Facing challenges in the international relations space: Gerry Brownlee provides an Opposition perspective on New Zealand's foreign policy.

• Author: Brownlee, Gerry

The Russia-Ukraine War is the biggest conflict in Europe since the Second World War and has consequences much more likely to affect New Zealand--and the liberal democratic world we most like to consider ourselves part of --than the many conflicts seen over the past dozen or so years, but it is worth remembering some of those for context. What was the position ten years ago?

* The Middle East, with its various Arab nations, was a central focus of the West in 2012, as instability continued --partly due to the Arab Spring of 2011; Syria was entering its second year of civil unrest as Bashar al-Assad's war against opposition rebels continued, with Russian aid.

* The United States was in its eleventh year of war in Afghanistan.

* Israel and Palestine had their longest war in more than four years after Israel assassinated Ahmad Jabari, Hamas' military commander.

* ISIS had declared a caliphate in the Levant and begun its reign of terror that spurred mass migration into Europe.

* In the United States, President Barack Obama won a second term as president of the United States in a narrow popular vote, but a landslide Electoral College victory.

* In Asia, Xi Jinping was named Chinese president for the next five years. At the time, despite being the world's second largest economy, China was still widely viewed as tumultuous and undergoing massive economic reform.

By 2017, five years later, the war in Syria was slowing, though the impact was still being felt by Syrians; the United Nations estimated that 13 million people needed humanitarian assistance, and 6 million were refugees. Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, was liberated by Iraqi and Kurdish soldiers backed by the United Kingdom, France and the United States, three years after its capture by ISIS.

In Asia a deadly crackdown on the persecuted Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar triggered a mass refugee movement of thousands into neighbouring Bangladesh. The United Nations would find the Myanmar military carried out mass killings and rapes with 'genocidal intent'. The United States and North Korea were sharing strong words over the latter's testing of nuclear weapons, and development of a ballistic missile capable of hitting any US city. Xi Jinping, after a successful year following his advocacy of globalisation and climate change action, was named to a second five-year term as president. The Congress wrote 'Xi Jinping Thought' into the Party constitution, an honour only bestowed previously on Mao and Deng Xiaoping.

In the United States, newly inaugurated President Trump championed isolationism and 'America First' foreign policy for the United States, cancelled participation in the TransPacific Partnership, withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change, refused to continue Iran nuclear talks and failed to comment on human rights abuses in Asia.

In Europe the United Kingdom formally triggered Article 50 and commenced its departure from the European Union, following the narrow referendum of 2016. The G20, meeting in Hamburg, failed to agree on climate change action.

Position today

Today, we are now just over two years into the COVID-19 pandemic. Vaccine rollouts began worldwide, after international co-operation saw development of a vaccine at a speed never before seen (usually they take ten to fifteen years to develop). More than 7.4 billion doses were administered in 2021. Supply chain issues around the world are leading to rising prices, delays and...