MEDIAWATCH: Hooton and the importance of ‘defend the moat’ – what Trump’s DonRoe Doctrine means for us as Kiwis
There are times when Hooton is is right that he ushers in a new crescendo of NZ History.
His most recent column demands a far wider audience because he raises questions that demand answers.
NZ must prepare for the end of the rules-based era – Matthew Hooton
For 80 years, that system worked reasonably well keeping the peace among great powers. It raised more people out of poverty than ever before in human history and achieved other things such as saving the whales, protecting Antarctica, fixing the ozone layer and minimising the spread of nuclear weapons.
But US President Donald Trump’s intervention in Venezuela, musings about Colombia, Mexico and Cuba, and insistence he is serious about annexing Greenland, mean it is now time to accept the system is dead.
Liberal institutionalism is undoubtedly the best system for New Zealand, small countries and the world as a whole, but we delude ourselves if we think its authority existed independently from the reality of US military and economic might.
To the extent New Zealand has an implicit American security guarantee through our military alliance with Australia and Five Eyes, it is now as worthless as any other international agreement involving the US.
Moreover, the return of the Monroe Doctrine implies the US no longer much cares what other great powers might get up to in Southeast Asia, Australasia and the South Pacific.
If the US, China and Russia aren’t going to follow or enforce international law, then there’s no such thing as international law.
Luxon has not yet commented on this week’s events, leaving Peters to issue the obligatory statement calling on “all parties” – none of which he named – “to act in accordance with international law”.
Fair enough. There’s no point New Zealand distinguishing itself from the pack and risking higher beef tariffs or other US retaliation. Nor should Peters unilaterally rewrite New Zealand’s standard talking points while the Prime Minister remains on holiday. But we should not mistake them for reality.
In the new realist world, by far New Zealand’s greatest assets are the stopping power of water and assured food security. Physical invasion and occupation of New Zealand would stretch the capability even of the US, whose Venezuela operation suggests it has learned its lesson in Iraq and Afghanistan. China rightly respects the 160km Taiwan Strait as a barrier to forcefully resuming its exercise of sovereignty over the island. Russia has no history of projecting naval power. If a global conflagration threatened international trade, we’d be more at risk of getting fat than of starving.
In a world divided into spheres of influence rather than governed by global rules, protecting our moat should be our main strategic goal. It calls for much greater independent defence capability to surveil it, for an even closer defence relationship with Australia and our friends in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), and for keeping great powers out of the South Pacific, whatever the cost.
The Daily Blog has been arguing for some time that ‘defend the moat’ would become our new ‘build the wall’, that the inevitable realities of climate change would force an exacerbation of the downfall of the rules based order and would compel us to embark upon a truly independent foreign policy.
Hooton is acknowledging that moment.
The tyranny of distance has always been our malaise but on a burning planet of constant external shocks the Shire of NZ is looking very good right now.
‘Build that wall’ will soon become ‘defend that moat’.
In 1980, the time between billion dollar climate destruction events was 3 months.
It’s now 18 days.
There is a point where the next destructive weather event strikes before you can rebuild from the last one.
Aotearoa is among the top countries in the world for self sufficiency in the event of war, natural disaster or Trump’s tariffs, says a new international scientific study, which hints we are also the safest in the world against an invasion, as the Land of the Long White Cloud has disappeared from the world map.
Comrades, the Climate Crisis is happening far faster than feared…
World’s oceans, greenhouse gasses at highest levels in 800,000 years, climate report warns
Major sea-level rise caused by melting of Greenland ice cap is ‘now inevitable’
…the speed and extreme nature of the heatwaves and floods that are destroying the planet in real time are damaging the ability for the economy to function…
Cars. Batteries. Solar panels. Food. Global shortages and soaring prices are almost certain as China’s seemingly never-ending heatwave sears on.
It’s the most extreme heat event ever recorded in world history. For more than 70 days, the intense heat has blasted China’s population, factories and fields. Lakes and rivers have dried up. Crops have been killed. Factories have been closed.
More than 900 million people across 17 Chinese provinces are subjected to record-breaking conditions. From Sichuan in the southwest to Shanghai in the east, temperatures have been topping 40C.
…and remember, this only gets worse and worse and worse.
