It is unremarkable. Larger than Waiheke with just over five thousand residents who survive on mining and tourism. However. In 416 BC Melos was caught in a dilemma.
Greece was consumed with the Spartan/Athenian conflict and Melos was both independent and geographically in the Athenian sphere of influence. Athens demanded Melos’ submission or face annihilation.
Confronted with Athenian intransigence the Melians responded; “…all we can reasonably expect from this negotiation is war, if we prove to have right on our side and refuse to submit, and in the contrary case, slavery.”
To which the Athenians replied that the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. Melos was brutally conquered. Such was the state of international relations.
In the aftermath of the Second World War there was an attempt to create a rules-based order to protect states like Melos. Bretton Woods and the IMF would regulate world’s money and trade would be orderly thanks to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
In the aftermath of Trump’s extradition of the president of Venezuela there is lamenting over the demise of this order; but did it exist outside the imagination of diplomats and academics? For forty years the cold war simmered with small nations from Angola to Afghanistan torn apart as superpowers fought for supremacy.
Once the wall fell we entered the era of Pax Americana. When nations like Panama and Iraq fell foul of Uncle Sam the marines were sent in. There wasn’t a single year US forces were not enforcing democracy or expanding freedom somewhere outside their shores.
The argument against what Trump did at 2am in Caracas weekend before last is that we have no moral argument against Putin when he invades his neighbours or that we should let the citizens of Venezuela continue to suffer so we can lecture Beijing on why they should not annex Taiwan.
This is nonsense. If we want to protect Taiwan rifles and gunships are more effective than rhetoric and grandiloquence.
The Rules Based Order was an attempt to restore the ideas behind the 1648 Peace of Westphalia where princes were given the freedom to rule unmolested within their realms as the price of peace. We traded the liberties of the governed for the avoidance of armed conflict.
It didn’t work.
This order didn’t save Afghanistan or Vietnam from decades of hosting superpower proxy wars. Hungary and Czechoslovakia from Moscow sending in tanks to crush dissent. Iran and Chilie from American meddling when their voters got it wrong.
And wars between minor states continued without pause; from the savagery inflicted on Sarajevo to half a million corpses piled up in the Iran/Iraq conflict; the rules-based order proved impotent. It did nothing to prevent the annexation of Crimera and although Putin is facing resistance in his further Ukrainian adventures this is a self-interested reaction by Western powers nervous about the Kremlin’s expansionist dreams.
There was progress in the area of trade. The WTO has been a net positive if we measure what would have occurred without it and not by its own standards and I am sympathetic to build capacity in things like the International Criminal court; even if the practice falls short of its potential. But on the Field of Mars small nations must continue to fight in the shade.
By seizing the president of Venezuela Trump has discarded the pretence of adherence to Article Two of the UN Charter; that declares that “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state…”
The liberal rules-based order is over in theory as well as practice and, as a New Zealand columnist I must now address the central issue of concern to readers; how will this affect Auckland house prices?
The old order suited our foreign policy. Thanks to the end of ANZUS and despite involvement in Five Eyes, we have successfully maintained a strategic ambiguity. Pursuing trade with China whilst maintaining strong cultural and economic ties to our American friends we uphold the fiction of a rules-based order to avoid commitment.
This is coming to an end and the economic consequences for Aotearoa could be severe if the debate over Taiwan moves from shouting to shooting. Our exports to China exceed twenty billion, compared to seventeen for the United States but we import substantially more from the Americans and the integration of our financial sectors makes disengagement from Washington more complex than ending milk powder sales to Beijing.
For the moment we can keep our head down and hope; which is why the foreign minister, the ever-wily Mr Peters, has merely expressed concern and “…expects all parties to act in accordance with international law”.
But when international law fails, as it has, we face the reality that confronted Melos 2,400 years ago.....The full article is published HERE
Damien Grant is an Auckland business owner, a member of the Taxpayers’ Union and a regular opinion contributor for Stuff, writing from a libertarian perspective
To which the Athenians replied that the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. Melos was brutally conquered. Such was the state of international relations.
In the aftermath of the Second World War there was an attempt to create a rules-based order to protect states like Melos. Bretton Woods and the IMF would regulate world’s money and trade would be orderly thanks to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
In the aftermath of Trump’s extradition of the president of Venezuela there is lamenting over the demise of this order; but did it exist outside the imagination of diplomats and academics? For forty years the cold war simmered with small nations from Angola to Afghanistan torn apart as superpowers fought for supremacy.
Once the wall fell we entered the era of Pax Americana. When nations like Panama and Iraq fell foul of Uncle Sam the marines were sent in. There wasn’t a single year US forces were not enforcing democracy or expanding freedom somewhere outside their shores.
