Category: NZ foreign policy

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Bipolarity, unipolarity and the coming USBRIC world.

The lack of informed public debate on New Zealand foreign policy, to include its international security policy, is equaled only by its seemingly directionless drift under National. On the one hand National has embraced the idea of shifting its trade focus–which as Lew mentioned in an earlier post has once again become the basis for all foreign policy–towards Asia (and increasingly the Middle East). On the other hand, National is attempting to reforge its security ties with the US and Australia as well as regional partners like Singapore. It continues to pay lip service to the UN multilateral ethos, but in practice appears less committed than the Bolger, Shipley and Clark governments to supporting the multinational cause in places that are not of immediate import to economic prosperity. This has even been reflected in its approach to regional issues in the southwest Pacific, where the expansion of Chinese economic and military influence has been met with diffidence rather than focused attention. All of this suggests that even if the foreign policy bureaucracy understands the complexities of international relations in the present moment, its current political masters do not.

I shall elaborate on the implications of a growing Chinese presence in the South Pacific in a future post. For the moment what I propose here is to outline, in a highly simplified fashion, the broader contours of the changes undergone and ongoing in the international political system, with an eye towards situating New Zealand in that fluid context. In so doing, perhaps a clearer picture of the need for foreign policy direction will emerge.

The Cold War was characterised by a tight bipolar balance of power, in which nuclear-armed superpowers and their allies aligned themselves along a communist/anti-communist axis that divided the world into peripheral and shatter zones depending on the probability of direct confrontation. Collective security via superior counter-force was the basis for mutual deterrence under the so-called “balance of terror” principle, which was premised on the shared belief that conflict in shatter zones had a high possibility of escalation into nuclear war. Central Europe was the most vital shatter zone, so conflict avoidance was the overriding principle in that theater. Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America were peripheral to the core interests of the superpowers, so they became the sites for proxy wars and unilateral interventions in which weapons were trialed and tactics refined, but in which no immediate possibility of superpower confrontation existed. Some places were so remote, they only served as monitoring stations or way fares for the big players. Depending on the technologies available and their spatial location , a few peripheral countries could be accorded special interest by the superpowers. On that score, New Zealand and Cuba were exemplars of each side of the continuum, respectively.

As oil increased in importance as a strategic commodity, the Middle East was increasingly defined by the US and its allies as a shatter zone, which helps explain the reduction in direct inter-state conflict between Israel and its Soviet-backed neighbours (Egypt, Syria and Jordan especially) after 1973. It was not until the demise of the USSR that the so-called “secular nationalists” in the Middle East adopted a more pro-Western stance, but the dye had been cast on their position more than a decade before.

The fall of the Soviet bloc ended the bipolar balance of power and began a decade of unipolar domination by the US. No country or combination of countries had the military or economic power to confront the US on either or both grounds. Russia descended into post-Stalinist chaos; China was still in the early stages of embracing capitalism. East and Western Europe integrated, but the process was fractious and economic, demographic and social differences precluded the emergence of a truly “unified” Europe as a political and military actor. Post-colonial despotism abounded in Africa, and if Latin America democratised, it did so largely amid conditions of economic stagnation. East Asia prospered by remained politically divided amongst itself. Under such conditions, and coupled with major advances in telecommunications and the global opening of markets, the US imposed a form of pax americana in which the only types of conflicts feasible were of the low-intensity variety in failed or peripheral states. Inter-state conflict was replaced by pre-modern ethnic and religious conflict, and nation-building and peace-keeping in failed states became the raison d’etre of military forces in the loosened post-Cold War alliance structures as well as for a host of other middle and small powers. New Zealand was one of them.

As it turns out, market globalisation and technological change were the source of both US strength and weakness. While the US focused resources on the so-called “Revolution in Military Affairs” and fourth generation warfare in which the element of human will is supposedly trumped by technological capability, market forces pushed both technological advancement and consumption in a host of previously underdeveloped states. In the measure that these states welcomed foreign capital and investment, both the input and output sides of the supply chains flourished within them, and they developed increasingly advanced economies of scale. Foremost of these are what are now known as the “BRIC” countries: Brazil, Russia, India and China. Through an astute mix of good government policy, size and resource base, national ambition and foreign investment, these countries have emerged (or re-emerged in the Russian case) as nascent great powers. The US, for its part, overextended itself militarily in response to 9/11, where it is confronted by irregular, decentralised non-state actors fighting asymmetrically so as to negate US technological superiority and reduce both the tactical and strategic confrontation to that basic element of will. Although US technology still affords it clear battlefield advantages, it cannot on its own prevail decisively or quickly against well-prepared and ideologically committed irregulars fighting on their home soils. Under such circumstances, in which a long-term war of attrition is fought on mostly unconventional grounds, irregular actors can force strategic stalemates that for all intents and purposes are political defeats for the militarily superior adversary. That is because the logistical and human costs of engaging in such long term military adventures without resolution erode the will not so much of the troops engaged in them, but of the civilian support base at home that votes on matters of policy. Such is now the situation in Afghanistan, as it was previously in Iraq.

Since 2003 the US has entered into a slow economic decline, fueled in equal parts by the W. Bush administrations fiscal policies, the costs of its wars and the failure of a large swathe of the US business community to recognize and adapt to the changes in the global system of production and exchange post 1990. Conversely, not saddled with military burdens comparable to that of the US, the BRICs have directed their national energy and resources into economic development. The results are impressive. In the last decade the individual BRICs have increased their yearly GDP by an average of nearly ten percent and collectively have advanced their growth rates by more than 50 percent when compared to 1990. They have all survived the recession of 2007-09 and currently display growth rates in excess of 4%/yearly on average (the US is predicted to have an average growth rate of less than a 3 percent for the next five years). Barring some human-made disaster, the upward economic trend for the BRICs shows no sign of abating for another  decade. The same cannot be said for the US, regardless of its recent rebounds. In an economic as well as military sense, the tide seems to have turned against US unipolar dominance.

