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9:24 am, May 31st, 2026 - 32 comments
Categories: Disarmament, Donald Trump, International, nuclear war, Peace, politicans, uncategorized, us politics, war -
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One of the things that I deteste most about the US administration is its insistence that we all prepare for war.
After decades of relative peace caused in part by the realisation that if a global nuclear war started we would all be stuffed the Trump Administration has blundered from disaster to disaster as it picks fights with different nations.
Its latest excursion, the invasion of Iran, has caused Trump to scurry to try and work out an end game, one involving the Strait of Hormuz being open to all shipping and Iran not having nuclear weapons, two conditions that existed before the war was started and before Trump tore up Barak Obama’s Iran nuclear deal apparently to spite Obama.
This combination of gross stupidity and malicious narcisim is dangerous.
Part of the problem is that Trump appointed a second rank Fox News anchor Pete Hegseth as his Minister in charge of the Military. Hegseth has been accused in multiple reports of engaging in excessive drinking and sexual misconduct. And he chose to rename the Department of Defence the Ministry of War. Just the sort of guy you want the world’s peace to depend on.
Hegseth and Trump have railed against NATO and accused the Europeans of being free loaders. They have recently forced NATO countries except for Spain to agree to increase spending on Military to 5% of their Gross Domestic Product.
At a time when the world should be spending every cent that it can on addressing and adapting to climate change this is gross stupidity and reckless all at the same time.
And arming up increases the prospects of war. Precisely at the time that we should be promoting peace.
To top things off Hegseth has accused New Zealand of freeloading.
From Natasha Gordon at the Herald:
US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has criticised New Zealand’s level of defence spending, saying the US will no longer tolerate “freeloading” off its military.
“For those who continue to free-ride on the generosity of the American taxpayer, hear us now: those days are over. Allies that refuse to stand up and carry their weight for our collective defence will face a clear shift in how we do business,” Hegseth said.
New Zealand Defence Minister Chris Penk was listening in the audience as Hegseth made the critical comments today at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.
Hegseth said he expected allied governments to spend 3.5% of GDP and defence spending could no longer be an “afterthought”.
His comments come just two days after New Zealand laid out a financial plan aimed at boosting defence spending to just over 2% of GDP over eight years – a far cry from Hegseth’s demands.
To put this into perspective this would represent a total spend for New Zealand of $15 billion a year. This is three quarters of what we spend on Education each year. Imagine what we could do if we spent this on important things rather than on weapons of war.
The Government will no doubt meekly go along with what the United States is saying.
Labour has an opportunity to proudly advance an independent line as it has done in the past. That we will not joing a headlong rush to war. That we will work constructively with other nations to achieve a rules based world order.
America is in decline and is lashing out as it sees its dominance recede. Now is the time for us to make a stand against his excesses and maintain an independent foreign position as we have done in the past.
C'mon Luxon, next time your out for drinks with Pete Hegseth make sure you buy the first round.
Unfortunately humans arnt going to change, and you don't need an army right up till the day you do ,
And if you make it obvious that your defence force is not deployment ready, that day will come sooner rather than later.
This is ridiculous. To claim that the less we spend on military assets, the more likely we are to be attacked.
By who, for instance, the USA?
it's about the future world, not the world today.
To be clear, are you advocating for the increase in defence spending at the expense of spending on the environment, "for the future world"?
no, I'm pointing out that while it might seem silly now for a country like NZ to increase defence spending, that view doesn't take into account what the world might be like in coming decades.
Think of this way: if we go into climate collapse, including global food shortages and resources wars, should NZ have a defence capability? What should that look like?
Translation. US arms manufacturers and their economy needs our 💰
Doesn't have to be US weapons. Ukraine and Israel are now leading weapons developers, the Europeans have some good products and we also shouldn't underestimate our own capabilities (eg if we can elbow our way into the satellite launching business, weapons systems must also be feasible).
Why join the insanity?
One advantage of the Marsden Point closure, is that we no longer have a strategic target worth bombing.
Because the historical miracle we live in (peace, wealth, global travel and trade etc) isn't a given. It's fragile and exists only because 'the west' is militarily dominant over the governments that would prefer a more historically typical arrangement. If we won't play our part in maintaining that dominance, it's cheaper for us in the short term but not a good policy in the long term.
If the world goes to shit (more than it has) NZ will be seen as a box of resources to plunder.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Map_of_the_Exclusive_Economic_Zones_of_the_Pacific_Ocean.png
Maximilian Dörrbecker
No amount of defense spending that NZ, and even Australia, can afford will prevent "plundering".
And the USA, as history shows, is more likely to be part of the plundering, than a defense against it.
As for China. Why would they bother. Our Government is happy to sell everything to them, anyway.
Exactly. The issue is how we manage relationships with allies who have the big guns, as well as international conventions around rules based order.
That's quite hard at the moment.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360986288/nz-should-have-conversation-about-its-nuclear-stance-minister-says
“Defence Minister Chris Penk says New Zealand should have “a conversation” about its long-standing anti-nuclear policy as Australia moves towards acquiring nuclear-powered submarines.
