Guess which nation had the Anglosphere’s proudest and toughest
military culture a century ago? The answer “New Zealand” might
surprise some. Which 21st Century Anglosphere nation no longer has
a combat Air Force and almost no national defense? The answer is
also New Zealand.
Consider these statistics: At the time of the First World War
New Zealand had a total population of about 1,100,000. Of these
about 100,000, all volunteers, went to the war. About 18,000 were
killed, more than 40,000 wounded, and a grand total of 341 ever
surrendered and were taken prisoner.
Let’s be careful what we are saying here. These are hardly
figures to rejoice over: it was a ghastly tragedy. But New
Zealanders did show the world they were not exactly pantywaists.
They did their bit and more to save Europe from Prussian
militarism.
In addition to this, shortly before the outbreak of World War I,
New Zealand paid for a dreadnought battle-cruiser, HMS New
Zealand, for the Royal Navy, which served with the British
home fleet. (At the Battle of Jutland the Captain took the ship
into action wearing a lucky Maori grass-skirt, to which some
attribute the fact that New Zealand survived unscathed though three
similar battle-cruisers were blown to pieces.) In the midst of the
war, it formed its own Air Force.
Certainly, this huge effort did not knock the stuffing out of
the little country in the way that casualties seemed to permanently
knock the stuffing out of France. New Zealand fought bravely and
where it was needed in World War II. The casualty lists were
mercifully shorter, but New Zealanders played a leading role in the
North African and Italian campaigns, and one of them became the
third (and so far last) man in the history of the British Empire to
win the Victoria Cross twice.
A New Zealand-manned cruiser, Achilles, helped put paid
to the pocket-battleship Graf Spee at the Battle of the River
Plate. Unlike Australia, it left its battle-hardened troops in
Europe even after the Japanese attack in the Pacific.
HOWEVER, TIMES CHANGE. I landed at the small New Zealand town of
Blenheim several weeks ago. Beside the civilian airport was a
military air-base. Two or three vehicles with faded paint were
drawn up there, but almost no personnel and no aircraft at all were
to be seen.
Against the protests of much of its defense community, New
Zealand’s socialist government (which in 1981 had the country
declared a Nuclear Free Zone), had this land of flightless birds
disband the fighter wing of its Air Force, which no longer has any
strike capability.
Current duties of its remaining 50 or so aircraft include search
and rescue, maritime patrol and transport. Almost all of the
RNZAF’s top gun fighter pilots have left the country to join the
British and Australian Air Forces.
Its Navy and Army are in roughly comparable shape. Those who
struggle on manning its defense forces know that they are in a
second or third-string organization with poor career or promotion
opportunities, despised by many in the government.
The country’s thinking is, apparently, that thanks to geography,
its allies can carry its defense burden for it. In the latter days
of the Cold War extreme leftism became deeply entrenched in some
parts of the labor and union movement and there is compelling
evidence of Moscow connections and funding then which contributed
to radicalizing significant parts of the culture.
KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky said that New Zealand “had been
under massive propaganda and ideological attack from the KGB and
the [Soviet] Central Committee, and the ruling Labour Party had
seemed unaware of the extent to which the fabric of their society
was being damaged by subversion …
“In its attempts to draw New Zealand into nuclear-free
activities, the Soviet authorities had made tremendous efforts to
penetrate and strengthen the Labour Party, partly through the local
Party of Socialist Unity (in effect the Communist Party of New
Zealand) and partly through the Trades Union Congress.”
IT PROBABLY MAKES sense that a small country should not try to
replicate in miniature every type of defense capacity. (Although
Singapore, with a comparable population, has powerful and
up-to-date armed forces including a considerable fighter strike
force.) However, it should make at least a contribution
proportionate to, and compatible with, its larger allies.
This was what New Zealand did, in a sense, by buying Britain
HMS New Zealand, rather than trying to run a capital ship
of its own, far from where any decisive action might be fought, and
by sending its troops to the strategically-decisive theatres in
both world wars, rather than turning inward and behaving as if
nothing mattered but its own comfort and quiet life.
It would also make sense for a country in such a situation to
grapple its allies to its bosom with hoops of steel. However, far
from doing this, New Zealand’s government gives the impression that
it does not take alliances and mutual defense obligations
seriously. Indeed it sees alliances as undesirable.
Its defense alliance with Australia and the U.S. (the ANZUS
treaty) has been dissolved. U.S. warships are banned from its ports
because the U.S. Navy will not state whether or not they are
carrying nuclear weapons. Even nuclear-propelled ships are
forbidden.
It seems ironically appropriate that New Zealand’s national
anthem begins with the words “God Defend New Zealand!” It doesn’t
look as if anyone else is going to. It is assumed that any enemy
will have to get past Australia (and ultimately the US).
New Zealand is not exactly neutral — it is still part of the
historic West, it is culturally and in other ways still very much
part of the Anglosphere, and for obvious reasons enjoys a uniquely
close relationship with Australia. It has sent troops to Iraq and
Afghanistan, as it did previously to Korea and Vietnam.
In the short time I spent there it was emphasized to me that the
broad-spectrum leftism of the government does not represent the
whole of political thinking or culture by any means — that was
strongly put over several days of meetings with leading political,
cultural and media figures.
The feeling seems to be that the present government, under the
far-left Helen Clark, is on the way out.
BUT THE PRESENT government’s turning away from the world, from
responsibility, from a sense of mutual and reciprocal obligations,
from an idea of the Anglosphere nations hanging together in a
century which looks to be challenging enough, and even from
self-respect, does show what can happen very quickly when a
Gramscian campaign to gain the commanding heights of cultural and
political power succeeds.
Certainly, New Zealand faces no obvious military threat, and it
has not been alone in adopting such selfish policies: the
governments of Europe indulged in even more gross free-riding when
they allowed the US to defend them from the Soviet Union, but in
many ways New Zealand’s government seems to show the malaise in a
particularly sharp form.
New Zealand has never been threatened by invasion but until now
has had a proud tradition of being prepared to contribute —
mightily! — to defend the right.
It is as if previous generations of New Zealanders felt that
their uniquely safe and privileged strategic environment gave them
a certain responsibility beyond their shores.
The flightless birds of New Zealand, which had evolved in
conditions of perfect safety, isolated from predators by the vast
distances of the Pacific, were wiped out when the Polynesian Maoris
arrived.
Only the kiwi survived to become a national symbol.
PERHAPS, IF THIS is not symbolic lesson enough, New Zealanders
should take note of what happened on one of their own dependencies,
the Chatham Islands.
There the native people, the Moriori, though Polynesians
genetically and racially akin to the warlike New Zealand Maoris,
were pacifist by religion and would not defend themselves.
It is a story that hangs over New Zealand history, though for
reasons of political correctness it is not dwelt upon today. It’s
another of those stories which could be made into a movie — a sad
one — but won’t be.
Quite late in the piece, in 1835, a group of New Zealand Maoris
stole a couple of European sailing ships, got to the Chatham
Islands, promptly ate most of the unarmed and unresisting pacifist
Moriori and enslaved the rest.
One of the very few Moriori survivors recalled: “The Maoris
commenced to kill us like sheep….[We] were terrified, fled to the
bush, concealed ourselves in holes underground, and in any place to
escape our enemies. It was of no avail; we were discovered and
killed — men, women and children.”
A Maori explained: “We took possession in accordance with our
customs and we caught all the people. Not one escaped.”
THE SCENERY IS magnificent and the people are the friendliest I
have ever met.
Pity about the Air Force.
