent foreign policy. This chapter looks at the clash between the alliance and independent foreign policy positions, and proposes that New Zealand needs to reconcile these fundamentally incompatible tracks. It focusses on the defence, intelligence and international issues parts of foreign policy.
The rift in policy exists because there are genuinely different visions of what foreign and military policies are best for the country. Prime ministers, of the left and right, regularly give foreign policy speeches insisting on their commitment to an independent foreign policy – responding in part to their understanding of what most New Zealanders want. But the actions of military, intelligence and foreign policy institutions are frequently determined by the expectations and demands of the five-nation US-UK-Canada-Australia-NZ alliance, as well as increasingly, in foreign policy, the expectations and demands of the People’s Republic of China. Nothing in New Zealand foreign policy makes much sense until we understand the ongoing clash between these two positions.
The official position is that New Zealand has a nuanced balance between independent decision-making and alliance membership. But the reality is often incoherence and swings in policy, with the contradictions tending to be obscured rather than resolved. It is more accurate to say, for defence and security policy, that New Zealand is part way through a process of decolonisation – only three generations from when London and Washington directly influenced a lot of our foreign policy – and that what we have at present is a somewhat messy point in the midst of a process of change.
An independent foreign policy
The roots of the New Zealand public’s preference for an independent foreign policy are found at least a century ago, including as part of the “other” story of ANZAC and the First World War. One story of WWI and Gallipoli, the one promoted by the government of the day, presented New Zealand’s participation as an enthusiastic show of loyalty to the British empire. The words engraved on war memorials often emphasise this idea. But another story, about pointless loss of life in a pointless war under uncaring British commanders, was felt strongly by many veterans and their families, and has reverberated down through the generations.
Support for an independent foreign policy perhaps grew most rapidly during New Zealand’s 1964-1972 military deployments to the Vietnam War. Public opposition to the war went hand in hand with opposition to New Zealand belonging to a US military alliance and with calls for an independent foreign policy. The 1972-1975 Kirk-Rowling Labour government officially promoted the idea that New Zealand could best play a constructive role in the world by acting as a principled and independent small nation. In 1972 Prime Minister Norman Kirk declared, “We want New Zealand’s foreign policy to express New Zealand’s national ideals as well as reflect our national interests.”i Kirk’s government ordered all troops to be brought home from Vietnam, publicly protested against French nuclear testing in the South Pacific and established diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China. The Labour government was followed by nine years of a much more conservative National government (1975-1984), led by Robert Muldoon, who re-emphasised New Zealand’s traditional ties with the USA and the UK.
The Vietnam War (1955-1975) was followed by renewed Cold War confrontation between the United States and Soviet Union, notably nuclear confrontation. New Zealand’s alliance ties drew the country into this conflict through allied military and intelligence activities and, as another political show of loyalty, welcoming periodic visits of US and British nuclear armed and powered nuclear warships to New Zealand ports. An eight year campaign of public protest against nuclear warship visits (1976-1984) was built on already strong national feelings about nuclear weapons and reinforced public opposition to being in a military alliance with the United States. In 1985, the Lange Labour government banned nuclear armed and powered warship visits. In retaliation, the US government denounced New Zealand and effectively threw it out of the ANZUS alliance, actions that actually strengthened public support in New Zealand for an independent foreign policy.
Through these events, the concept of a nuclear-free New Zealand with an independent foreign policy has become for many of the New Zealand public, a strongly embedded part of their national identity. This is why the nuclear-free policy continues to have widespread support, including from National governments which pragmatically understand that opposing it would be very unpopular. It is also why all New Zealand governments of whatever political stripe now feel the need to pay at least lip service to promoting an independent foreign policy.
A dramatic example of the impulse for an independent foreign policy was seen in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. According to the political logic of the Anglo-American alliance, the first countries to join the US in the invasion would be Britain and Australia (which they did), followed closely by New Zealand. But New Zealand did not. Opinion polls from the time are illuminating.
In the United States, 80% of Americans believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and a similar number thought Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had given assistance to the al Qaeda terrorists behind the September 11 attacks, in each case holding these beliefs without any credible evidence. But not so in New Zealand.
