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9:02 pm, October 18th, 2025 - 23 comments
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Reposted with permission from Gordon Campbell’s Werewolf
Decades ago, Alexander Cockburn wrote a column pointing out that the true believers in the power and precision of the defence industry’s latest weaponry tend to be (a) their gullible government customers and (b) people on the left, who can be relied on to have an “Omigod, now look what they’ve come up with” response. In reality, the latest new-fangled Pentagon weapons often don’t work anywhere near as well as advertised. However, and as the F-35 saga has shown, the arms industry can still make mountains of money out of its unkept promises.
Cockburn’s warning came to mind in the light of the recent announcement by Defence Minister Judith Collins that the government’s massive $9 billion outlay on new defence spending will offer our private sector tech firms a whole range of profitable opportunities. The worry here is not merely that the Luxon government seems willing to militarise this country’s investment in science, although that is terrifying in itself. The added concern is that government almost certainly lacks the in-house expertise to ensure that taxpayers get value for money from the billions being lavished on Defence.
Will the whizbang stuff that we buy and invest in truly function as promised? In the same week that Collins made her announcement, Reuters was reporting that serious concerns had been raised (within a US Army report released on September 5, 2025) that the US battlefield communication system (called Next Generation Command and Control or NGC2) was prone to being hacked. NGC2 is being devised for the Pentagon by Anduril, a leading US defence technology firm. The major sub-contractors on the project are Palantir (the firm owned by Peter Thiel) and Microsoft. As the Breaking Defense news site reported:
….The [US Army]document said the NGC2 platform “in its current state, exhibits critical deficiencies in fundamental security controls, processes, and governance. These issues collectively create a significant risk to data, mission operations, and personnel by rendering the system vulnerable to insider threats, external attacks, and data spillage,” the document said. …The Army “lack[s] the visibility and controls necessary to ensure the security and integrity of the platform. There seems to be a rush to get capabilities into the system without actual oversight or process to do it, putting greater risk as this system further increases this risk.”
Palantir quickly claimed that the problems detected had been addressed, and fixed. Anduril released a statement to the same effect. This still begs some key questions. Such as (a) how did a system containing such flaws get to such an advanced stage of development, and (b) would those flaws have persisted if the US Army analysis had not succeeded in detecting them?
Does New Zealand have a track record of healthy scepticism in its prior dealings with the key players in US defence technology? Not at all. A previous National government was so star struck by Peter Thiel that it gave him citizenship, a generous gesture from which this country has not benefitted in any visible way at all. (Did Thiel, a major Republican donor, intercede on New Zealand’s behalf over the Trump tariffs? Apparently not.) One can safely assume that our tech companies – and the Luxon government writing the cheques – would jump at any chance of becoming sub-contractors on any military-tech projects that Palantir and its Silicon Valley mates may have in mind.
To repeat: does the MoD possess the expertise to assess whether the battlefields-of-the-future gizmos (on which it is so keen to lavish billions of taxpayer dollars) would actually work as promised under fire?
In case anyone thinks I’m casting aspersions on the in-house competence of our Defence and security intelligence agencies, you’d be dead right about that. Last week’s scoop on Newsroom by Nicky Hager gave fresh reason for concern about whether our spooks know their asses from their elbows when it comes to matters of national (and international) security.
Incredibly, as Hager revealed, the detailed, hand -written minutes from a May 2024 top secret meeting held in Portsmouth England between the Five Eyes security intelligence partners, somehow found their way into a stack of papers found in a Salvation Army op shop in Lower Hutt.
To no-one’s surprise, these papers reveal that China is the intended target of the West’s military and security planning. Under the Morrison government, Australia’s then Defence Minister Peter Dutton had been candid about Canberra’s desire to help develop a long range force projection capability aimed at China. It is useful to have written evidence that (when we go behind closed doors) New Zealand regards our main trading partner in the same paranoid light. This doesn’t make a lot of sense. Think about it. We earn billions selling dairy products and logs to China, and then use those profits to buy and invest in the long range military means to kill our best customers. Moral issues aside, its not a sustainable export plan.
BTW our multi-billion billion investment in Defence has nothing to do with the old WWII concept of repelling a foreign invasion. These days, it is all about being able to launch an attack on a target – China- located far from our shores. Quite some time ago, we stopped talking about the defence of the homeland.
Much of the content of Hager’s Portsmouth papers had to do with progress on battlefield command and control systems. Three dimensions of this work were discussed: GIDE, Project Olympus and Bold Quest. Oddly, while such hush hush terms rarely (if ever) make into the defence and security discourse here, ample information about them in openly available on US defence industry and official US War Department websites.
