Author  B K Greener

The Taliban have achieved in hours what many would thought would take them at least months. The Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) have folded like a house of cards. Kabul has fallen, and many provincial capitals too. And despite earlier protestations to the contrary, the Taliban is not looking to share power. After twenty years of international intervention, the loss of tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars of aid, many of the gains made have been rolled back in the blink of an eye.
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Analyses of what went wrong will continue to emerge. Those who warned of the perils of history – regurgitating phrases like ‘graveyard of empires’ – or who raised concerns about flimsiness of the ANSF or who shook their heads about the ill-conceived nature of liberal state-building attempts may crow, but if they do, it should be without any pleasure. For what comes now?

Author    David Capie

Over the last few months more than a few commentators at home and abroad have become highly sensitive to changes in the New Zealand government’s China settings. Statements about everything from Hong Kong, cyber-security, the origins of covid-19, and the treatment of the Uighurs have been subjected to forensic scrutiny. Yet last week, perhaps lost amidst a late deluge of Olympic medals, a significant development in New Zealand’s position on China’s claims in the South China Sea went largely unnoticed.
 
By submitting a statement or ‘note verbale’ to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, New Zealand has joined a growing number of countries including Australia, France, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, the UK, the US, and Vietnam, setting out their legal position on the South China Sea disputes. In doing so, the Ardern government has gone much further than it has previously been willing to go in rejecting Beijing’s expansive territorial claims.