Based on my reading of the latest upscaling of US rhetoric, one of the military options being considered by the Israeli-American axis is the nuclear option. Refer Trump says a ‘whole civilization will die tonight’ if deal isn’t reached, One News, 8 April 2026.

The possibility of Netanyahu and Trump thinking this way would reflect a widely-held understanding that World War Two ended not only with the atomic bomb, but because of those nuclear strikes on Japan. In particular, the prevailing American narrative is that Little Boy and Fat Man saved the United States from having to make a ground invasion of Japan.

My sense is that if Israel and/or the United States go for a nuclear strike, soon or sooner, it will be on a city or some other quasi-military site in the northeast of Iran, closer to Afghanistan than to the present Persian Gulf warzone; away from the energy infrastructure of the Gulf.

Not only is the northeast the birthplace of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, it is also the part of Iran which gave least support to President Masoud Pezeshkian in the 2024 presidential election. Pezeshkian, a former heart surgeon, was elected as a moderniser. In 2024 and 2025 he was committed to evolving Iran away from being a Shia theocracy and towards being a typical BRICS’ middle-range geopolitical power. (See my The Enigma of the Iranian President, Scoop, 27 March 2026.)

If we look at the map here – the second round of the 2024 Iranian presidential election – we see that Pezeshkian’s support was most in the more secular northwest and least in the more Islamist northeast. I suspect that the Axis’ military planning will be to inflict as much damage as possible – in one or a few dramatic strikes – on the present Iranian civilisation which draws heavily on Shia Islam; hence focussing on the Shia heartland.

Finally, here, I draw attention to the movie Don’t Look Up. In that movie, the threat was an asteroid, not a nuclear war. The key theme was the widespread dispassion that prevailed, especially in the mainstream media, towards a known and imminent catastrophe. In the case of a nuclear strike on Iran away from Tehran or the Gulf or the Pakistan border, the present lack of mainstream outrage at the aggressions of the last month will probably continue on and beyond the day after.

————-

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.

COMMENTARY: By Michael West

We are led by fools and sycophants. The illegal, unprovoked invasion of Iran is not just garden-variety stupidity. This is stupidity on a grandiose, stratospheric scale.

The Israeli propaganda narrative that Iranians would sprinkle rose petals at the feet of their invaders has not come to pass. It has already been demolished in fact.

Instead of bringing freedom and democracy — “regime change” — we have brought chaos, possibly a world war, and definitely the destruction of the Middle East.

The world economy is being hit hard as we write; oil prices spiralling, energy prices about to soar, and the inexorable spectre of inflation and recession.

And it didn’t have to happen.

This was a war of choice. Even without the “Epstein Coalition” — as the Iranian media so aptly dubs their invaders — murdering 165 Iranian school girls on day one, “peace through strength” was never going to happen.

Quite the contrary. The illegal and unprovoked invasion of Iran has hardened the resolve of Iranians, who are massing in their hundreds of thousands across the country to mourn their dead and chant “Death to America”, to back their regime.

Where was the advice?
The Epstein Coalition killed the Ayatollah, who was actually against nuclear power; he was a moderate.

Did Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong not seek advice from Foreign Affairs that attacking Iran was folly, that the anti-regime protesters were a minority, that the pre-invasion protests were a Mossad and CIA psyop, that Iran might attack US proxy states in the region, that invasion would be a Brobigdadgian mistake?

Or did they ignore the advice in favour of a Washington regime compromised by the Epstein pedophile scandal?

And now, we see the feeble, hypocritical whining by Israel and its supporters about Iran attacking the Gulf states. Is that our only moral defence?

Decades of supporting these regimes: Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates — US proxy states all — regimes now unravelling, the oil price is soaring, inflation and recession are beckoning globally.

Images are emerging from Bahrain of locals cheering on the Iranian missiles. Were DFAT and our politicians unaware of popular angst in the Gulf states against American imperialism?

And what did they expect Iran to do in the face of this existential threat? Not blow up American bases and infrastructure while the US attacked them; after the US betrayed them at the very negotiating table when they were offering significant concessions on nuclear enrichment, all to avoid war? This war.

War drums over Tehran.             Video: The West Report

Australia, the US flunkies
Yet here was Australia, Saturday night, first out of the blocks worldwide to throw its support behind Donald Trump and his preposterous “Operation Epic Fury”, a probable pedophile being blackmailed and led around by the genocidal Benjamin Netanyahu like a pony at the fairground show.

“Operation Epstein Fury”, it was fast labelled. The soaring, craven stupidity is hard to grasp. Both major parties backing it.

Albo first, then Angus Taylor rushing to tow the Donald’s line. Then, One Nation’s Pauline Hanson, too, who even congratulated and praised Netanyahu. We are led by fools and sycophants.

The flawed defence of atrocity
To address the empty rhetoric of the pro-war lobby, criticism of this war does not equate to support for the regime in Iran. Defenders of the US-Israel atrocity are busy with their swarms of social media bots peddling the argument that “you are an Islamist terror supporter” if you criticise the invasion.

This is the 2026 version of “You are a Hamas supporter” if you argue against genocide in Gaza.

The cold facts of this debacle are that regime change does not work, that Iran did not want this war, that Iran appears to be exceptionally well prepared, that the Epstein Coalition, which Australia supports, is daily backing war crimes: blowing up hospitals, schools and civilian infrastructure.

This is a war which has already been lost.

The obvious reality is that regime change wars are a demonstrable failure. Vietnam. Iraq. Afghanistan. Iraq — a million dead, irretrievable regional stability. In Afghanistan, 20 years, trillions of dollars spent, four US presidents, six Australian PMs — all to replace the Taliban . . . with the Taliban.

And here we are, the world’s busybodies, doing it again.

Who would ever negotiate with the US in good faith again, or Israel for that matter? Iran did not want this war. Iran has not attacked another country in 300 years.

The US lured them to the negotiating table, then, without warning, murdered their leadership. This echoes last year’s 12-day war, where Israel and the US lured them in on the premise of good faith talks, then murdered them and now play the victim.

What did they expect Iran to do in the face of this existential threat?

The record speaks for itself. The US is the biggest invader of other countries in history. Israel has, last year alone, attacked Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, Jordan, Palestine, Qatar, Tunisia, Malta, and Greece.

Six illegal attacks of sovereign nations, as well as three illegal attacks in international waters equals nine all up. In one year.

And now they are invading Lebanon again, seizing more territory as their puppets, America, fight their campaign against Iran.

Albo, what are you doing?
We know who the warmongers are. We are the warmongers. Yet, in his bizarre statement of support, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was the fastest out of the blocks of all the allies on the weekend, issuing a false statement.

Australia stands with the brave people of Iran in their struggle against oppression.

For decades, the Iranian regime has been a destabilising force, through its ballistic missile and nuclear programs, support for armed proxies, and brutal acts of violence and intimidation.

Iran…

— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) February 28, 2026

The claim, echoed by the usual warmongers of the Lib-Lab establishment, is that Iran is guilty of attacks on Australian soil, referencing alleged attacks on a deli in Bondi.

Apart from the common sense, why would Iran commit an act of terror on a deli in Bondi? Senior police have conceded that there is no evidence of this.

The nuclear furphy
Then there is the age-old claim that Iran is about to produce nuclear weapons. The US and Israel’s nuclear risk claims have been so roundly discredited it’s a joke.

Benjamin Netanyahu has been trying to instigate a war against Iran for 30 years — claiming Iran is days away, weeks away, months away from nuclear missiles.

And they were at the negotiating table again when the Epstein forces murdered them.

The propaganda
We are now seeing mainstream media decry the “illegal attacks” on Israel and the Gulf states. Yet the ‘victim card” is tapped out.

Around the world, outside the legacy media propaganda, there is little sympathy for Israel having razed Gaza and slaughtered between 72,000 and 700,000 Palestinians while stealing more land in the West Bank daily.