The argument against what Trump did at 2am in Caracas weekend before last is that we have no moral argument against Putin when he invades his neighbours or that we should let the citizens of Venezuela continue to suffer so we can lecture Beijing on why they should not annex Taiwan.
This is nonsense. If we want to protect Taiwan rifles and gunships are more effective than rhetoric and grandiloquence.
The Rules Based Order was an attempt to restore the ideas behind the 1648 Peace of Westphalia where princes were given the freedom to rule unmolested within their realms as the price of peace. We traded the liberties of the governed for the avoidance of armed conflict.
It didn’t work.
This order didn’t save Afghanistan or Vietnam from decades of hosting superpower proxy wars. Hungary and Czechoslovakia from Moscow sending in tanks to crush dissent. Iran and Chilie from American meddling when their voters got it wrong.
And wars between minor states continued without pause; from the savagery inflicted on Sarajevo to half a million corpses piled up in the Iran/Iraq conflict; the rules-based order proved impotent. It did nothing to prevent the annexation of Crimera and although Putin is facing resistance in his further Ukrainian adventures this is a self-interested reaction by Western powers nervous about the Kremlin’s expansionist dreams.
There was progress in the area of trade. The WTO has been a net positive if we measure what would have occurred without it and not by its own standards and I am sympathetic to build capacity in things like the International Criminal court; even if the practice falls short of its potential. But on the Field of Mars small nations must continue to fight in the shade.
By seizing the president of Venezuela Trump has discarded the pretence of adherence to Article Two of the UN Charter; that declares that “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state…”
The liberal rules-based order is over in theory as well as practice and, as a New Zealand columnist I must now address the central issue of concern to readers; how will this affect Auckland house prices?
The old order suited our foreign policy. Thanks to the end of ANZUS and despite involvement in Five Eyes, we have successfully maintained a strategic ambiguity. Pursuing trade with China whilst maintaining strong cultural and economic ties to our American friends we uphold the fiction of a rules-based order to avoid commitment.
This is coming to an end and the economic consequences for Aotearoa could be severe if the debate over Taiwan moves from shouting to shooting. Our exports to China exceed twenty billion, compared to seventeen for the United States but we import substantially more from the Americans and the integration of our financial sectors makes disengagement from Washington more complex than ending milk powder sales to Beijing.
For the moment we can keep our head down and hope; which is why the foreign minister, the ever-wily Mr Peters, has merely expressed concern and “…expects all parties to act in accordance with international law”.
But when international law fails, as it has, we face the reality that confronted Melos 2,400 years ago.....The full article is published HERE
Damien Grant is an Auckland business owner, a member of the Taxpayers’ Union and a regular opinion contributor for Stuff, writing from a libertarian perspective
13 comments:
Our Country is New Zealand not A...
What's wrong with strict neutrality Switzerland-style?
Confirming Anonymous (10.34am). Message for D Grant and for anyone else it might apply to: Don’t use the A word. Strict parsing and translation of the A word produces CloudWhiteLong. Do we want to change the name New Zealand to CloudWhiteLong?
What? We face a choice of war or slavery? Certainly things are going to get more tricky, and certainly war is a possibility, but not simply one of two disastrous outcomes. Prof. Hugh White addresses this situation head-on and presents a lot more useful ideas on how we might want to proceed from here.
Some time ago Mr Grant wrote a column saying NZ was a silly name and advocating the A name. He may be ''libertarian'' on economic matters but is ''on narrative'' on woke issues dear the Stuff heart; that's why he is allowed a column: a mildly divergent view on some things from time to time but nothing of substantial difference to give the impression of allowing diverse viewpoints. It is a Stuff facade.
Using the "A" word immediately signals that either the writer is fully indoctrinated, or their editor is and has edited the document with a "M" bias, or is left of centre.
Loses credibility.
Agree Eamon, do we want to admit our country is full of vaporous, cirrus envelope, lankly air heads?
"Aotearoa" I concur with other commenters here: this country is New Zealand. People may not like this name but, for better or worse, we're stuck with it. Aotearoa was never the name for NZ. Prior to the Treaty's signing, the indigenes had no concept of NZ as a polity, hence no name for it. Read the Maori-language version of the Treaty: the name used for NZ is a transliteration of it.
"...no moral argument against Putin when he invades his neighbours..."
This comment indicates that the author has no idea about what's happening in that part of the world. He has simply bought into western - in particular EU and UK - propaganda. We have extended family in the Donbass and those parts of Russia which were incorporated by the USSR into the Ukraine, for admin. purposes, in 1922. Following the US-sponsored putsch in Kiev in 2014, the newly-installed neo-nazi government carried out a sustained campaign of persecution and attacks against the Donbass in particular, because the Donbass republics in 2014 had, as a consequence of the atrocity in Odessa that year, declared independence from the Ukraine. Following independence in 1991, the Crimea had made two previous attempts to decamp from the Ukraine. In 2014, that territory made good its escape, returning to Russia. The 2022 SMO was designed to rescue the Donbass from the Ukraine, which, had that not happened, would have killed or driven out all the Russian speakers (the majority of the population in Eastern Ukraine). Want to know about the Odessa atrocity? Go read about it.
