State Visit Signals Shift In NZ/US Foreign Policy

A Free Trade Agreement between New Zealand and the United States may well be a longstanding goal of New Zealand governments going back to 1990. But in 2007, is an FTA with the United States a clever disguise, a red herring masking a more significant shift in New Zealand foreign policy? Does the goal of an FTA provide cover for more meaningful business shaping between New Zealand and the White House? Scoop analyses an emerging union of common foreign interests.

For all the expectation that a Free Trade Agreement looms between New Zealand and the United States of America, talk and anticipation is not being openly courted or promoted by either the New Zealand government nor the White House, but allowed to intensify unchallenged.

Clearly though the breadth of the divide that once froze NZ defence and United States military interests has narrowed to the degree where Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill said in Fiji in 2006 New Zealand's anti-nuclear stance was certainly not a concern but rather added weight to the USA's double-argument that nuclear non-proliferation was an ideal worth pursuing, all-the-while supporting its own deterrent policy.

And this week the US State Department noted to a congressional committee overseeing Pacific affairs that while New Zealand continues to seek a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States: "We may consider an FTA with New Zealand in the future, we are currently working through our Trade and Investment Framework Agreement to further deepen our economic relationship."

This statement is one of many that adds weight to security and foreign policy commentator, Paul Buchanan's thinking as referred to in an item titled: When Beggars Can Be Choosy on Scoop this week. Paul Buchanan argued that the US political environment was right for New Zealand to seize the moment and table a list of 'what NZ wants' before the US president George Bush. - the bargaining chip being an FTA.

The United States, Buchanan argued, is not so concerned with Montana sheep farmers protesting against New Zealand sheep exports, as it is with being able to demonstrate a friendly and co-operative security relationship with countries like New Zealand.

It isn't as if the White House has not encouraged New Zealand to do so. Again in Fiji, Associate secretary Chris Hill said it was a matter of timing and schedule before the US embraced a FTA with New Zealand similar to that which it holds with Australia.

That timing, could well be nigh. This coming week New Zealand's Prime Minister Helen Clark travels to Washington to meet the President, Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Gates, and a number of other Executive Branch and Congressional leaders. And while an FTA is floating as THE preoccupation among New Zealand watchers, this is but a diversion, albeit a significant one, compared to the shift in this bilateral association.

Last night the White House made public what it wants from this Helen Clark state visit. The US State Department on Pacific relations, Glyn Davies, Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said the United States is: "seeking greater cooperation with New Zealand in a number of areas in which it can offer significant contributions, including nonproliferation, counterterrorism, humanitarian and disaster relief, and peacekeeping."

Is New Zealand about to partner up with the United States in a more meaningful and engaged way – including a more active role in fighting this war on terror? The answer is yes.

While New Zealand's Labour-led government is loathed to front-foot this embrace fearful it will stimulate a creeping unease among its independently-thinking less-US-friendly constituencies, the White House is pushing ahead eager to demonstrate the union. This is more than a spiked flirtation. The move is planned, calculated, and presented as a reasonably argued case of mutual wants – especially regarding Pacific stability and security.

Scoop Image: Fiji, Oct/Nov 2006.

This rationale was highlighted during Australian foreign minister, Alexander Downer's recent visit to Wellington. There, Downer told journalists that while Australia's and New Zealand's strategy may be different our goals and objectives are the same. The rationale was reiterated this week by the US State Department: "Our tactics are not always the same, but we share the same broad objectives in the region," Deputy Assistant Secretary Glyn Davies said.

Certainly New Zealand is on the edge of a significant change in foreign policy. We have been moving toward this change for at least two years, since New Zealand's combat role in Afghanistan brought dividends for the USA, and since amidst a spreading arc of instability (that now spans from Melanesia to Polynesia) New Zealand's influence among Pacific leaders produced reward while Australia's drew hostility.

This shift from a nation alien to the United States' desire for world exclusivity toward compliance and co-operation has now shimmied through the official curtain to become visible in the public arena.

But such engagement with the USA at this time invites dangers that have attracted little attention, nor analysis. While (as Paul Buchanan considered in Scoop this week) a question hangs over President Bush as to whether he's a "lame duck staring at the last two years of his tenure" - influential intelligence think-tanks like Stratfor (Strategic Forecasting) state Bush has successfully created "a fleeting sense of unpredictability, as far as U.S. behaviour (sic) is concerned."

Strafor writes: "the United States simply lacks capability in the Army. In many ways, the U.S. Army is in revolt against the Bush administration. Army officers at all levels (less so the Marines) are using the term "broken" to refer to the condition of the force and are in revolt against the administration -- not because of its goals, but because of its failure to provide needed resources nearly six years after 9/11. This revolt is breaking very much into the public domain, and that will further cripple the credibility of the Bush administration."

US Defense Stealth bomber returning from a raid on Iraq in 2003.

This military revolt as described above will not have been lost on the USA's enemies. They, and there are many, will know the Bush Administration has stretched it military capability beyond its means. Fighting a territorial and sectarian war in Iraq has the United States desperate for allies prepared to put grunts on the ground. If having soldiers inside Iraq is too unpalatable then grunts elsewhere designed to take pressure off the United States broader theatres is important to its big-plan.