It will continue. The media and political classes have failed so majestically that they can only try to salvage their authority with more propaganda.

The deplorable coverage of the murdered schoolgirls in Iran is a case in point. The “40 beheaded babies” and the “mass rapes” of Hamas filled the headlines in the West on October 8, 2023. Yet real murders — 165 murdered schoolgirls — have hardly rated a mention. Yes, a mention perhaps, but a side story, buried, no headlines of outrage.

Can’t handle the truth?

Is the truth too hard to handle? Is it not evident to everybody except the most brainwashed advocate of the Epstein lobby that Israel — the government, the state — is the problem here?

Netanyahu has won his ambition to drag America into a war against Iran, and if you follow the money, while world stock markets teeter, the stock market in Tel Aviv is surging, replete with weapons companies as it is.

Meanwhile, the ASX is tanking, ergo our savings. Oil prices are surging, ergo higher energy prices and inflation. The Houthis, Iran’s allies, are shooting again in the Red Sea while, on the other side of the Arabian peninsula, Iran has blocked the Straits of Hormuz, choking off a large chunk of the world’s oil supply.

Higher prices in India and China will mean higher prices for imports and inflation around the world.

The lessons of history have not been learnt; in fact, they have been discarded in spectacular fashion.

> 70 years ago, Iran looked just like any Western country.
> Short skirts, rock’n’roll, open universities.
> It’s 1953. Iran elects a secular socialist: Mohammad Mossadegh.
> He nationalizes oil. That pisses off BP.
> Cold War excuse.
> CIA and MI6 stage a coup. Operation Ajax.
>… pic.twitter.com/ZNWaLdBlCN

— Dr. Simon Goddek (@goddek) March 1, 2026

Michael West established Michael West Media in 2016 to focus on journalism of high public interest, particularly the rising power of corporations over democracy. West was formerly a journalist and editor with Fairfax newspapers, a columnist for News Corp and even, once, a stockbroker.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

“One can oppose a hateful regime and, at the same time, oppose an unjustified and dangerous military intervention,” says Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

“I once again call for immediate de-escalation, respect for international law, and the urgency of resuming dialogue.”

While some governments around the world have easily managed to express their opposition to the unlawful military attacks by Israel and the US and their opposition to the Iranian regime, shamefully New Zealand has failed to follow their example.

Instead, the government has issued a statement that condemns only Iran; “acknowledges” the military strikes were “designed to prevent Iran from continuing to threaten international peace and security”; and calls for “adherence to international law” — apparently blissfully unaware that the attacks comprise multiple breaches of international law.

In an interview on RNZ, the PM repeatedly responded to the question “Does New Zealand support these attacks or not?” by reading out “We think Iran is evil, we think it’s been repressing its own people.

“We think it’s been arming proxies and terrorist organisations. We think it has been developing its ballistic and nuclear programmes and years of diplomacy hasn’t actually paid any fruits.”

He also said more than once that New Zealand’s position was the same as Australia’s — the Australian PM has said they “support the United States acting to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons”.

Bizarre spectre
Which, aside from ignoring the US’s stated desire for forced regime change in Iran, raises the bizarre spectre of two nuclear-armed states attacking another state in case it might develop nuclear weapons — even though Iran is a state party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (#NPT), which Israel is not, and has opened its nuclear facilities to the #IAEA, which Israel has not. Indeed, the only state in the Middle East that does have stockpiles of nuclear weapons (entirely undeclared and unsupervised) is Israel.

New Zealand’s moral failure to condemn these military strikes, but instead to continue describing the Iranian regime as “evil” or “bad actors” as though that somehow makes armed attacks on a sovereign nation to assassinate its leaders to force regime change okay — regardless of civilian casualties — shows how far it has now moved from even the pretence of applying international law to the actions of its military friends and partners.

And what a missed opportunity to point out the urgent necessity for the elimination of ALL #NuclearWeapons — so much for New Zealand’s alleged commitment to a nuclear weapons-free world, and its promotion of the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons #TPNW / #NuclearBan and the NPT.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Dear warmongers:

You are sleepwalking towards a war in the Middle East that could set the whole world ablaze. Do not pretend you don’t know this.

Your generals know it. Your intelligence agencies know it. Financial markets know it. Every citizen with a memory longer than a news cycle can feel it in their bones.

This is an open letter from a species that wishes to survive. I will be blunt.

1. Halt all preparations for a war of choice against Iran or any other state in the region. Freeze strike planning. Pull back offensive deployments. If you really have evidence of an imminent threat, present it to independent, technically competent, international scrutiny. If you will not do that, the world is entitled to assume this is a manufactured crisis.

2. Put in place binding, monitored arrangements to stop accidents turning into cataclysms: naval and air incident protocols, hotlines that actually work, rules of engagement that favour restraint, not bravado. If you cannot even agree to that, you are not avoiding war — you are courting it.

3. Stop playing God with other people’s governments. Regime‑change schemes — whether by bombing, sanctions that strangle civilians, or covert destabilisation — have left a trail of wrecked societies across the Middle East and beyond. You know the record. You just refuse to learn from it.

4. If you possess nuclear weapons, stop using them as toys for your vanity. Commit — publicly, in law — to never being the first to use them. Make it clear that any nuclear use by anyone, anywhere, will be treated as an unforgivable crime. If you cannot do even that, your talk of “values” is a sick joke.

5. Choke off the money pipeline that keeps this war machine humming: end the revolving door between government and arms manufacturers, subject major arms sales to real global oversight, and stop treating conflict as a business model. As long as war pays, someone will always be lobbying for it.

6. Admit that your own house is not in order. Societies riven by inequality, corruption and polarisation are more prone to lash out abroad. Fix the rot at home instead of reaching for foreign enemies to distract your populations.

7. Above all, drop the delusion that domination is leadership. Real leadership today is the courage to restrain your own power when using it would shatter the fragile systems that keep all of us alive.

You are not emperors. You are temporary stewards of a civilisation perched on the edge of multiple tipping points, and you’re not any good at that either.

If you drag us into yet another avoidable war, with nuclear forces in the background, you are gambling with everything that breathes.

So here it is, without poetry or excuse:

Step back from your stupidity. Submit your claims to scrutiny. Rein in your war machines. Protect those who speak truth. Treat nuclear weapons as the abomination they are. Stop feeding the economy of perpetual conflict.

If you cannot do that, then you only have the right to call yourselves fools.

Richard David Hames is an Australian philosopher-activist, strategic adviser, entrepreneur and futurist, and he publishes The Hames Report on Substack.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We begin today’s Democracy Now! show looking at US-China relations and President Trump’s threat to resume nuclear weapons testing.

President Trump and President Xi Jinping met in South Korea and agreed to a one-year trade truce, but the trade deal was overshadowed by Trump’s announcement that the US would resume testing nuclear weapons for the first time since 1992.

Just before his meeting with Xi, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “Because of other countries testing programmes, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately.”

AMY GOODMAN: It’s unclear what President Trump was referring to. Russia and China have not tested a nuclear weapon in decades; North Korea last tested one in 2017. Trump spoke briefly with reporters after his meeting with Xi, flying back to the United States.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It had to do with others. They seem to all be nuclear testing.

REPORTER 1: Russia?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We have more nuclear weapons than anybody. We don’t do testing, and we’ve halted it years — many years ago.

But with others doing testing, I think it’s appropriate that we do also.

REPORTER 1: Did Israel — did Israel —

REPORTER 2: Any details around the testing, sir? Like where, when?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We will be — it’ll be announced. You know, we have test sites. It’ll be announced.

AMY GOODMAN: Trump’s threat to resume nuclear tests comes just months before the last major nuclear arms control treaty between the United States and Russia expires. The new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, expires February of next year.

We go right now to Dr Ira Helfand. He’s an expert on the medical consequences of nuclear war, former president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. He also serves on the steering committee of the Back from the Brink campaign. He’s today joining us from Winnipeg, Canada, where he’s speaking at the 5th Youth Nuclear Peace Summit.

