Changing Perspectives of New Zealand's Foreign Policy

Abstract

THE APPARENTLY IRREVERSIBLE PROCESS of withdrawal of British forces from the South East Asian region opens once again the whole question of Australian and New Zealand security in the South West Pacific. The basic defence problem derives from the geographic contiguity of a people alien to the area. The dilemma has exercised the leaders of both countries for half a century and has presented itself in an increasingly acute form for about half that period. During that time, a number of constants have appeared in the security equation-as for example the South East Asian region from which aggression might most reasonably be expected to come. As a possible source of aggression Communist China has almost entirely replaced the former Japanese menace in Australian and New Zealand thinking. Leaving aside for the moment the dramatic changes in the Asian balance of power that have taken place, and the proliferation of new sovereign states that have followed the withdrawal of the colonial powers, one might remark the shift of responsibility for the security of the area from these powers to the United States. We are now at the last phase of the British recession-a trend of which there was already some indication in the prewar challenge of South and South East Asia. This shift has been accompanied by the hesitant assumption by the United States of a global role and the slow recognition of the Eurasian balance of power as a vital factor in the post-war restatement of her national interest. Not less disturbing than these changes, particularly in the present context of New Zealand's defence policy, are the changed attitudes on the part of New Zealand's policy-planners themselves in response to the revolutionary developments in the world and in the Asian region. It would seem that the planners, in reaching conclusions at these two situation-levels, tend to follow the American propensity whereby frighteningly complex patterns and moving forces are resolved in terms of the reassuringly familiar imagery of the nursery or football field. The strategic rationale of both countries is based on the behaviour of dominoes and the facile conclusions of containment. In regard to the ebb of British and the rise of American influence, New Zealand appears to be involved at present in a policy of mistaken expediency based on the comfortable and uncomplicated transference from the old