Written By:
- Date published:
8:25 pm, July 6th, 2026 - 39 comments
Categories: AUKUS, China, defence, Diplomacy, NATO, nuclear war, Pacific, Peace, Peace, us politics, war, winston peters -
Tags:
If we are a “force multiplier” we are not independent. We are meant to multiply force for the US. Against China. Madness.
It’s a very important question. At the Foreign Affairs Select Committee last month Labour’s foreign affairs spokesperson Vanushi Walters, quoting Prime Minister Luxon, asked Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters about the effect of being a force multiplier on an independent foreign policy. He had gone on a warble about AUKUS but that question shut him up.
You can watch it here.
This interchange happened during Scrutiny Week, “a dedicated parliamentary period, established in New Zealand via the 2023 Standing Orders Review, where normal House sittings are suspended to allow select committees to conduct intensive, full-day examinations of government performance and spending.
Winston Peters’ avoidance move that he hadn’t read the Financial Times article referenced by Vanushi Walters was designed to avoid any possible scrutiny of the government’s policy. While he hadn’t read the newspaper, he should have been aware of the official Defence Capability Plan, which says in relation to procurement,
The 2025 Defence Capability Plan is the Government’s plan to rebuild the NZDF and prepare for an increasingly volatile world.
It outlines indicative investments over the next 15 years to ensure the NZDF is:
- Combat capable with enhanced lethality and deterrent effect: This includes increased strike capabilities which will increase our ability to deter actions counter to New Zealand’s interests.
- A force multiplier with Australia and interoperable with partners: New Zealand and Australia have committed to modernise our alliance and further strengthen our bilateral defence relationship, including the development of a more greatly integrated “Anzac” force.
As I was writing this news came in that the Chinese government have given notification of an intention to test fire a ballistic missile into the Pacific. Following the Australian, our media have so far speculated that it is a response to Australia establishing an alliance arrangement with Fiji. I think it is far more likely to be a response to RIMPAC, the month-long multi-country maritime exercise led by the US and aimed at China. Add in NATO, meeting this week in Turkiye with our Minister Chris Penk present where we are aligned with Australia, Japan and South Korea in a Pacific NATO.
Winston Peters response to the launch is that he is “deeply concerned” and that he’d be talking to New Zealand’s Pacific partners about the development, saying “we do not want to see the region become a theatre for outside military competition.”
Then perhaps he should also talk to Australia about that. Australia and the US are allies, and US bases such as Pine Gap provide important targeting information for US forces. Nuclear-capable B-52 bombers are based in Australia under US control, and Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong has defended their “neither conform nor deny” policy as to whether nuclear weapons are stored there.
The basing arrangements were set up when the estimated range of Chinese missiles placed Australian airbases out of range, and Australia was considered another “unsinkable aircraft carrier” for the US. Presumably that is now no longer the case, and this firing may be considered a warning to Australia.
But the critical question is what should be our response. The Defence Capability Plan says that it should include
“enhanced lethality and deterrent effect: This includes increased strike capabilities which will increase our ability to deter actions counter to New Zealand’s interests. A force multiplier with Australia and interoperable with partners.”
What remains unclear is who is this enhanced lethality to be visited upon, and exactly how it is supposed to deter who from what? Our P-8 Poseidons have just now launched Harpoon anti-shipping missiles – estimate for the missiles is around $2million each – against a moored target vessel.
The problem is that if it is real war the target shoots back. I anticipate considerable lethality blowback if it ever comes to that.
Which is why this whole scenario is madness. Real war is criminal. The real question is who is the aggressor in this scenario and where does the threat come from. Our Capability Plan is wholly based on the assumption that the threat comes from China. But China has not started any wars, while the United States has started plenty. Not only that, it has lost all of them with the possible exception of Granada. Why are we backing a loser?
The worst part of it is that we citizens have no say in the decisions around war. As the government is fond of saying, no decisions have been made and nothing has been brought to cabinet. Yeah right; but that means the only people who have a say in taking us to war are our Cabinet.