Dr Helfand, welcome back to Democracy Now! You must have been shocked last night when, just before the certainly globally touted meeting between Trump and Xi, Trump sent out on social media that he’s going to begin testing nuclear weapons, comparing it, saying that we have to test them on an equal basis, referring to countries like Russia and China.

Can you explain what he is talking about? They, like the United States, haven’t tested nuclear weapons in decades.

DR IRA HELFAND: Good morning, Amy.

Actually, I can’t explain what he’s talking about, because it doesn’t make any sense. As you pointed out, Russia and China have not tested nuclear weapons for decades. And I think the most important thing right now is that the White House has got to clarify what President Trump is talking about.

If we really are going to resume explosive nuclear testing, this is an extraordinarily destabilising decision, and one which will increase even more the already great danger that we have of stumbling into a nuclear conflict. But they need to clarify this, because, as you pointed out, the statement doesn’t make sense in terms of what’s actually happening in the world.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Dr Helfand, what would these tests entail, were this to actually occur the way that Trump has said?

DR IRA HELFAND: Well, again, it’s not clear what he’s talking about. If he’s — if he is speaking about resuming explosive nuclear testing, presumably this would not be in the atmosphere, which is prohibited by a treaty which the United States did sign and ratify in 1963, but it would be underground nuclear explosions. And the principal danger there, I think, is political.

This will undoubtedly trigger response by other countries that have nuclear weapons, and dramatically accelerate the already very dangerous arms race that the world finds itself in today.

The one, perhaps, value of this statement is that it helps to draw attention to the fact that the nuclear problem has not gone away, as so many of us would like to believe. We are facing the gravest danger of nuclear war that has existed on the planet since the end of the Cold War, and possibly worse than it was during the Cold War.

And this comes at a time when the best science we have shows that even a very limited nuclear war, one that might take place between India and Pakistan, has the potential to trigger a global famine that could kill a quarter of the human race in two years.

We have to recognise that reality, and we need to change our nuclear policy so that it is no longer based on the idea that nuclear weapons make us safe, but that it recognises the fact that nuclear weapons are the greatest threat to our safety.

And for citizens in the United States in particular, I think this means doing things like are advocated by the Back from the Brink campaign, calling on the United States to stop this tit-for-tat exchange of threats with our nuclear adversaries and to enter into negotiations with all eight of the nuclear-armed states for a verifiable, enforceable agreement that will allow them to eliminate their nuclear arsenals according to an agreed-upon timetable, and so they can all join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons at some point when they have completed this task.

This idea is dismissed sometimes as being unrealistic. I think what’s unrealistic is the belief that we can continue to maintain these enormous nuclear arsenals and expect that nothing is going to go wrong.

We’ve been lucky over and over again. This year alone, five of the nine countries which have nuclear weapons have been engaged in active military conflict. India and Pakistan were fighting each other. That could easily have escalated into a nuclear war between them, which could have had devastating consequences for the entire planet.

And we keep dodging bullets, and we keep acting as though that’s going to keep happening. It isn’t. Our luck is going to run out at some point, and we have to recognise that. We have to recognise the only way to guarantee our safety is to get rid of these weapons once and for all.

President Trump’s post announcing the U.S. would resume nuclear testing featured some inaccuracies, and introduced quite a bit of uncertainty. https://t.co/wRbnOxuaBU

— Axios (@axios) October 31, 2025

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Dr Helfand, before we conclude, just about the timing of Trump’s comment, which came just days after Russia said it had successfully tested a nuclear-armed missile, which it said could penetrate US defences.

Do you think Trump was responding to that, without perhaps understanding that there was a difference between that and carrying out explosive nuclear tests?

DR IRA HELFAND: It’s certainly possible, and the timing suggests that may be what’s happening. But again, the White House needs to clarify this statement, because, as it stands, it was an explicit instruction to begin testing at the test sites, which suggests nuclear explosive testing.

I suspect that is not what the president meant, but at this point, who knows?

AMY GOODMAN: Right. It was nuclear-capable, not nuclear-armed. And finally, I mean, he’s talking about doing this immediately, instructing what he called the War Department, the Department of War.

Isn’t the Energy Department in charge of the nuclear stockpile? And aren’t scores of nuclear scientists now furloughed during the government shutdown? Who is maintaining this very dangerous stockpile?

DR IRA HELFAND: That was another striking inconsistency in that statement. It is not the Pentagon, which he referred to as the Department of War, that would be conducting nuclear testing if it recurs. It is, Amy, as you suggested, it’s the Department of Energy that is responsible for this activity.

So, again, another area in which the statement is just confusing, puzzling and needs clarification. And I think, you know, this is a really urgent matter, because, as it stands, the statement itself is destabilising.

It raises tension. It creates further problems. And we don’t need that anymore. We need to —

AMY GOODMAN: And opens the door for other countries, is that right, to test nuclear weapons?

DR IRA HELFAND: Well, absolutely. And that would be — you know, there would be absolutely nothing the US could do that would more undermine our security at this point with regards to nuclear weapons than to resume testing. It would give a green light to many other countries to resume testing, as well, and lead to markedly increased instability in the global situation.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr Ira Helfand, we thank you so much for being with us, former president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, won the Nobel Peace Prize, PSR, in 1985, serving on the steering committee of the Back from the Brink campaign, joining us, interestingly, from Winnipeg, Canada, where he is speaking at the 5th Youth Nuclear Peace Summit.

The original content of this programme on 30 October 2025 is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States Licence.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Over the last week I have subverted the western geo-cultural tropes of ‘Good versus Evil’ and ‘Beautiful versus Ugly’. (Geopolitical Rugby: Bad plays Evil, for the final World Cup 16 Sep 2025 and Lookism11 Sep 2025; both on Scoop and Evening Report.) Here I consider our new version of the former tripolar world; that  tripolar world prevailed from 1945 to 1990. Pole A, essentially the former First World, is now the Western Alliance. Pole B is equivalent to the former Second World; B is, as before, the geopolitical adversary of A. Pole C, the new Third World, is the equivalent of the former non-aligned Third World; yes, that’s the literal meaning of ‘third world’, non-alignment, neutrality.

The emergent new Second World includes the decentralised Muslim world; and has power centres in Beijing and Moscow; thus, its geographical and cultural loci are in Eurasia. The new Second World (pole B) is ‘united’ by comprising the various named enemies of the new First World; with West Europe being the geographical and cultural locus of pole A. West versus East, with substantial nuclear armaments; four nuclear countries in the West, four in the East.

The new Third World is defined neither by its geography nor its economic status. It is the neutral pole; pole C. India – the only nuclear power not in A or B – is potentially the leader of the new Third World, as it was the political leader of the old Third World. India’s future alignment remains the big geopolitical unknown.

Where does Australasia – Australia and New Zealand – fit? Given the geography (literally ‘south of Asia’), the common-sense position would be for Australia and New Zealand to become firm members of the new Third World; strictly non-aligned. But the signs are that Australasia, with only a tiny proportion of the old First World’s population, and on the opposite side of the world from the new First World, will contrive to be a fully aligned far-flung component of the new First World alliance. Though not formal members of Nato.

Nuclear Conflict

The most likely scenario for Nuclear War Two (NW2) would begin with a ‘nuclear attack’ across the present A-B (ie West-East) geopolitical boundary, noting that an important part of that boundary is inside Donetsk province; and also noting that one country – Türkiye – is ambiguously placed and may itself be regarded as a boundary-zone rather than a boundary-line.

(Both the words ‘nuclear’ and ‘attack’ come with some ambiguity. Would a strike on a nuclear power station by conventional weaponry count? Would any breach of airspace or sea-space by a nuclear-armed vehicle count as an attack?)

Any part of the world can be reached by perhaps five countries’ nuclear weapons, either from long-range missiles or launched from naval vessels (especially submarines).

