Trouble in the Family: New Zealand's Antinuclear Policy

TROUBLE IN THE FAMILY:______ NEW ZEALAND'S ANTINUCLEAR POLICY F Aüan Hanson OFN h August 1986 Secretary of State George Shultz announced that the United States was formally suspending its defense ties to New Zealand. Those ties began with the signing of the 1951 ANZUS (Australia-New Zealand-United States) treaty, an alliance established mainly to allay Australian and New Zealand fears of resurgent Japanese militarism.1 The formal renunciation of the U.S. commitment to New Zealand followed a two-year dispute between the nations over the decision of New Zealand's Labour government, headed by Prime Minister David Lange, to forbid port visits by U.S. ships powered by nuclear reactors or that might be carrying nuclear weapons. As the U.S. Navy has always refused to confirm or deny that a given vessel is carrying nuclear weapons, the port ban effectively barred most U.S. naval craft from docking in New Zealand's ports. Although New Zealand is small, remote, and not strategically located, the significance of this diplomatic imbroglio should not be underestimated; it has far-reaching implications for Western solidarity and the ability of the United States to keep its allies in line. The seriousness with which the United States views this action can be seen in its willingness 1. The New York Times, 12 August 1986. F. Allan Hanson is professor of anthropology at the University of Kansas. Previous publications include Rapan Lifeways: Society and History on a Polynesian Island (1970), Meaning in Culture (1975), and, with Louise Hanson, Counterpoint in Maori Culture (1983), and The Art of Oceania: A Bibliography (1984). Research for this paper was funded by a travel grant from the Hall Center for the Humanities at the University of Kansas and a visiting professorship from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. The author is grateful to both of these institutions. 139 140 SAIS REVIEW to suspend formally its military ties with New Zealand, ties that have persisted for thirty-five years under the ANZUS pact. New Zealand is an ally of a special sort. It is, as the U.S. ambassador to New Zealand said, "in the family."2 The family in question consists of the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand: nations bound together by a common English language and Anglo-Saxon traditions inherited from Mother Britain. In effect, New Zealand's port ban means that the biggest and strongest member of the family, who has assumed primary responsibility for its affairs, has been defied by the runt. The U.S. government's dour view of New Zealand's behavior is well known; former secretary of state Dean Rusk observed that the United States cannot be treated as "a call girl who is available upon request but who is snubbed in between calls" — an apt depiction of sentiments in Washington.3 This essay deals with what has not been so well covered by the American media: the New Zealand point of view and the historical and cultural context in which it was formed. First, however, the salient events will be reviewed. The matter came to a head in February 1985 when New Zealand refused to accept a visit by the conventionally powered U.S. destroyer Buchanan, on the grounds that the ship might have been carrying nuclear weapons. This was the first test of New Zealand's antinuclear policy, which was enunciated by the new Labour government when it came into office the previous July. The Buchanan incident touched off a diplomatic row between the United States and New Zealand that has lasted ever since. The dispute has left ANZUS, as a U.S. military officer said, "dead in the water." The United States has taken the attitude that if New Zealand will not behave as an ally, it will not be treated as one. Hence the United States has suspended all military cooperation with New Zealand: consultation, intelligence sharing, and joint exercises. By early August 1985 no fewer than twenty-two joint exercises planned under ANZUS auspices had been cancelled.4 New Zealand's two military officers assigned to U.S. Intelligence Center Pacific and the U.S. Third Fleet headquarters , both in...