Before explaining each of those terms, here’s some background info. I referred above to NGC2, the Anduril/Palantir “next generation” battlefield command and control system. Think of this as being the inward-facing US version of its closely related, outward-facing global counterpart called CJADC2, which is the mercifully brief acronym for the Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control system that involves New Zealand and the other Five Eyes partners.
Interestingly, the “Combined” part of the acronym is intended to signify that in the conflicts contemplated in future, the US sees a compelling need for all allied forces to be integrated within the same system, in which the key battlefield decisions can then be made by US commanders, who wilk receive “force multiplier” benefits from this level of integration. Here’s the US reasoning for the rebrand:
The focus on the “C” follows what DoD was tasked to do in the National Defence Strategy, which says that interoperable command, control, communications and computers (C4) warfighting capabilities need to be developed with allies and partners to “facilitate global force integration and supportive and combined joint operations,” says Lt. General Mary F. O’Brien. [O’Brien is the Director of the J6 Command for Control, Communications, and Computers/Cyber within the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.]
Moreover
O’Brien also said [she was speaking only a few months prior to the Portsmouth Five Eyes conference]that the Joint Chiefs of Staff are working closely with the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance on how to share applications and data. It is also working with NATO on how to “influence our CJADC2 reference architecture.”
“We’re working very closely with a lot of our partners who want to know what are we going to build to so that their capabilities will be complementary,” she said. “And so the ‘C’ is absolutely for combined, highlighting that we can’t build something and then reverse engineer some sort of all interoperable bolted-on piece — it’s just not going to work in the way we’re designing the command-and-control capabilities for the future.”
There is much more on the US Defense News site along the same lines. It throws a revealing light on what Defence Minister Judith Collins is promoting. It indicates that what New Zealand’s high tech firms can achieve – at best – in this area by way of sub-contracting work with joint US /UK partners, will be serving to enhance the competence of the US war fighting machine under the ultimate battlefield control of US commanders. This road may be paved with gold, but it leads to subservience, not independence.
Finally, here’s a brief summary of the terms cited in the Portsmouth papers discovered by Hager.
Bold Quest. This is described on the official US War Department website in these terms : “Bold Quest is an exercise that evolves [CJADC2] Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control tactics, techniques, and capabilities, allowing the U.S., our allies, and partners to build trust, improve interoperability, and advance innovative and resilient capabilities.”
Project Olympus. Elsewhere, the US War Department describes Project Olympus as being a response to the challenges of integrating partner nations and their security agencies within the overall American CJADC2 command structure.
That ability to work seamlessly across warfighting domains and theatres with a range of partners is key to maintaining the United States’ enduring strength around the globe. …. Disparate technologies among forces along with policy hurdles have presented a perennial challenge for integrating partner nations onto a single network. Project Olympus, a Joint Staff J-6-led initiative [i.e. again, under the direction of Lt- General Mary F. O’Brien mentioned above] is working to solve these challenges through digital transformation initiatives that synchronize current warfighting capabilities and enhanced security frameworks that manage access to data at the end-user level.
GIDE. This acronym stands for Global Information Dominance Experiment and IMO, it is the most interesting of the three terms cited in the Portsmouth papers. That’s because GIDE is evidently a series of constantly evolving experiments in command and control optimisation. Meaning: there is no final iteration of GIDE. Here’s a very useful archive of the multiple experiments being carried out under the GIDE umbrella. A principle called Zero Trust is guiding all of the GIDE work. This principle would ensure that nations that may be friendly but are lacking in reliable security protocols – hello, New Zealand – are given only limited, least privileged access to the inner sanctum of the GIDE contracting process.
The Department of Defense’s Zero Trust strategy is designed to defend against sophisticated, persistent threats by eliminating implicit trust at every level of the digital environment. It emphasizes verifying every access request, enforcing least-privilege access, and assuming adversaries may already be inside the network.
OK, lets take a typical GIDE example. This one is about the potential uses of Large Language Models and generative AI for functions that include (but are not limited to) the further automation of CJADC2 functions and capabilities.
Reportedly, this AI dimension of GIDE is being managed by the Defense Innovation Unit, which is the Pentagon’s outreach arm to Silicon Valley, and to other centres of private-sector innovation across the US. Presumably, the Defense Innovation Unit would also be the ultimate contact point for the New Zealand tech companies that Judith Collins is urging to seek partners in the US and the United Kingdom, in order to sub-contract for the CJADC2 work outlined above.
