Look around you. New Zealand has people from every nation and culture. They have scares and wounds. They remember the boot of empires. "I remember it too". That is why colonialism will not return in the same form.
Once New Zealand offered sanctuary. Now it is in dire straits. This state of disrepair did not appear in a single moment. It appeared because of careless decisions made by people who think themselves too important to be wrong. Some people fear this word colonialism. They were told that complexity must simplify itself. That culture is an obstacle and citizens are just a number and they treat strategy like an after thought.
Culture is punished as is belief and traditions. These are the things that will inform how people react when threatened, or inspired. Do not ignore these things. The people must see what happens when uncertainty is removed.
No one is here to resurrect a dead corpse. No one is here to facilitate the importation of illegal immigrants. No one is here to engineer another one billion abortions in the next thirty years as has happened in the last thirty years. And no one is here to facilitate the transition of men into woman. No one is here to build machines that rely on terror to function. That lie has cost dearly that fear is the only language the people understand.
What we have been presented with is an opportunity to re-engineer a machine where trade flows and streets are safe and a future that does not collapse with every passing rumour or gunfire. The Great British Empire thought that the machine was a massive fleet. China thinks it's a massive population and America is trying to figure out which is which.
Do not be insulted with promises of paradise. Stories of paradise are told by leaders who cannot build reality. Reality is built with structure and competence and with consequences that are consistent regardless of title or proximity to power. There will be no untouchable men or wars of pride and no private kingdoms disguised as governance. There will be standards and accountability. But most of all there will be order not because of fear but because it works.
Chaos cannot be fought. It must be denied oxygen. Not with spectacle but with inevitability. History does not belong to the loudest voice. History belongs to the most prepared. New Zealand has been the heart of the south pacific and has survived generations of discipline and rhythm where once again that rhythm must return. New Zealand must be rebuilt stronger and smarter not because it is feared but because it is inevitable and inevitability is the only power that matters because it offers something that is permanent.
It is for these reasons why I believe that the Treaty of Waitangi be rebuilt and reimagined into An Indo Pacific collective security and interoperability agreement with Australia, Indonesia and south pacific nations that would see NZDFs budget pushed closer to 3% a year rather than the aspirational 2%, sustained by a sovereign wealth fund that derives wealth from Antarctica and south pacific resource protection taking NZDF from a coast guard to a regional force of AI, drones, loitering munitions. Satellites, patrol platforms, disaster relief, integration, interoperability, kinetics, command and control censors etc and sustainable deployments. AUKAS Pilar2 will be crucial in providing technology accelerators.
There's been a lot of bitching about the AUKAS deal and a lot of fear. It must be said that the charity of the current and previous Australian government will be crucial to the future of the U.S. U.K. and Australian Navy's. $400 billion cannot be understated. The lack of ambition and ruthless desire for skilled craftsmen definitely is.
Depending on one's definition of infrastructure all the civil engineering projects, food and education is a public health initiative and safe drinkable water is a national security issue. All of which is in a state of dysfunction. I was just a boy when New Zealands population was 3 million. Life was good. It took my parents less than 20 minutes to get to work. You'll be lucky to get to the next bus stop in twenty minutes some days. In other words the tax system and public and private funding models that got us here won't be capable of re-engineering the machine.
It'll take a Scandinavian style Sovereign wealth fund that takes advantage resource protection and extraction and New Zealand’s super fund managers offering 10% returns.
There are also licencing fees for scott base and access into the Ross dependency
If kiwis are to continue paying premium prices for primary products such as fisheries and dairy there better be a good reason for it. Jam some of that ill gotten price gouging into a sovereign wealth fund earning 10% per year.
Appropriate partners would be able to negotiate investment alongside government investment into technology accelerators and slap levies on the lot too but first of all a study into doubling bass load energy and all the technology needed to make good on a new Te Tiriti. There’s AI, satellites and drones, big farma, primary and secondary and tertiary infrastructure. Perhaps doubling bass load energy is understated. A survey would have to be conducted. But The Treaty of Waitangi grants The New Zealand Government the right to build a Navy and Airforce. You'll need it to do that again.
And there’s going to have to be a lot of subsidies to prevent the brain drain with purpose built universities, Polytechs, hospitals and AI data centres. Those AI data centres are going to need a heck of a lot of power. So much so that nations like America and France are bringing nuclear power plants out of mothball and constructing new ones.
New Zealand needs operational independence from the all the promises of the future by raiding funds for short term political projects. Appropriate board members and/or Iwi Chairs just as an example would gain Five Eyes/AUKAS security clearance so that investment aligns with Treaty principles or some kind of operational independence.
The fund would act as a fiscal shock absorber. If global tensions drop and the 3% NZDF funding floor is no longer sufficient to sustain the governments obligations, the fund’s accumulated capital would cover the shortfall, ensuring that the combat-capable status of NZDF never regresses to underfunded levels again.
New Zealand has proven itself on the battlefield yet the most dangerous adversary lays behind the eyes. This message is for everyone in case we begin to lie to ourselves. An all of nation approach to national defence is patience disguised as restraint. A nation that shouts is already afraid. People who shout mistake silence for obedience and loyalty for peace. The British Empire proved it was neither. The future of New Zealands holistic approach to national defence expands along arteries of Commerce and defends logistics not symbols, and studies victory and defeat instead of celebrating or mourning. We cannot afford those mistakes. Every culture leaves fingerprints in its music and architecture and grief, learn those and their formations become as predictable as weather.
War is not politics by other means it is language spoken badly by inpatient men. New Zealanders often speak as if we are different. Or perhaps kiwis wear arrogance more casually.
How many lives are acceptable in the name of a principled stance, no one really knows. That unknowing is the dangerous part. That we can rest on our morals and congratulate each other for reserving world peace only for for our echo bunkers.
The older sister of the enlightened American Empire; "Empirailism", leaves much to be desired and a strangely perfect amazement at an empire that could exist. A place where strength protects the fragile instead of humiliating them. Militaries world wild build monuments to be feared and are shocked when people hate us. The future of New Zealand's all of nation approach to defence should be quite. It should listen before it strikes.
No more Pharaohs pretending to be gods. No more celebration or commiserating victories so loudly that it wakens extremists. The future will belong to those who can wait without sleeping and if I am wrong we will be just another confident generation of architects engineering ruin.
If the historians are fortunate enough to argue over who was the saviour and who was the villain I'm sure either title will suffice.