Nuclear calculus is essentially ‘what happens next’, and the associated probabilities of the different scenarios. To keep my argument simple, I will assume that the first strike of NW2 is intentional, targeted, and includes at least one nuclear explosion. Such an explosion may not be on target for a variety of reasons; not least that an attacking missile may be intercepted.

My Scenario One is that of a smallish first strike on the East by the West. As, in my view, the East is more pragmatic than the West, a response would take place, but most likely would be de-escalatory or proportionate in nature; a calculated response, much as the recent responses by Iran to Israel’s provocations. The critical point would then be the next move by the West: escalation or de-escalation. De-escalation should lead to at least a temporary truce.

Escalation by the West would be problematic; presumably, and irrationally, it would target the eastern country which is already involved. Retaliation through nuclear escalation is not rational, in that the expected final outcome would be harmful to all; including harm to the retaliator. Nevertheless, the conventional presumption is that nuclear powers, if subjected to nuclear attack, would to the best of their abilities retaliate through nuclear escalation. The ‘rational’ calculus of the ‘mutually-assured-destruction’ dogma is that attacked countries would respond spitefully rather than rationally; so therefore peace depends on there being no first strike.

My Scenario Two is that of a smallish first strike on the West by one of the East’s nuclear nations. If the West – acting out of contrived fury rather than pragmatism – escalates in response, we are left with essentially the same situation as in Scenario One.

Scenarios Three and Four would be a large-scale first strike, either East on West or West on East. In these scenarios, de-escalation would be seen as capitulation with all the associated consequences of total defeat. Therefore, in these cases the response would almost certainly be proportionate or escalatory.

In all four scenarios we face situations of how to respond to a medium- or large-scale nuclear strike.

If the ‘ball’ is in the West’s court (Scenario Three), then the most likely response I would see would be an equal or larger response onto the Eastern power already involved, in the hope of splitting the East, and achieving a backdown by the East’s belligerent. The East’s non-belligerent powers would at this stage pitch for neutrality; they would ‘align’ with the new non-aligned Third World.

In the other three scenarios, we are faced with the perceived need by the East to respond to the West’s nuclear escalation. The context is the West’s alliances of ‘collective defence’; the legalised geopolitical contract (eg Nato’s Article Five) that an attack on one is an attack on all.

The situation faced by the East when de-escalation is not a realistic option.

There are two other options: escalation or deflection. Escalation, as already noted, is not rational. Its rationale is that of ‘globally-assured-destruction’, given the substantial third-party effects of nuclear warfare.

The other option for a large Asian nuclear superpower would be deflection. Deflection here means a proportionate retaliatory strike on one of the more expendable nations in the Western Alliance. Deflection lessens the probability of continued escalation.

Deflection could mean a significant nuclear strike on a non-nuclear Nato country, with the sense that Nato as-a-whole might renege on its ‘Article Five’ clause. Such a strike might end the war, with both sides preferring to pull-back from the brink; with both sides cutting their losses, so to speak.

A better deflective off-ramp might be a proportionate nuclear strike on a non-nuclear non-Nato country openly allied to Nato. That would further enhance the possibility that the nuclear war would come to an abrupt end. Would it be rational for the United States, United Kingdom, France or Israel to retaliate to a nuclear attack on a small distant non-Nato member of the Western Alliance?

There would be an awareness in all the main nuclear powers’ capital cities that, while distance can no longer prevent a country from being attacked, a nuclear calamity far away from the world’s major population centres would limit global loss of life and limit the impact on global food chains.

The Tyranny of Distance?

In 1966, Australian historian Geoffrey Blainey wrote The Tyranny of Distance. It was about the higher costs of such things as travel, trade and collective defence. Australia – especially White Australia – had a long-lasting neurosis about an East Asian lebensraum. New Zealand was always a bit more relaxed; practically the same distance to western markets and further from any putative East Asian adversary.

Nevertheless, the tyranny of distance did not prevent New Zealand’s ‘second people’ from coming from literally the other side of the world. Maritime geography and geopolitics had its own logic.

The traditional tyranny of distance hypothesis was overstated. In practical terms, in the era of sailing ships and no trains, it was much easier to travel from London to Dunedin than to Vancouver. The costs of long-distance compared to short-distance transport persistently declined. And, from the time of the telegraph coming to Australasia in the 1860s, communication between ‘down-under’ and Europe was hardly any more expensive than over much shorter distances.

But there is a new tyranny of distance for Oceania. We saw it in South Australia in the 1950s with the British nuclear testing at Maralinga. And American and French testing at Bikini and Mururoa. We have seen this tyranny of distance more generally in the mining exploitation of ‘distant’ ‘peripheral’ lands in Africa and South America. These parts of the world, distant from the world’s major population centres, are relatively exploitable and expendable.

There is a new component to the new tyranny of distance; New Zealand is coming to be treated as a billionaires’ nuclear bolthole. Refer to these 2025 stories (among many others): Billionaire boltholes: inside the doomsday hideouts of the super-rich (complete with picture of Peter Thiel), The oligarch’s guide to sitting out a nuclear winter, and Apocalypse now: Doomsday bunker secretly installed on New Zealand property – confirmed. In some privileged circles, there is a misguided belief in New Zealand exceptionalism; that Aotearoa New Zealand may be some kind of global life raft.

The presence of these people in Oceania increases the likelihood of Australasia being a nuclear target. So does Australia’s formal membership of AUKUS. So does New Zealand’s Minister of Defence signalling for Aotearoa to become an ally of Nato (refer: Judith Collins makes secret visit to site of Russian missile attack in Kyiv, TVNZ, 4 Sep 2025).

On Deflection

Far from being the least likely part of the world to become a victim of nuclear war, Oceania may indeed be the most likely venue for a deflective nuclear strike. If Aotearoa New Zealand can stifle its latent militarism (and can instead become an influential advocate for the new Third World), then the far side of Australia might be more at risk; Australia is already firmly in the European geopolitical camp, despite its obvious self-interest to maintain close ties with its Asian neighbours. Nuclear weapons are most likely to be targeted at cities, and any city far away from any other city becomes an excellent candidate for nuclear victimhood.

In the United States in 1945, there was a high-level debate about the best way to use its incipient nuclear weapon. Henry Stimson, United States Secretary for War, said “not Kyoto” (refer The man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb, BBC 9 August 2015). Even from the outset, war-torn Europe never looked like a good bet; indeed the July 1944 Bretton Woods Conference was conducted on the basis that allied victory was just a matter of time. The ‘dovish’ option was to perform a ‘demonstration’ drop, to show what might happen if Japan did not immediately capitulate. The problem was that, by July 1945, Japan had already been bombed to smithereens and it had still not capitulated. The alternative to a demonstration drop was a gratuitous drop or two or three on a significant Japanese city. (The next two cities on the nuclear list were Kokura and Niigata; the plan was to bomb them around November 1945, when new warheads had been manufactured.)

In the end, the Americans did do two demonstrations. In August 1945, the value to Americans of a Japanese life was no higher than the value of life of a Gazan is to an Israeli Zionist. The bombs over Japan were demonstration drops; the real audience of the demonstrations was Josef Stalin, not Emperor Hirohito. Japan was a good site for a ‘show and tell’ because it was far from both Europe and North America. Japan – like Bikini and Mururoa, later on – was a Pacific test site.

In the present geopolitical environment, and if a nuclear war starts, a deflective proportionate retaliatory nuclear strike may be the only offramp; a way to avoid assured-global-destruction. From an Eastern standpoint the ideal target would be a place which is overtly allied to its Nato foe (and, to boot, is part of its adversary’s communications network), which can produce rockets and other high-tech componentry for Nato, which is sufficiently far away from major population centres to lessen environmental harm, which has a small (thereby relatively expendable) population, which has minimal anti-missile defences, and which has in its midst a number those enemy billionaires who helped to create the geopolitical problem in the first place.