It should be obvious from the above that the nature of the integrated military command and control systems being developed by the US – with the willing participation of the Luxon government – will inevitably erode the ability of New Zealand to make independent decisions about our defence and security. This will especially be the case if we ever need to use this wildly expensive Defence gear in the context of an actual shooting war.
The erosion of our independence to the degree indicated by the Portsmouth papers is simply not worth the 30 pieces of silver that are being thrown in the direction of our high tech companies.
Australia 's BHP will very soon be accepting yuan for 30% of its iron ore settlements with China.
Previously the settlements have been 100% US dollars.
Why are we still hanging on the coat tails of a country with diminishing influence in the world, when our nearest ally is beginning to face up to reality.?
https://discoveryalert.com.au/news/bhp-yuan-settlement-agreement-global-mining-2025/
Everytime I hear from the minister for oravida it rankles.
Such a charmed life and rewarded with a lofty position.
Currently telling NZ the impending strikes is about Palestine whilst stitching us up into the US war machine.
Not smart aligning with the US given where they're heading but it's where atlas's management will take us.
It’ll be interesting to see what Collin’s attitude will be to the Venezuela situation. Presumably we will follow like good sheep we are.
Gordon Campbell is often right to warn about the excesses of the military–industrial complex. His writing has long served as a conscience for our sometimes uncertain foreign policy and reminds us that secrecy, uncritical alliance, and the fetishisation of technology can corrode public life.
But it's easy to over-egg that particular pudding, and this is one of those moments when the left’s instinctive suspicion risks curdling into denial.The Luxon government is a shambles. Judith Collins is, as ever, a profoundly unpleasant political operator: vindictive, cynical, and allergic to accountability. Yet not everything that passes through her hands is wrong by definition.
Foreign policy, at least the serious kind, sits beyond our petty ideological distinctions and cynical political calculations. It belongs to the realm of strategic reality, not partisan feeling. And the reality is this: the world around us is becoming more dangerous, not less.
We don’t see taking out insurance against fire or theft as proof we’ve fallen under the sway of Big Insurance. We do it because prudence demands it. Defence capability is no different. A small democracy like ours doesn’t invest in command-and-control systems or joint interoperability because it yearns for war, but because it hopes never to face one alone.
There’s nothing progressive about helplessness. The lesson of Ukraine is that values mean little without the means to defend them. China’s growing assertiveness; from cyber operations to grey-zone coercion across the Pacific, cannot be wished away by moral rhetoric.
Pretending we can stand aloof from allied defence arrangements is a comforting fiction, and a dangerous one. Real independence isn’t isolation; it’s the ability to act with others from a position of strength and clarity.
Interoperability doesn’t mean obedience any more than cooperation means capitulation. The task for a mature left is to engage critically: to demand transparency, ethics, and parliamentary oversight. All while recognising that alliances, however imperfect, are part of the architecture of peace.
We should, of course, scrutinise every dollar spent on defence and reject the notion that militarisation is the only path to security. But it’s important we avoid conflating any kind of military spending with militarism. One is about capability; the other is about ideology.
The first asks whether we can defend ourselves and contribute responsibly to collective security. The second asks what kind of world we’re using that power to build. The left should know the difference and be able to support the former without sliding into the latter.
If we can’t tell the difference between militarism and basic strategic prudence. If every radar upgrade or cyber-defence initiative is treated as moral contamination.
Then we have absolutely no business seeking political power at all.
Politics is about governing a real country in a real world, not curating moral purity. Sometimes that means working with people you despise to achieve outcomes that matter. Collins may be a stopped clock, but on this, she’s accidentally right.
We would be foolish not to recognise that fact.
Some nations – like Switzerland, Costa Rica and New Zealand, have a choice. There being little security threat, they (here we) can go it alone.
We simply have no tradition of doing so, because of being a settlement of empire.
Switzerland’s neutrality has always rested on preparedness and deterrence. It stays neutral not because it lacks the means to fight, but because everyone knows it can.
Costa Rica, meanwhile, benefits from very different circumstances — it’s small, heavily forested, and effectively under the United States’ strategic umbrella in Central America. It doesn’t face the same geopolitical realities that New Zealand does in the South Pacific.
Our security environment, and our responsibilities, are fundamentally different. Especially given our duty to help protect the sovereignty and stability of our smaller Pacific neighbours.
Security, for us, isn’t about fear; it’s about solidarity. Because wishful thinking isn’t foreign policy.
