Analysis by Keith Rankin.
Role: Economic historian.
Keith Rankin, 27 October 2026 – In the political debates so far, the three most important issues have been barely mentioned: fiscal policy (typically framed as ‘public debt’); monetary policy (‘interest rates’); and foreign policy (dealing with the global warmongering and sabre-rattling which has become ubiquitous). On the foreign policy matter, see my Interview Question the Commentators Ignored: NZ and the EU, 19 October 2026. It is on such matters of visibility and partisanship that I am commenting on here.
Just as New Zealand’s political class chooses not to connect the massive global cost of war and war-posturing with the predominant ‘cost-of-living’ election issue, the global political class appears to not see New Zealand at all. Except as a place for them to escape to!
I saw this short video on YouTube last week: What If Russia Used a Nuke Against Ukraine?. The initial event posited in the video is by no means unlikely; though I think the subsequent analysis is wrong. There is an ongoing assumption that if one nuclear weapon explodes in anger, that rational people responding (or reacting) to that event will choose global murder suicide as their response.
Euro-Nato already has Russia in a rhetorical bind, taunting Russia by showing that it does not fear the nuclear deterrence which has formed the mainstay of Russia’s defence since 1949. The Russian political class knows that Euro-Nato is trying to present Russia as weak, and eventually will submit to ‘The West’, sooner rather than later in geopolitical time.
Russia does not like looking weak; and, within that domestic Russian political context, Vladimir Putin is understood as a ‘dove’ rather than a ‘hawk’. (Indeed, both the global and the Iranian political classes understand that the Iranian president, in his domestic Iranian context, is also a ‘dove’.) The hawkish position in Russia is to restore deterrence, to re-instil the fear of Moscow that existed during the Cold War. The “use of a nuke against Ukraine” is an option very much on the Russian table; not a remote ‘out-of-left-field’ possibility to be discussed only by Princeton academics.
New Zealand as a Cold Wheatfield
New Zealand comes into this story, because the video starts like this (with a caption ‘South Island, New Zealand, Two Years After’). “It’s the middle of summer. The sun is a pale white disk behind a pale grey sky. It’s cold – colder than any summer that anyone here remembers – but the wheat is still growing.” The video mentions New Zealand again at the end, as the only Earthly survivor; other than Vanuatu and Solomon Islands which will be “too small” and get no ships. New Zealand – after the nukes – “isn’t paradise, [has] no imported fuel, no spare parts for tractors, and boats full of desperate people arrive from across the Pacific. But the farms still grow food, and the cows still give milk, and five million people are still alive. Which brings us back to where we started, the South Island, summer, a pale sun, wheat still growing, the last safe place on earth.” (Nobody told the makers of this video about New Zealand’s loss of capacity to refine its fossil fuels.)
This is the world’s geopolitical view of New Zealand. Somewhere on the verge of being off the planet; a green Shangri-La that is sufficiently remote that it can survive a global holocaust, albeit in a greyer shade of green.
For the most part, the elite world – especially Europe – doesn’t see New Zealand at all, hiding as it does on the far side of Australia. Not just as the bulbous tip of Southeast Asia – which is what Australia is – but a bunch of green rocks somewhere beyond Middle Earth. Far Earth.
In recent times, New Zealand has responded in tune; largely by tuning out. Consumer goodies arrive magically as cargo; New Zealand represents the ultimate cargo culture. And the tune-out is reflected in the lack of mainstream contested discourse about New Zealand’s place in the world. But we did have such discussions upto 2020.
We talk about the cost-of-living without discussing the costs of living on a shared planet. We have become – once again – eurosupremacist to the core; and despite our dependence on Asia and Asians. The ‘bad guys’ live in Asia (including Russia which is North Asia) – indeed as close as Indonesia – the world’s fourth most populous country. The Euro-American ‘good guys’, deeply flawed as they may be, remain ‘our’ good guys. We see New Zealand as sufficiently remote that we can depend for our ‘security’ on the most-distant Euro-American geopolity; while becoming distinctly frosty and transactional towards the much-less-distant Asian geopolities.
Jeff Rich: “Australia, A Little Nation Lost”
I would describe Jeff Rich as a non-partisan intellectual, with a moderate and conciliatory worldview, who is willing to explore issues many would prefer to be left unaddressed – preferably invisible, not addressable – issues in the zone of discomfort. His Substack blog and YouTube channel are called Burning Archive.
