The government has made no secret of its enthusiasm in exploring involvement in Pillar Two of Aukus, the trilateral security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Pillar Two envisages the sharing of advanced military technologies and would grant New Zealand associate membership of a grouping aimed at countering China’s influence in the Asia-Pacific region.
But as conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza challenge the basis of international law and regional crises threaten instability in the Pacific, declassified documents cast doubt about whether Pillar Two membership is consistent with an independent New Zealand foreign policy that is principled and distinctive.
When Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins attended the inaugural Australia-New Zealand Foreign and Defence Ministerial Consultations in Australia in February they welcomed Aukus as an initiative to "enhance regional security and stability".
This stance reflected the first significant joint-agency Foreign Affairs and Defence briefing to the government, which we have obtained through the Official Information Act.
According to the briefing, "The core objective of Aukus is ensuring a strong and effective rules-based international system in the Indo-Pacific, and a secure, stable and resilient region".
It asserts, therefore, that Aukus is "consistent with New Zealand’s interests and aligns with our national security, defence and foreign policy settings".
However, this claim is only partially true. It is essential to remember that though New Zealand shares much with Australia, the UK and the US, it has taken relatively independent stances on non-nuclear security in the mid-1980s, its opposition to the US’ illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 and relations with China.
Moreover, New Zealand’s evolving sense of national identity — anchored in the Pacific — has generated a distinctive worldview not replicated elsewhere in the Anglosphere.
This worldview brings with it certain commitments, including to regional security that is expansive, non-nuclear, Pacific-led, and takes climate change to be the principal threat to life and livelihood. Aukus does not reflect or respect these values.
And though New Zealand’s protection and prosperity rely on upholding and strengthening the international rules-based order, it is also evident Aukus does little to advance that strategic goal.
Aukus’ clear purpose is to maintain the United States’ military primacy and contain China. It means to do so by extending nuclear deterrence and facilitating closer ties between Aukus states and the US military-industrial complex.
Some New Zealand officials clearly support this underlying rationale. Declassified documents from the last New Zealand-United States Defence Policy Dialogue emphasise "shared interests in peace, stability, economic prosperity, and multilateralism underpinned by the US’ ability to maintain influence and efficacy as a global superpower".
Herein lies a stark contradiction. Aukus assumes China’s assertiveness is the single most important threat to regional stability and the international rules-based order, compelling New Zealand to align with the US.
However, New Zealand’s interests face a range of threats, including UN dysfunction, US exceptionalism, Russian expansionism and Pacific tensions.
Aukus not only lacks a strategy to address these challenges but potentially compounds them. New Zealand’s association through Pillar Two would tacitly endorse Aukus and erode principled difference on these subjects.
Since 9/11, the Security Council, the key UN organ for maintaining international peace and security, has been paralysed by the unilateral actions of permanent members such as the US, Russia, and China. The unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza exemplifies how veto powers destabilise global security in the 21st century.
The unconditional support of the US and the UK for the Israeli government’s relentless military onslaught on Gaza has led to the death of more than 32,000 Palestinians — prompting the International Court of Justice to order Israel to prevent acts of genocide — and escalated tensions in the Red Sea.
Nevertheless, despite global support in the UN for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, the Biden administration used its veto powers to deny that possibility until last week when it finally abstained on a resolution demanding a ceasefire, only to immediately declare that this resolution was non-binding.
The Biden administration has struggled since late 2023 to support Kyiv in reversing the illegal Russian attempt to annex Ukraine in the face of serious opposition within Congress from the pro-Putin faction in the Republican Party.
Washington’s response to these conflicts raises serious questions for its allies — including Aukus partners — about the US commitment to an international rules-based order over and beyond national self-interest.
Aukus exploits purported loopholes in the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Treaty of Rarotonga to provide nuclear technology to Australia, weakening international legal norms and regional advocacy for nuclear disarmament. Ultimately, Aukus members’ approach to intergovernmental bodies such as the Pacific Islands Forum has subordinated Pacific regional security concerns to an Indo-Pacific strategy designed to contain China.
Thus, despite bullish statements by officials in Wellington, the strategic interests of New Zealand and Aukus partners are not identical.
Participation in Pillar Two would compromise New Zealand’s ability to maintain a principled, independent voice on the international stage and in the Pacific region. — Newsroom
■Marco de Jong is a Pacific historian and a lecturer in the AUT Law School; Robert G Patman is a professor of international relations in the Department of Politics at the University of Otago.