As the invasion approached, 86% of New Zealanders opposed their country joining the assault unless it was approved by the United Nations. Opposition was spread across the political spectrum, including 85% of National Party voters and 81% of ACT Party voters.ii Prime Minister Helen Clark took the lead in refusing to send New Zealand troops to join in, and explained her reasoning in a public statement to the New Zealand Parliament.iii
New Zealand public feelings about war and an independent foreign policy go together with other deeply established national beliefs around protection of nature, fairness and justice. They help define the national character in a way that has grown and strengthened even at times when government policies pointed in the opposite direction, an important reminder that national beliefs persist through the generations and are made of much more than the immediate politics of the day.
Successive New Zealand governments have embraced the role of principled and independent small nation. New Zealand was involved, for instance, in pushing for the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (1982), a remarkable achievement that established the rights of all coastal states over their adjacent seas. It was an initiative led by small countries such as New Zealand—a small state with the world’s fourth largest maritime territory–achieving a result that put the interests of many smaller nations ahead of the great powers and one which both expresses New Zealand’s national ideals and reflects the country’s national interests.
New Zealand has been an instigator of many other multilateral initiatives including the South Pacific Anti-Nuclear Zone Treaty (1985) and it retains a modest level of involvement in UN peacekeeping.iv When the government seeks international support for New Zealand, for instance when lobbying for a seat on the UN Security Council, it is quick to remind other governments that the country has strong traditions of independence as exhibited by the nuclear free policy and that New Zealand is not just a proxy for its Anglo-American allies. All this is true, and a matter of pride for many New Zealanders. But it is only half of the picture.
The Anglo-American alliance
Many of New Zealand’s foreign policy, military and intelligence activities have been far from independent, occurring instead as part of New Zealand’s long-term alliance membership. These alliance activities often occur with little or no public knowledge, or consent. A striking example of this is the New Zealand Defence Force’s alliance links.
On average twice a week, all year around, New Zealand Defence Force personnel fly to overseas meetings to discuss special forces equipment, aircraft maintenance, weapons training, secure communications, patrol vehicle tactics and all the numerous other aspects of running a military and preparing for future wars. These meetings are central to New Zealand military activity. Sitting around the table at these meetings always are representatives from the same five English-speaking countries: the US (often hosting the meeting), Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. These allied “standardisation” meetings are about preparing the smaller allies to be compatible and ready to go to war with the larger allies.v
These five-nation alliance links are the basic configuration for most defence force planning, but they are rarely discussed in public. When the defence force is planning new aircraft or ships, the staff go through supposedly rigorous evaluations of New Zealand’s distinctive requirements but then usually decide to buy exactly the same equipment as the Anglo-American allies in order to ensure standardisation and “interoperability” (the ability to slot New Zealand forces into allied military coalitions).
As is intended by the interoperability planning, many of New Zealand’s military deployments likewise occur under the command of the US or another of the five-nation allies. This has predictable results. In the latest NZDF annual reports at the time of writing, there were far more military deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, the Persian Gulf, and an undisclosed “Middle East” location than in the whole Pacific region. By far the majority of deployments were to that war-torn far side of the world. In contrast, only 11 military personnel in total were allocated to New Zealand’s “Mutual Assistance Programme” based in six South Pacific countries. The lists of deployments were headed “highlights of NZDF activities that support the people on New Zealand and our neighbours around the world.”vi But the clear priority was contributing to allied priorities (with the phrase “neighbours around the world” being a humorous piece of sophistry to justify deployments far away from New Zealand).
The preponderance of far-away allied deployments in the mid-2010s was the culmination of years of effort by defence officials to move closer to the United States and other five-nation allies – in concert with years of effort by the US government to keep New Zealand in an alliance orbit after the mid-1980s nuclear ban. When New Zealand adopted the nuclear-free policy in 1985 and was thrown out of ANZUS, some military officials got on with building a different outlook that focussed on a strong role in international peacekeeping. A generation of military officers learned that peacekeeping could be satisfying and valuable. But another grouping within the defence force bitterly resented not being part of the alliance.
For decades the pro-alliance officials pushed and lobbied for a return to their preferred role as a “stalwart” ally of the United States, in particular by seeking government approval for a succession of deployments to US-led wars.vii This is how the Afghanistan War would become the longest overseas war in New Zealand’s history, with repeated intelligence, special forces, army and air force deployments, and navy deployments in the nearby Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf.