He wrote a recent article: Australia, A Little Nation Lost in the Time of Monsters, about “Australia’s Post-Colonial Polycrisis [as] the Story of the World”. New Zealand, of course, is a littler nation lost under the skirts of a lost Australia; Rich barely acknowledges New Zealand. He says: “Australia is a little nation of 28 million people, yet its leaders believe it can be a middle power. They are mistaken. Tragically, comically, they lead a little nation lost.”
One of Rich’s themes is that Australia’s post- British Empire identity is its role as a deputy-sheriff (not a ‘vassal’) to the United States, and that it has the United States military infrastructure on site to support that co-military relationship. Indeed, the above-mentioned-video – What if Russia used a Nuke? – suggests that Australia would be struck in the nuclear war scenario which it describes, on account of Australia’s militarisation that is too partisan towards its Far West(s) and against its Near North(s). Hence, that video argues, Australia would be no refuge from a nuclear holocaust; only New Zealand – Far Earth – could be a lifeboat for people, for tractors, and for cows.
To get a good perspective on Australia’s conundrum – or at least Jeff Rich’s well-argued version of it – go to What Australia Reveals About the US Empire, Neutrality Studies, 20 October 2026. This presentation is especially for people in the Global North/West who have been remiss in failing to adequately incorporate Australia into their discussions.
Rich states unequivocally that Australia is a “Russophobic” nation. More equivocally, and not in these words, he also noted that Australia has become hamstrung since the Bondi Beach shootings by a geo-moral position that is best described as ‘ProSemitic’. (It is important to note that if a person or nation is neither Russophobic nor ProSemitic, that does not make them Russophiliac or AntiSemitic. Critics of Europe’s martial policy towards Russia – such as Pascal Lottaz, host of Neutrality Studies – are commonly labelled ‘Putin apologists’.) For a man such as Jeff Rich, well qualified to participate in a Neutrality forum, it is appropriate to be neither pro- nor anti- lots of -isms. Neutrality is conceptually non-binary; if you are not for something, you should not be considered to be against it.
New Zealand, in light of ‘Australia, A Little Nation Lost’
Unlike Australia, New Zealand was close to being a genuinely neutral country in the years 1985 to 2020 – some years more neutral than others. New Zealand suffered a state-terrorist attack from ‘socialist’ France in 1985; an attack to which the United States and United Kingdom were reputedly complicit. That sinking of the Rainbow Warrior set New Zealand off on an exceptional path of neutral positioning; although the seeds of preference for a neutral foreign policy were already there. Indeed the presence of the Rainbow Warrior reflected those seeds. The ensuing legislative achievement was Nuclear-Free New Zealand.
Jacinda Ardern – Prime Minister 2017 to 2023 – in her later years of tenure made no secret of her affiliation to the ‘liberal Western’ ‘rules-based world order’; and as such was glad to be out-of-office in October 2023, when that ‘order’ came crashing down.
Neutrality sentiment in elite New Zealand frayed more generally after Joe Biden became United States’ president in 2021, and the ‘security’ (against China) of the ‘Indo-Pacific’ became a big thing. Biden went on to become an accessory to the world’s greatest security threats in my lifetime.
Before we got entangled in the geopolitics of Democratic America – and see The Great Betrayal: How the Democrats became the Party of War, Neutrality Studies with James Carden – the biggest threat to New Zealand’s ambiguous neutrality had been Don Brash’s offer to repeal the nuclear-free legislation, allegedly by ‘lunchtime’. Don Brash’s party lost the 2005 general election.
Conclusion
Aotearoa New Zealand should not be cowering behind a compromised and geographically out-of-place Australia. It should be proudly Pacific, neutral, and committed to the rights of nations and subject peoples to wage peace rather than to wage geopolitics; New Zealand can once again be a proud peacemonger nation. Much better than hiding in a cowardly manner behind the exceptionalism of the United States and Australia in particular and of the ‘good guy’ ‘Democracies’ in general. Just as meaningful ‘virtue’ is more than a self-ascribed label, ‘evil’ is a concept best left to cartoon fiction and not to the posturing of self-labelled ‘good guys’ re their real or imagined adversaries.
Foreign policy should be at the fore of the New Zealand election debates, and not just because foreign events raise the price of diesel fuel. New Zealand should make itself visible to the world, not as a lifeboat or latter-day Noah’s Ark, but as a committed non-judgemental advocate for world peace and diplomacy.
About the writer:
Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.