We have no war powers legislation that provides for debate and full discussion. Based on Peters’ dissembling above, I don’t trust them opn that decision.
So you are against no integration of NZ and Oz Force Elements for any War-like Operations including Article 51 of the UN Charter and Peace Keeping incl Peace Enforcement Missions like INTERFET when NZDF Force Elements incl personal were totally integrated with the Australian Led INTERFET?
The 2ic's for INTERFET HQ, Land, Air and Sea were all NZ'ers with their own joint ANZAC planning/ Ops and Logistics staffs which also included personal from NATO and Commonwealth Nations ie UK, Canada Malaysia and Singapore.
Where’s your criticism of the proposed Chinese ICBM tests in the Sth Pacific?
[Do you really want to use your real name as new user handle here? – Incognito]
Mod note
Re the old saying that military intelligence is a contradiction in terms, I sympathise with your interest in Aotearoa not seeming incompetent. I suspect Mike could feel that way too. Thing is, trad military intelligence uses alignment to salient scenarios in the adjacent possible realm. As per William James, pragmatism anchors us in the real instead – yet possibilities & expectations still guide our thoughts.
So, as the Moody Blues reminded us 6 decades back, it's a question of balance. Focus as much on the way to peace as the way to war. Serious diplomacy instead of the usual fatuous charade. If we improve our warrior tech, make damn sure the money secures a deal that matches our place in realgeopolitik. Operating context is niche (darwinism).
The Foreign Minister speeches at the UN will go back to the 2024 type, in 2027 if Labour wins the election, or in 2029 if National do (when POTUS 47 is out of office).
That would once again help to differentiate our posture from that of Australia in AUKUS mode.
The USSR boycotted the UN Security Council to protest the UN's refusal to recognise the newly established People's Republic of China (PRC).
This was followed by the North Korea invasion and the UNSC Resolution to authorise international military coalition under UN command.
What the USSR wanted – to incite a American-China ground war.
China entered the Korean War, opposed to a united Korea under American protection on their border.
That said any liberation of South Korea, involving the approach of a Chinese border when the Beijing regime was not in diplomatic relations with the USA, was problematic.
MacArthur did not return to the Yalu, he was retired. But the impasse was diplomatic – reassurances to Beijing as to intent required some form of recognition.
Moscow chess and Chinese checkers.
Good point. Game-play features overt moves + subtext signalling intended to deceive other players. Triad via the verbs. Thinking morphs into doing, thus 3 makes process. 4 makes system, so players must anchor in configuration context.
Interoperability is not the same as subordination.
There are plenty of examples (France, Canada, Finland and Sweden, among others) of states that maintain interoperability with the US while retaining an independent foreign policy, including choosing not to participate in military operations they consider contrary to their interests.
It doesn't mean New Zealand has signed up to automatically join a US-led conflict with China. It means there are practical advantages to having compatible equipment, doctrine and communications with the partners we are most likely to operate alongside in disaster relief, peacekeeping, maritime security, or, if necessary, collective defence.
As for the strategic choice between China and the United States, China is not quite the paragon of international order and peace you portray. It has fought India, invaded Vietnam in 1979, and continues to have serious territorial disputes with India, Vietnam, the Philippines and Japan.
Under Xi Jinping, Chinese foreign policy has also become noticeably more assertive. Beijing has rejected international tribunal rulings on the South China Sea, employed maritime militia and coast guard vessels to pressure neighbouring states, and increasingly used economic coercion as a foreign policy tool.
That doesn't mean the United States is beyond criticism, or that New Zealand should abandon an independent foreign policy.
But it does mean the strategic picture is considerably more complicated than simply casting China as peaceful and the US as the sole source of instability, or conflating military procurement and interoperability with foreign policy subordination.
And in the same period the USA has altered the tone of it's approach as China's progress became more 'threatening'.
Whoever did what to who and when, what we have are tiny steps on the escalation ladder. No good going to come out of that for anybody.
