Don Brash: New Zealand's foreign policy dilemma

A few weeks ago, the New Zealand media gave some coverage to the spectacle of the US President and the Prime Ministers of Australia and the UK signing an agreement whereby Australia will buy eight nuclear-powered submarines over the next two decades at a cost of some $400 billion, confirmation of the so-called AUKUS treaty between the three countries.

Reactions in Australia were varied, though there was no push-back from the Opposition Liberal Party because the AUKUS deal had first been agreed while that party was in power. However, the former Labor Prime Minister, Paul Keating, described the treaty as the worst decision Australia had made in a century.

Clive Bibby: When all else fails, bail out while you're ahead.

When reading the latest news about the war in Ukraine, I couldn't help noticing the contrasting leadership styles of the main participants.

It doesn't require a military strategist to work out the main contributing factors to either success or failure on the battlefield.

But we need to understand the ramifications of domestic policies in the respective countries before we rush to judgement on which side holds the upper hand and who has the most to lose.

Karl du Fresne: Ordinary men who did extraordinary things

I recently watched several episodes of the National Geographic documentary series Last War Heroes. The programmes covered the decisive period of World War II from the D-Day invasion of Normandy to the arrival of Allied forces in Berlin, the black heart of the Third Reich.

The title might give the impression that the series glorified war, but no. It was unflinchingly honest in its depiction of what war was really like. In addition to the terror and tension of combat, soldiers had to endure bitter cold, hunger and even boredom. We tend to think of the Allied advance into Germany in 1944 as a triumphant, unstoppable roll, almost a jaunt, but it was nothing of the sort.

Ron Smith: Talking about war

A hundred years ago, the government department responsible for the use of armed force, was called the ‘War Ministry’. Now it is called the ‘Ministry of Defence’ and we like it to engage in ‘peace-keeping’ and not ‘war’. Most citizens are not in, in a strict-sense, ‘pacifist’ (they do not repudiate the use of violent means in all circumstances) but they regret the all too evident human consequences of war, which makes them lukewarm supporters of ‘defence’, as an abstract proposition.

One consequence of this is a perpetual failure, by societies like ours, to make adequate provision for likely defence contingencies. Thus the period up to the New Zealand humanitarian intervention into East Timor (now Timor Leste) in 1999, was characterised by vociferous criticism of defence expenditure (‘toys for the boys’) by people who were then enthusiastic advocates of the operation. The consequence, of course, was to deploy forces that were inadequately trained and inadequately equipped.