We aren’t doing anything meaningful on climate change, each country passes the buck to the next country, and the future is actually far more dangerous than we are currently anticipating…
‘We’re going to pay in a big way’: a shocking new book on the climate crisis
In An Inconvenient Apocalypse, authors Wes Jackson and Robert Jensen write that society needs to be better prepared for an inevitable collapse
…the scale of the geopolitical shockwaves coming our way will be enormous…
Increasingly dysfunctional society and climate catastrophe leading humanity to ‘cliff edge’
Spiralling wealth inequality is leading to dysfunctional societies unable to cope with existential threats such as the climate crisis, experts have warned.
A two-year research project examining different future scenarios indicates that at present, societies around the world are at growing risk of “extreme political destabilisation”, with declines in public trust, while the climate crisis intensifies.
…I’ve been following the IPCC reports on climate change from the beginning, and the criticism made against the IPCC was that due to its strict need for only unilaterally agreed science to make the official report, it was always underplaying the urgency and severity of the climate crisis.
There was always a section in each report where the science was presented that wasn’t universally accepted but included to show the reach and scope of debate.
Increasingly over the years, the worst case scenarios in the IPCC are playing out in real time.
The scientists were wrong, but only in their optimism.
You understand that each year that passes now will get worse or remain as starkly bad as they are now right?
You get that it doesn’t go back to normal after this right?
The extreme weather will get worse and worse.
More extreme than these extremes now.
Consider this baseline extreme normal now.
The radical adaptation required to get us ready for what’s coming will splinter the political spectrum whether we like it or not.
Why shouldn’t we have our own basic pharmaceutical industry?
Engineering industry?
Industrial industry?
Free Market Globalisation is dead, hyper regionalism is here. Supply chains in China are no longer safe and must be brought back to friendly supply chains which imports more inflation.
Radical adaptation and communal community resourcing alongside a Big State approach to lynchpin infrastructure for basic self-reliance as an Island country facing enormous economic shockwaves is the only means to build the muscle mass to respond to the ever intensifying external disruption of late stage capitalism.
The need to increase military spending to 3% alongside the new costs for this infrastructure must be funded via new taxes aimed at corporations and banks.
Drones are going toe an essential part of that defence infrastructure…
Could NZ plug into Australian ‘drone wall’ to keep China at bay?
…it’s not just keeping China at bay, we also need to keep bloody America away as well!
A financial transaction tax and windfall profit tax would take the yoke of taxation off working people and place it upon the shoulders of the wealthy.
National and ACT see mass immigration as a means to create fake growth at a time when we should be focused on de-growth.
Climate Crisis is here and adaptation is now.
We need to start rethinking Isolationism as a strength and Think Big as Economic Sovereignty.
The geopolitical shock waves are only getting more intense.
If you think being carbon neutral by 2050 is the solution, you are the problem.
Post growth capitalism with true sustainability calls for Autarky on a burning planet that can’t take anymore globalism.
Wellington must not be controlled by Washington or Beijing!
Climate change is coming whether you believe in it or not.
The rules based order we have benefitted form for 80 years is dying as Trump, Putin and Xi strangle it.
Whether you like it or not, Fortress Aotearoa is coming.
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.
One climate change sceptic I know is now a convert finally admitting it is real and will roast his back side or drown him under a torrent of water .
As for security ,we will need to invade the cook islands and take it back from the chinese along with other Pacific nations who have been neglected by us and AUS for years .
Food security is debatable because we are a major importer of food now that we have been winding down manufacturing for 40 years and are ripping out fruit trees and cutting other crops we used to can like tomatoes .Then of corse there is the small issue that we have failed to become self sufficient in electrifying the vehicle fleet so will be stranded because we import all of our fuel and oil products so agriculture and distribution will grind to a stand still .
We need to ramp up the spend on renewable such as solar on every house starting today and get as many electric vehicles as we can and electrify the main trunk line which will move freight in large quantities .
While it is true that there is a long history of United States imperialism in south America there is an equally long history of resistance to it.
Trump and his buddies appear to think that people neighbouring the USA will just do as they are told whereas the facts say otherwise.
In the 1960s Che Guevara wrote about the ideal of creating ‘many Vietnams’ to bleed the United State white. He died in Bolivia trying, and failing, to create such a situation there.
However by his death and mythification he became the focus for resistance to the USA(an example of how a martyr is more useful dead than alive).
Trump and his disciples are stupid enough and belligerent enough, and Americans are apathetic enough, to make the idea of ‘Many Vietnams’ a reality.
The Vietnam War is well beyond the memory of young people now but surely they have not forgotten how the US military ‘liberated’ Afghanistan from the Taliban? The Taliban being the guys with beards running Afghanistan now.