Granted. But the thing about an escalation ladder is that it requires more than one party to climb it.
Which is the point I was trying to make:
Mike Smith largely frames escalation as something the US and its allies are doing to China. But China has agency in this dynamic too. Its leadership has repeatedly chosen military signalling, increasingly assertive territorial claims, and coercive tactics towards its neighbours alongside diplomatic engagement.
The security dilemma only makes sense if both sides are responding to each other's actions.
Treating one side as the sole driver of escalation misses an important part of the picture. Which is why it matters who did what, when, and how the other side responded.
Which points to the seminal text (Axelrod's computer tourney around '83 won by Tit for Tat). Co-operation evolves by reciprocity. Geopolitics is thus grounded in evolutionary niche relational operating context. You can see sovereignty as primary principle (relative agency), mediating both parity and hierarchy relations simultaneously. You can reframe hierarchy into holarchy to get the big picture.
Rewi Alley is Aotearoa's role model for relations with China. People helping people is always going to be a key dimension of sociality. We just have to blend that with calling out the pseudocommie regime when it does cowboy shit like the yanks do it. Reciprocity does suck the user in, so an adept player will always retain an ejector-seat option. Shapeshifting 1.01.
Rewi Alley praised the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, so he's not a good model for calling out the pseudocommie regime.
But Rewi Alley was a thinking man and not just a repeater of platitudes as so many political and economic commentators are in NZAO and other. He rolled up his sleeves and did stuff, not pranced around being the Great I Am like some magic Pied Piper leading the smart alicks or bewildered rats.
And as for escalation, to be analogous? Mt Aoraki has lost some of its upper face because of climate change, and probably a lot of conventional escalation advice is likely to match Sisyphus' efforts.
Yes, China (the 'student superpower') is still learning from the 'teacher superpower' about "military signalling, increasingly assertive territorial claims, and coercive tactics", not necessarily limited to neighbours.
The US is a relatively young teacher, and the last thing NZ (and the world) needs is a ‘Chinese Trump’. Let's hope the student doesn't surpass the teacher anytime soon, and that the ‘long game’ continues a little longer on overshoot Earth. For the classroom, it is a-chagin.
China has learnt from the US not to start wars it will not win. Apparently the US has not won a war since WWII.
Given how much most weaponry is software dependant, and how much of the software is US supplied, that is a hope rather than reality.
True. But supply does not require our application whenever they act (not being allies).
As for independent action.
Canada and the EU are looking at this seriously – both intelligence and tech after what the US did to Ukraine in 2025.
Canada now has surveillance systems development for its north (NW Passage) that allow it to operate independently.
The EU and UK may tech upgrade their old Euro fighters and build new ones, rather than buy American etc.
Partly to produce locally (grow their economies) to better afford their defence build up.
In our case, would we operate independently of the Australians – Mogami frigates etc in the local theatre or in a UN role?
Oz is a good resource for supply onto us (parts reserve etc), given their propensity to build up their own capability to produce their own kit.
House of El has plenty of recent info vlogs on the de-US-ification of the EU and Canada. Included is a pretty strong extraction of the EU from US software dependence.
In other news, the US Senate is progressing unprecedented unification of US-Israel defence in a provision within the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act.
'Section 224 [if passed]…would fuse the U.S. and Israeli defense sectors in multiple areas vital to the battlefields of the future, like autonomous systems and cyber. It would also bring extraordinary Israeli influence to the U.S. beyond what it already has".
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/congress-quietly-moves-to-integrate-us-and-israeli-militaries/ar-AA24k4XA
So tying us into the US military software will tie us into Israel's systems.
The association to be more wary of is USA IT oligarchy/monopoly imperialism (and SWIFT system) and its connection to domestic population control systems – suppression of dissent.
The alternative to break that regime was Chinese, the Europeans are right to seek independence and give the rest of the world an alternative.
