Strategic liberalism and Kiwi maximalism: Reuben Steff suggests a new paradigm as a basis for New Zealand foreign policy.

• Author: Steff, Reuben
• Position: Essay

In recent decades a new international structure has emerged, dramatically increasing the incentives for co-operation. New Zealand should capitalise on this by adopting a new foreign policy paradigm. It should consider a new approach--strategic liberalism--as the foundational underpinning of New Zealand's foreign policy. Bonded to 'Kiwi maximalism', it would provide a wellspring for visionary objectives that New Zealand could adopt. It might aim to transcend major regional security issues through a reinvigorated push for disarmament across the Asia-Pacific region and by acting as a catalyst for improved United States-China relations.

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In 2001 Prime Minister Helen Clark declared that New Zealand was 'the most strategically secure country in the world'. (1) Upon that basis, and hearkening back to the foreign policy approach of prior Labour administrations, she pursued an approach to international affairs known as liberal internationalism. This emphasised the promotion of human rights and democracy; support for international institutions; the encouragement of disarmament and the promotion of free trade. In fact, her foreign policy was arguably the most liberal internationalist of any New Zealand government ever.

The current National government has developed a less sanguine view of the security environment and the threats it poses to New Zealand. Instead, and true to its ideological heritage, it has sought to re-focus New Zealand's foreign policy efforts upon core national interests, perceived to be trade and strengthening alliances. This approach to international affairs is captured by the foreign affairs theory of realism, which is less concerned with the promotion of ideals than liberalism.

Although every New Zealand foreign policy contains a mix of realist and liberal elements, these two paradigms have been engaged in a struggle over the general course of New Zealand foreign policy since the 1930s. (2) However, realism and liberalism, when theoretically and practically isolated from one another, operate akin to ideologies: they simplify the complexity of the world --thus systematically distorting it--and attract passionate adherents to their side, with practical consequences for foreign policy. In this article I contend that neither position is sufficient for an increasingly complex, integrated and multi-polarising world. Nor do they suit the defensive realist system that has emerged over the past decades.

Together, globalisation and defensive realism have created a new international structure. The norms, practices and incentives for co-operation of this system are ascendant but often go overlooked. New Zealand's foreign policy strategy should take this new operative environment into account. If it does not, it could miss the unique co-operative opportunities inherent in the present international configuration. Therefore, the essential contention at the core of my argument is that it is strategic liberalism that should form the foundational underpinning of New Zealand's foreign policy. (3) This paradigm provides a wellspring for visionary objectives that could provide a major contribution to the common security of the Asia-Pacific region and could help transcend major regional security issues. These efforts would be strengthened by an approach we could dub 'Kiwi maximalism' --a conscious political decision to frame our objectives as more far-reaching than appears currently plausible.

Contemporary system

'Globalisation' refers to the expansion of integrated economic structures, diffusion of communications and technology. Prior to 1991, 'security' was defined by the national struggle in Cold War parameters for power, whether military, economic or ideological. Since then, new security threats have emerged that threaten both national and international security. Additionally, the tighter the integrated components of the system become, the more likely destabilising events abroad will cause systemic reverberations throughout the system and affect geographically remote states, such as New Zealand. (4)

In this situation many threats can only be combated by a view of security that requires states to work together. Traditional realist 'self-help' notions of security become counter-productive--all states that seek security in the modern international environment are dependent on one another. Moreover, since New Zealand's interests are bound up in the security of the international economic system, it has a stake in stabilising the system as a whole, and especially its wider region, the Asia--Pacific.

Alongside the deepening process of globalisation, realism has undergone its own transformation since the end of the Cold War. It has separated into 'offensive' and 'defensive' schools of thought. Offensive realists believe that states are greedy 'power-maximisers', whereby achieving hegemony over other states is the only means to guarantee a state's security. Aggression and coercion become the inevitable recourse in an offensive realist world. In contrast, defensive realists hold that states are 'security seekers' and moderate their behaviour towards this end. Since security is indivisible in a globalised international system, states can only improve their security positions by working...