Even if we reject western imperialism, we can still understand our position in more transactional terms. Yes, our distance makes us hard to attack. But it also makes us easy to isolate and expensive to defend. Why would the United States or Australia come to our aid if we aren’t willing to do our part?
Solidarity isn’t a slogan; it’s a two-way street. We can’t expect the benefits of alliance without sharing the burdens.
And again, I’d argue the main strategic problem facing us isn’t repelling a Chinese landing in Northland. It’s helping to prevent one on Taiwan or the Philippines. Or stopping the PLA Navy from using coercion or blockade to strangle South Korea and Japan.
I would have thought it obvious that New Zealand, Switzerland* and Costa Rica are secure by location*.
Our difference to the other two we are part of some global hegemon (spying on the world and all).
Whereas Switzerland has a history of being apart from European wars, thus are outside of alliances today. It is today secure regardless because of its location – within the EU and NATO region. It retains its military capability, more as heritage meets border control than to see off a military threat.
And it builds on this for neutrality and to host international organisations.
We have a moat.
Moat is a simplistic simile. Irrelevant bullshit when you’re looking at military issues past the middle ages.
A ocean moat is only as good as the maritime forces that protect it against other forces. We don’t have a maritime force capable of dealing with much, we’d probably have issues with a number of regional players. We’d probably be outgunned in naval forces by Indonesia or Philippines. We’d certainly get outgunned by the regional bases of US, Australia, or a longer range one from China.
Also we don’t have the significiant land based defences that could defend against a maritime invasion, or to protect trade routes.
We rely on alliances to maintain a ‘moat’. If you look at the US at present, you can see just how fast those can fray. All defence spending winds up viewing ‘allies’ as being problematic over even relatively short-term periods. Paranoia is built into all military spending on offshore technologies.
Increasing significiant capabilities in military forces typically takes a minimum of 5 years in extremity. That is why Ukraine is still building up their military from the relatively low (but far higher than ours) starting base in 2022.
Raising defence capabilities usually takes one or more decades in peacetime, because you really don’t want the massive diversion of resources from the civilian economy to the military economy to be too abrupt. Capability involves not only increasing the forces at the time that hostilities open, but also building the capability to maintain a defence. If you look at the strain that increasing something relatively simple like creating artillery shells at required usage rates is causing in Ukraine, the rest of Europe and the US, that is the standard issue of peacetime economies shifting to wartime.
The only realistic defence isn’t a mythical moat. It is having an actual ability to defend it.
Having worked in our local defence industry and having a long time interest in military, I’d have to say that Gordon Campbell is rather clueless about what command and control systems are designed to do.
They are just as segregated as the civilian networks are – from the monitoring of individual trucking fleets to the linkages of companies intranets to the internet. You can’t access without permission, and the traffic itself is encrypted. Without access
Sure you can break encryption on transmissions, given a lot of time. That has been known to be the case since the first world war. It gets harder when you have rapidly automatically changing schemes. Usually those schemes will be localised not only between different forces, but also even to units within the same forces. They gateway between platoon or companies.
So what we get from being purchasing command and control systems is something that we run locally, tailor our encryption schemes and our access gateways – and which may be allowed to connect to allied forces. This is no different from our local defence purchasing similar systems from parts of Europe like the Swedes, or Taiwan, or even China. Defence systems for any nations are always tailored and secured to their own needs. There are few ‘blackboxes’ traded between national military organisations. That is why there are ‘export’ versions with all of the really up-to-date goodies in the bespoke tailored solutions sold even to current allies.
Sure there is the usual bullshit about back doors. But this is military – professional paranoiacs. Anything above really basic training systems invariably also get their own code source to peruse and compile locally. They employ some of the better engineers, software and hardware, to dig through everything that is built for them.
Others defend the sea lanes for their own reasons.
Thus it is a moat.
We trade freely with those who want what we have.
No one has motive to come here and take.
The issue is to what extent we participate. And in what way.
It's it's a shame that the Japanese didn't provide per vile at the Battle of the Coral Sea in 1942.
Had had the Japanese achieved it's strategic victory over the allies, not only the Japanese will have seized PNG but it would also open up the south west Pacific including the Tasman for the Japanese to attack.
Yamamoto, knew that Australia is too big too launch an effective invasion. So the best way to neutralize to degrade to deny for Australia to launch a counter offensive against Japan the best way would be to surround Australia in order to interdict those convoys from the US.
