There’s one old warrior for peace of the Wellington left who knows the smell of war.
Mike Smith sometimes attended the Labour caucus as general secretary of the party, and in 2002, having just returned from North America, he reported to the MPs that the United States would be invading Iraq.
It was a year before the actual invasion, but he was convinced, simply because of what he saw on his hotel television screens.
After his presentation, then-Prime Minister Helen Clark got up and said: “Well, I’ll tell you one thing – we’re not going with them.”
She didn’t, and the decision not to go was a source of great political debate and a source of pride for Labour.
Today, Smith is worried about the lack of debate within Labour, and that what is happening now looks like a prelude to a war between the United States and China, a war which would be like no other.
“It wouldn’t be like the invasion of Iraq, which didn’t have much effect on people in the United States, or New Zealand for that matter; it would be catastrophic, absolutely catastrophic,” said Smith, who visited China several times as a Labour official.
“We’re not talking about conventional war. We’re talking about the real possibility of nuclear war, to the point where the Doomsday Clock, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, is the closest to midnight as it has ever been [90 seconds to midnight].”
The tempo of the United States’ action against China’s rise has undoubtedly intensified in the past year, fuelled by the fact staying staunch on China has become an almost essential part of US domestic politics. It is likely to intensify even more in next year’s presidential run-offs and campaign.
On the trade front, the US has banned the export of advanced semiconductors to China in order to slow its technology developments, and its nascent Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity is a vehicle to promote supply chain resilience from China.
US President Biden said unequivocally last September that US forces would defend in the event of an invasion by China, in contradiction of maintaining its policy of strategic ambiguity. Congress has stepped up contact with Taiwan. China, which now has the world’s largest navy, has stepped up sea and air activity around the island.
War is talked about openly these days as though it’s odds-on happening.
In January, Air Force General Michael A. Minihan and head of Air Mobility Command sent an unauthorised memo to his troops saying: “I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me we will fight in 2025.” Two years ago, the then-head of Indo-Pacific Command, Philip Davidson, told a Congressional committee he thought China would try to take Taiwan by 2025.
Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger – who turns 100 on Saturday - was featured in the Economist last week talking about the potential for war.
“We’re in the classic pre-World War I situation,” he said, “where neither side has much margin of political concession and in which any disturbance of the equilibrium can lead to catastrophic consequences.”
He also believes that Washington has misinterpreted China’s ambitions and that it wants to be powerful rather than achieve world domination.
Graham Allison, a Harvard School of Government professor, said in May after visiting China that the China-US relationship was “very bad” and had deteriorated to its worst state since Henry Kissinger and Zhou Enlai started talking about re-establishing relations over 50 years ago.
“China has made it clear that it aspires to displace the US as the predominant power in Asia,” he said in an interview for Goldman Sach. “It aims to achieve this not by attacking or occupying territory, but in the Chinese style that is more like the game of Go, where the strategy is to surround people until they yield because they have no good alternatives.”
“This puts the US and mainland China directly at odds in the South China Sea, Taiwan and the broader Asia-Pacific. The US believes strongly in its role in the region and in its alliances with Japan, South Korea and Australia, as well as the Quad and Aukus security alliances. So, the US is not walking away from Asia.”
Allison’s views are respected, given that he predicted the rise in hostilities in his influential book Destined for War – can America and China Escape Thucydides’ Trap?
He is among a battalion of academics and think tanks that are consumed by the rapidly shifting dynamics as China’s economic and military expansion threatens US power in the region.
The US’ strategy is to strengthen existing alliances and partnerships, to add weight to its own voice as a form of deterrence against China.
The G7′s communique in Japan last week, for example, had a whole section devoted to China and mentioned it 20 times.
This sort of development is often met with condemnation from China and accusations of containment, suppression and encirclement.
The US is also shoring up its military preparedness.
The security deal signed just this week with Papua New Guinea will give the US greater access to its ports and airfields and was a clear response to China’s security pact with the Solomons last year.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins was in Papua New Guinea and suggested when questioned that a military presence did not necessarily amount to militarisation of the Pacific.