Conclusion

Nowhere is safe. Rationally, distance may make a place less safe, not more safe, from nuclear destruction. While great-power brinkmanship is far from rational, rational thinking under great pressure will be required to end a nuclear war once started. Even the most rational decision-process will involve many casualties. The frontlines of a nuclear war are not the same as the frontlines of a conventional war.

*******

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.

“Speak Up Kōrerotia” — a radio show centred on human rights issues — has featured a nuclear-free Pacific and other issues in this week’s show.

Encouraging discussion on human rights issues in both Canterbury and New Zealand, Speak Up Kōrerotia offers a forum to provide a voice for affected communities.

Engaging in conversations around human rights issues in the country, each show covers a different human rights issue with guests from or working with the communities.

Analysing and asking questions of the realities of life allows Speak Up Kōrerotia to cover the issues that often go untouched.

Discussing the hard-hitting topics, Speak Up Kōrerotia encourages listeners to reflect on the issues covered.

Hosted by Sally Carlton, the show brings key issues to the fore and provides space for guests to “Speak Up” and share their thoughts and experiences.

The latest episode today highlights the July/August 2025 marking of two major anniversaries — 80 years since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, and 40 years since the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior here in Aotearoa.

What do these anniversaries mean in the context of 2025, with the ever-greater escalation of global tension and a new nuclear arms race occurring alongside the seeming impotence of the UN and other international bodies?

Anti-nuclear advocacy in 2025           Video/audio podcast: Speak Up Kōrerotia

Guests: Disarmament advocate Dr Kate Dewes, journalist and author Dr David Robie, critical nuclear studies academic Dr Karly Burch and Japanese gender literature professor Dr Susan Bouterey bring passion, a wealth of knowledge and decades of anti-nuclear advocacy to this discussion.

Dr Robie’s new book Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior was launched on the anniversary of the ship’s bombing. This revised edition has extensive new and updated material, images, and a prologue by former NZ prime minister Helen Clark.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark warned activists and campaigners in a speech on the deck of the Greenpeace environmental flagship Rainbow Warrior III last night to be wary of global “storm clouds” and the renewed existential threat of nuclear weapons.

Speaking on her reflections on four decades after the bombing of the original Rainbow Warrior on 10 July 1985, she said that New Zealand had a lot to be proud of but the world was now in a “precarious” state.

Clark praised Greenpeace over its long struggle, challenging the global campaigners to keep up the fight for a nuclear-free Pacific.

“For New Zealand, having been proudly nuclear-free since the mid-1980s, life has got a lot more complicated for us as well, and I have done a lot of campaigning against New Zealand signing up to any aspect of the AUKUS arrangement because it seems to me that being associated with any agreement that supplies nuclear ship technology to Australia is more or less encouraging the development of nuclear threats in the South Pacific,” she said.

“While I am not suggesting that Australians are about to put nuclear weapons on them, we know that others do. This is not the Pacific that we want.

“It is not the Pacific that we fought for going back all those years.

“So we need to be very concerned about these storm clouds gathering.”

Lessons for humanity
Clark was prime minister 1999-2008 and served as a minister in David Lange’s Labour government that passed New Zealand’s nuclear-free legislation in 1987 – two years after the Rainbow Warrior bombing by French secret agents.

She was also head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 2009-2017.

“When you think 40 years on, humanity might have learned some lessons. But it seems we have to repeat the lessons over and over again, or we will be dragged on the path of re-engagement with those who use nuclear weapons as their ultimate defence,” Clark told the Greenpeace activists, crew and guests.

“Forty years on, we look back with a lot of pride, actually, at how New Zealand responded to the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior. We stood up with the passage of the nuclear-free legislation in 1987, we stood up with a lot of things.

“All of this is under threat; the international scene now is quite precarious with respect to nuclear weapons. This is an existential threat.”

Nuclear-free Pacific reflections with Helen Clark         Video: Greenpeace

In response to Tahitian researcher and advocate Ena Manuireva who spoke earlier about the legacy of a health crisis as a result of 30 years of French nuclear tests at Moruroa and Fangataufa, she recalled her own thoughts.

“It reminds us of why we were so motivated to fight for a nuclear-free Pacific because we remember the history of what happened in French Polynesia, in the Marshall Islands, in the South Australian desert, at Maralinga, to the New Zealand servicemen who were sent up in the navy ships, the Rotoiti and the Pukaki, in the late 1950s, to stand on deck while the British exploded their bombs [at Christmas Island in what is today Kiribati].

“These poor guys were still seeking compensation when I was PM with the illnesses you [Ena] described in French Polynesia.

Testing ground for ‘others’
“So the Pacific was a testing ground for ‘others’ far away and I remember one of the slogans in the 1970s and 1980s was ‘if it is so safe, test them in France’. Right? It wasn’t so safe.

“Mind you, they regarded French Polynesia as France.

“David Robie asked me to write the foreword to the new edition of his book, Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior, and it brought back so many memories of those times because those of you who are my age will remember that the 1980s were the peak of the Cold War.

“We had the Reagan administration [in the US] that was actively preparing for war. It was a terrifying time. It was before the demise of the Soviet Union. And nuclear testing was just part of that big picture where people were preparing for war.

“I think that the wonderful development in New Zealand was that people knew enough to know that we didn’t want to be defended by nuclear weapons because that was not mutually assured survival — it was mutually assured destruction.”

New Zealand took a stand, Clark said, but taking that stand led to the attack on the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour by French state-backed terrorism where tragically Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira lost his life.

“I remember I was on my way to Nairobi for a conference for women, and I was in Zimbabwe, when the news came through about the bombing of a boat in Auckland harbour.

‘Absolutely shocking’
“It was absolutely shocking, we had never experienced such a thing. I recall when I returned to New Zealand, [Prime Minister] David Lange one morning striding down to the party caucus room and telling us before it went public that it was without question that French spies had planted the bombs and the rest was history.

“It was a very tense time. Full marks to Greenpeace for keeping up the struggle for so long — long before it was a mainstream issue Greenpeace was out there in the Pacific taking on nuclear testing.

“Different times from today, but when I wrote the foreword for David’s book I noted that storm clouds were gathering again around nuclear weapons and issues. I suppose that there is so much else going on in a tragic 24 news cycle — catastrophe day in and day out in Gaza, severe technology and lethal weapons in Ukraine killing people, wherever you look there are so many conflicts.

“The international agreements that we have relied are falling into disrepair. For example, if I were in Europe I would be extremely worried about the demise of the intermediate range missile weapons pact which has now been abandoned by the Americans and the Russians.

“And that governs the deployment of medium range missiles in Europe.

“The New Start Treaty, which was a nuclear arms control treaty between what was the Soviet Union and the US expires next year. Will it be renegotiated in the current circumstances? Who knows?”

With the Non-proliferation Treaty, there are acknowledged nuclear powers who had not signed the treaty — “and those that do make very little effort to live up to the aspiration, which is to negotiate an end to nuclear weapons”.

Developments with Iran
“We have seen recently the latest developments with Iran, and for all of Iran’s many sins let us acknowledge that it is a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty,” she said.

“It did subject itself, for the most part, to the inspections regime. Israel, which bombed it, is not a party to the treaty, and doesn’t accept inspections.

“There are so many double standards that people have long complained about the Non-Proliferation Treaty where the original five nuclear powers are deemed okay to have them, somehow, whereas there are others who don’t join at all.

“And then over the Ukraine conflict we have seen worrying threats of the use of nuclear weapons.”

Clark warned that we the use of artificial intelligence it would not be long before asking it: “How do I make a nuclear weapon?”

“It’s not so difficult to make a dirty bomb. So we should be extremely worried about all these developments.”

Then Clark spoke about the “complications” facing New Zealand.

Teariki’s message to De Gaulle
In his address, Ena Manuireva started off by quoting the late Tahitian parliamentarian John Teariki who had courageously appealed to General Charles De Gaulle in 1966 after France had already tested three nuclear devices:

“No government has ever had the honesty or the cynical frankness to admit that its nuclear tests might be dangerous. No government has ever hesitated to make other peoples — preferably small, defenceless ones — bear the burden.”

