Why New Zealand will never experience war again

An article by Reinhold    1 Comment

In my opinion, New Zealand is the security pinnacle of all societies in all of human history. I cannot think of any other country that faced fewer internal or external security threats, had less corruption, had a better quality of life for the majority of its population, or had such a responsive, transparent and democratic government. In my book, NZ is an epic win.

Given this, it is easy to feel exasperated with poor unstable countries. Many people I meet tell me how they gave money during Live Aid in 2005, but so far they “haven’t seen any results”. This is often followed by some statements like: “if poor countries want to be secure, why do they fight each other? If they want to be rich, why are they so corrupt?” Sitting in NZ, it is easy to feel a smug sense of superiority while looking at chaotic wars overseas.

I believe that the best way to think about most overseas conflicts is to take the long view. Mohammed Ayoob says that “state making and what we now call internal war are two sides of the same coin.” This means that new nations are prone to, or even need, a civil conflict in order to sort out large political questions before they can progress to more stable entities. Given that decolonisation of most of the developing world only happened 50 years ago, Westerners should not be surprised when these newly formed nations work out their political issues violently.

Western countries have largely already been through this state formation process. New Zealand’s political system was inherited from England, which fought a nasty civil war 350 years ago over the balance of power between parliament and the Crown. Even peaceable New Zealand has a violent past. New Zealand’s colonial government fought a series of campaigns 150 years ago (particularly the invasion of the Waikato in 1863) in order to establish firm political and economic dominance over iwi. But how likely is it that New Zealand will experience another conflict? In my opinion, we have the lowest odds of internal or external war that any nation has ever experienced.

First, our external threats: there are none. New Zealand pop culture seems to have bouts of ‘yellow peril’ fearing an Asian invasion. There are a few things that make this very unlikely, foremost being that we are strategically the most unimportant piece of land on Earth. NZ is located at the end of the world, and is only ever used as a staging point by people headed to Antarctica. Second, we are very far away from other countries. To put this in perspective: while NZ has troops stationed in our ‘neighbour’ East Timor; England is closer to Afghanistan than NZ is to Timor.

Third, the countries that do have the military capacity to come down and attack NZ are mostly rich democracies, and NZ is a rich democracy. And rich democracies never fight. This is called ‘democratic peace theory’, or the Golden Arches Theory – as no two countries with a McDonalds have ever fought each other.

Also, an invasion or attack on NZ would be a major conventional military operation, and nuclear weapons have largely rendered these kinds of attacks impossible. First because the invasion force itself would be too exposed to annihilation with one nuke, and secondly because an invasion of a rich democratic nation would probably spark a great power nuclear exchange.

Now to NZ’s internal threats. The NZ SIS and other branches of government have been preoccupied over the decades with Maori nationalism. This is the most obvious internal threat given the NZ government’s history of broken treaties and promises, as well as invasions and seizures of Maori land. Civil wars are predominantly ethnically based, as ethnicity can provide the unity to overcome the collective action problem.

The collective action problem is why there are comparatively few civil wars given Earth’s population. War is obviously quite deadly. And when rebel groups start out, they are at extreme risk of being completely eradicated. Therefore if you are part of an aggrieved group, the most rational decision to make is to let your compatriots do the fighting and then you can enjoy the benefits if they win. In essence the collective action problem means that if everyone made rational decisions, then all would choose to be freeriders rather than participants.

However a shared ethnicity, language, history, and set of grievances can provide a framework for a people to unite and overcome the collective action problem. Maori already have this framework in place. Why then haven’t Maori rebelled? There are four reasons from a security perspective: geography, money, viability, and democracy.

The famous counterinsurgency theorist David Galula wrote about what he believed to be the worst possible place to try and start a guerrilla war. Galula describes a distant star-shaped island, with no foreign borders, a cold-ish climate, and with many small cities spaced far apart. That is the North Island described quite precisely. The many peninsulas and spread out cities are ideal for ‘clean and sweep’ counterinsurgency operations, and there are no borders or safe havens for guerrillas to flee to. Perhaps you’ve seen that classic NZ movie Sleeping Dogs (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076725/) in which rebels hide out in the bush at Coromandel Peninsula. In reality they would get wiped out in like a week.
Secondly, NZ is quite rich. In order for a rebel group to be able to recruit new rebels, those potential recruits must have living standards so low that they see an extremely risky life as a rebel as quite attractive. Joining a rebel group comes down to a relatively simple decision: “am I ready to lose everything and die for a hypothetical vision of the future?” Most NZers would say no. Also, NZ’s wealth allows the state to maintain a working and effective police force that would quickly put down any potentially rebellious activity – as they did in the 2007 ‘terrorist’ raids on Tuhoe.

Third, any potential separate state set up by Maori would not be independently viable. If Tuhoe seceded, their state could not economically survive without the cooperation of the New Zealand government. This is often a reason why civil wars start in areas that are rich in resources (Biafra, Cabinda, Aceh) as these resources would allow a new state to be self sufficient.

Probably the greatest barrier to civil war in New Zealand is the strength of our democratic institutions. These institutions allow NZ to deal with political grievances peacefully. The great example is the Waitangi Tribunal, allowing iwi to deal with historic grievances through legal channels. Related to this has been the emergence of MMP, allowing more Maori to be represented in Parliament. Many extreme activists of yore (see Hone Harawira) have now been integrated into New Zealand’s political process.
Given all these factors, it’s a pertinent question as to whether NZ needs a military.
Sit back and enjoy the peace everyone!