China’s ambassador to New Zealand, Wang Xiaolong, responded with a Tweet in the days following: “On the recent US Defence Agreement in the Pacific, if it looks like militarisation, smells like militarisation, and works like militarisation, it is militarisation.”
Assuming Hipkins’ plans for a trip to China stay on track, it will undoubtedly be a conversation point in Beijing before long.
Other developments include but are not limited to an important new deal signed in February under the Philippines’ existing Enhanced Co-operation Agreement to give the US military access to four more locations on top of the five bases.
The Philippines is just south of Taiwan, a self-governing island to which nationalists fled in 1949 and which China has vowed to take back by force if necessary.
To the north of Taiwan, America’s ally Japan in December announced the biggest changes to its self-defence force since its defeat in World War II.
Citing China as “the greatest strategic challenge ever to securing the peace and stability of Japan”, its $500 billion deterrence plan over five years includes the acquisition of interceptor missiles to defend against ballistic missiles, attack and reconnaissance drones, satellite equipment, F-35 stealth fighters, helicopters, submarines, warships and heavy-lift transport jets.
More familiar to New Zealanders is the Aukus pact for the US and UK to supply Australia with up to eight nuclear-powered submarines, costing up to $389b over 30 years.
In more immediate plans, the US is expected to build facilities on an existing Australian Air Force base, Tindal, to house six nuclear-capable B-52 bombers. It already has 2500 marines rotating through Darwin each year.
All of this is in the name of being a deterrence to Chinese aggression and coercion. Others see it as a provocation that is leading to an arms race and which makes the region less safe.
Historically, Australia has a stronger imperative for security than New Zealand, having come under attack in World War II.
New Zealand, on the other hand, forfeited its place in the Anzus security alliance with the US and Australia in the 1980s through its ban on nuclear-powered ships and weapons.
Activists like Mike Smith who joined Jim Kebble and Fran Wilde on a yacht to protest the visiting USS Truxtun ultimately forced a historical change of course for New Zealand.
And Aukus, along with the possibility of New Zealand being drawn into a technology-sharing part of the pact, a so-called ‘second pillar’, has rekindled disquiet about New Zealand getting caught up in what they see as other people’s wars.
“What that means is that if there is war, we are going to get caught up in the fallout whether we like it or not,” said Smith.
“What I’m concerned about is that the Labour Government has been drawn into seeing everything through the security lens, not through the peace lens.
“You don’t hear the word very often emanating from the Government about the importance of promotion of peace.”
Smith also believes there is a lack of debate about where New Zealand could be headed.
“In terms of any debates inside the Labour Party on these matters, well, there really isn’t any and there hasn’t been any.”
Other groups, such as the Fabians policy forum he is part of, were trying to provide debate, clarification and pushback.
And an anti-Aukus coalition, which was just getting off the ground, would be protesting at the Labour Party Congress in Wellington at the weekend, although Smith said he would be attending the Congress as a delegate and not protesting.
“I remember the early Cold War crisis over Cuba and the fear about nuclear war at that time. My children were terrified,” said Smith.
“In the current environment, there is no awareness of what the issues are that are at stake, in my opinion.”
It will be Chris Hipkins’ first Congress as Prime Minister in a busy week that included the flying visit to PNG.
Like his predecessor, Jacinda Ardern, he has not found it too difficult to indicate what side New Zealand is on, without having to spell it out.
Ardern’s condemnation of the China pact with the Solomons and Hipkins’ praise for the US pact with PNG states the obvious.
Although it is self-evident from New Zealand’s membership of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, its fighting record, its formal defence relationship with Australia, membership of the Five Power Defence Arrangement and its partnership with the United States through the Washington Declaration and partnership with Nato that it has already picked a side.
The only question, were conflict to break out, is what sort of contribution New Zealand would make, be it symbolic or substantive.
Defence Minister Andrew Little agrees that New Zealand has already picked a side - decades ago - and it sat behind New Zealand’s support for Ukraine after its invasion by Russia.
“We are a small country,” he told the Herald this week. “We depend on the rest of the world signing up to and adhering to the international rule of law. When we see it breached in such a flagrant way, we’ve got to be in there supporting, [as] in Ukraine’s case, the victim of that breach.