The Americans are using AI to secure their advantage/dominance – the Europeans and Indians should develop some independent capacity (aka China).
A very recent example is Spain. While they are a member of NATO – and therefore have interoperability of military equipment and alignment of personnel with their fellow NATO members (including the US) – they have followed a highly independent foreign policy pathway over the last year or so, in relation to Gaza and, latterly, the Iran war. Including barring ports to US owned vessels suspected of supplying arms to the conflict.
We are not backing a loser since we don't back Trump. Simple. Your point is valid re strategic alignment though. As a long-time peacenik, I see poor performance on that front as a chronic weakness in geopolitical praxis. Establishment norms & normies are as inadequate as usual, left & right side of politics, most nations, most of the time.
To err is human, thus humanity is an ongoing shambles. Nonetheless, any aspiring Don Quixote can have a tilt at the thing anytime they like. Heroes, currently conspicuous by their absence, may re-emerge. Here's a potential contender:
If he is truly spiritual he will be open to peaceful co-existence, yet the belief-system warp effect is immensely powerful. Interpret the will of Allah – his praxis – to find the way forward. Doctrine can reform despite ossification, to be adaptive. Lux could play the christian card with T and the socialist card with X. Unfortunately we have nobody on the political right in Aotearoa smart enough to figure that out, then tell him what to do.
Given the IRGC is an end time cult – where theism is a form of ambition for supremacism, peaceful co-existence is only accepted as part of a strategy for ultimate victory (a bit like Hamas accepting a two state period where they takeover the army of Palestine – why they will not surrender their arms now).
What is farcical is the same Coalition of Cockups, wanting to spend billions on arms to defend against, (lets face it, the only threat even on their horizon is China), while happily selling as much of the country as they can to China, for their individual profit.
If you think that the only conceivable threat is China, then you are not sufficiently aware of the potential threats in a time of global crisis.
If there is severe and sustained climate change driving substantial reduction in crop yields internationally – or even regionally; and NZ is to some extent immune (i.e. we still produce far more than we can consume domestically) – there is enormous pressure to simply 'take' rather than trade; or intense refugee pressure to migrate.
Just one example.
I said. "On their horizon". Not that I agree, necessarily!
We may well have an invasion of Palantar executives, supported by mercenaries, for example?
Our only real credible defense is moral.
The “international rule of law”.
There is no way ourselves and Australia, who I consider a reliable ally, could fight and win, against several million Indonesions.
The USA has proven they will only join in late, if at all, if it suits them.
The examples of WW1 & WW2 did not occur while the USA had any defence alliances.
The prospect of a confrontation with Indonesia is limited to the risk of Papua New Guinea (defence alliance with Oz) hosting some Western Papua independence people acting across their border.
The chance of an attack on Australia because of it, zero.
These blokes sum it up best.
https://youtu.be/sgspkxfkS4k?si=QmzoXt4_M58O_uV4
Pablo's view is always worth considering due to his background. Survival compels adaptivity via upskilling, niche is our operating context. Thus his triad:
That's my summary of his key points. He grasps the overview and frames it effectively using complexity theory. Human nature seems to like the medial path between opposing extremes and the evidence that it has always been adaptive continues to grow. Like the river constrained by 2 banks, going with the flow tends to be a reliable stance. We yield to necessity of change, whilst clinging to our security attachments. Paradox – it works.
https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2026/07/07/open-letter-to-chris-bishop/?
Loved the line “We appeal to your reputation as a level-headed minister who seeks to make evidence-based and financially responsible decisions.”
While in the real world, the substance of the letter makes perfect sense, we know that Bishop and his colleagues live somewhere else.
If we are a “force multiplier” we are not independent.
True – yet sovereignty trumps the principle, right? A state will always reserve the right to take a unilateral initiative. Often only way to finesse a stale status quo.
I recommend relative autonomy as best framing. Any agent or user exercises their influence or participation via power or catalysis, such dyadic optionality being endemic in nature. Our ecosystemic relations operate subliminally via biological signalling & resonance, thoughts & feelings. This Deep Green view of life transcends the Maori/Pakeha divide and it informs darwinian ethos as a fringe benefit.
