What do you want frigates for admiral? Serious question.

We, are going to pay levy. The Chinese fishing fleet is coming. Deal with it. Quietly.

You first Bob.

For more than half America’s history they’ve been the underdog. America’s supremecy of the seas is a flash in the pan. Even on their own numbers the U.S. Navy will go from 11 to 8 carriers by 2050.

It’s like watching the Quade Cooper dominate the regular Super Rugby Season then win the championship and thinking the Wallabies are going to be the most dominant International side ever!

It’s not like we’ve had the power to hit 90%+ of the planet’s surface from the sea before. Yet managing international trade takes a bit more than that.

We got to see America before the decline, before America gets much weaker. But most importantly we get to see desperate America and the will to survive.

Some times zooming out and understanding just how insignificant these petty squabbles truly are. The mistakes we make are human and there fore fixable.

But still New Zealands Defence Forces has been beaten down by successive governments letting all the do gooders make all of the rules to the point that the Airforce, Navy and The Army has forgotten how to fight.

For the last 25 years since the Berlin Wall fell down we’ve had lovely words like shift resources from the front office to the back office or let’s have a good hard long think if we really need this or that capability. And humanitarian and save the polar bears. Just lovely. Wonderful. Awesome. Thumbs up. But once again we have to revive those warrior practices.

It’s a bit late worrying about the reemergence of Chinese Naval supremecy now. That’s long past. We should have bought fighter jets when China launched its first aircraft carrier but no, we had to think, and prioritise value resources for the easy jobs. Trying to force the reversal of 25 years of funding cuts and geriatric capability fall is just beyond Luxon.

Everyone needs at least a trade. So free polytechnic certificates for everyone on a benifit.

It’s like do we have no shame? After a hundred years of failing to develop the Cook Islands into independence we now want wag our finger and say tut tut tut, deep water ports are to good for you.

China, as in the Chinese people have never been the problem. It’s all the geniuses and do gooders making all the rules that are the problem.

All anyone has to do is implement Fortress Aotearoa and watch everyone find purpose.

Two things, Pat.
1. Nothing that is a result of human agency is inevitable – fortunately in this case.
2. Your eminently reasonable proposals for New Zealand neutrality are unlikely to make headway with the New Zealand government. New Zealand’s political establishment will not choose neutrality until it receives an almighty kick to the backside.
Any other suggestions which don’t depend on the New Zealand government seeing sense?

That prescription basically sounds like surrender. Also it says to Australia (and the 1 million NZers living there) that we don’t give a dam about them.
WW3 is not around the corner. Great nations that are nuclear armed don’t go to war against each other. What is much more likely is a new Cold War. Tension, yes; incidents, yes; all out war, no.
I am old enough to have lived through the last Cold War. At times things got quite scary, but I always had the sense the major powers knew they could not go to war against each other. I don’t think it was just luck that war didn’t break out, it was understood by the leaders, no matter how trenchant they were, that war between the great powers was just not on.
So what does New Zealand now do?
We play our part, particularly as it concerns Australia. We beef up our navy, at least 3 modern frigates, maybe 4. The two nations together will have 24 combat ships (Aus with 20, NZ with 4). Aus has 100 advanced combat aircraft. That is more than enough to secure our part of the world.

However; I can, and do, complain to our government about that waste of my tax dollars and here I am – not in jail(yet).

Perhaps our good friend Mark can tell us about how aware the Chinese public are that the navy, which they pay for, is cruising around the Tasman making expensive bangs and whether they can complain about this use of the tax revenue.

After all, think how many more prisons the Chinese Communist Party can build with the money they might save.

Modern industrial production produces more products than people can consume.

Internally;
Every year billions are poured into advertising to try and make people consume more, (usually more than they can afford). Banks extend credit so people can buy more stuff. Until it leads to a credit crunch. To ‘cool the economy’ central banks raise interests rates to unaffordable levels, investment in the economy slows and overproduction is cut.- the result is mass unemployment and economic recession.

Adrian Orr: Beating inflation will mean higher unemployment

https://www.nzherald.co.nz › … › Official Cash Rate

Externally;

To avoid the above internal economic collapse detailed above, every modern developed economy must be an export economy. (Everybody wants to export more than they import, nobody wants an import/export trade deficit)_

If you are a big enough economy you can bully your neighbours and smaller countries to take your over production.

If you are a very powerful country you can ruin other countries economies to benefit yours.
This is the economic basis of imperialism.

https://time.com/7209520/donald-trump-davos-tariffs/

The Observer view: “Donald Trump’s imperial bullying must be nipped in the bud.”

Observer editorial:

…..These days it It is somehow considered impolite, especially if you are British, to remind Americans that their republic was also once an unapologetically imperial power. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, US administrations aggressively pursued their own version of the colonial empires of contemporary Britain, Germany and France. In 1893, the sovereign state of Hawaii (whose royal family enjoyed close ties to Queen Victoria) fell victim to an American-assisted coup. In 1898, the US annexed Hawaii. Guam, Samoa and Puerto Rico followed. America’s loosely interpreted “manifest destiny” demanded ever more. The Philippines, Cuba and even China were all on the receiving end of US political-military, commercial and territorial ambitions.
Far from being abandoned, neocolonialist American thinking persisted well into the latter half of the 20th century, operating under various guises. Newly-independent countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, liberated from collapsing European empires, were invited to join the “free world”, as defined and dominated by Washington. America promised protection and prosperity within the US-policed, post-1945 cold war order in return for fealty (plus military bases, trade concessions and access to resources). States that declined the invitation, such as Iran, Vietnam and Nicaragua, paid a high price…..

Newly developed China is not immune to this economic imperative and has embarked on its own imperialist project, and is set on carving out its own sphere of influence, even if it is at the expense of Western imperialists.

As the world heads towards a global recession, the US and China are are trying to ruin each other economically with trade war. Armed clashes between them are already occurring.

America’s new hyper imperialist president is not the cause of this conflict but a symptom of it.

World War is inevitable.

What should a small country at the bottom of the world do?

Our best interests in this coming war, would be for New Zealand to withdraw from all military and intelligence ties with any super power and declare New Zealand to be a neutral state, similar to Switzerland during WWII.

And we need to do it now before the war starts.

Cancel our Five Eyes membership, close the spy base at waihopai. Cancel all rocket Lab’s military contracts. No military US transports to Antarctica through NZ. No military vessels of any nation including Australia to be allowed to dock in New Zealand ports.

In exchange we ask China to agree not to hold any more naval exercises in our region. We also ask the UN to recognise New Zealand’s neutral status as a non-combatant.

In exchange for declaring our neutrality, we ask China to agree not to hold any more naval exercises in our region. We also ask the UN to recognise New Zealand’s neutral status as a non-combatant.