That meant the likely hood of a the possibility of NZ invaded by Japanese if the opportunity arises as it would mean that US- Australian convoys deep into the Roaring 40's/ Furious 50s against the prevailing currents.
Now fast forward to now.
The Chinese have developed the Island Defence Chain, which funny enough is very similar to the Japanese Defence from WW2.
The Chinese like Japanese know that Australia is to big to invade effectively, so the best to surround Australia and cutting of its Sea Lanes Communications especially with the US
For this strategy to achieve its objectives, this means,
Seizing PNG, the Solomon islands which will bring the Coral Sea into play also the Sth Pacific Nations incl NZ.
For NZ, the most likely scenario is going to see it's Sea Lanes of Communications (SLOC) to be attack IOT degrade, deny, neutralise NZ's abilities to protect, defend, delay & deny to attack Chinese Naval & Air Assets while also degrading NZ Economy to a point that it causes internal security issues.
A Most Dangerous Couse of Action, would see NZ invaded, but this MDCOA does require the PLAN to achieve its Most Likely Course of Action to weather its a No go & Go, and that is going to entirely on the Chinese Logistics capability to sustain an enduring occupation of not only the Sth Pacific but also NZ.
The so-called Great NZ Moat, may have saved us in WW2 even though the DKM & IJN I Boats were active in NZ Waters sinking ships and undertaking Strategic ISR in the way over flying Auckland & Wellington Harbours.
But since then, not only has the Science of war has changed, but also the Art (Operational Art on how we conduct War on a tactical or strategic level) of War has also changed this also effects how the NZDF operates in Peace Enforcement Stabilisation, & Peacekeeping Missions into the future and that's before we even take CC effects into account which is more scary than actual war in the Asian Pacific Region.
If you still believe the moat will protect you/ NZ? I have a 10 bridges to sell to you.
Sorry for the multiple posts, probably caused from my end as the NBN/ WiFi is playing up today. So I'm wondering if the mods can delete the required post.
My apologies, Scud
The concept of a reprise of Japan's empire building via military control of territory is risible. They did had a 2nd go at it – the 16th C in design – with more modern tech. England gave up that way of empire building after the 100 years war.
China is using the British empire method.
It does it via long term supply contracts (and debt financed aid) rather than formal colonies to lock down its costs. Otherwise its companies investment abroad (vertical integration) to supply their (and maybe other) markets.
It wants to be a rival hub/centre for the world economy to the USA.
It's edge is its cadre of engineers. Otherwise its rare earth minerals (domestic supply and international extraction business) and sea bed mining.
The appropriate response is investment in universities (supporting graduate students etc) and building up R and D. Then Investment Funding "capability" and otherwise co-operation agreements.
Otherwise international rules as per sea bed mining and a share for market supply of rare earth minerals derived from foreign sourced extraction.
Yes the science of war has changed and so has the reality of it. Only those nations with borders will engage in military conflict as of old.
The rest is either point of conflict or exploitable vulnerability.
China would not activate pressure on Australia before doing so further north. It's decisive advantage is its fast missiles in another theatre. It would entrap and sink the American fleet there to win control of the western Pacific.
If only there were some way of projecting power across oceans… an aircraft carrier, perhaps.
The idea that war is obsolete because we lack land borders is nonsense. Modern conflict is economic, cyber, and maritime long before it’s territorial.
A Chinese campaign wouldn’t just target Taiwan or Japan. Its goals would have to be regional:
Longer term, if Australia were drawn in, Beijing wouldn’t invade; would isolate. Cut shipping lanes, disrupt fuel and communications, and grind the economy down through pressure, not occupation.
Conflict today isn’t about armies and navies duking it out; it’s about supply chains, economic resilience, and the slow erosion of the will to fight. Modern states are remarkably resilient and resistant to direct conquest. The real contest is over endurance: keeping systems functioning, people supplied, and alliances intact under sustained pressure.
Because in the end, if there has been a change in the way war is waged, it’s that it is now simply the continuation of economic policy by other means.
How you got this
from
Yes the science of war has changed and so has the reality of it. Only those nations with borders will engage in military conflict as of old.
is indicative of a failure to engage with what I wrote but instead your revision of it.
The rest is just a re packaging of what I wrote in your own words.
Why would their goal have to be regional? Their strategy might be, but their goal is Taiwan.
In fact their right to Taiwan might be their rationale to legitimise a play for a regional hegemon status. So they can declare victory for Taiwan without a fight.
The USA utilising its chip advantage is a red flag to China, as it is based on Taiwan (the best chips are developed and produced there). It was the TSMC that did this.
