Iran isn’t the end, just the beginning of the end.
"Cannon to left of them, cannon to right of them, cannon in front of them...."
So goes the famous line in The Charge of the Light Brigade, Tennyson's recounting of doomed British cavalrymen knowingly, yet dutifully meeting their bloody fate at the hands of Russian artillery during the Crimean War.
I don't know about you, but it seems to sum up the security environment we now face given the mounting challenges of the past six years. Covid measures, conflict in Ukraine, Israel/Gaza, and now in Iran, have affected New Zealand in profound ways. But the question is not so much whether Kiwis are capable of suffering through more setbacks and struggle. We do reactive mode quite well. Rather, it's when we're going to face the fact we're living in a new era. We have to start thinking in proactive mode.
An interview on the Q and A programme with security expert Major General John Howard this past week reveals just how vulnerable NZ has allowed itself over decades to become. This "strategic complacency" means we're now, according to Howard, at "extreme risk" not only in terms of energy security, but also in areas such as food security, cyber attacks, foreign interference/transnational repression, drug trafficking and foreign military incursions into our territorial waters. To put it bluntly, New Zealand has been living in La-la-land.
We've acted as if we aren't subject to the laws of history, physics and economics.
Unfortunately, that kind of blinkered and reckless wishful thinking was on full display from far too many attendees at the Democratic Resilience and Transparency Forum in Wellington this past Monday.
Our team at PILLAR came away from the event with a renewed sense of urgency and concern about this nation's risk management awareness, readiness and capabilities. Or lack of, that is. Far too many contributors - inbetween snarkily sniping at political rivals - seemed obsessed with relatively trivial issues that have little bearing on the challenges our nation is now facing.
Some pined for the "good old days" before social media when there were "traditional gatekeepers of information in media" (the Hon. Phill Goff's words, not mine) when presumably politicians got to set the journalistic talking points each week.
Other speakers yearned for the even older "good old days" prior to colonisation when, according to one self-proclaimed expert, things in this part of the world were going swimmingly and justice was afforded to all before Europeans arrived and "imposed democratic systems". This claim, made in the Grand Hall of Parliament House elicited a room full of earnest head-nodding. The irony of the moment was staggering to witness.
While politicians, bureaucrats, and academics lamented the rise of "right wing populism", they managed to ignore the elephant in the geopolitical room: China. After all, it was only last year that our nation's intelligence services issued an unequivocal warning about the threat of Chinese Communist Party proxies acting with virtual impunity in New Zealand. Yet strangely enough after listening to countless speeches at the forum this past Monday one could have been forgiven for thinking the real enemy of NZ democracy is the misinformed voter.
Given this is the state of our nation's leadership (at least in the Wellington beltway), we're in big trouble.
In leadership, arguably the greatest challenge is being able to adapt and respond to new information and evolving circumstances and then understanding how best to communicate the changing strategy to the team. Poor leaders fail to anticipate or prepare their teams for change. The very worst leaders then waste time complaining about how unfair the world has become.
"We can't solve our problems," Albert Einstein observed, "with the same level of thinking that created them."
New Zealand needs to be bold, agile and planning for the worst. The world has changed and the sooner we accept that fact, the better. Our Foreign Influence Transparency Bill is a vital starting point. While we've put the Bill in the hands of some important MPs, we're also bringing public pressure to bear on political parties. If we don't acknowledge that a massive gap exists in current law, we will not have the necessary weapon for defending our nation against manipulation by foreign powers.
Like the Light Brigade, NZ has shown throughout its history it is capable of great courage. But valour and a long suffering attitude alone won't secure peace or a prosperous future. Facing facts, planning for the long term, and returning to first principles will.