Speaking to Bloomberg Television on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Penk said New Zealanders had long been sceptical about nuclear weapons, but “it might be an interesting conversation in terms of the extent to which that’s different to nuclear propulsion”.
Across the ditch, Australia is working with the US and UK to build and equip a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines under the 2021 Aukus agreement, with the vessels expected to be deployed in the 2030s.
Penk said Australia’s move meant “it would be helpful for us to have that conversation in New Zealand”.
Good luck with that!
Yes there are many reasons to dislike Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth, but those are irrelevant in this context and, to what ought to be our shame, Hegseth is correct that NZ is freeloading off US defence capability. The take-home message ought to be that it's embarrassing to have such a contemptible character legitimately able to belittle us.
To put this into perspective, if Penk were somehow to succeed in doubling NZ's defence spending from 1% to 2% of GDP, even that would be substantially less than we were spending 40-50 years ago (around 2.5%).
Yes, it's annoying to have to spend money maintaining a military force. It's also annoying to have to spend money on an intelligence service, a police force, a prison service and many other expensive things that wouldn't be necessary if people would just behave themselves, but it's just a fact that some people won't. Ukraine wasn't any more keen on wars than we are, but that didn't help it any and it won't help us any if our turn comes.
I don't often totally agree fully with your comments but on this one I think you are absolutely correct. We have been freeloading for a very long time now and we have to stop. We really don't live in an "incredibly benign strategic environment" and I don't think we ever have apart from a few years in the early 1990's after the fall of the Soviet Union and before the rise of China.
That of course was probably because we were living under the US umbrella, not because of anything we had done.
Curiously the "incredibly benign strategic environment" occurred briefly when US scare mongering about the USSR ceased and before US scare mongering about Russia began.
I'm pretty sure North Head was basically installed owing to a previous "Russian Scare" campaign to get more weapons installed in NZ. Fortunately, has never been used in anger over well more than 100 years.
North head Historic Reserve – Hauraki Gulk Marine Park – Self Guided Walk
You mean before Russia started invading its neighbors and committing war crimes?
Yes, the 90s.
So, Chechnya doesn't count?
Thing to recognize about Chechnya is how much better things work out when the West largely stays out of Russian affairs (rather than becoming party to the conflict).
I'm sure the Chechens really appreciate the subtle distinction between the war crimes the Russians commit due to Western interference, and the ones they commit due to being a brutal oligarchy interested in keeping its former empire together by force and terror.
To be fair, you're right. We have been freeloading.
We have benefited from a US-led security order, open sea lanes, allied intelligence networks, Australian defence depth, and a broadly favourable regional balance of power, while spending relatively little ourselves and often pretending that this stability simply exists because New Zealand is nice.
It does not.
Mr Kegsbreath is the most unqualified and therefore dangerous member of Trump's government.
A white nationalist and Christainist fanatic, abuser of women and alcohol, he should not be near any of the levers of power.
Governments will appear to listen to him, will say the "right" things but wait quietly and in hope for some sort of saner regime in the US.
Penk may have just swung the election well to the left.
I disagree… ask 100 people in the street if they are aware of who Hesgeth & Penk are and what is the connection and you'll be lucky to get 1 person who's following it. And that person is either a full on Lab/Green voter or full on the other way… so I doubt it will swing any voters.
Ask 100 people about the nuclear free policy and you'll be lucky to get 1 person who doesn't follow it.
Penk strayed into a no go area, one which is easily defended by Labour appealing to national identity.
I am inclined to agree with Adrian.
We can perhaps be grateful to free-lance journalist Anna Fifield for outing New Zealand's miserable contribution to American full-spectrum dominance to US Secretary of War Pete "Dumb McNamara" Hegseth at the Shangri-La conference.
It showed up in recently appointed Minister of Defence Chris Penk's readiness to kowtow channeling Hegseth's "strong, quiet and clear" mantra.
But as the unprovoked and illegal war launched by the US and Israel on Iran is showing, the US approach is anything but strong, quiet and clear.
According to the Independent
That's the American way. It has never worked before and its not working now.
At a time of constrained budgets and soon-to-be huge rises in cost of livig caused by the war the last thing we should be doing is wasting needed money on war toys for boys.
I think the topic was superseded by this.
Penk attempting to cuddle up to Hegseth by suggesting we allow the Oz nuclear powered subs (their second hand Virginia class subs being supplied to Oz in the 2030's are not nuclear armed) to visit.
Strategy
Because of their neither confirm nor deny policy* we are not an ally of the USA, thus have no need to spend 3.5% of GDP to be worthy of their protection – they are not providing any such guarantee now.
The slighting of a Five Eyes partner show how inept Hegseth is. He knows about NATO+ (the USA has bases in Japan and South Korea, but not here). He probably has not heard of the Five Powers FFDA.
Our policy is to keep the security confrontation impasse (South China Sea Taiwan and South Korea) north of Australia, not to its east (our nuclear weapons free South Pacific policy).*
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360986288/nz-should-have-conversation-about-its-nuclear-stance-minister-says
Well, "freeloading", and this because we did not jump in behind the US actions in the strait of Hormuz.
Maybe because the US actions were entirely aggressive. Similar to not jumping in to support US invasion of Iraq,