All four BRIC nations are major sources of consumption. Russia remains the most vulnerable economy because of its dependence on fossil fuel exports and criminal influence in policy making, but even so has reconstituted a significant measure of its military capability and battle tested it in Chechnya and Georgia. China and India have become technological incubators, value added export platforms and, most recently, purchasers of advanced weapons systems under slowly opening forms of elite rule. Militarily, China is constructing nuclear submarines as well as an indigenous aircraft carrier amid a major expansion of its entire range of force; India is modernizing and expanding both its sub and carrier fleets as well as it land and air wings. Both countries have nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them at considerable range from a number of platforms, and both have been aggressive in asserting their military presence abroad (as has Russia). Of the four countries, Brazil is the least focused on military expansion, although it too has upgraded both its offensive as well as defensive capabilities. In no case can the US stop this progress by the use or threat of force or economic sanction. The result is that the world is now evolving into a multipolar system in which US power is balanced, in the first instance, by the BRICs, and in the second instance by the interplay between the BRICs themselves and with other middle powers such as France, Germany, Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Iran, Malaysia and the UK.

Emergence of the BRICs and the move towards multipolarity has further accelerated the loosening of Cold War alliance structures and increased the profile of smaller or emerging national actors such as South Africa and Singapore, which in turn has pushed a general reconfiguration of diplomatic, economic and military relations within the multi-tiered international community. Needless to say, the US will not disappear from the scene or be conquered anytime soon. What the emergence of new powers and changing international dynamics does mean is that it will have to share space with the new great powers: enter the world of USBRIC multipolarity.

Such change should be welcomed. The situation remains fluid but from a historical standpoint the move towards multipolarity is encouraging because it promises an era of greater peace once the multinational-balances and attendant blocs have been sorted out. Unipolar systems have historically been the most unstable type of international order because absent universality of values one-sided domination breeds resentment and challenge. Bipolar systems are stable (as the Cold War demonstrates), but  stability rests on a the precarious assumption that both rivals share the same form of rationality when it comes to strategic perspective, and that cannot be guaranteed over time. In a situation in which 3 or more powers contend for power, balancing becomes the pivot of the system because it serves as a hedge against single actor dominance. Here the actions of national elites matter less than the systemic response, which pushes the determinant logic out from the national (unit) level to the international (systemic) level. Hence small number multipolar systems are considered to be the most stable type of international political community.

Closer to home, the questions that arise are as follows: is NZ cognizant of these shifts and does it have a coherent foreign policy and international security strategy to ensure that it can take advantage, or at least not be disadvantaged by them? Is the current approach to trade, security and diplomatic affairs conducive to advancing the national interest over the long term, or is it more of an opportunistic hodgepodge of traditional and new perspectives and relations that do not account for the fundamental nature of the afore-mentioned shift towards USBRIC multipolarity? That, dear readers, I shall leave for you to ponder.

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A Two Level Game In Afghanistan

News of the NZSAS’s imminent departure to Afghanistan, on its fourth deployment since 2001 but first since 2005, has occasioned a fair bit of commentary in the media. A Herald poll shows public opinion evenly divided on the issue. A broad swathe of Right and Left wing isolationists and pacifists oppose the move. Many believe it is just a sop thrown to US imperialism in order to curry favour. Others think it is about gas pipelines and Halliburton profits. The rationale for sending troops to Afghanistan has become muddled by American pronouncements that NZ should do so as a type of insurance in the event it is attacked, or as a down payment on an eventual bilateral FTA. John Key has not helped matters by stating that he does not want the SAS to undertake so-called “mentoring” roles for the Afghan Army because it is too dangerous (as if what they otherwise would be doing is not), and that he would like to withdraw the NZDF Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Bamiyan province because it costs too much to maintain (this in spite of its widely recognised success as a “hearts and minds” operation that is the essence of international peace-keeping and nation-building missions such as the ISAF mission in Afghanistan).  He further clouds the issue by invoking the Jakarta and Mumbai bombings as reasons for the NZSAS deployment, even if the bombings had zero connection to events on the ground in Afghanistan (although I admit the possibility that some of those involved in the bombings may have attended Taleban protected al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan or the Pakistani tribal regions in the last decade or so). In making these utterances Mr. Key displays an apparent lack of understanding of what is really at stake in this dangerous game.

I have already posted here on the subject (see the Archive, especially here and here), and in recent days have tried to explicate further in the dedicated comments threads in places like Tumeke and Kiwiblog. Yet the rationale for why I believe that sending the NZSAS to and keeping the PRT in Afghanistan is justified appears to be lost in the general discussion. So let me phrase things in a different way, for purposes of clarification: what is going on in Afghanistan is a two-level game.

One one level there is the original ISAF mission. That mission was and is to deny al-Qaeda cadres and militant Taleban safe havens inside Afghanistan so that they do not pose a threat to the local population and cannot use Afghan territory to stage cross-border assaults on Pakistan and other neighbouring Central Asian republics. The concern with the militant Taleban, as opposed to their more “moderate” counterparts (read: nationalist or tribal), is that they have greater ambitions than re-gaining political control of Afghanistan. Instead, the militant Taleban and their al-Qaeda allies seeks to establish a Caliphate throughout Central Asia and beyond. They particularly want to gain control of nuclear-armed Pakistan, but even that is just a short-to-medium term goal. They have, in other words, imperialist ambitions of their own. These ambitions are not only opposed by the US, UN, and NATO. They are opposed by China, Russia, India and all Asian states that see the ripple effect extending towards them. In fact, they are opposed by virtually all of the international community with the exception of failed states such as Somailia and the Sudan (which have now become the new locus of al-Qaeda activity).

Worried about the repercussive effects that a Taleban victory in Afghanistan would have throughout Central Asia, the NATO-led, UN sanctioned ISAF mission has been successful at eliminating al-Qaeda as a military threat in the country, and is essentially now engaged in a grand scale pincer movement along with the Pakistani military that is designed to push Taleban on both sides of the common border into geographically defined kill zones from which they cannot escape. In parallel, ISAF and UN-led civilian assistance groups are attempting to engage moderate Taleban elements in order to establish a durable cease-fire that will permit the second level of the game to be played.

The second level game is oriented towards establishing a moderate Islamic regime with centralised authority over Afghanistan, one that will balance secular rights with religious freedoms and traditional privileges in accordance with the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. This a minimalist construction of the game; that is, it pretends to go no further than what is stated. It does not imply that the objective is to establish a secular democracy in the country. It does not pretend that centralised authority will mean central government monopoly of organised violence in the tribal hinterlands. It does not propose the blanket elimination of traditional forms of authority or social mores. Instead, it merely seeks to create the structural and political conditions for the establishment of peace, a peace that in turn will deny Islamic extremists the fertile territory for recruitment and sanctuary. It involves promoting electoral forms of political contestation, but more importantly, it pursues infrastructural development, to include educational, health and nutritional programs as well as the civil-military engineering projects required for their implementation and expansion.