“May you, Mr President, take back your troops, your bombs, and your planes.

“Then, later, our leukemia and cancer patients would not be able to accuse you of being the cause of their illness.

“Then, our future generations would not be able to blame you for the birth of monsters and deformed children.

“Then, you would give the world an example worthy of France . . .

“Then, Polynesia, united, would be proud and happy to be French, and, as in the early days of Free France, we would all once again become your best and most loyal friends.”

‘Emotional moment’
Manuireva said that 10 days earlier, he had been on board Rainbow Warrior III for the ceremony to mark the bombing in 1985 that cost the life of Fernando Pereira – “and the lives of a lot of Mā’ohi people”.

“It was a very emotional moment for me. It reminded me of my mother and father as I am a descendant of those on Mangareva atoll who were contaminated by those nuclear tests.

“My mum died of lung cancer and the doctors said that she was a ‘passive smoker’. My mum had not smoked for the last 65 years.

“French nuclear testing started on 2 July 1966 with Aldebaran and lasted 30 years.”

He spoke about how the military “top brass fled the island” when winds start blowing towards Mangareva. “Food was ready but they didn’t stay”.

“By the time I was born in December 1967 in Mangareva, France had already exploded 9 atmospheric nuclear tests on Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls, about 400km from Mangareva.”

France’s most powerful explosion was Canopus with 2.6 megatonnes in August 1968. It was a thermonuclear hydrogen bomb — 150 times more powerful than Hiroshima.

‘Poisoned gift’
Manuireva said that by France “gifting us the bomb”, Tahitians had been left “with all the ongoing consequences on the people’s health costs that the Ma’ohi Nui government is paying for”.

He described how the compensation programme was inadequate, lengthy and complicated.

Manuireva also spoke about the consequences for the environment. Both Moruroa and Fangataufa were condemned as “no go” zones and islanders had lost their lands forever.

He also noted that while France had gifted the former headquarters of the Atomic Energy Commission (CEP) as a “form of reconciliation” plans to turn it into a museum were thwarted because the building was “rife with asbestos”.

“It is a poisonous gift that will cost millions for the local government to fix.”

Greenpeace Aotearoa executive director Russel Norman spoke of the impact on the Greenpeace organisation of the French secret service bombing of their ship and also introduced the guest speakers and responded to their statements.

A Q and A session was also held to round off the stimulating evening.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

COMMENTARY: By Eugene Doyle

Israel’s key enablers, the G7, plus Australia and New Zealand, have succeeded in muscling Israel back onto the invite list for the commemorations in Nagasaki on August 9.

Last year Israel was excluded, triggering a refusal by these countries to attend in 2024.

Does the “personal” invitation that Nagasaki has just sent to Israel represent a triumph of Western diplomacy or a sick joke?

You know who your mates are when you’re committing genocide
As I wrote at the time, the boycott by the powerful white-dominated Western nations was a stunning “Fuck you” to the Hibakusha, the last few survivors of the US’s 1945 nuclear attack.

More importantly it was as clear a statement of collective commitment to Israel’s war on Palestine as you could possibly wish for.  You really find out who your true mates are when you’re committing genocide.

At the time, Shigemitsu Tanaka, the 83-year-old head of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivors Council, said he supported the move to keep the Israelis away from the commemorations, saying it was inappropriate to invite representatives from countries waging armed conflicts in defiance of calls from the international community.

Israel’s invitation is a triumph of Western pressure
A year later, the City buckled under pressure and has personally invited the Israelis.

“After Israel was excluded last year over the Gaza war, Nagasaki’s mayor is avoiding renewed diplomatic tensions — especially following a clear message from the US,” Israel’s influential news site Ynet reported this month.

It is a triumph for Netanyahu and his government, cause for celebration in Tel Aviv, but diminishes the nobility of an event that was created with the explicit intention to say Never Again and to remind the world of the indefensible criminality of attacks on defenceless civilian populations.

Nagasaki and the Boycott Israel campaign
Israel goes to incredible lengths to break efforts to impose BDS (Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions) and so Nagasaki had to be brought to heel.  July 2025 marked the 20th anniversary of the founding of BDS, a non-violent campaign designed to hold Israel accountable for its crimes and apply real-world pressure for the state to change course.

BDS is potentially a game-changer which is why Israeli government ministers routinely make threats of physical violence against leading BDS activists.

Israel Katz, currently the Israeli Defence Minister, is on record as calling for Israel to engage in “targeted civil eliminations” of BDS leaders with the help of Israeli intelligence.

70,000 tons of bombs on Gaza – and Israel is invited to a peace ceremony
Think for a moment what the presence of Israel at this year’s event represents as an astonishing piece of semiology.  A state that is actively committing the crime of crimes, genocide, sitting alongside the Hibakusha.

They won’t be the only war criminals in attendance. American, German, and British bombs have levelled the tiny enclave of Gaza.  More of their bombs — 70,000 tons and climbing — have been used to massacre Palestinians in Gaza than were used in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (36,000 tons), the fire bombings of Tokyo (1,665 tons) and Dresden (3,900 tons), and the London Blitz (19,000 tons) combined. And it is happening on our watch.

Another piece of astonishing optics: less than two months ago the US and Israel bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities, doing so with no UN mandate but only their position as powerful, lawless states.

Their actions dramatically raise the prospect of Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and others deciding they need nuclear weapons as deterrence.  What look will the US and Israeli ambassadors cast over their faces as the Mayor of Nagasaki delivers the message of “Nagasaki’s wish for the establishment of lasting world peace and the abolition of nuclear weapons?”

Is the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize the next to be trashed?
Talking of tone deaf and morally repellent, Donald Trump has been openly lobbying to receive the Nobel Peace Prize despite having killed thousands of people and bombed multiple countries this year.

Interestingly, the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize winner was Nihon Hidankyo (Japan’s Atomic Bomb Survivors Organisation).

In his acceptance speech last year, Terumi Tanaka, one of the co-chairpersons of Nihon Hidankyo, said that the organisation was created in 1956 “to demand the immediate abolition of nuclear weapons, as extremely inhumane weapons of mass killing, which must not be allowed to coexist with humanity”.

New Zealand is a genocide enabler.  What happened to our soft power?
As a New Zealander I am deeply ashamed of my country for having refused to attend last year’s ceremony and for its criminal complicity with Israel today. New Zealand’s tragic trajectory from humanitarian champions and nuclear-free pioneers to racist genocide enablers is captured in all its horror in this month’s Nagasaki commemorations.

New Zealand, the country that went to the brink of civil war in 1981 to stop sporting contact with Apartheid South Africa is now a fully-paid up member of Apartheid Israel’s war on Palestine.

Everywhere our government is tearing down the pillars built by decades of struggle in New Zealand. The anti-nuclear policy, the anti-apartheid victories, the non-aligned foreign policies, the sacred principles of partnership between indigenous Māori and the Pākehā (those who settled from Europe and elsewhere) are all being shredded.

We refuse to recognise Palestine, we refuse to join South Africa’s case against Israel at the ICJ, we refuse to join the Hague Group which is mobilising countries to make those responsible for the genocide accountable and to shoulder state-level responsibility for forcing the end to it.

But we mobilise to get Israel invited to the Nagasaki peace events.

From Auschwitz to Nagasaki to Gaza: whatever happened to Never Again? Whatever happened to our decency?

The Australian journalist Caitlin Johnstone wrote this month “If you’re still supporting Israel in the year 2025, there’s something seriously wrong with you as a person.”  That goes triple for governments.

Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He contributes to Asia Pacific Report and Café Pacific, and hosts the public policy platform solidarity.co.nz

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

He accused the coalition government of being “too timid” and “afraid of offending President Donald Trump” to make a stand on the nuclear issue.

