The 2026 general election is taking place as the world experiences a tumultuous transition.<\/p>\n
Russia is sustaining a brutal effort to annex Ukraine, the Israel-Palestine conflict has devastated Gaza and the West Bank, China\u2019s Pacific presence is growing, the United States is ensnared in a war with Iran, and the tempo of climate change is quickening.<\/p>\n
With the core principles of an independent New Zealand foreign policy<\/a> \u2013 support for a rules-based international order and multilateralism \u2013 under sustained attack, Foreign Minister Winston Peters recently reflected on his government\u2019s response during the past three years.<\/p>\n He told the Institute of International Affairs<\/a> the country had faced \u201cthe worst international conditions since 1945\u201d.<\/p>\n The challenges it faced included the \u201creturn of trade protectionism\u201d, a United Nations hamstrung by the \u201cabuse of the Security Council veto\u201d, and \u201cunwelcome geopolitical manoeuvring in the Pacific\u201d.<\/p>\n The \u201corder-shattering nature of the geostrategic environment\u201d, Peters said, marked a shift \u201cfrom rules to power\u201d. Consequently, the National-led coalition had opted for \u201cquiet diplomacy\u201d and realism based on accepting \u201cthe world as it is, not how we wish it would be\u201d.<\/p>\n This realism, Peters claimed, has \u201cleft the next government with more choices, and with more agency\u201d and had prudently served \u201cour country\u2019s national interests\u201d.<\/p>\n But there are substantial reasons to be sceptical about this diagnosis of the contemporary global environment.<\/p>\n Selective realism<\/p>\n The geopolitical rivalries of the 21st century are simply not comparable to those of the Cold War era when the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war<\/a> on at least three occasions (during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, the 1973 Yom Kippur war, and NATO\u2019s Able Archer incident in 1983). <\/p>\n The shift from rules to power has been largely confined to three veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council \u2013 the US, Russia and China \u2013 and their close allies. <\/p>\n Meanwhile, the majority of states are small and middle powers that depend on, and largely adhere to, international rules governing areas such as trade, diplomacy, tourism and scientific collaboration. <\/p>\n And while the government has identified some of the symptoms of global instability, it has been somewhat selective in assigning responsibility to those creating those conditions.<\/p>\n In his speech to the Institute of International Affairs, Peters rightly expressed concern about \u201cRussia\u2019s illegal invasion of Ukraine\u201d and China\u2019s naval exercises and missile tests in the Pacific. But he also welcomed the prospect of expanded US involvement in the Pacific region.<\/p>\n This reflects the government\u2019s seeming unwillingness or inability during the past three years to apply the same criteria the US, which has also contributed to the declining international situation<\/a> the foreign minister laments.<\/p>\n In particular, the current US administration under President Donald Trump has shifted deliberately away from an alliance with liberal democracies like New Zealand. Instead, it pursues a global order based on a US-led concert of great powers<\/a>.<\/p>\n The New Zealand government has had little to say<\/a> about the Trump administration\u2019s disregard for international law, whether in relation to Gaza, Ukraine, Venezuela or Iran. But that restraint has not spared the economy from the fallout from US trade protectionism and crisis in the Middle East.<\/p>\n