To be sure, endemic corruption, the Karzai regime’s limited legitimacy outside of Kabul, the persistence of the opium trade, the ongoing presence of warlord-dominated fiefdoms, and the abject primitivism of many parts of the country make the second game seemingly impossible to achieve, and greatly complicate the achievement of the first game. Yet just because other foreign incursions have been defeated does not necessarily mean that this one is inevitably doomed to fail. For one thing, this is an international effort, not the expansionist project of a single imperial state. For another, because of its developmental and humanitarian focus, it does have a fair bit of internal support as well as that of neighbouring countries, factors that did not obtain in previous instances of occupation.

These two games are now being played out simultaneously, in overlapped fashion. The first is needed for the second to be successful (i.e., the combat work of such as the NZSAS is needed for PRTs to be successful). Yet the second is needed for the first to advance sufficiently so that an “exit strategy” is feasible. That will take a long time, at a minimum at least another five years and probably more. Any upgrade or renewal of the NZDF commitment to Afghanistan must take account of this fact.

Thus, when considering the “why” of NZ’s deployment of troops to Afghanistan, the debate should focus on the two levels of the ISAF “game,” and whether NZ has a stake in either. I have already stated that I believe that there are moral and practical reasons why NZ should, as an international citizen, contribute to the ISAF mission on both levels. Others disagree on either or both counts.  The main point, however, is that Mr. Key and his advisors in the MoD and MFAT develop a clear and comprehensible rationale for why NZ should put its soldiers at risk in Afghanistan, which in turn is as much a function of informed public interest as it is of diplomatic necessity.

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What is (or should be) NZ’s international role?

News that the National government has in principle accepted the US request to deploy the NZSAS in Afghanistan once again raises questions as to whether NZ has a dog in that fight, and if so, why it got there. I am already on record in this forum and elsewhere as believing that the NZDF presence in Afghanistan is just on both moral and practical grounds. But many others disagree. That brings up the larger point, which is what, exactly, is (or should be) NZ’s international role? The paradigm shifts and dislocations that followed the Cold War stripped NZ of many of its traditional foreign policy referents, some of which were already being eroded prior to 1990 by the nuclear-free declaration and embrace of market-driven macroeconomic principles. As Lew mentioned in a previous post, trade now appears to be the basis for most contemporary NZ foreign policy, particularly under National governments. I have argued at various times that NZ foreign policy is a mixture of principle and pragmatism, but as of late I am not so sure that the former obtains in any significant measure.

Thus the questions begs: in a fluid international environment such as that which exists today, in which traditional alliance structures and security partnerships have been replaced or overlapped by new trade networks and the emergence of a raft of non-traditional security concerns and policy issues, what role does NZ play? Does it remain a committed multilateral institutionalist? Or is more of a junior partner to a variety of larger countries on a range of selected issues? Should it take the lead in pursuing matters of international principle like the pursuit of non-intervention, disarmanent, non-proliferation, climate change and human rights, or should it wise up and curry favour by getting with the bigger player’s projects, be they Chinese, American or Australian? Does realism or idealism drive NZ foreign policy, and if it is a mixture of the two perspectives, which should dominate given current and near future conditions?

There is a strong isolationist streak in NZ that spans the spectrum from Left to Right, one that sees nonintervention in foreign affairs to be the preferred standard when approaching the international community. In contrast, the trade liberalizers in both major parties and the foreign party bureaucracy speak of trade openings as the end-all, be-all of NZ growth and thus a reason for ongoing and deeper engagement with a multitude of partners. But what happened to principle in all of this, particularly the notion that as a good international citizen NZ has a duty and obligation to support with its active involvement actions that are sanctioned by the UN and other international agencies (the principle that I just happen to believe in when it comes to the foreign policy behaviour of small democratic states)? The ISAF mission in Afghanistan is just one such action, but there are a multitude of others that are seldom mentioned, much less discussed by the NZ political elite or public.

Given the hard economic times of the moment and the folly of recent great power interventions in international affairs, what exactly is or should be NZ’s response to recent international trends, and thus its role in the international environment? Should it lead, follow, be neutral, selective or withdraw when considering its potential range of international commitments?  What should be the criteria for foreign engagement, and to what extent or degree? Should certain existing international commitments be dropped and new ones adopted? Should the traditional pro-Western foreign policy perspective shift to a more Eastern view?

I post this simply as a general reminder that the role of NZ as an international actor gets far too little play in the public discourse, yet is one that it absolutely crucial not only to its international reputation and stature, but also to its continued well-being as a small, vulnerable and dependent nation-state. The question must therefore be repeated: what role should that preferably be?

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A return to “our foreign policy is trade”?

Murray McCully hasn’t so much taken the razor to NZAid as taken the axe to its foundations, in one of the clearest indications so far of the new government’s ideological intentions:

Following a review process, the government has decided to change the mandate of NZAID, the government’s aid agency, to focus on sustainable economic growth.

Notice how he leaves out what the mandate was changed from. Good press release-writing. National Radio is more explicit, however:

The semi-autonomous body NZ Aid will be brought back under the control of the Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry and its focus will change from poverty elimination to sustainable economic growth.

Now we see the dichotomy I theorised a while ago made plain: from from least harm to greatest good.

Now, in the context of foreign policy I don’t have a categorical problem with this approach, because foreign policy is different to domestic policy where the government bears a direct and explicit responsibility for the wellbeing of the worst-off of its citizens. NZ doesn’t necessarily have that responsibility to the worst-off citizens of its donee nations. While it serves NZ to look after them, fundamentally all foreign policy actions are taken with the home nation’s interests at the fore, not with the foreign nation’s interests. So I’m not going to argue against this change of mandate on the basis that it’s cruel or unjust or unfair on the poor of the Pacific, plenty of people are doing that. I’m going to argue against it on the basis that it’s short-sighted and bad for NZ in the context of our relationships with our Pacific neighbours.