“Those are values we have signed up to. That is the side we have picked and we have been on that side for decades and decades, and we’ll continue to be on that side. And we will always pick that side.”
It was those values that would determine any future choices as well.
“Any conflict initiated by another country that was in conflict with our principles and our values and our standing in the world - we will work with others to protect our interests in that respect.”
Asked about opposition to Aukus in New Zealand and the level of debate, Little said he understood the anxiety but New Zealand would remain committed to its nuclear policy, including the Treaty of Rarotonga, which bans the use, testing and possession of nuclear weapons in the South Pacific.
But he said with or without Aukus, New Zealand would be wanting to keep up with technological developments relevant to defence.
He was not expecting any developments regarding the Aukus second pillar before the election but he did not know much about it, other than that there are seven or eight streams of work under way, including cyber security, quantum computing and artificial intelligence.
“We are told we may be approached and asked to participate, but we don’t what that means either.
“We don’t know whether we would be expected to make some upfront investment and some development. Would we provide people with skills, would we be a customer of any new technology that came from any of those work streams we are interested in? We just don’t know.”
Aukus was sprung on Australia by former Prime Minister Scott Morrison in 2021 and immediately adopted by Labor with little debate. But as the planning, scale and impact of the project emerges, doubts are being more openly expressed.
Thousands of people, including unions, rallied in Port Kembla in early May against the prospect of it being used as a base for nuclear-powered submarines. Last week, a group of defence experts and former politicians called for a Parliamentary inquiry into the project. This week, a large group of academics published an open letter to the Government calling on Aukus to be stopped until a proper debate about it has been held.
Leading academics such as Emeritus Professor Hugh White of Australia National University have long questioned Australia’s apparent lack of willingness to accommodate China in the leadership of the region, and he says nuclear-powered submarines do not make strategic or operational sense for Australia.
“At its heart, Aukus is not primarily about submarines at all,” he said in an essay in the Monthly in April. “Its fundamental purpose is to strengthen our alignment with America against China. Australia’s acquisition of nuclear subs is just the means to do that.”
In terms of New Zealand’s strategy and preparedness for a changing environment, Andrew Little has accelerated the defence policy review since taking over the portfolio in January.
Two papers - a defence strategic assessment, which will include an assessment of China in the region, and a future force design document - have been finished and will go to Cabinet in the next couple of months.
They could lead to a capability review and the next round of decisions about acquisitions.
“The reality is China has its ambitions and they are being very assertive about that, and that includes throughout the Pacific,” said Little. “The reality is that does heighten the risks for us, so that bears upon our national security and defence apparatus and requires us to respond accordingly if we are going to protect our interests.”
He described New Zealand’s defence relationship with the United States as very close under the Washington Declaration and the Wellington Declaration.
It worked closely with Australia, and France was now taking a more active interest in the Pacific.
New Zealand was strengthening its relationship with Japan and countries in Southeast Asia as well.
He would be signing a status of forces agreement soon with Fiji, to formalise what was already a strong working arrangement.
“The thing that doesn’t change is our very close relationships to our Pacific partners.”
Asked whether he had any concerns about the tempo of the anti-China sentiment by the United States in the past 18 months, Little said: “The problem with the US, and this is what our Pacific neighbours will say too, is that they wax and wane and, depending on what administration is in, they’ve been in the Pacific and then they’ve withdrawn from the Pacific, and now they seem to be concerned about the Pacific and its response to China.
“What I detect in the US even now is a more calibrated approach to China.”
He related that to the cancellation of a visit to China by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken after the US shot down a surveillance balloon in US airspace in February.
“It seems to me the US accepts there needs to be points of contact that are open, regardless of the state of the relationship and level of tension that might be there.
“Because as China has grown its military capacity and capability, and other countries have too – the US has continued to do that – the risk to rest to the world is the risk of miscalculation.
“It is in all of our interests to see that even if there is competition over ideas and strategic location and influence, there need to be constructive points of contact to keep channels of dialogue open.
“To the extent that there is an ambition for a physical presence in the Pacific by countries like China, we have to assess what that means for us, and where we assess that that is a risk. We have got to be able to take action accordingly, and that is what we are in the process of doing,” Little said.
“It is an interesting time in terms of world history. This is an inflection point.”