Just a few months into this war the New Zealand Joint Forces commander Martyn Dunne travelled to Afghanistan to see the troops. He wrote in a secret report that there seemed to be ‘no overarching operational campaign plan that drives future planning or links tasks so far carried out” and a “lack of coherent strategy or even clear commander’s intent.” In other words, the military wasn’t there for a clear purpose, much less an independent New Zealand policy purpose. It was there to show its commitment to the allied forces as a political strategy to win closer military ties. For the ten years of Afghanistan deployments that followed, there continued to be no coherent strategy or intent.
This strategy eventually achieved a formal restoration of military ties with the American military in the 2010 Wellington Declaration and the 2012 Washington Declaration, resulting in a return to joint exercising.viii Special Air Service (SAS) senior officers strongly promoted the SAS as being the alliance contribution of choice to send to allied wars.ix Ironically, the pro-alliance lobby achieved their long-sought closer relations just as Donald Trump became president: a time when the differences in beliefs and outlook between New Zealand and the United States could not have been more stark.
The five-nation alliance has had an even stronger influence over New Zealand’s intelligence agencies. New Zealand’s largest intelligence agency, the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), grew out of radio eavesdropping operations during the Second World War. In the late 1940s, as the US and Britain reconfigured their WWII intelligence operations into an ongoing Cold War alliance, Britain brought three of its former colonies into the new alliance (Australia, Canada and New Zealand). This was the origin of New Zealand’s improbable role as one of the US superpower’s closest intelligence allies (which, much later, would be known as “Five Eyes”).x
The GCSB (then known as the New Zealand Combined Signals Organisation) was formally established in 1955. At that stage it received its targeting instructions directly from an allied centre in Australia and sent all the radio communications it intercepted directly back to the allies. New Zealand’s other large intelligence agency, the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service, was also formed in the mid-1950s (1956) and like the NZCSO it was set up at British insistence under the direction of British intelligence officers.xi Both were products of their time, basically 100% oriented to the intelligence alliance. (The New Zealand Special Air Service, also set up at British insistence to provide commandos for British wars in South East Asia, was also established in the 1955 Cold War environment. The SAS still exists primarily as a contribution to Anglo-American wars.)xii
There appears to be a natural law that the more secretive organisations are, the less they have to change with the times. In New Zealand the spectrum goes from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, quite secretive, to the military, very secretive, to the intelligence agencies GCSB and SIS, extremely secretive. As the country has become more modern and independent, both intelligence agencies have remained strongly under the influence of the larger allied intelligence agencies. This is seen clearly with the GCSB, although publicly it claims to act completely independently. In 2013, for instance, the GCSB annual report said that its mission was “to inform and enhance the decision-making processes of the New Zealand Government”. It said:
The Government is pursuing an independent foreign policy programme that contributes to global and regional stability. To achieve this, our decision-makers need to be well-informed on foreign, political, economic and defence-related issues from here and overseas. They require access to information that helps clarify their understanding of events and issues, in order to develop and support decisions that protect and advance New Zealand’s interests.xiii
This sounds unequivocal. The GCSB’s role, it claimed, was to produce intelligence for the New Zealand government and advance New Zealand interests as part of an independent foreign policy. 2013 was also the year when US whistle-blower Edward Snowden leaked large quantities of US and allied intelligence documents to the media. One of the documents was written in April 2013 by the US National Security Agency’s country desk officer for New Zealand and called “NSA Intelligence Relationship with New Zealand”. It contained a detailed list of intelligence operations the GCSB was conducting on behalf of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance just a few months before the GCSB annual report was published.
A section called “What Partner Provides to NSA” said the “GCSB provides collection on China, Japanese/North Korean/Vietnamese/South American diplomatic communications, South Pacific island nations, Pakistan, India, Iran and Antarctica.” It said the GCSB “continues to be especially helpful in its ability to provide NSA ready access to areas and countries … difficult for the US to access”. Other Snowden documents revealed that the GCSB also had a long-term operation targeting Bangladesh and rotations of staff to Afghanistan to help in US intelligence centres for targeting anti-government forces. The South Pacific nations and territories monitored continuously included Fiji, Tonga, Tuvalu, Nauru, Kiribati, Samoa, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, New Caledonia and French Polynesia.xiv
It is likely that some of this monitoring did inform and enhance the decision-making processes of the New Zealand government, and help it pursue an independent foreign policy. But most appears to be alliance burden sharing, meaning GCSB spying on countries primarily as a contribution to its allies. For instance, the major Bangladesh programme was entirely a contribution to the US agency (New Zealand has no interests and not even an embassy there) and the monitoring of South Pacific governments has been a long-term duty as part of a geographical division of the globe between the intelligence allies. These were about GCSB’s “ability to provide NSA ready access to areas and countries … difficult for the US to access.”
