In unsettled times, we can still stand up for what’s right
Saturday, 8 March 2025
Josie Pagani is a commentator on current affairs and a regular opinion contributor. She works in geopolitics, aid and development, and governance.
OPINION: An apocryphal story tells of an editorial in a small South Island newspaper that opened: “This newspaper has warned the Kaiser before…”
In the tradition of that high point of Kiwi geopolitical commentary, let me state that I too have been warning the Kaiser. Abandoning Ukraine risks World War III. Trump’s tariffs will lead to a global trade war, and declining trust will blow up democratic governments.
Just this week, the USA pulled its intelligence sharing with Ukraine, attempted a deal with Hamas, and triggered a trade war with Canada, Mexico and China. France debated the use of nuclear weapons. Germany suggested we prepare for war. Oh, and there’s a mystery disease spreading in the Congo.
Despite his clinical firing of our High Commissioner to the UK, Phil Goff, I appreciate that we have a Winston Peters as foreign minister. He is hugely respected in the Pacific, works with China with both directness and common sense, and he has a stronger stomach than most of us for dealing with an erratic US president.
But he didn’t have to fire Phil Goff for channelling Churchill’s 1938 comment to Neville Chamberlain: ‘‘You had the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, yet you will have war.”
The hint of dishonour risks offence, but Goff’s point was to question whether US policy in Ukraine will result in war. What is the point of diplomacy if not to ask that question as we stand on the brink of carnage? If you think politeness will protect us from aggression, re-read Churchill’s warning about the choice you are making.
We have become comfortable, assuming our friends, like us, are balancing national self-interest and national character. Kiwis get the best deal for Kiwis, but stand up to bullies, take a practical approach to solving global problems, and join the good guys in a fight.
Trump has rubbished the values bit of that calculation. He has made the rules self-interest alone. A memo sent this week told aid charities that, “Foreign assistance must promote American prosperity by advancing capitalism, markets that favour Americans, competition for American partnership, and economic self-reliance — not a global welfare mentality”.
Take that, starving people in South Sudan, and children in the Pacific with little access to clean water.
Kiwis were waving Ukrainian flags and demanding the world stop Putin before our government decided to send military aid - not out of self-interest or welfare, but out of principle. Never forget that some in our foreign policy establishment initially responded to the Russian invasion with a tepid tut-tut.
Most Americans also want to believe they are a force for good in the world.
Even the majority of Maga supporters agree Russia is the aggressor (69%), support continued weapons assistance (60%), and support aid for Ukraine when told Russia has kidnapped more than 19,000 Ukrainian children (71%).
If we are in a 1938 moment, witnessing the collapse of the rules-based world order, what should New Zealand do?
We can’t avoid the choices that are coming towards us. Our security remains connected to our allies, by which I mean those countries who agree the borders of other countries should not be changed at the end of a gun, and the children of one state should not be kidnapped and re-homed in another state.
We cannot join Aukus Pillar 2 and align ourselves with a US administration that punishes liberal democracies and admires autocrats. Helen Clark has questioned our continued involvement in Five Eyes. If we can’t be sure whether Trump is sharing intel with Putin, then as someone sanctioned by Russia, I wouldn’t want New Zealand sharing domestic intel with them.
Phil Goff is another who has been sanctioned by the Russians. Not to start a conspiracy, but do we need to re-check whose side our government is on?
We can remain true to our values without poking the bear and making ourselves a target for Trump.
The promotion of our values, an international system of rules, and strong institutions are in our national interest. We earn respect by contributing to keeping peace, promoting human rights and reducing poverty around the world.
Ronald Reagan, whose politics I am not usually one to endorse, said this at Pointe du Hoc in 1984: “The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge — and pray God we have not lost it — that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest.”
The world realigned at the end of WWII and again after the fall of Berlin’s wall. It is realigning again but the future is not written: it will be created by brave folk doing what is right for all humanity.