However, a spokesperson for New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters told RNZ Pacific that New Zealand’s “overarching priority . . . is to work with Pacific partners to achieve a secure, stable, and prosperous region that preserves Pacific sovereignty and agency”.

The spokesperson said that through its foreign policy “reset”, New Zealand was committed to “comprehensive relationships” with Pacific Island countries.

“New Zealand’s identity, prosperity and security are intertwined with the Pacific through deep cultural, people, historical, security, and economic linkages.”

The New Zealand government commits almost 60 percent of its development funding to the region.

Pacific ‘increasingly contested’
The spokesperson said that the Pacific was becoming increasingly contested and complex.

“New Zealand has been clear with all of our partners that it is important that engagement in the Pacific takes place in a manner which advances Pacific priorities, is consistent with established regional practices, and supportive of Pacific regional institutions.”

They added that New Zealand’s main focus remained on the Pacific, “where we will be working with partners including the United States, Australia, Japan and in Europe to more intensively leverage greater support for the region.

“We will maintain the high tempo of political engagement across the Pacific to ensure alignment between our programme and New Zealand and partner priorities. And we will work more strategically with Pacific Governments to strengthen their systems, so they can better deliver the services their people need,” the spokesperson said.

However, former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark, writing in the prologue of Dr Robie’s book, said: “New Zealand needs to re-emphasise the principles and values which drove its nuclear-free legislation and its advocacy for a nuclear-free South Pacific and global nuclear disarmament.”

Dr Robie added that looking back 40 years to the 1980s, there was a strong sense of pride in being from Aotearoa, the small country which set an example around the world.

“We took on . . . the nuclear powers,” Dr Robie said.

“And the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior was symbolic of that struggle, in a way, but it was a struggle that most New Zealanders felt a part of, and we were very proud of that [anti-nuclear] role that we took.

“Over the years, it has sort of been forgotten”.

‘Look at history’
France conducted 193 nuclear tests over three decades until 1996 in French Polynesia.

Until 2009, France claimed that its tests were “clean” and caused no harm, but in 2010, under the stewardship of Defence Minister Herve Morin, a compensation law was passed.

From 1946 to 1962, 67 nuclear bombs were detonated in the Marshall Islands by the US.

In 2024, then-US deputy secretary of state Kurt Campbell, while responding to a question from RNZ Pacific about America’s nuclear legacy, said: “Washington has attempted to address it constructively with massive resources and a sustained commitment.”

However, Dr Robie said that was not good enough and labelled the destruction left behind by the US, and France, as “outrageous”.

“It is political speak; politicians trying to cover their backs and so on. If you look at history, [the response] is nowhere near good enough, both by the US and the French.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

On the last voyage of the Rainbow Warrior prior to its sinking by French secret agents in Auckland harbour on 10 July 1985 the ship had evacuated the entire population of 320 from Rongelap in the Marshall Islands.

After conducting dozens of above-ground nuclear explosions, the US government had left the population in conditions that suggested the islanders were being used as guinea pigs to gain knowledge of the effects of radiation.

Cancers, birth defects, and genetic damage ripped through the population; their former fisheries and land are contaminated to this day.

Denied adequate support from the US – they turned to Greenpeace with an SOS: help us leave our ancestral homeland; it is killing our people. The Rainbow Warrior answered the call.

Human lab rats or our brothers and sisters?
Dr Merrill Eisenbud, a physicist in the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) famously said in 1956 of the Marshall Islanders:  “While it is true that these people do not live, I might say, the way Westerners do, civilised people, it is nevertheless also true that they are more like us than the mice.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark has warned the country needs to maintain its nuclear-free policy as a “fundamental tenet” of its independent foreign policy in the face of gathering global storm clouds.

Writing in a new book being published next week, she says “nuclear war is an existential threat to humanity. Far from receding, the threat of use of nuclear weapons is ever present.

“The Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists now sits at 89 seconds to midnight,” she says in the prologue to journalist and media academic David Robie’s book Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior.

Writing before the US surprise attack with B-2 stealth bombers and “bunker-buster” bombs on three Iranian nuclear facilities on June 22, Clark says “the Middle East is a tinder box with the failure of the Iran nuclear deal and with Israel widely believed to possess nuclear weapons”.

The Doomsday Clock references the Ukraine war theatre where “use of nuclear weapons has been floated by Russia”.

Also, the arms control architecture for Europe is unravelling, leaving the continent much less secure. India and Pakistan both have nuclear arsenals, she says.

“North Korea continues to develop its nuclear weapons capacity.”

‘Serious ramifications’
Clark, who was also United Nations Development Programme administrator from 2009 to 2017, a member of The Elders group of global leaders founded by Nelson Mandela in 2007, and is an advocate for multilateralism and nuclear disarmament, says an outright military conflict between China and the United States “would be one between two nuclear powers with serious ramifications for East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Pacific, and far beyond.”

She advises New Zealand to be wary of Australia’s decision to enter a nuclear submarine purchase programme with the United States.

“There has been much speculation about a potential Pillar Two of the AUKUS agreement which would see others in the region become partners in the development of advanced weaponry,” Clark says.

“This is occurring in the context of rising tensions between the United States and China.

“Many of us share the view that New Zealand should be a voice for de-escalation, not for enthusiastic expansion of nuclear submarine fleets in the Pacific and the development
of more lethal weaponry.”

In the face of the “current global turbulence, New Zealand needs to reemphasise the principles and values which drove its nuclear-free legislation and its advocacy for a nuclear-free South Pacific and global nuclear disarmament.

Clark says that the years 1985 – the Rainbow Warrior was bombed by French secret agents on 10 July 1985 — and 1986 were critical years in the lead up to New Zealand’s nuclear-free legislation in 1987.

“New Zealanders were clear – we did not want to be defended by nuclear weapons. We wanted our country to be a force for diplomacy and for dialogue, not for warmongering.”

Chronicles humanitarian voyage
The book Eyes of Fire chronicles the humanitarian voyage by the Greenpeace flagship to the Marshall Islands to relocate 320 Rongelap Islanders who were suffering serious community health consequences from the US nuclear tests in the 1950s.

The author, Dr David Robie, founder of the Pacific Media Centre at Auckland University of Technology, was the only journalist on board the Rainbow Warrior in the weeks leading up to the bombing.

His book recounts the voyage and nuclear colonialism, and the transition to climate justice as the major challenge facing the Pacific, although the “Indo-Pacific” rivalries between the US, France and China mean that geopolitical tensions are recalling the Cold War era in the Pacific.

Dr Robie is also critical of Indonesian colonialism in the Melanesian region of the Pacific, arguing that a just-outcome for Jakarta-ruled West Papua and also the French territories of Kanaky New Caledonia and “French” Polynesia are vital for peace and stability in the region.

Eyes of Fire is being published by Little Island Press, which also produced one of his earlier books, Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

Within the storytelling of Western politics and punditry there exists a fictional type of mental illness which only affects people the US empire doesn’t like.

If Iran gets a nuclear weapon, its crazy lunatic government will flip out and nuke us all.

Watch out for Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, those guys are a bunch of maniacal antisemites who want to attack Israelis just because they’re Jewish.

“The stories of the Western empire ask us to believe that everyone who finds themselves in the imperial crosshairs is an irrational actor whose loony behavior can only be attributed to some uncontrollable defect within their own minds, or who will soon snap and do something nutty if they are not contained by force.”

Oh no, Putin is invading Ukraine completely unprovoked because he’s a madman who hates freedom and won’t stop until he’s conquered all of Europe.

China is building up its military because the megalomaniacal Xi Jinping wants to take over the world; all those US military bases surrounding China are just a defensive measure to contain Beijing’s insanity.

Assad just went nuts one day and started slaughtering his own people out of nowhere.

Gaddafi is a sexual sadist who’s giving Viagra to his troops to help them commit mass rapes in Libya.

