Incline
  • Home
  • Submissions
  • About

Taking New Zealand's Pacific Reset to the Pacific Islands Forum

3/9/2018

 
Picture
Authors:   Anna Powles and Michael Powles

​This week Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters are in Nauru attending the 49th Pacific Islands Forum. Against the backdrop of well-publicised strategic anxieties and foreign policy recalibration towards the Pacific Islands here, here and here, this year’s pre-eminent annual meeting of regional leaders is shaping up to be particularly interesting.
 
First, a new security declaration, known as Biketawa Plus, will be launched. This will be the newest addition to the regional security architecture since the Biketawa Declaration was signed eighteen years ago. The 2000 Biketawa Declaration is best known for mandating the fourteen year-long Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) and the new declaration, likely to be named the Boe Declaration after Nauruan Prime Minister Baron Waqa’s home district of Boe, seeks to expand both regional cooperation and the concept of security. 


Read More

An Old or a New Dawn? Questions Hang Over New Zealand’s Defence Policy Statement

3/9/2018

 
Picture
Author    Terence O'Brien

​The Ardern coalition government has chosen an awkward moment internationally to release its first big picture view on world affairs. The primary purpose of its 2018 Strategic Defence Policy (SDP) Statement is to demonstrate why NZ requires a suite of identified military capabilities. Although the envisaged costs are considerable, the statement presents a solid case for equipping NZ first and foremost for credible stewardship and protection of its ‘near abroad,’ from Antarctica to the Equator. The presentation is clear and concise.
 
In addressing the wider context of NZ interests the document stresses the crucial importance of an international rules based order (in its 39 pages there are 33 such references) and the responsibility of the New Zealand Defence Force and security/intelligence community to strive to ensure the integrity of that order.  Concern for rules-based order has of course traditionally been a first care of foreign policy advisers and the new statement gives a nod to NZ’s independent foreign policy.  But it reflects more significantly the way in which national security agencies of New Zealand’s traditional partners now prioritise oversight of rules-based order as justification for their own international relations primacy, and for enhanced military and security capability to confront perceived threats. Is NZ now on the same pathway?

Read More

    About

    Incline is a New Zealand-based project that publishes original analysis and commentary on issues and trends that impact New Zealand's international relations. 

    To get new posts delivered by email directly to your inbox, sign up below.

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    May 2022
    March 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.