The problem, paradoxically, is that the realignment of NZAid with the trade agenda prioritises immediate NZ commercial interests to the exclusion of other, more strategic goals. Like democracy, sustainable economic development isn’t something you can create by throwing money about. NZ’s aid agenda to provide an economic floor in (parts of) the Pacific has generally had three broad purposes: 1. maintain peace and order; 2. deter the advances of more predatory regional powers*; 3. enable people to develop economic structures on their own terms. Largely the first two have succeeded; the third remains a work in progress. The three points are in ascending strategic order; that is, the longest-term goal is to enable the people of the Pacific to develop their own economies and their own market structures, structures which serve them, rather then serving the interests of foreign entrepreneurs first. The changed NZAid mandate, which to my mind roughly reverses the order of the three priorities on the reasoning that if people have the third then the first and second will follow, seems unwise because I don’t think they will follow. Markets which exploit people’s vulnerability, or which concentrate wealth and power among the usual sorts of tin-pot third-world elites will not result in stability, and will render the disgruntled Pacific vulnerable to the aforementioned depredations. This policy realignment (by McCully’s own admission) will divert aid money from those at the subsistence line into private enterprise, most of which is owned outside the Pacific. It will result in a subclass of client entrepreneurs both here and in the Pacific, those with the connections to sign on early and sew up a section of the nascent market for themselves, with full government favour. The Pacific needs trade strategies for mutual benefit, driven by Pacific people to meet their own needs, not created artificially from outside with a territorial gold rush in mind. If we profit to the detriment of our neighbours, our trade might be healthy, but the wider Pacific situation will not, and we will suffer in other ways.

In this situation, trade wins and everything else loses. This is what I mean by the title: McCully has tacitly declared that nothing other than trade really matters, a return to Muldoon’s famous position on the matter. Although the aid agenda is more closely targeted to the Pacific, the focus on trade signals the beginning of a more arm’s length relationship based on cash rather than regional allegiance. This in tandem with a more realist positioning from the defence review, in which the “benign strategic environment” doctrine of Clark’s government has been discarded with, I think, little evidence. Those changes will result in less development and support work and a more hard-power focused defence strategy, with its eye on a phantom threat, and a consequent cooling of the excellent operational relationship the NZDF has with the Pacific. Of course, such a realignment will be necessary if the aid=trade agenda results in the sort of destabilisation I’ve talked about.

L

* Clearly, in this context I’m talking about China. I don’t typically ascribe to the Sinophobia so rampant in the West, but in the Pacific case I think it’s justified.

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The Parallels between Fiji and Thailand

Although it may not seem likely on the face of it, there are some significant similarities between the political situations of Fiji and Thailand. To understand why, we must start with some background and definitions. Fiji and Thailand are modern examples of praetorian societies. Prateorian societies are those in which social group and political competition occurs in non-institutionalized fashion. Rather than use mediating vehicles such as courts, parliaments, collective bargaining and the like, inter-group competition assumes direct action characteristics: street demonstrations, riots,strikes, lockouts, blockades, and outright physical conflict. This can be due to the failure of such institutions to accommodate social group and political competition within established boundaries of rules and procedure, or it can  be due to social and political group disregard for the institutions themselves. Where institutions such as parliament and the courts still function, they tend to microcosmically replicate the zero-sum approaches of the society at large: dominant groups manipulate the system to their own advantage and use it to punish their opponents. In turn, opponents attempt to wrest control of state institutions for their own gain. Compromise and toleration of difference are lost in the struggle.

The reason social praetorianism occurs is that there is not a shared majority consensus on the political “rules of the game.” This can be due to the lack of ideological consensus or disenchantment with the system as given. Either way, it spells trouble in the form of political and social instability. As a reflection of the surrounding society, this gives rise to something known as military prateorianism. Taking its name from the praetorian guard of Roman emperors, who were said to be the makers and unmakers of kings, a praetorian military emerges as the dominant political actor in socially praetorian societies by virtue of  the force of arms. It s the default option given generalized institutional failure, and as such is characterized by an internal (rather than external) security orientation, high levels of politicization and a strong interventionist streak.

There are two types of praetorian militaries: arbitrator (or mediator) and ruler. Arbitrator military praetorians assume control of government when civilian institutions break down, but do so only to re-establish the constitutional order and provide the law and order that gives civilian actors the time and space to re-establish a consensus on the rules of the political “game.” They usually enter into power via relatively peaceful coups and set themselves a non-partisan agenda as well as a specific timetable for withdrawal from government. The point of the intervention in the political system is to stop political bickering and re-establish the institutional bases of civilian rule.

Ruler military praetorians have no such limitations. Often emerging in the wake of repeated attempts at military arbitration between competing civilian groups, the ruler military has no timetable for withdrawal and a political, social and economic agenda of its own. They tend to be more violent than their arbitrator counterparts, in no small part because they see civilian society as undisciplined and chaotic and civilian politicians as venal, self-serving and corrupt. The modern archetypes were the military-bureaucratic regimes of Latin America in the 1970s, the Pinochet regime in Chile being the most notorious of them. They tend to hold power for a half decade or more in order to transform, via the use or threat of force, the basic socio-economic and political parameters of the praetorian societies in which they are located. When they withdraw, they do so under rules of the game they set down for their civilian successors.

Thailand has oscillated between periods of arbitrator and ruler military rule, interspersed with numerous failed attempts at democratic governance. In the current political crisis, the pro-royalist “yellows” (of airport blockade fame) and pro-government “blues” are vying with anti-government “reds”  (of ASEAN summit cancellation fame) to vie not so much for democracy (which is what they all claim) but for the favor of the Thai military when it finally steps back into power. The yellows are more elite and middle-class in social origin, whereas the reds are lower middle and working class in composition, so the historical odds favor the yellows (the blues are a cross-section of party loyalists of the current Prime Minister, disaffected yellows and hired thugs). But with an ailing King and more reds than yellows taking to the streets, the military may be swayed away from its traditional pro-royalist stance in the interests of securing majority support for a reformative coup. If this analysis is correct, it implies the inevitability of another Thai coup, most likely leading to a ruler military regime that embarks on a program of political reform that breaks with the partisan lines of the past. Given that it confronts a significant Muslim insurgency in the south of the country that has links to similarly-minded insurgent groups in the Philippines, the Thai military will be loathe to be drawn into politics and will only do so if the present levels of social praetorianism threaten to escalate into unacceptable levels of violence that challenge its monopoly of organized coercion within the territorial limits. It is for the Thai civilian elite to prevent this from happening, and so far they have shown no inclination to do so.