The fictional mental illness that only affects enemies of the Western empire    Video: Caitlin Johnstone

So crazy
Saddam Hussein is so crazy and evil he’s trying to obtain weapons of mass destruction to give Americans another 9/11.

The North Koreans used to be far too insane to be allowed to have nuclear weapons because they’d nuke San Francisco immediately, but after they obtained nuclear weapons they were miraculously cured of this rare psychological disorder.

The stories of the Western empire ask us to believe that everyone who finds themselves in the imperial crosshairs is an irrational actor whose loony behavior can only be attributed to some uncontrollable defect within their own minds, or who will soon snap and do something nutty if they are not contained by force.

One antagonist who never appears in these fairy tales of the Western empire is the Western empire itself. In the storytelling of the empire, there is no globe-spanning power structure which is constantly inflicting violence and destruction upon populations around the world while seeking to crush any nation who disobeys its dictates.

It’s just a bunch of irrational psychos, seeking nuclear weapons and becoming aggressively militaristic for no other reason than because they are crazy, while the totally normal alliance led by a totally normal country in North America innocently responds to their crazy behavior.

That’s the story. In real life, the most aggressive and unreasonable actor on the world stage by far is the empire-like power structure that is loosely centralised around Washington DC. Nobody else is constantly waging wars of aggression around the world. Nobody else is circling the planet with hundreds of military bases for the purpose of global domination. Nobody else has spent the 21st century killing millions of people and deliberately targeting civilians with starvation sanctions in countries on the other side of the planet.

Only the US-centralised empire has been doing these things.

Vicious imperial power
But we are asked to believe that this vicious imperial power structure is the only rational actor on earth, and that those who resist its aggressions are the crazy ones.

And you are told that if you can’t see this, then you’re crazy too. You’re a crackpot. A conspiracy theorist. A paranoid nutball whose voice should be marginalised and whose ideas should be dismissed with a scoff.

You are crazy if you don’t believe what the world’s craziest power structure says about its enemies being crazy.

It is gaslighting on a global scale. It is madness, and that is why this civilisation has gone mad.

Let’s hope someone finds a way to protect the world from the insanity of the Western empire.

Caitlin Johnstone is an Australian independent journalist and poet. Her articles include The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society. She publishes a website and Caitlin’s Newsletter. This article is republished with permission.

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

Leaders in the US-affliliated Pacific Islands have reacted to the US strikes on Iran.

US president Donald Trump said Iran must now make peace or “we will go after” other targets in Iran, after US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry said the US had begun a “dangerous war against Iran”, according to a statement shared by Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency.

Governor Arnold Palacios of the Northern Marianas said he WAs “monitoring the situation in our region with our US military partners”.

“The Northern Marianas remains alert and we remain positively hopeful and confident that peace and diplomacy reign for the benefit of our fellow brethren here at home and around the world.”

Delegate Kimberlyn King-Hinds said the Marianas had long understood “the delicate balance between strategic presence and peace”.

“As tensions rise in the Middle East, I’m hopeful that diplomacy remains the guiding force,” she said.

“My prayers are with the service members and their families throughout the region, most especially those from our islands who quietly serve in defense of global stability.”

No credible threats
Guam’s Governor Lou Leon Guerrero said that there were no credible threats to their island, and “we will do everything in our power to keep Guam safe”.

“Our people have always been resilient in the face of uncertainty, and today, as we watch our nation take action overseas, that strength matters more than ever,” she said.

“Guam is proud to support the men and women who serve our country — and we feel the weight of that commitment every day as home to vital military installations.”

She said she and her team have been in close touch with local military leaders.

“I encourage everyone to stay calm and informed by official sources, to look out for one another, and to hold in our thoughts the troops, their loved ones, and all innocent people caught in this conflict.”

Lieutenant-Governor Josh Tenorio said: “What is unfolding in the Middle East is serious, and it reminds us that our prayers and our preparedness must go hand in hand.

“While we stand by our troops and support our national security, we also remain committed to the values of peace and resilience. Our teams are working closely with our Homeland Security advisor, Joint Region Marianas, Joint Task Force-Micronesia, and the Guam National Guard to stay ahead of any changes.”

Long-time warnings
Meanwhile, Mark Anufat Terlaje-Pangelinan, one of the protesters during the recent 32nd Pacific Islands Environmental Training Symposium on Saipan, said he was not surprised by the US attack on Iran.

“This is exactly what we concerned citizens have been warning against for the longest time,” he said.

Terlaje-Pangelinan said the potential of CNMI troops and the Marianas itself being dragged into a wider and more protracted conflict was disheartening.

“Perpetuating the concept of the CNMI being a tip of the spear more than being a bridge for peace between the Pacific landscapes does more harm than good.

“The CNMI will never be fully prepped for war. With our only safe havens being the limited number of caves we have on island, we are at more risk to be under attack than any other part of America.”

Iran requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, it said in a letter issued Sunday, urging the council to condemn the US strikes on its nuclear facilities.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has described the US military action in Iran as a direct threat to world peace and security.

Officials in Iran are downplaying the impact of US strikes on its nuclear facilities, particularly the Fordow site buried deep in the mountains, in sharp contrast with Trump’s claims that the attack “obliterated” them.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa has called on New Zealanders to condemn the US bombing of Iran.

PSNA co-chair Maher Nazzal said in a statement that he hoped the New Zealand government would be critical of the US for its war escalation.

“Israel has once again hoodwinked the United States into fighting Israel’s wars,” he said.

“Israel’s Prime Minister has [been declaring] Iran to be on the point of producing nuclear weapons since the 1990s.

“It’s all part of his big plan for expulsion of Palestinians from Palestine to create a Greater Israel, and regime change for the entire region.”

Israel knew that Arab and European countries would “fall in behind these plans” and in many cases actually help implement them.

“It is a dreadful day for the Palestinians. Netanyahu’s forces will be turned back onto them in Gaza and the West Bank.”

‘Dreadful day’ for Middle East
“It is just as dreadful day for the whole Middle East.

“Trump has tried to add Iran to the disasters of US foreign policy in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. The US simply doesn’t care how many people will die.”

New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters “acknowledged the development in the past 24 hours”, including President Trump’s announcement of the US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

He described it as “extremely worrying” military action in the Middle East, and it was critical further escalation was avoided.

“New Zealand strongly supports efforts towards diplomacy. We urge all parties to return to talks,” he said.

“Diplomacy will deliver a more enduring resolution than further military action.”

The Australian government said in a statement that Canberra had been clear that Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programme had been a “threat to international peace and security”.

It also noted that the US President had declared that “now is the time for peace”.

“The security situation in the region is highly volatile,” said the statement. “We continue to call for de-escalation, dialogue and diplomacy.”

Iran calls attack ‘outrageous’
However, the Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, said the “outrageous” US attacks on Iran’s “peaceful nuclear installations” would have “everlasting consequences”.

His comments come as an Iranian missile attack on central and northern Israel wounded at least 23 people.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Dr Mehran Kamrava, a professor of government at Georgetown University in Qatar, said the people of Iran feared that Israel’s goals stretched far beyond its stated goal of destroying the country’s nuclear and missile programmes.

“Many in Iran believe that Israel’s end game, really, is to turn Iran into Libya, into Iraq, what it was after the US invasion in 2003, and/or Afghanistan.

“And so the dismemberment of Iran is what Netanyahu has in mind, at least as far as Tehran is concerned,” he said.

US attack ‘more or less guarantees’ Iran will be nuclear-armed within decade

‘No evidence’ of Iran ‘threat’
Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said there had been “absolutely no evidence” that Iran posed a threat.

“Neither was it existential, nor imminent,” he told Al Jazeera.

“We have to keep in mind the reality of the situation, which is that two nuclear-equipped countries attacked a non-nuclear weapons state without having gotten attacked first.

“Israel was not attacked by Iran — it started that war; the United States was not attacked by Iran — it started this confrontation at this point.”

Dr Parsi added that the attacks on Iran would “send shockwaves” throughout the world.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz