Anzus at 70: Still a model for peace and prosperity in our region – Stuff.co.nz

OPINION: September 1 marks the 70th anniversary of the signing of the Anzus Treaty in San Francisco. Planned celebrations in Washington and Canberra will likely go unnoticed in New Zealand. After all, the country has now been outside the tripartite alliance for more years than it was an active member. But the anniversary offers a chance to reflect on what really matters in New Zealand-United States relations.

First, it is important to recall why Anzus came into being. When signed, New Zealand and Australia were fighting alongside the US and others in Korea. With wartime memories still fresh, the Anzus Treaty eased Australasian apprehensions of both a possible resurgence of Japanese militarism and a looming communist threat. The pacts three signatories agreed to consult about how to respond collectively if their security was threatened in the wider Pacific region.

Considered the richest prize of New Zealand diplomacy by external affairs minister of Frederick Doidge, the new alliance was based on perceived mutual benefits. As the great postwar Pacific power, the US extended a security guarantee to two relatively small, largely Anglophone states on the edge of a politically unstable region. In return, they signed on to the more general American-led Cold War competition with the Soviet-led communist bloc, bolstered in 1949 by the Peoples Republic of China.

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Anti-nuclear protests in Waitemat Harbour as the submarine USS Phoenix arrives for a visit in 1983.

For more than three decades, New Zealand operated within the framework of that bargain. Today, the benefits are probably remembered less than the costs, such as how New Zealand was drawn reluctantly into the ill-fated Vietnam debacle by its two more powerful allies.

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Yet, what always mattered most was the spirit of Anzus, not the letter. Although disagreement over nuclear ship visits resulted in New Zealands suspension from the alliance in 1985, the negative repercussions of that break were largely limited to high-level political links and to military and intelligence co-operation. Trade with the US even grew thereafter. As US secretary of state George Shultz memorably phrased it, the two countries parted company but did so as friends.

That is not to deny relations were understandably frosty in the aftermath of the anti-nuclear dispute. However, as fellow liberal democracies, the two states have found ways of compartmentalising disagreement over the nuclear issue to rebuild strong co-operative relations in areas ranging from intelligence sharing through the Five Eyes arrangement to the Biden administrations recent support for the Christchurch Call.

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Prime Minister elect David Lange and United States Secretary of State George Schultz, in Wellington in 1984 ahead of New Zealands suspension from the Anzus alliance the following year.

Such has been this reconciliation that they are now nearly as close as if they were still in Anzus together. A bipartisan Senate resolution on August 9, honouring the 70th anniversary, praised Australia as an ally but was almost as fulsome in extolling New Zealands virtues as a long-standing partner of the US.

Such gestures are mutual recognition of how fundamentally like-minded our two countries are, even when disagreeing over major issues.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern strongly affirmed these shared values and interests at the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs Conference in mid-July. Confirming her Governments now preferred designation of our home region as the Indo-Pacific rather than the Asia-Pacific, Ardern highlighted the importance of an open, inclusive, free and rules-based regional order. That order, which has served New Zealand so well over recent decades, has been fostered in no small measure by the regional role of the US, especially in terms of international security but also politically and economically.

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Roberto Rabel: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern strongly affirmed these shared values and interests [of the United States and New Zealand] at the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs Conference in mid-July.

It has become conventional wisdom that, whatever nomenclature is used, the region today faces geo-political challenges echoing those that lay behind the original Anzus agreement. Many forecast an imminent choice for regional states between Beijing and Washington. Every nuance of statements by New Zealand leaders is scrutinised in this context, with some media commentaries interpreting Arderns July speech as another step in Washingtons direction.

This starkly binary framing is not helpful. Nor is the related idea of an impending clash between democracies and autocracies.

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Emeritus Professor Roberto Rabel: What always mattered most was the spirit of Anzus, not the letter.

Instead, the anniversary of this landmark agreement in New Zealand foreign policy signed at a time of more heated strategic competition in a then more troubled region offers an opportunity for creative thinking about relations with the US and Australia.

It should neither be an occasion for anachronistic longings about reviving a formal alliance forged in a different era nor for decrying that pact as some form of imperialist suppression of New Zealands independent foreign policy. Rather, this thinking must build on the reality that we live in a diverse region of both like-minded and unlike-minded states.

The aftermath of the Anzus dispute showed we can manage differences and build on common strengths, while retaining independence in foreign policy. It stands as a model for how to move forward.

Given the deep reservoir of shared values and interests, the three like-minded liberal democracies that saw value in working collectively in 1951 can surely find fresh ways to contribute together to the peace and prosperity of the dynamic region in which our destinies remain intertwined.

Emeritus Professor Roberto Rabel is a professorial fellow at the Centre for Strategic Studies, Victoria University of Wellington.

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Anzus at 70: Still a model for peace and prosperity in our region - Stuff.co.nz