And the plan is broad. Consider the cold-war-styled clashes between Iran and Syria consume vast flows of resource and cash consumed as the US moves to demonstrate might and military intent designed to contain regional-nation aspirations. Consider too Afghanistan and the US interest in preventing the Taliban to rise to influential proportions and the US's concerns that terror looms once more in south and central Asia, to the Korean Peninsula, to stateless enemies like al Qaeda and Hizbullah, and paramount among these concerns from an American political viewpoint would be a realisation of its inability to prevent a rise in Russian polarisation of United States foreign policy and alliance interests (especially relating to missile defences in Europe and arms trade from Russia to Iran and Persian interests).
The danger lies not only in what a perceived enemy may initiate, but also in the unpredictability of the current (albeit 'lame duck') president.

To date, the best example of this predictably unpredictable nature of Bush is best described by Stratfor this week: "The 'surge' strategy announced late last year was Bush's last gamble. It demonstrated that the administration has the power and will to defy public opinion -- or international perceptions of it -- and increase, rather than decrease, forces in Iraq. The Democrats have also provided Bush with a window of opportunity: Their inability to formulate a coherent policy on Iraq has dissipated the sense that they will force imminent changes in U.S. strategy. Bush's gamble has created a psychological window of opportunity, but if this window is not used, it will close -- and, as administration officials have publicly conceded, there is no Plan B. The situation on the ground is as good as it is going to get."

That unpredictability may net New Zealand some benefit, but at what cost? While visiting New Zealand in 2005, Andrew Wilkie, a former senior intelligence officer with Australia's National Assessments Office, warned that 'cosying up' to the United States is dangerous. He said New Zealand was considered as low-risk in attracting retaliation from the USA's enemies, due to its "independent" foreign policy. He contrasted the New Zealand position to that of Australia where its citizens are targets for terrorists in South East Asia and further abroad, simply, Wilkie said, because of Australia's open and progressive alliance with the United States..

Andrew Wilkie's office provided intelligence assessments to the Australian prime minister, John Howard. Wilkie resigned his intelligence position in 2003, nine days before the invasion of Iraq, citing political misuse of acquired intelligence manipulated by Howard and the United States in an attempt to justify war.

In 2005, perhaps identifying pressures on New Zealand to become more western-alliance-friendly, Andrew Wilkie warned against New Zealand shifting its foreign policy position to become more embedded in United States theatres.

Wilkie said New Zealand's position as a low terror threat nation (as opposed to Australia's threat advisory) is due to it being independent and at arms length from the US Bush Administration's foreign policy.

And now in 2007, on the diplomatic stage, the United States needs all the help it can muster – and the significance of New Zealand's move next week may just be more relevant than you may think.

In recent times much attention has focused on New Zealand's commitment to peace and nation building in Afghanistan. The Prime Minister Helen Clark has indicated New Zealand has committed itself to peace-building in Afghanistan for a further 12 months, and an extension to New Zealand's naval presence in the Arabian Sea.

Our defence minister Phil Goff has indicated that New Zealand strategically must hold defence personnel and resource in store should a more reactionary force be needed to settle Timor Leste or other hot-spots along the Pacific arc of instability.

The United States and New Zealand share mutual ground in massaging Pacific nations toward a more stable and sustainable quality of governance. The last thing the United States wants is a more unstable Pacific where drugs, small arms, illegal money, and human beings are trafficked, the targeted destination being US soil.

An unstable Pacific also breeds discontent and hatred for powerful rich nations especially the USA.

Certainly as Pacific nations and their leaders balk at an identifiable and increasing state of Australian dominance in the region, the role becomes ever important for New Zealand to adopt a stabilising lead role in the Pacific.

In recent weeks Prime Minister Helen Clark has been visited by Australian PM John Howard, Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer, and is about to leave for the United States to meet at the White House with US president, George Bush.

Whatever has gone on behind closed official doors, certainly if New Zealand is to play its part in assuring a stable Pacific region, it will need to improve its intelligence operation, especially with regard to its western alliance watch in west Pacific and Polynesia.

Is New Zealand about to be entrusted with more than a sniff of US-controlled intelligence that until now has only been shared with Australia? Will the United States assist our operation to be the eyes and ears of Polynesia?

This week the White House informed congress's committee: "Throughout the region, we remain concerned that competition between China and Taiwan for recognition by Pacific Island states is undermining good governance. To the extent that the PRC (Peoples Republic of China) and Taiwan engage in "checkbook diplomacy" to gain favor with Pacific leaders, the political process in those countries will be distorted. We are pressing China, Taiwan, and all donors to use foreign assistance in a manner that enhances transparency and promotes good governance, and we are pleased at signs of progress."

It added: " The bedrock of our relations in the region remains, of course, our treaty alliance with Australia… Our other key partner in the South Pacific is New Zealand, which remains an important and close friend of the United States. Our two countries share many of the same values and interests around the globe. New Zealand has combat troops in Afghanistan and peacekeeping forces in the Solomon Islands and East Timor. Clearly, New Zealand is dedicated to promoting peace and stability where it can. New Zealand also provides significant assistance to the South Pacific. As a key partner, we coordinate closely with New Zealand on the Pacific, where our goals often coincide," the White House representative said.

If the New Zealand government has accepted that the United States is the better bogeyman of the large powers moving to influence and control the Pacific, and that it wishes to be on beneficial terms and inside the fold, then it has calculated the potential cost to our national identity abroad. The question of degree and who will pay for this shift in foreign policy can only be answered in the fullness of time.

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