insurance

In the final analysis, it is clear, we are seeking security through participation; we believe that, in some way, we are paying for a form of insurance policy on our future. This has been the New Zealand government's ultimate defence of our present position on Asia—the need to embroil ourselves in America's current quarrels in order that at some future date she may defend us against some rather unspecified enemy.

That this view receives such wide acceptance in New Zealand indicates both the lack of sophisticated thinking on international affairs, and the hold of "historical precedent"—the Battle of the Coral Sea for example—on the public mind.

But the idea does not bear close examination. It assumes that New Zealand may come under military attack presumably through Asia, while the present international postures of several nations remain intact and existing treaties unshaken.

To put this another way: having made the dubious assumption that a unified, malignant (presumably Communist) force is seeking to conquer Asia, and the even more dubious asumption that having done so it would wish to continue through Australia and New Zealand, the theory states that in the face of such a total collapse of the U.S. position, pre-existing defence agreeements would remain unchanged. This is rather like taking out an insurance policy with a company to protect yourself against the chance of the same company going bankrupt.

In fact it is clear that should New Zealand be militarily threatened at any time in the future, the military and political situation in Asia and the South Pacific will have changed so drastically that any United States decision to protect us would rest on strategic considerations at the time, not the state of our insurance premiums.

The point may also be made here that in such a situation, we would stand far less chance of being attacked as an inoffensive, isolated and neutral nation than as an outpost of the retreating United States war machine.

From this discussion, I think, emerge four basic prescriptions for our foreign policy.

First, we must rethink our approach to the modern world and discard the myths which have blinded us for too long.

Second, we must clearly assert our freedom of action vis-a-vis the U.S.—the most obvious such action would be the unequivocal withdrawal from Vietnam which we must in any case perform to recover some moral stature as a nation.

Third, we must avoid regional alliances, in particular those which draw us into inflexible Cold War alignments.

And finally, to evolve and put into practice new concepts and policies, we need a leadership with some integrity, some guts, and some ideas—all regrettably rare commodities in the present political scene.