The Fijian military has repeatedly intervened in the country’s politics over the last two decades, and the Bainirarama regime is no exception. Fiji’s social praetorianism stems from the conflicts between indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians, a conflict that has socio-economic class as well as ethno-religios and linguisitic characteristics. Its civilian political elites have proven incapable of achieving consensus and have a strong penchant for corruption and nepotism. Thus the military sees itself as the “saviour” of Fijian society. With this latest “coup-within-a-coup,” (see Lew’s post immediately below) the Fijian military praetorians appear to be moving from an arbitrator to a ruler role, perhaps because they believe that the country is nowhere close to consensus on a reformed and reconstituted rules of the political game. I have written previously (“Bullying Fiji Part 2: The Inside Game”) some of the reasons why this may be so, but the larger point is that it appears that no amount of pressure from New Zealand or Australia will alter the conviction of Commodore Bainimarama and his colleagues in the Fijian armed forces hierarchy that it is in the country’s best interests to prevent a Thai-type scenario from developing. The UN may be able to exercise some pressure in curtailing Fijian military involvement in multinational “blue helmet” operations, but even then, with Russia and China on the Security Council, the likelihood of passing resolutions authorizing this form of sanction on Fiji for what is an internal matter is, to say the least, unlikely.

The are two dangers to ruler militaries, one specific and one general. The longer leaders of ruler militaries stay in power, the more enamored of the perks of the position they become. Whatever their good intentions at the onset, they tend to become increasingly despotic over time, losing sight of the original project in order to concentrate on their personal fortunes. That increases resentment against the regime and factionalisation within it, which essentially returns the praetorian situation to where it began. Moreover, the longer a military is in power, overseeing civilian ministries and involving itself in politics, the less its leaders are maintaining and honing their war-fighting command skills. This may not be an issue for a country without enemies, but for countries with internal or external threats, the erosion of a war-fighting capability strikes to the heart of the military raison d’etre and emboldens adversaries of all persuasions. Put another way, to remain in power is to lose war-fighting capability, and to lose war-fighting skills (including command skills) is to invite attack. This is especially true for the Thai military, but even the Fijians need to consider this given their regular deployment of troops to foreign conflict zones under UN mandate.

The final problem is that whether the military intervenes or not, and whether it does so in arbitrator or ruler guise, on-going situations of social praetorianism is the key element leading to state failure. One only need look at the recent history of Afghanistan, Somalia and Pakistan to understand the implications.

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Seems obvious, doesn’t it?

Lesson 1 for everyone:
Political expedience is no substitute for democratic process.
Lesson 2 for would-be tyrants:
If you’re going to overthrow a state, leave no functional apparatus which might threaten your regime.

The Fijian Court of Appeal has ruled that Frank Bainimarama’s coup was unlawful and that he should be removed from his position as the head of the interim government and replaced with an “independent person” appointed by the President. (No Right Turn has more.)

This is complicated. A few implications I can see (Pablo can probably do better than I, and anyone is welcome to suggest more):

  • The court hasn’t ruled that Former PM Laisenia Qarase should be reinstated – and he would not qualify as an independent person. It’s difficult to think who could, given the regime’s tendency to deport, imprison or intimidate those who didn’t play its game.
  • May 1 is the deadline to announce an election date. However Bainimarama is (I assume) no longer constitutionally empowered to do so. He’s damned either way here – if he fails to do so, he tacitly accepts that he hasn’t the right, and if he does so, then he overrides the court of the land and gives his political opponents a legitimate chance to overthrow the regime.
  • Bainimarama may now be officially illegitimate in law, but he does still command the armed forces in fact, and they have demonstrated in the past few years what they’re prepared to do for him. The task of re-establishing legitimate government is harder than simply declaring an “independent person” the new interim PM.
  • Assuming Bainimarama doesn’t step down, the international community now has firm grounds to throw the figurative book at Fiji, cutting off all aid, trade and diplomatic ties on the grounds that Bainimarama’s government is now illegitimate in law. Indeed, you could argue that they have no choice but to do so. This means a likely deepening of previous policies which haven’t really done much to hurt the regime but have done plenty to hurt the ordinary Fijian people, and could drive Fiji closer to China. Tough call.

Geopolitics is a funny beast. Everyone who’s honest with themselves has known this all along – but it’s taken a panel of Australian judges stating the obvious to pull away the fig leaf and (presumably) force a response.

L

Edit 20090415: Too much has happened over the long weekend for me to write cogently about given the other things I need to do this week, so I’ll refer yous to the excellent Idiot/Savant, with whose judgements I mostly agree on this matter.

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A Green Neo-Realist Foreign Policy Manifesto

Now that the Green Party has matured into the third most important political party in NZ, it is time that it develop an equally robust foreign policy stance that moves beyond its visceral commitment to pacifism, human rights and civil liberties, international ecological defence and anti-imperialism. Although laudable goals that still have a place on the Green foreign policy agenda, these foundational pillars need to be supplemented by a more nuanced and less ideologically rigid, but no less idealist in principle, approach to New Zealand’s foreign affairs.

Lets start with defence and intelligence. The Green Party should maintain their absolute commitment to conventional and unconventional weapons non-proliferation, nuclear disarmament, prohibitions of chemical and biological weapons and bans on the manufacture and sale of land mines and other indiscriminate munitions. It should maintain its commitment to seeing the NZDF externally focused on peace-keeping and nation building as its major priority. It should resist efforts to turn the NZDF in to a mini Australian armed forces, and resist the calls for the NZDF to follow Australia, the US and the UK into battle no matter the context or justification. But it also has to realise that NZ’s own defence is premised on its being a good international security partner, and that it cannot abrogate its responsibilities in that field. To that end, the Greens should support efforts to restore a close air/ground support wing to the NZAF in order to provide NZ peace-keeping troops with independent air cover in foreign conflict zones. Even when under multinational military control such as the ISAF mission in Afghanistan, military protocols allow services of each country to protect their fellow troops as a priority. If NZ is going to continue its level of international troop deployments in conflict zones like Afghanistan, East Timor, the Solomons and elsewhere, the ability to provide protective air cover to its troops on the ground is surely a worthy cause. And, as it turns, out, be they rotary or fixed wing, surplus close air support platforms in the inventories of several NATO and other countries come relatively cheap when compared to the aborted F-16 purchase of a decade ago.