In reality, it is more accurate to say that the GCSB spies on numerous countries primarily as duties within the intelligence alliance and that New Zealand government decision makers gain some benefit but more in a secondary and incidental way. Senior public servant Simon Murdoch conducted a review of the New Zealand intelligence agencies in 2009 which explicitly said that many intelligence operations are done as alliance contributions. His report, which was classified “Secret” and so presumably not expected to be seen by the public, said that the approximately $100 million of intelligence agency spending each year was “a subscription paid by New Zealand to belong to the 5-Eyes community”. He saw this spending as good value compared to funding an independent intelligence system, saying this was “why the niche contributions we can make to 5-Eyes burden-sharing are so important and why agency heads strive to be responsive to partner demand.”xv
Thus discussion and debate about intelligence (and military) policy is often difficult and frustrating, because people with different points of view are not able even to agree on the facts they are debating. The bland claims of independent decision making can seem to be designed more for the avoidance than the advancement of public understanding and discussion.
It is the same with the Security Intelligence Service. It also states in its public reports that it works entirely in the service of the New Zealand government. But its priorities – the Soviet Union and China in the Cold War, economic intelligence in the 1990s, international terrorism, Iraq and Iran in the 2000s and counter-terrorism in the 2010s – mainly reflected the concerns of the allied agencies.
The inevitable consequence of being the smallest ally in a superpower alliance is that the New Zealand agencies have little influence. They of course conform to alliance priorities and plans much more than the bigger powers are influenced by them. This fundamental inequality is seen graphically in military relations with Australia. The New Zealand Defence Force said in 2017 that “Australia and New Zealand have arguably the closest Defence partnership between any two nations.” The 2016-2017 Australian Defence Force annual report, by contrast, did not even mention New Zealand being a military partner and only mentioned the country at all in five incidental references.xvi The inequality between New Zealand and the United States is much greater. With minor exceptions, the history of the post-WWII period has shown New Zealand being drawn into wars and participating in intelligence operations, not because the public or Parliament wanted them, but because they were expectations of the alliance.
As with the military standardisation meetings described above, the NZSIS and GCSB form much of their outlooks and priorities, and plan their operations, in regular conferences and planning meetings as part of the five-nation Anglo-American alliance configuration: the GCSB as part of the five-nation UKUSA agreement and the NZSIS as part of the five-nation CAZAB (Canada-America-New Zealand-Australia-Britain) agreement (both known publicly as the Five Eyes alliance).xvii In these and other ways, the alliance orientation is hard wired into them.
An independent foreign policy is not defined only in relation to the Anglo-American alliance. It was means defending our national interests when other great powers put pressure on us, such as New Zealand’s largest trading partner China. China’s political interference activities in New Zealandxviii have aroused concern, as have its efforts to gain influence in a number of the small island states in the South Pacific. Finding a way to manage these issues in the New Zealand-China relationship goes to the heart of Prime Minister Kirk’s ambitious goal: that New Zealand’s foreign policy will express New Zealand’s national ideals as well as reflect our national interests.
A long-term clash in outlook
Underlying the philosophical clash between an independent foreign policy and an alliance-based foreign policy there lies a political clash. New Zealanders do not hear much discussion about this struggle, but a long-term battle is under way between supporters of an alliance-based foreign policy and supporters of an independent foreign policy.
It took a non-New Zealander to notice and write about this central feature of New Zealand foreign policy. Charles Swindells was a wealthy US Republican Party fund raiser from Portland, Oregon, whose links to US president George W. Bush led to his being ambassador to New Zealand from 2001 to 2005. He was hostile to New Zealand’s nuclear-free policy and near the end of his four-year posting, during which he had worked aggressively but unsuccessfully to change the policy, he wrote a secret cable back to Washington summing up his impressions of New Zealand.