Communal interaction occurs via ambience so field theory comes into play for rationale – an arena of intellectual endeavour with few players. To go from simplicity & salience in listing the key factors or dimensions of a situation, to network or group context, is a model-development venture using influence-scaling methods, schema, imagery, design.
Look Mike I try not to agree with what you write, truly I do.
But one of my benchmarks of observing our independence live was being in the public meeting where Helen Clark had to take a call from John Howard of Australia, who was begging her to take boat people from the Tampa. And she did, and it was the pleasure of the New Zealand Labour government to do so.
It was one of those very rare moments when our independent foreign policy was recognised as real, and as necessary, by Australia.
The second one, again under Helen Clark, was the Trans Pacific Partnership. This evolved into the CPTPP. New Zealand took the lead and Australia didn't.
And then there's Helen Clark's decision not to get us sucked into the Gulf War. Australia regretted it.
So in major foreign policy moments we have been and should be independent.
But when it comes to actually defending ourselves in a battle, we never have been independent and we never will be. We are the smaller partner to a relationship that has built for three decades and in some senses longer.
So it is simply a practicality that we would be a force multiplier for Australia. And were we or our allies attacked, they are the first government we would call.
That doesn't mean we stop making independent decisions for ourselves.
Independence in foreign policy decisions, interdependent in defence capability.
Thanks Ad.
My experience of observing our independence was when I reported to the Labour Party caucus in February 2002 on a conference I had been invited to speak at in Canada. It was in the middle of winter and I had been holed up in my hotel room watching US TV.
I reported on the conference and added as an aside, based on the wall-to-wall anti Iraq TV, that "the United States was going to go to war in Iraq." Helen Clark stood up immediately and told the caucus we wouldn't be going with them. She was magnificent, and a year later we were both proved right.
My point is that talk of war begets war. The US strategy documents since the pivot to Asia all have China as the principal competitor for which read adversary. US think tanks and general officers have all opined about the coming war with China.
And it is the United States that is the aggressor. Names are important; the US Department of Defense has been renamed the Department of War. Thanks to General Wesley Clark, we know that the war on Iraq was no accident and the current war unleashed on Iran has been long in the planning.
As for Australia, they have entered into a vastly expensive arrangement to buy nuclear attack submarines to act as a force multiplier for the US against China. This is an aggressive move. They are now not going to get new-builds, but second-hand ones. The opportunity cost is massive.
They have also accepted a "neither-confirm-nor-deny" deal with the US as to whether nuclear weapons will be stored with the B-52s at Tindal airbase. That is the real nuclear threat, and that is why we should be very wary of tying ourselves to Australia's apron strings as a so-called force multiplier. Drone war with China, anyone?
Or own security strategy document lists China as the pacing threat to our security. This was always nonsense and it should now be obvious to all that the main threat to our security comes from the United States. Their way of war is to bomb everything flat and then lose. In their latest war, we are just going to be collateral damage.
Might we not be much better served by seeing ourselves as a force multiplier to the real threat faced by all of us in the Pacific, namely the disruptive effects of climate change, now so obvious to all.
That would be a much better spend, and then we could be truly independent.
Switch from peace to war due to T peeved at Nobel elite? Maybe just hegemon taking glove off. State of war being unpopular with voters despite fear-mongering, we get T's pirouette from peace to war & back again, ad nauseum. Infotainment.
My own preference in those times (offered some perspective to the US embassy).
1.Indonesia offer some autonomy to Aceh and Western Papua and independence for East Timor (pre APEC 1999) and the CIA be pro human rights.
2.The US focus on Afghanistan and terrorist groups from East Africa to East Asia and leave Iraq alone (2001).