Likewise, the Greens needs to support the reinforcement of the Navy’s long-range patrol and interdiction capability, if for no other reason than to protect the resources located in the NZ Exclusive Economic Zone and to deter illegal poaching of whale and endangered fish in the waters adjacent to it. Moreover, such a capability can also serve in anti-piracy roles in the sea lines of communication most vital to new Zealand’s trade, and to keep track of the increasing presence of foreign submarine and surface fleets in and around New Zealand waters. Passivity in the face of such probes will likely be interpreted as acquiescence or inability to counter them, which will encourage further encroachments into the EEC, if not the territorial limit itself. That is also why the Greens need to support the continuing emphasis placed on the NZSAS as the country’s special operations branch. What it can do differently is question the deployments they undertake on behalf of foreign powers, perhaps broadening the scope of their activities to areas outside of the usual SOLIC (special operations and low intensity conflict) scenarios.

 Thus, the Greens should support efforts to increase NZDF spending to  1.5 percent of GDP, in line with the lower threshold of OECD nations, but with a specific focus on the Green “line” of defense and security priorities. No more over priced and ill-suited LAVs, no more $1 million-a-copy anti-tank shoulder fired rockets–just the best weapons and platforms for the NZDF’s unique “niche” role in international security affairs. Even if coat-tailing on previous Labour initiatives, a neo-realist Green approach to defence can provide a human security orientation that extends beyond the traditional security concerns of the major parties.

With regard to intelligence, the Greens must continue their valiant opposition to the unaccountable and often rogue behaviour of  the NZSIS and Police intelligence. But it must couple its demands for more democratic accountability and transparency–something that may begin with the appointment of Russell Norman and Tariana Turia to the Parliamentary Security and Intelligence Committee–with a more reasoned demand that external intelligence collection be separated from domestic intelligence collection and delegated to different agencies. Counter-intelligence functions can be shared because foreign espionage often follows commercial and criminal avenues, but the business of spying in foreign places is very different than spying on one’s own citizens. Thus the Police should be responsible for the latter, with all of the attendant legal safeguards that purportedly govern their operations, whereas the NZSIS can limit itself, along with the GCSB, to external intelligence collection and analysis. No other political party has even mentioned this, much less understood the multiple rationales as to why decentralisation of intelligence functions is actually an important step towards removing the authoritarian culture so deeply imbedded in New Zealand’s intelligence apparatus. In line with these reforms, the Greens should demand that the PSIC be elevated to the status of select committee allowed to review classified material in closed session. Only then will real parliamentary oversight of the intelligence apparatus be possible.

In terms of trade, the Greens need to modify their generic opposition to trade. Instead of a seeming blanket opposition to open economies, the NZ Green Party needs to understand that for a vulnerable isolated and resource-scarce country like NZ, trade is a lifeline. It is here to stay as the mainstay of macroeconomic policy. Therefore, the issue should not whether to trade or not to trade, but how to trade? The answer, as I have mentioned in previous posts, is to trade fairly as well as (or as opposed to) freely. Trading fairly means to concentrate not just on tariff reduction and other bi-or multilateral entry conditions, but on after-entry conditions pertinent to labour rights, working conditions, gender and indigenous issues, wages, health, safety and environmental standards. The goal is to promote a level of regulatory symmetry n the trade relationship, thereby leveling the playing field or at least standardising the rules of investment and competition in the interest of productivity, growth AND human dignity in the labour process. This is as true for NZ investment abroad as well as foreign investment in Aotearoa. The basic thrust is to do onto other (foreign) laborers as what one would do onto oneself (or one’s co-nationals). Capitalists may not like the impact on their short-term profits of promoting such trade agreements, but it is in their longer-term interests, in terms of a guaranteed restrained rate of profit, that they play fair and symmetrically. Moreover, such a stance places NZ at the forefront of trade debates that emphasize a balance between profit, growth and larger communitarian considerations.

Diplomatically, the Greens need to promote a strengthened constructivist-institutionalist approach to foreign policy. Constructivism in foreign policy is focused on normative value change in key policy areas (say, human rights and disarmament)  and institutionalism is focused on strengthening multilateral institutional approaches to conflict resolution and global peace and stability based on shared ideals.  Although Labour advocated such an approach, it too often has compromised its stance in order to curry favour with trade or defence partners. National has no commitment to idealism in foreign affairs. Thus it is left for the Greens to push hardest for an ongoing, if not increased commitment to finding multilateral institutionalised approaches to the sources of international disputes, and to push for progressive value change within international organisations and regional institutions. In doing so it will help continue New Zealand’s reputation as an honest international broker, mediator and arbitrator committed to supra-and transnational methods of grievance redress and resolution. After all, if the world is truly to move away from the anarchic” state of nature” that is the realist conception of international affairs, it needs to move beyond the nation-state as the ultimate adjudicator of international disputes. It is up to small countries to make the case. It is their self-interest to do so, and that is eminently realist in conception. It is, in other words, a bit of Green (neo) realism at play.

All of this is a big task and may run counter to the wishes of more militant elements in the “watermelon” constituency of the Green Party (which should be seen as a source of strength rather than as a weakness). Now is the time to move beyond the parochial environmentalism, classism and other foundational Green principles and towards an agenda that attracts more mainstream voters in pursuit of being a legitimate swing vote and therefore real power broker in the New Zealand political system. This foreign policy manifesto is a gesture in that direction. That does not mean abandonment of  the foundational principles, but the enhancing and expanding of them. This is important because only the Greens have the ability to contribute significantly to a shift in the status quo political discourse currently on display. No other party does.

 After all, with ACT having prostituted its libertarian principles to the crime and punishment authoritarians headed by Mr.Garrett (see Lew and Anita’s posts on the issue  below), the Greens are the only honest political party left in parliament–with them, what you see is what you get, full stop. Given that unique position of advantage, now is the time for the Green Party to develop more depth to their policy agenda, which is why this post is tabled.

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Are FTAs OK?

The Feb 27 announcement that NZ and Australia have signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA)  with the ten member Southeast Asian regional grouping known as ASEAN has been hailed as another triumph for NZ’s economic openness, especially coming at a time when protectionist and nationalising policies have re-emerged in response to the global market crisis now ongoing. Although Trade Minister Tim Grosser signed the AANZ-FTA agreement at the 14th ASEAN summit in Thailand, it was MFAT officials working under instruction from the 5th Labour government who sealed the deal (after 4 years of negotiations), and it is these officials who are now beginning talks with India on a bilateral FTA similar to the one signed last year with the PRC. Yet, amid all the self-congratulation by government officials and business leaders, the nagging questions remains: are such FTA’s always good for the average Kiwi?

