New RNZ-Reid Research poll: Half of Kiwis want defence spending to increase
A new RNZ poll reveals about half of voters think New Zealand should increase its defence spending.
The government is set to reveal its Defence Capability Plan any week now and has made it clear there will be an increase in expenditure to respond to the increasingly “volatile” world New Zealanders find themselves living in.
It comes on the back of increases announced by Australia, the United Kingdom, and several other European nations, and at the same time the new Donald Trump administration is signalling to the rest of the world that it needs to step-up its contributions.
In the RNZ-Reid Research poll respondents were asked ‘as a country, should New Zealand be increasing its spending on defence?’.
Of the 1000 online respondents 50.3 percent said yes, 31.9 percent answered no, and 17.8 percent said they didn’t know.
It’s funny that for an ideologically extreme neoliberal country like NZ that has preached Milton Friedman’s free market dogma to suddenly get fucked by America throwing ump protectionist trade tariffs!
WHERE ARE YOUR FREE MARKET GODS NOW YOU MUPPETS!
Alexander Dugin is one of the most influential Russian philosophers when it comes to influencing Putin AND Trump. He argues Russia needs to own the Ukraine to protect Russia and his multipolar arguments that Marco Rubio himself repeated in his Munich speech tell us everything we need to know about how Trump is reverting back to the Old World Order.
Trump sees the cost of being a Global Super power is wasteful and sees the funding of global institutions as a waste of American money. He wants to make America a Regional Super Power, adopting Dugin’s philosophy of multipolar interests.
This means Trump is more focused on forcing Canada to join America, taking Greenland and seizing the Panama Canal.
That’s being a white Christofascist Super State.
He is inviting Putin to have his own Regional Super Power status by gifting him 20% of the Ukraine and making Europe pay more for his largesse to protect them, because ultimately Trump wants to make Putin an ally.
Why?
Because in Trump’s warped view of God saving him for a special purpose, he is reuniting the old 3 Romes, including Mar-a-largo as the 4th Rome, taking back Gaza and will join forces with Russia to take out the godless Chinese.
Because that’s really why Trump is buttering up Putin, he believes there is more in common binding them culturally and Religion wise than binds Russia and China.
So what the hell does NZ do?
Trump is a fascist, and this is a truth no one wants to acknowledge.
This isn’t just a blip, this is America becoming fascist.
We can’t allow our Chinese Economic Overlords to dominate us any more than we can allow the mad Orange King to rule over us!
We need a real and true Independent New Zealand, but in doing so, we have to understand it is going to cost us.
NZ needs to lift its Military, Aid and Diplomacy to 5% GDP
New Zealand spends 0.3% of its gross national income on official development assistance.
Our diplomatic arm is even less than that with a cost annually of around $500million.
Our military spend is 1.2%.
I believe we have four choices confronting our new geopolitical reality as a friction point between America and China.
1 – We capitulate to our Chinese Economic Overlords.
2 – We capitulate to our American Political Masters.
3 – We freeze in terror and make no decisions and allow both of them to molest us until one of them wins and takes us over as a vassal State.
4 – We get off our knees, stand on our two feet, acknowledge the reality of climate change and decide to properly fund (via taxing the wealthy elite) an Independent Foreign Policy.
I have no interest in the first three options.
I believe we need to lean into our strengths and we must lift our Military, Diplomacy and AID budgets up collectively to 5%.
1% AID
1% to our Diplomacy arm.
3% to our military.
AID
We have an obligation as a first world country to provide an AID budget that is free of political considerations and is focused on actual welfare of people. We need a far kinder and more generous Aid budget with none of the attached strings other countries try to push. It’s this no strings attached generosity that wins hearts and minds as opposed to the fish hooks of great nations.
We need to stop exploiting Pacific people for fruit labouring and instead pay them properly and house them properly.
We need to look to Universal Union Membership for all migrant workers to stop exploitation.
Diplomacy
Enemy to none, friend to all should be our mantra. We need to lean into NZs reputation as Independent and we need to bulk up our embassies and diplomacy and use the strengths of our culture and pacifism to stand for universal human rights and the rule based order.
We must spend aid money on basic infrastructure while acknowledging China can out spend us, so how can NZ maintain its influence in the Pacific while desperately countering the outrageous level of corruption China and America promotes and so many Pacific Governments revel in?
Auckland is the largest Pacific Island City and we do little to celebrate or leverage off that. We need to look at offering fundamental migration opportunities for Tuvalu, Tokelau and Kiribati who face the worst impacts of climate change but we also need to think outside the square in terms of not only countering Chinese influence but beating it.
I think two ways NZ could uniquely promote its interests into the Pacific against China could be via Rugby Diplomacy and Journalism.
The All Blacks doing a tour of the South Pacific would actually be of huge cultural and sporting importance and something the Government should sponsor with taxpayer dollars to help subsidise the costs to the All Blacks as a sign of respect to the sporting and cultural contribution Pacific Island nations have provided NZ.
Why shouldn’t we use Rugby as a diplomatic tool to build standing throughout the Pacific? It’s something China couldn’t match and something NZ could excel at. China might build the stadiums, but they will be watching NZ Rugby in them!
Likewise Journalism. AUT run the excellent Pacific Media Centre to promote quality Journalism throughout the Pacific. What if NZ saw the promotion of quality Journalism as a craft throughout the Pacific as a strong way to counter corruption and Chinese influence? Scholarships, Pacific News Media websites, support of local ethical journalism these could be the pillars of promoting corruption free politics and holding those Governments to account.
Dr Robie, formerly founding director of AUT’s Pacific Media Centre and a professor of Pacific journalism has launched an independent news and current affairs website to complement his long-established Asia Pacific Report. His work should be promoted throughout the Pacific!
Rugby diplomacy and promotion of Journalistic standards throughout the Pacific could counter China and promote NZs strategic interests.
We need to look at setting up Peace Camps at Marae where young people from warring zones can come to NZ as a Peace centre.
Military
We can’t pretend we are in a benign environment any longer. We need a military that is focused on peace keeping and defence.
We need a drone manufacturing industry and we need an expansion of drones for patrolling our economic zone and defend the Realm.
We need a better coast guard and more surveillance capacity.
Arguments that we can’t afford huge ships are valid, but drones have shown us that we can hit expensive ships for very little cost, and if the focus is defending NZ and not going on foreign military adventures, we can use NZ as one giant air craft carrier with Drones.
We can’t outspend China or America, but we can play a far smarter game and end up with an Independent Foreign Policy.
If we want to be independent – we need to lift military, Aid and Diplomacy spending to 5% GDP.
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.
What does the new world order mean? Well-the end of 5 Eyes for one thing-yay!
Though CIA Ben on TDB reckons Trump will cherry pick the likes of Japan despite tariff hits for strategic military arrangements.
Bomber’s independent option is a good one for our small country. If space craft can be built here so can drones galore. There needs to be an international trade network that operates outside of the USA.
No one is the good guy. It’s just that since WW2 Hitler was so vile it gave everyone the illusion that we were the good guys.
Yes, indeed Kiwis are muppets for falling for free market ideology. Not because it was a bad idea but because nobody else (except maybe the USA) followed suit.
We were first to fully open our borders to trade but found there was no first prize. Factories closed and jobs disappeared, only to be replaced with drugs, crime and hopelessness.
If you think that even increasing our military by spend tenfold will give us leverage against the influences and interference you fear, then you are deluded.
I don’t think it. Literally every nation on the planet has a military.
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