1949 will be resolved one way, or another.
Doing so peacefully takes away the basis for a regional confrontation and military build up by all those involved.
The smart move is to to make a peace.
The old, some see the world the way it has been (and thus remain on that path) and others see the chance for a different future – alternative scenario.
Yes the science of war has changed and so has the reality of it. Only those nations with borders will engage in military conflict as of old.
The activities of the Houthi in and around the Red Sea have shown how even a piracy level of engagement (with relatively low tech and low numbers participating) in 'warfare' can have massive disruption effects on shipping.
A lesson that NZ (almost entirely dependent on shipping for our economic survival) would do well to learn.
@9.37am
Sure the action of the Houthi, like those of Islamic State (al Qaeda rebrand) in Aden and Somali coast pirates before them, disrupt shipping (lane safety and insurance cost).
But such are like Iran's supply of drones to Russia, missiles to the Houthi and Hezbollah (and North Korea munitions and troops to Russia's invasion of Ukraine)(some of Israel's actions in the occupation of the WB and also during the war in Gaza) are rogue actions, by rogue actors.
Russia and Iran* and North Korea and Israel* being the rogue states, the Houthi are not the government of Yemen, currently a failed state).
Causes include the lack of an Israel-Palestinian peace* and no peace agreement in Korea and two regimes (Russia and Iran) using regional hegemony as part of their governments reason for being (against an outsider, here NATO or Israel).
The USA has supported Israel in its de facto annexation of the West Bank and is now seeking to coerce Ukraine to surrender to Russia and call this peace – but both those actions are rogue as per international law, a breach of the UN Charter (especially for a UNSC member).
China is using the South China Sea islands and atolls for territorial claims as a tactic in asserting its rightful claim to Taiwan. By inferring a price to be paid regionally until Taiwan is sorted.
Ever hear of the Cuba Turkey missiles deal?
As I said this all comes under
point of conflict or exploitable vulnerability.
Seriously. Why would China invade New Zealand?
Much cheaper and easier just to buy the place.
After all, the Coalition of Cockups are dead set on selling it!
Yep. Up until 2014 (Donbas, Crimea) I shared a lot of Gordon Campbell's thinking on this, but 2022 changed my mind on the subject drastically. Russia's full invasion of Ukraine is a large-scale illustration of "You may not be interested in war, but war may be interested in you."
As for China, anyone labouring under the delusion that the Chinese Communist Party under Xi Jinping is simply running a country we trade with, along the lines of Australia, India or Japan, should consider whether they themselves know their arse from their elbow.
Ukraine is also a lesson that nations outside of defence alliances are on their own – and also that the USA demands a pound or two (4% of GDP) to honour its NATO membership terms (even then it states it would act as it chooses).
Our only real security alliance is with Australia.
Five Eyes enhanced and AUKUS do not provide any security guarantee. Just partnership.
And that is no problem because we have no security threats (apart from to fisheries and economic zone sea bed).
This is only an issue for us because we are not of that hegemon, but with Australia agents of another (Anglo-American) in the region.
A hegemon that placed a fleet between China and Taiwan in 1949 and recognised the Nationalist government as having a place on the UN (only valid, if Taiwan was then part of China). Then sent forces to the Yalu River.
Push back by China was inevitable and it was American greed for profit from that economy that led us here – a more powerful China with unresolved issues to settle.
The Ottoman empire was taken over by the Young Turks and they chose alliance with Germany. Sometimes people make mistakes when dealing with the deconstruction of empire and this has consequences.
We do not want to be misled by another Dougal (MacArthur).
We can have independence, whether we are in defence agreements or not. And we would not be acting from a position of strength in one, just bound to another's leadership (compliance, not clarity).
It means high cost equipment. The issue is to determine when this is necessary for valuable interoperability and when to have a more effective and less costly option.
Note the example of Ukraine with drones and Oz with small subs.
The real architecture of peace is diplomacy and a rules based international order. We do not have that sort of leadership from the USA at the moment. If that continues they would not be fit to remain our partner.
With friends like these? Who needs "enemies"….
And some (more than just Adm. Alvin Holsey) of the US Military just wont go along with Pete warrior ethos Hesgeth or Pres bone spur Trump and their extra judicial executions…
Also a worry is Ol' bone spur Trumps reanimating CIA : South America…(and IMO in NZ Lady Orivida Collins seems very onboard)
I note the "stopped short"….
Previous South American CIA action/interventions……(there is a long list incl Brazil, Chile, Nicaragua etc… )