I was visited by police as an anti-American (American government policy critic), thus a suspect of threatening lives of Americans – such as Tiger Woods (I mentioned in 2001 that Al Qaeda was trying to provoke the Americans to go into Iraq and explained the 4 planes symbolism – Hebrew letter count, Baghdad 18 and black 72 – the black flag and martyrdom).
"Force multiplier" is simply a phrase that recognises we can't afford armed forces that resemble a scaled down version of the US military. We don't have the money to have a bit of everything, so instead we specialise in bits that are handy to an alliance. For instance, post the collapse of the USSR and 9/11 the world's militaries scaled back their high intensity war fighting components and turned to anti-insurgency and lots of special force and we chipped in with our excellent SAS forces and workhouse C-130H transports.
Now we have a military that is miniscule compared to Australia, but provide fully a quarter of the ANZAC P-8A fleet of patrol jets, and our C-130J fleet would add a full 20% extra capacity to Australia's tactical airlift if called. A force of three upgraded Mogami class frigates would provide a similar sized useful supplement to Australia's fleet of these ships. In this context, it would make sense for the army to do something radical like becoming the close and mid-range strike low cost drone warfare experts with a drone war fighting reputation as fearsome as Ukraines.
For example, Ukrainian infantry battalions now have one light infantry company made up of small 2-3 man squads – anything bigger is too vulnerable to detection and FPV strikes – and two FPV companies plus organic UGV, recon, and heavy resupply drones, meaning humans are now an auxillary element rather than the central element of thier tactical units – we could make our army the central school of the ANZAC drone war force. It is relatively cheap, provides a force militplier and it saves on manpower, what isn’t to like?
The reality is the United States is now an unreliable partner. I don't for one minute think the entirely transactional Trump administration with it's sympathies lying with strngmen and dictators would help us out if we call on them to do so. We can't just rely on our enormous good fortune of a gigantic moat to protect us. Lucky for us, Australia is now a middle power and is a giant glacis beyond our moat. we can still have an independent foreign policy insofar as not supporting American imperialism and adventurism across the globe. But let's not pretend that our security means nothing less than a full defense commitment to the defense of Australia and the ANZAC interests in the South Pacific, and our military is already being structured around that reality.
I'm stunned the Australian government refuses to tell the Australian people whether or not there are nuclear weapons on their soil. Equally stunned the Australian people are ok with it. Oh, well.
James Dwyer from the University of Tasmania suggests regional US allies are overly sensitive about the Chinese missile test:
https://theconversation.com/chinas-submarine-missile-test-looks-routine-the-real-story-is-the-panic-it-triggered-286947
I agree the most likely to use nuclear weapons is the US. They have form.
Subplots
1.The timing was no coincidence, it indicated knowledge of the Oz talks of Fiji and the signing of the agreement.
2.The Americans do 4 missiles tests a year, firing into the Marshall Islands area.
While they have signed the Treaty of Rarotonga years ago, they have yet to ratify.
The Marshall Islands finally signed in 2026, they have yet to ratify.
The Beijing end game is not Oz getting nuclear powered subs, it is the hosting of nuclear weapons capable planes, ships and subs within the Treaty of Rarotonga region (which includes Australia).
That extends onto US bases in the wider South East and East Asia orbit (South Korea, Japan and Philippines (and maybe Guam in the western Pacific).
Re-normalising warfare has been the surprising trend in geopolitics – driven by high-tech invention/design/process/system – a tetrad of immense power and influence. Elderly dude glumly promotes camouflage garb here:
"Ok, so I look scrawny. It's an elder thing, so get used to it. It's better than selling Bata shoes in Aotearoa, so folks can't deny my experience there as show-boating. It got me where I am today!"
That's not quite as much land as Napier. Tankies on both sides ought to do what the yanks did in Vietnam: tripping. Instead of fixation on mud, you get a carnival from the cosmic flux. Exit materialism. Send those fundamentalist jews in NYC who communed with God after licking the magic toad skin so Putin can use them as consultants.
Attaching ourself to a falling empire – like that worked out for us last time…