"...lecture Beijing on why they should not annex Taiwan."
Does the author know the views of ordinary Taiwanese? Not their government: the people. He needs to find that out.
"This order didn’t save Afghanistan or Vietnam from decades of hosting superpower proxy wars. Hungary and Czechoslovakia from Moscow sending in tanks to crush dissent."
Another comment which indicates acceptance of propaganda over actual events.
If the author wishes to be taken seriously as a commentator on international issues, he needs to realise that most of what we're told about international events is propaganda. Read this book, if people want to know how we've ended up where we are. Note that it's written by an American:
"The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government"
Book by David Talbot
And - above all - treat with scepticism everything reported by the international msm, and uncritically repeated by NZ msm. Most of it's balderdash.
Grant's opinion piece has nothing to do with the correct use of the word Aotearoa. It's a reflection on how we see our place in the post-Trump world order. If Trump is allowed to trash our ability to determine our own future, free from big power coercion, it really doesn't matter what we call ourselves. We still wind up the losers. So, people, try focusing on the substance of the article and stop wasting time bitching about its style. Aotearoa is an issue for another time and place.
Hopefully Rule based adherence will not prevent the US from interfering when maori acquire total power, whether by revolt (supported by the toomany in Police and Forces) or by continued application of threat of Cancellation and consequent success at ballot.
To the writer: "At what point does he consider citizens need to be rescued from a murderous regime?" or does he consider citizens should never be rescued but just remain oppressed forever....a pretty grim prospect one would think.
Totally agree about Aotearoa. Not to be used in discourse unless the majority of citizens sanction it.
Hear hear to D'Esterre. I have friends in Ukraine of mixed Russian-Ukrainian blood since 1972 and more besides. Been there years ago. It is dangerous to go against the narrative in NZ ,UK, Oz (unlike wider dissent in US and much of Europe) or you will be marked as a Russian operative. We, as in the govt, are in an undeclared war. I read W .European press (BBC is a joke) and the other side of Ukrainian Ukrainians who are ignored, not just RT for those who want to snipe. Oh and RT has plenty of anti-Russia coverage as well , who says what. Label its columnists from other countries as puppets if you will but they are worth a read. Blitzky's Azovs and historical figures such as Bandera and Shukevich (who appear on legitimate stamps issued by Urposhta not spurious labels) are not some myth. Whitewashed though by Vic Uni here. Oh , and there never was a rules-based order. UK France USA Russia (and Soviets) and China and France et al were always trying to undermine and swing events in smaller countries to suit them. For some when the US did this BEFORE Trump that was just fine. The wonderful EU with its goals of becoming a US with nations reduced to states conforming to the centre, Brussels. ''Progressive'' uniparty mass immigration, restrictions on sovereignty, imposition on states of the gender/tranny agenda, it goes on. The glorious formerly ''free'' west is undermining itself. The EU was good when it started back in the 50s but has changed format and goals. It should survive as a trade association of sovereign states.
"If Trump is allowed to trash our ability to determine our own future, free from big power coercion...."
It's important to remember that Trump is doing exactly what US presidents (and the leaders of other large polities) before him have done. Small, weak polities such as NZ have never been free to determine our own path. I vividly remember the hoo-haa over the nuclear-free issue, and before that the Vietnam conflict.
With regard to the nuclear-free issue, we found out that the when US deep state bears a grudge for a very long time.
You may well be too young to remember the Vietnam war, but I am not. I was a student in Wellington when LBJ came to NZ with the express purpose of bullying the Holyoake government into sending troops to his godforsaken war. He threatened our trade with the US if the government didn't comply. Holyoake, a sceptic with regard to that war, agreed to troops, but only volunteers, and only from the defence forces: no civilians, no conscription. Australians with whom I've discussed this are astonished to hear that there was no conscription in NZ. There certainly was in Australia.
Then there was the bombing of the "Rainbow Warrior" in Auckland harbour in 1985. That was the doing of France. NZ had no means to prevent it. And it was the local cops, along with a few nosey citizens, who caught a couple of the perpetrators, not the security service. The others got away: you can read online about the events. NZ was - there's no other word for it - betrayed over that situation, by the polities we think of as allies.
Nobody who's lived as long as I have, can be in any doubt about this country's inability to be truly independent, or about how our so-called allies will throw us to the wolves when it suits them to do so.
And no: NZ isn't "Aotearoa". Nobody should be using that word, until there has been a mandate for it, given by the citizens.
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