Pro-trade advocates will say yes on three counts. First, increased markets for NZ exports means more jobs in those sectors as well as their subsidiaries and ancillary industries. Second, increased foreign investment opportunities for NZ firms will eventually increase dividends for Kiwi shareholders. Third, access to a wider range of import markets means more competition and lower prices for Kiwi consumers. But there is more to the picture than this seemingly positive sum outlook.

The AANZ-FTA, like the FTA with the PRC and the P4 FTA signed earlier by NZ with Brunei, Singapore and Chile, is more properly seen as a tariff reduction scheme. In the case of the AANZ-FTA, the goal is to reduce common tariffs by 96% by 2020, thereby paving the way for the development of a a EU-style common market along the Western Pacific Rim that can compete with the EU, the US and emerging giants like the PRC, India and Brazil. NZ estimates are that it will eventually enjoy a 99% reduction in tariffs on its exports to ASEAN while ASEAN members will receive an 85% reduction on their imports to NZ. With US$ 31 billion is ASEAN exports to Australia and NZ  and US$16.8 billion of Australian and New Zealand exports to ASEAN members in 2007 (75% of that volume being between Australia and ASEAN, with NZ exporting US$4.6 billion to ASEAN members in 2008)), the objective is to raise the flow of goods and services ten fold over the next decade. Tariff reduction is seen as the key to achieving this goal, as it will lower transaction costs and remove fiscal impediments to investment within the partnership.

The problems with this arrangement stem from the asymmetries in the respective economies involved, from the lack of “after-entry” provisos, and from the dubious character of some of the regimes involved. With regard to the latter, the AANZ-FTA includes Myanmar and Brunei, two despotic regimes whose trade reliability and fiscal responsibility, much less human rights records, are open to question. It includes Thailand, which has the appearance of a politically failing state where sex tourism weirdness competes with highly exploitative labour-intensive low-cost production as the primary source of GDP, all amid grave ethnic conflict in its southern regions. It includes Laos and Cambodia, two states that barely meet the criteria for inclusion in a globalised trade regime. Its leading members, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, have issues of political and/or corporate governance (be it in a lack of corporate transparency and/or a lack of political accountability), and the remaining member, Viet Nam, is a one party authoritarian regime that, if not as retrograde as Myanmar, has yet to exhibit the developmental potential of some of its most proximate neighbours. ASEAN is, in other words, a polyglot of corruption, nepotism, economic underdevelopment and exploitation mixed with crass materialism and indifference towards basic human rights and civil liberties in a highly charged ethnically diverse and stratified demographic, with a profoundly unequal distribution of resources and reliability amongst its members. Is that what NZ wants in terms of preferential trading partners?

Not surprisingly, the AANZ-FTA, which is due to go into effect on July 1 2009, has no common labour standards, including provisions regarding collective bargaining, right to organise, female and child labour, occupational health and safety and quality control. It has no environmental clauses. All of those are left to the industries involved. The Fontera PRC subsidiary’s Melanin scandal gives an indication of what can happen when such is the case.

Then there is the issue of size asymmetries and economies of scale. Is it plausible to think that with Australia coupled to NZ on one side of the AANZ-FTA ledger, NZ is going to be an equal beneficiary of the new tariff regime? If Australia turns out to be the major focus of ASEAN trade, will that not accelerate worker exodus and capital flight from NZ to Aussie under the terms of the CEP? Is it plausible to believe that with the lack of labour and other standards, NZ businesses in a variety of value added or service sectors will not have an incentive to re-locate their workforce in ASEAN countries where wages and benefits are lower? Is it plausible to think that NZ, with an export base in relatively inelastic primary-good industries and their derivatives (say, milk powder or paper pulp) will enjoy an equitable balance of trade with more elastic value-added importers? Is it plausible to think that foreign investors will not use the opportunity provided by relaxed investment regulation to assert direct control over NZ productive assets (which is an issue that also is at play with regards to the FTA with the PRC)? What NEW productive activities will actually  be created in NZ that will help diversify the economy while providing new employment opportunities that require so-called “knowledge-based”  skills? (For an earlier discussion of the problems of asymmetric trade, with specific regard to the PRC FTA, see http://scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0803/S00263.htm).

These are the questions that need to be asked in the parliamentary debates leading up to the July 1, 2009 ratification date. It is important that the Greens and other groups with concerns about FTAs avoid the appearance of knee-jerk protectionism that they have been saddled with in the past (as was the case with NZ First). Instead, the emphasis must be on the hidden “F” in an FTA–the FAIR aspect of trade, which for a small democracy such as NZ is as important as its free aspect. After all, free trade is not necessarily synonymous with fair trade, and it behooves the political Left to make that point since no one else (to include Labour) will.

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Principled or Pragmatic?

New Zealand is said to have a “principled and pragmatic” foreign policy. In fact, it is considered a model for small state participation in world affairs. Its support for UN peacekeeping, its role in the non-proliferation regime, its pursuit of open trade, its championing of international human rights and its advocacy of environmental protection are considered exemplary forms of small state behaviour on the global scene. But is New Zealand really following principles when it engages the world?

In spite of its human rights rhetoric, New Zealand actively trades with a host of authoritarian regimes without preconditions or qualifiers. Such trade partners include Iran, Kuwait, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Brunei, Singapore and of course the PRC. Its FTAs with the PRC and the authoritarian partners of the P4 trade bloc have no “after entry” provisions regarding labour rights, working conditions, child labor restrictions etc. That is the general rule. Rather than upholding international labor standards and other human rights baselines when promoting trade relationships, it appears that New Zealand abandons them entirely because it is seen as “bad for business.”

A similar situation holds true in the security field. Although New Zealand publicly trumpets its “blue-helmet” deployments in conflicts zones such as South Lebanon, the Sinai and Bosnia,  it quietly operates with a range of foreign security agencies whose records are less than clean. That includes close cooperation with French intelligence, the perpetrators of the Rainbow Warrior bombing and manufacturers of  false intelligence against Ahmed Zaoui; close military-to-military contact with Singapore; development of military-to-military contacts with the PRC, and ongoing intelligence cooperation on and service with US, Australian and UK military units in conflict zones in which NZ has publicly opposed the stance of its larger partners.

As for the NPT, climate change regime and international peacekeeping, perhaps the reasons for participation are less due to principle than to self-interest. Reducing the amount of WMD in the world reduces the potential for catastrophic confrontations and incidental fall-out, contamination and the like. From a self-interested perspective, the less the possibility of adversaries resorting to WMD, the more the possibility of conflict resolution short of total war. Likewise, if one subscribes to the view that climate change is dangerous to humanity, and that humans are major contributors to climate change, that is, climate change is a universal bad caused by people, then it is in New Zealand’s interest to help lead the charge against global warming, CFCs, rising sea levels etc.  In parallel, participation in international peacekeeping can be seen as a form of insurance policy should NZ ever come under attack and its traditional allies are either involved or unwilling to come to its defence. Small states have a vested interest in multinational peacekeeping and defense simply because they are unilaterally vulnerable to the depredations of larger states. In the fluid international environment that is the post-Cold War era, where new powers are emerging, old powers are in decline, and pre-modern ideological conflicts have re-surfaced with a post-modern vengeance (and high tech weaponry), deploying on UN or regional multinational security missions is a self-interested hedge against the uncertainties of the moment. This includes participation in peacekeeping and policing within the southwestern Pacific, as instability and the threat of state failure in places like the Solomons and New Guinea (and further afield, Samoa and Tonga) are believed to invite the unwanted attention of outside powers and criminal organisations as well as spark refugee flows, cross-border tensions and increased levels of violence region-wide. Rather than principle, it could be that pragmatic assessments of longer-term consequences are what drives New Zealand’s approach to these issue-areas.

Labour is believed to be more idealist-principled in its foreign policy approach, whereas National is believed to be more realist-pragmatic. The irony is that other than the (now resolved) disputes over the antinuclear policy, Iraq invasion and dismantling of the tactical air wing, both major parties have, since the late 1990s, tacitly agreed on the overall thrust of New Zealand’s foreign affairs. The bottom line is that pragmatism governs approaches to self-perceived “core” interests, while principle is left to “peripheral” (rhetorical?)interests not essential to national survival and prosperity. Put anther way, the tacit bargain between Labour and National on foreign policy is to never let principle get in the way of pragmatic opportunity or necessity when it comes to international relations.

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Bullying Fiji, Part 2: The Inside Game

Pursuant to the post of a few days ago, I thought it best to follow up with some facts in order to illuminate some of the complexity of the Fijian situation. In doing so I hope to clarify why NZ’s approach may be counter-productive.

The Fijian armed forces total 3,500 troops. Of those, 3,200 are in the Army and 300 in the Navy (there is no air force). Upwards of 97 percent of these troops are indigenous Fijians, with less than 50 military personnel (mostly Indo-Fijians) coming from other ethnic groups. Most of the non-ethnic Fijians are officers, and most are in the Navy (which nominally has nine patrol boats, only of which 2-3 are operational at any given moment). Twenty percent of the Fijian Army are continually deployed on UN  or other international missions (such as Iraq), with the superior UN pay levels being a prize for both officers and enlisted personnel that is transferred in the form of remittance payments to their families back home. If military veterans and private security contractors are included in the total of men under arms, the numbers of ethnic Fijians well versed in combat swells to over 10,000 (Fiji has a thriving market for private security contractors due to its operational experience in foreign conflict zones). The Fijian Navy has limited combat experience, whereas its Army has seen action in a variety of theaters as well as at home.

What this means is that Commodore Bainimarama, as a member of the smaller service (one that has little ground security responsibilities and no ground warfare experience), serves at the behest of the Army commanders. This is important because, as mentioned in the last post, the Fijian armed forces are a classic praetorian military: they internally reflect the political conflicts surrounding them. Since the Army leadership are ethnic Fijians, the Commodore’s proposals to dismantle the disproportionate representation system that favours ethnic Fijians will have a direct impact on the political fortunes of their indigenous kin. Thus Bainimarama must first negotiate the terms of any such constitutional revision with his own High Command, which in turn will have to accept it before popular resistance within the ethnic Fijian community can be lowered. Moreover, the real power to fight in any Army comes from its Non-Comissioned Officers (NCOs, most often of the sergeant rank), which means that there is at least two tiers of command that have to be convinced that such a move is worth backing in the face of family and tribal opposition. Just having the High Command leadership agree will not necessarily be enough to satisfy the NCOs, and recent Fijian history has shown that it is the lower command ranks that ultimately call the shots (literally) when political factors do not swing their way. Perhaps that is why the process of constitutional reform is so slow.

The South Pacific Forum decision to issue an ultimatum calling on Fiji to announce a date for elections is thus problematic. Perhaps NZ and the other sponsors of the resolution believe that in doing so they are giving the Commodore some leverage with which to push his proposals past the Army High Command while at the same time allowing him the cover of publicly voicing nationalist resentment against the intrusion on Fijian sovereignty. But equally plausible is that the ultimatum serves to undermine Bainimarama’s efforts to convince his flag-ranked colleagues and NCOs of the need to accept the “one-person, one vote” system. Should he be seen as weak in the face of this foreign pressure, it is quite possible that a counter-coup will be staged by the Army that will restore disproportionate ethnic Fijian voting privileges in a future constitutional reform. Having a reserve pool of armed veterans amongst the male ethnic Fijian population makes the prospects  for success of such a counter-coup more likely.

Bainimarama’s regime has relatively few uniforms in civilian ministerial positions and in fact has a  majority of civilian administrators and bureaucrats undertaking the daily operations of the Fijian state. Although the Commodore has a petulant streak and his police are selectively heavy handed with regards to dissidents and foreign diplomats who support them, the regime is not universally repressive of the population (perhaps with good reason given the balance of power within the armed forces). But that could change as pressure mounts from both sides–internally as well as externally. Thus increasing foreign pressure on Bainimarama is slowly backing him into a corner–but perhaps not the one that NZ and its allies want him to be in.

This is just one aspect of the equation. One assumes that MFAT has specialists who are aware of this internal game and are advising the government accordingly. It would be advantageous if there were military to military contacts between the NZDF and Fijian military commanders that might serve as a quiet parallel track to the public diplomacy now ongoing. But as things stand the NZ posture seems to be all rhetoric and little if any influence on this (or any other) internal game. If the Commodore does not meet the SPF deadline and economic and diplomatic sanctions are imposed, what is to say that the situation will not get worse rather than better, at least in terms of a peaceful resolution that leads to the restoration of democracy in Fiji?  At that point it will be the Fijian Army that will decide the outcome, and it may not be the outcome NZ favours.