“Foreign and defense policies in New Zealand are the product of an internal debate between two worlds,’ he wrote. The ‘first world’ valued its relationship with the United States and regarded New Zealand as a US ally. The ‘other world’ viewed the United States with suspicion or hostility and saw New Zealand as non-aligned.’xix
Swindells’ first category, which he approvingly called “first-world” New Zealanders, “recognizes that as a small country New Zealand cannot by itself impact world events, and sees the United States as the greatest source of global stability and positive change”. This world “still sees New Zealand as a U.S. ally, and is eager to play a role, however small, supporting us around the globe”. These were the people Swindells had found receptive to his efforts to get rid of the nuclear-free policy. “The first-world solution” to New Zealand’s foreign policies, he wrote, “would be to get rid of New Zealand’s anti-nuclear legislation and return to ANZUS.” The most interesting point, though, is who his “first worlders” were. He described them as being “most military, intelligence, foreign affairs and business professionals, and a handful of politicians”.xx
The “handful of politicians” wanting to return to a US military alliance referred to the small right-wing ACT Party and a number of National Party MPs. But far the most influential part of Swindells’ “first worlders” was senior military officers and senior foreign affairs and intelligence officials. His cable, for instance, said ‘our first-world contacts continue to encourage us to, in the words of a senior MOD [Ministry of Defence] official (strictly protect), “help us get out of the hole we have dug for ourselves.”’xxi It is clear from the context that the New Zealand official was seeking US help to get rid of the anti-nuclear legislation and return to military alliance with the United States. It is worth considering what this means.
Public servants always insist that they just implement the wishes of the government of the day. This is, however, only partly true. Politicians of course have influence (more or less depending on their personalities, political support base and other factors). But senior public servants are well aware that they have influence too, and often a lot more influence than some temporary Cabinet minister who comes and goes from the job. Swindells was pointing out the little-understood fact that much and possibly most of the pressure for New Zealand to have a US-oriented foreign and defence policy has come from the very officials who are supposed to be representing the public’s and government’s wishes. As with opposition to the nuclear-free policy, this was also the case with the years of Afghanistan and Iraq deployments and other pro-alliance policies. “First-worlder” officials have acted as a conduit for the allies’ viewpoints and have been, in effect, the main pro-Anglo-American alliance lobby in New Zealand, although there are signs that generational change may reduce this.
Here is a retired senior New Zealand diplomat explaining how public servants can influence government decisions. “There’s a reason why public servants often choose to do things behind closed doors”, he said: it is easier to get their way. They “have a number of tools at their disposal”: by drafting the option papers they ‘define the agenda’ and ‘then you’ve got your long faces’ and admonishing that ‘ministers can’t do this”. They also only give ministers access to the most senior officials, ensuring that they do not hear other points of view. “The thing about drafting is that it allows you to fight on your own ground,” with the politicians left “debating the minutiae of words. If you fight on my ground, as a public servant, you will never win. I will outdraft anybody.”xxii
But then there is Swindells’ other category, the other half of the long-term foreign policy divide in New Zealand. He had come to the frustrated realisation that the majority of New Zealanders wanted independent foreign policies and supported the nuclear-free policy. Their view was that “New Zealand’s small size, geographic isolation and ‘internationalist’ foreign policy protect it from harm.” They saw the US as “a source of instability” (he was writing not long after the invasion of Iraq) and as bullying New Zealand over its “heroic” nuclear stand. This group, he wrote, included “most politicians, media, academics and much of the public”. Although Swindells was contemptuous of their views, calling this group “other worlders”, it is a reasonable description of the views of a large number of New Zealanders.
Swindells had, without approving of it, summed up the crucial dividing lines in New Zealand foreign and defence policy. The majority of New Zealanders prefer an independent foreign policy and do not support their country being an unquestioning ally of the Anglo-American powers—or of China. Yet, nonetheless, many intelligence, military and foreign policy activities are aligned to the Anglo-American alliance: subscription payments by officials who believe this is best for New Zealand. These dividing lines are seen in popular support for military peacekeeping but the military’s preference for joining allied wars. They are seen in who is sceptical and who defends Anglo-American actions in other parts of the world. They were seen graphically in who opposed and who supported New Zealand joining the invasion of Iraq.
The main reason why these incompatible positions can persist, unresolved through the decades, is that alliance activities often occur secretly (or shrouded in public relations) and without informed public consent. This has been the case with many overseas military deployments and intelligence operations. The progress in resolving these incompatible tracks will depend on how much information reaches the public and how much debate occurs, leading to change in the alliance orientation of the government agencies.