The main thing for Kiwis to remember is to stay out of Captain Bonespurs military adventures.
(Winston we know you read the Daily Blog so please take this as an instruction)
This post made me pause and reflect deeply
NZ has the advantage of an abundance of fresh water (too much at times) which makes the decision to keep reducing its quality in the pursuit of profit for the few a daft decision. We could export water and earn more than the current situation where we pollute it mostly via an excess of cows which damages the environment and will require a future cost to enable decent drinking water. The problem is that those with the power and wealth who make decisions often don’t have the sort of brain that plans for long term benefit for all as they chase the illusory satisfaction of ever more wealth and power.
That’s good sense award of the day Steve – practical, resource for the country, export earner. But which business will run it for our benefit and how can we wrest the resource back we have already sold. Keep Chile in mind. We can see our way forward, but there is an obstacle that our past governments have enabled with their inane obeisance to pusillanimous economic theories that make as much sense as trying to run a country by a shopping list of wishes. And we? Shadrach uses a luminous word that can apply to us ‘apathetic’.
Difficult problems I admit, Private or public companies would just enrich their shareholders and getting a sensible government company to run it would be almost impossible with the low quality freeloading MPs that comprise most of our parliament. Getting the water rights back would be easier, with a suitable pollution tax implemented the users would soon be willing to pay someone to take their water rights.
Patrick Boyle produces sane informative videos on our present insanities – this is one called Trump v the World
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FbTv5CSnZA
(Also introduces the sort of queer, quaint, aspects that seem fanciful but are real indicators of something – in this case the Pentagon Pizza Index.)
And the people sing their concern in ‘Trump wants to have an Empire, Trump’s troops are marching on’
to the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic – must have started rehearsing this immediately after the ICE murder with Trump’s okay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8saU0WeocP0&list=RD8saU0WeocP0&start_radio=1
Yes, we can make things and produce a lot of food but everything is going to be a lot more expensive and getting it all to where it needs to go, will be the trick.
Isolation could be an advantage but we’ll need to defend that isolation vigorously. Somehow??
One thing I know for certain is, that this govt. or any govt. remotely like them, won’t be able to do what needs to be done. They are in the pockets of the very people who will try to do us down.
The sooner we oust them the better and we must realise, that they must never be allowed to gain power again.
This calls for education on what we need, not ignoring it anymore. People who expect to have foreign holidays are among the first who should rethink their actions. Will they? Of course not. They are entitled!!!! No greenie pinko can tell them what to do…
Consider this: if Trump feels that the USA needs to have its own entitlement to territory in Antarctica (at present it uses NZ’s territory for its McMurdo base) then there’s a case for him deciding to take over NZ in order to achieve this. Further if he wishes to control Antarctica, and the Southern Ocean, then NZ is his best option to establish a base from which to do this. Far fetched I know but not impossible given his approach to world domination and taking of territory that he deems necessary, and we shouldn’t assume that our relative isolation will keep us safe. Of course the USA vassals in our governing parties would probably just roll over and say ‘help yourself.’
If the takeover came with US citizenship, most young New Zealanders would agree to it, and lots would return from Australia.
Sure Ada. That’s really worked well for Puerto Rico…..not
what a load of rubbish more would be rushing to leave .
No, more would leave for Australia as NZ would be run under a dictatorship as the US now. Trumps attack on the Fed chair to alter interest rates is another example of Trumps attempt to take over a neutral entity, much like waht Willis has attempted to do in NZ.
You seem to live in Trumps alternative universe Ada.
You are correct Ada.
I see no reason for New Zealand to attempt to become self sufficient in all areas. Trade will always continue, trade is fundamental to what we are as a social, cooperative species.
We should absolutely lean into our strengths as a nation particularly when it provides independence benefits.
Renewable energy production is one strength, and subsequent use of our own energy. As Gordon Walker said we should move to quickly electrify our surface transport system.
Overall though, trade is good, and there are plenty of great countries who we can trade with aside from the bullies.
Or we could hoard all the world’s ulra rich wealth like a neutral cayman islands switzerland safe haven. Screw the world while they go to war destroying themselves, every oligarch for himself!
Transitioning off fossil fuels will require a major shift in lifestyles. Over 50% of our energy use is provided by fossil fuels. If the petrol tankers stopped coming, it would be carnage. Our industrial food production would plummet and so would our free society. I’d be on the first plane or boat or waka out of here before the hunger games started.