Alliance pros and cons
The arguments in favour of an alliance-based security policy are partly sentimental and partly practical. The practical argument goes that New Zealand is extremely lucky, by accident of history, to have ended up part of a very close alliance with the world’s most powerful superpower. This alliance provides privileged access to all those military and intelligence planning meetings, and to training, intelligence and equipment. This is true. It also is presumed that the alliance would provide help if New Zealand was ever threatened militarily. Because of all these benefits, the argument goes, it is a small price to pay if we willingly join allied faraway wars, support the allies’ diplomatic agendas and contribute to their intelligence operations. It is Simon Murdoch’s subscription payment view. In effect this argues, with some validity, that the country could make an independent, New Zealand-oriented decision not to have an independent foreign policy.
The counter argument looks at the same facts but weighs them differently. First, the supposed benefits of an alliance – joint planning meetings, training, intelligence, and so on – are only benefits if the country wants to train, equip and deploy its military and intelligence agencies for the same kinds of roles as the big allies. In fact, most allied assistance to New Zealand is to make the local agencies and military interoperable; that is, to train and equip the New Zealanders in preparation for being part of allied operations according to allied priorities. Therefore the supposed benefit evaporates if the training and equipment (and even intelligence) do not contribute importantly to New Zealand priorities and conditions. It can be just preparing New Zealand for alliance duties.
Next, the small price to pay (alliance burden-sharing) might in fact be a large price. Actions such as joining military interventions in the Middle East and being part of Anglo-American mass surveillance systems clash seriously with New Zealand values and the public’s preferred role in the world. The wars have been dirty and destabilising, killing hundreds of thousands of people, fanning extremism and displacing millions of refugees. Putting New Zealand’s name to these things is not a small thing. New Zealanders are proud of their country’s commitment to human rights and the rule of law and these activities compromise those beliefs. An independent foreign policy allows New Zealand to stay closer to its national values and beliefs, which should be the goal of any foreign policy.
Thirdly – a fact that pro-alliance “security” experts dodge – joining in wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere inevitably creates a risk of retaliation against New Zealanders. It is no coincidence that the main terrorist attacks in Western countries in recent decades have been against ones at the forefront of these “war-on-terror” wars. Increased risk of foreign or domestic terrorism is a rational reason not to join wars, and especially wars which are primarily being joined for political purposes related to alliance relations.
New Zealand has an almost unique geographical opportunity to maintain good relations with all countries (no land borders, remote from the world’s conflicts), whereas joining alliances with large and aggressive countries invariably leads to taking sides in faraway conflicts. Alliances make enemies – the obvious example at the time of writing being alliance pressure for New Zealand to regard China as an enemy. (New Zealand has problems with China’s political influence operations but nothing to gain from joining military confrontation in the Pacific, especially with its largest trading partner.) A counter argument to the alliance viewpoint is that, as a small nation, New Zealand is more secure not being closely aligned with any big powers.
Finally, alliances require a country to practice selective morality, betraying its own values and beliefs. Allies are expected (at least most of the time) not to criticise the actions of their alliance partners and their other allies – human rights abuses, breaches of international law, meddling in other countries’ politics and so on – while loudly denouncing precisely the same behaviour by the alliance partners’ enemies. Countries are expected, for instance, to criticise certain countries nuclear weapon programmes strongly while saying nothing about allied countries’ nuclear weapon arsenals. This partisan attitude is an unattractive feature of a lot of international relations, which is why there is a benefit for the whole world in having some countries willing to try to uphold international law and human rights no matter who is involved. That is the great value of countries aspiring to principled and independent foreign policies. New Zealand is ideal in many ways for this role.
The foundation of all human rights and the rule of law is universality: the powerful idea that all people possess human rights whether friend or foe, rich or poor, and that all countries have the same responsibilities under international law. This requires countries not only to be committed to human rights and the rule of law, but to be willing to stand up for these principles in a non-partisan way. Selective morality undermines human rights and a rules-based world. Likewise, there is a natural clash between a multilateral stance (for instance, working through the United Nations) and an alliance-based one, since the expectations of an alliance are that, when it is important, a junior ally will back the allies in international disputes. An independent foreign policy allows good relations and coalitions of interest with the widest possible range of countries.
An independent foreign policy means having a strong self-awareness about what is important to New Zealanders and to New Zealand as a country, and using this as the basis for a principled foreign policy (a foreign policy that guides military and intelligence activities as well). It is thus about important national beliefs and values such as protecting freedoms, open and democratic government, a small-nation world view, strong concerns about land, water and nature, strong concerns about human rights and a tolerant and fair society. The point of an independent foreign policy is that it is these sorts of beliefs and values that determine what the country says and does internationally.
Finally, there are some rhetorical arguments used to justify alliance-based foreign policies. New Zealand and the Anglo-American allies are, these arguments go, “like minded” with shared interests, outlooks and values. It is therefore natural that they work together. These are interesting claims to consider, since they are undoubtedly true in some ways and obviously not true in others. For the purposes of this chapter – comparing New Zealand with the US and Britain – the main point is that the interests, outlooks and values of a small nation in the South Pacific are obviously profoundly different to the interests, outlooks and values of a huge and aggressive nuclear superpower and its big-power North Atlantic ally.
Indeed, while there are various areas of shared outlooks and values, it is in the areas of military, intelligence and diplomatic activity that New Zealand is probably most different from the Anglo-American allies. The best setting for New Zealand policy would therefore be to maximise interaction with these countries in areas of genuine liked-mindedness and to minimise it in the military and intelligence areas.
Steps towards an independent foreign policy
Although many New Zealanders prefer an independent foreign policy, there is strong resistance from the larger allies and from the “first-worlder” New Zealand public servants. Every government that wishes to implement more independent foreign policies must expect to encounter resistance. This implies that it is unrealistic to expect sudden, sweeping change. A more realistic approach is to take a series of deliberate, concrete steps.
The first step – a much needed readjustment after the 2000s and 2010s war-on-terror years – would be for the New Zealand government to instruct the military to cease deployments and operations in the Middle East and Asia (and cease preparations for such deployments and operations), instead concentrate its efforts entirely on the South Pacific region. The entire New Zealand military is the size of a small component of the US or British militaries and its contributions in those faraway wars are almost insignificantly small. The country’s entire population is the size of a many overseas cities. It makes good sense to focus on a region where New Zealand belongs and can make a difference.
The second step would be to place some concrete restrictions on foreign intelligence operations: ceasing deployments and operations in the Middle East and Asia but, more important, ceasing routine surveillance of the communications of South Pacific governments and regional organisations. Instead New Zealand could help these governments and regional organisations to have secure communications that can withstand spying from elsewhere in the world. This would be a step towards treating New Zealand’s real neighbours with greater respect.
A third step would be refusing to participate in any offensive military and intelligence operations against China, while at the same time protecting New Zealand’s interests by active efforts to resist unwanted pressure and interference by Chinese government agencies. More steps could of course follow.
At the same time, New Zealand governments need quietly to address the politicisation of public servants and military staff that has seen them become lobbyists for closer alliance ties. There will be an ongoing need to strengthen and maintain civilian control of military, intelligence and foreign policy institutions. Hand in hand with this is a need for reforms to reduce secrecy and increase accountability. Despite decades of claimed moves to greater openness and accountability, these secretive organisations grew more secretive in the first decades of the twenty-first century.
New Zealand poet Allen Curnow famously looked forward in a 1943 poem to a future day when New Zealand would have developed a distinctive sense of its national identity: “Not I, some child, born in a marvellous year, Will learn the trick of standing upright here.”xxiii The poem has been quoted various times in writing on foreign policy, about New Zealanders learning to stand upright in world affairs. This is about the wish for an independent foreign policy. But there is the important final word: standing upright here. Here.
This is about feeling at home in the south of the South Pacific; of being proud of being an increasingly Polynesian nation, not somewhere off the English Channel; enjoying real relationships with our South Pacific neighbours, not spying on them for an old colonial alliance; attempting to have good relations with all nations, not being a military ally of a larger power; proud of being a country that cares greatly about protecting nature; confident in our difference; helping the world by speaking up as a principled small nation; slowly coming of age as an independent country.
i Reported in The Dominion, 29 December 1972, https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/5k12/kirk-norman-eric.
iiNBR/UMR poll, February 2003, quoted in ‘Tiptoeing on a tightrope’, Nick Venter, Dominion Post, 17 February 2003: ‘The UMR Research poll found 86 per cent of those polled opposed New Zealand troops joining a United States military effort against Iraq, unless it had UN approval. Just 12 per cent supported our troops being involved in such action.’ One News/Colmar Brunton poll, 18 February 2003: ‘A One News-Colmar Brunton poll has found 71 per cent of respondents believe the US has not produced enough evidence to justify war.’ UMR poll, June 2003: ‘Do you think the Bush administration deliberately mislead the world about whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction or not?’ Yes – 58 per cent, no – 31 per cent.
iii Helen Clark, “Full Text; Helen Clark’s Statement to Parliament on Iraq,” New Zealand Herald, March 23, 2003, https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=3250841.
iv “Peacekeeping Contributor Profile: New Zealand,” http://www.providingforpeacekeeping.org/2014/04/03/contributor-profile-new-zealand/.
v The Army standardisation meetings are called ABCA, the navy meetings AUSCANNZUKUS and the air force meetings ASIC (the Air and Space Interoperability Council).
vi New Zealand Defence Force, annual reports, 2016 and 2017.
vii The word “stalwart” was used in the New Zealand Government, Defence White Paper 2010, Ministry of Defence, November 2010, which said New Zealand’s security benefited from being an “engaged, active and stalwart partner of the US”.
viii “Full text of the Wellington Declaration”, Stuff.co.nz, 4 November 2010; Full Text of the Wellington Declaration,” http://media.nzherald.co.nz/webcontent/document/pdf/201225/WASHINGTON%20DECLARATION%20ON%20DEFENSE%20COOPERATION.pdf.
ix Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson, Hit & Run, (Nelson: Potton and Burton, 2017),112-114.
x The phrase “Five Eyes” comes from language on intelligence documents, which specifies which countries’ officers are permitted to see (with their eyes) a particular intelligence report. Five eyes refers to documents that are releasable to the officers from the five Anglo-American intelligence allies.
xi Nicky Hager, Secret Power (Nelson: Craig Potton Publishing, 1996), 68. The book is downloadable for free from http://www.nickyhager.info/ebook-of-secret-power/.
xii “After its deployment to Afghanistan in the early 2000s, a very secret report was prepared by the Ministry of Defence about the future of the SAS. It recommended expanding the war-fighting role, based on ‘lessons learned from recent operations’. The SAS’s primary future role would be ‘to integrate seamlessly into a coalition with other Tier One Special Forces’– where Tier One strictly meant the English-speaking allies. ‘The US recognises New Zealand as one of only five countries (US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) having “Tier One” Special Operations Forces.’ The SAS would operate globally as ‘part of a coalition package.’” Hit & Run, op. cit., 114.
xiii Government Communications Security Bureau, Annual Report, 2013.
xiv Nicky Hager and Ryan Gallagher, “Snowden revelations: NZ’s spy reach stretches across globe”, New Zealand Herald, 11 March 2015.
xv Simon Murdoch, “Intelligence Agencies Review”, 2009. The report was later declassified under the Official Information Act.
xvi New Zealand Defence Force, “Introducing Defence: a briefing for the incoming minister”, 2017; Department of Defence, annual report 2016-2017. Australia is focussed instead on its alliance relations with the United States.
xvii The GCSB’s alliance partners are the US National Security Agency (NSA), the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the Canadian Communications Security Establishment (CSE) and the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD). The NZSIS alliance partners are the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), British MI5, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). The name CAZAB had not been officially acknowledged and may have been changed since it was mentioned in the memoir of a former British MI5 director: Stella Rimington, Open Secret: The Autobiography of the Former Director-General of MI5, Penguin, 2002.
xviii Anne-Marie Brady, “Magic Weapons: China’s Political Influence Activities Under Xi Jinping,” https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/magic-weapons-chinas-political-influence-activities-under-xi-jinping.
xix American Embassy Wellington, cable 29874, ‘The Two Worlds of Middle Earth: New Zealand’s Strategic Policies’, Secret/NOFORN, 1 April 2005. Released by WikiLeaks. Quoted in Other People’s Wars, op cit., 316.
xx Other People’s Wars, ibid., 317.
xxi Ibid., 323.
xxii Ibid., 321.
xxiii Allen Curnow, “The skeleton of the great moa in the Canterbury museum, Christchurch”, in Sailing or Drowning (Wellington: Progressive Publishing Society,1943).