One of the few real roles of people in governments is defending the Nation’s borders.
That ought to include management of immigration but increasing gross GDP while decreasing GDP per capita matters much more these days.
No, precious, I do not dislike immigrants at all. Get over it.
How we might need to defend our borders depends on many factors.
1. Who is the enemy?
2. Why would they want to militarily invade New Zealand?
3. How would they plan to execute this invasion?
4. What sorts of weapons would they be using?
5. What would we need to defend ourselves against this many different types of modern weapons?
6 Would invading killing and destroying everything be more advantageous than trading and buying what was wanted?
There are probably many more difficult questions but I am still stuck on the 1st.
I have travelled very widely and been welcomed warmly as a Kiwi in many many countries including Russia and China. Perhaps the mostly unwelcoming are those odd people they seem to like to hire to work in USA immigration. Everywhere else they just sort of look at my passport, do thie thing, smile and say “come on in”.
I don’t thing we have any real enemies that need or want to invade New Zealand. Why bother when we are so friendly and willing to just sell them anything they would like at such reasonable prices.
Most of what was Kiwi owned has already been sold off and thee rest is on the “fast track” to go as well so what is there to take by military force?
I was talking with someone our there in our military and asked him what he would do if we were invaded.
“Ditch the uniform, run and hide in the hills”
The remaining few that still have and can effectively shoot guns (only at invading enemies) will not be able to help after the “nasty weapons” have been registed and then confiscated so forget about defending our lives and freedom that way.
And it gets worse because “covid” was totally about what is likely to happen when the clever military geniuses finish developing the “wonderful” biological weapons they are working on right now. OOPs, I forgot that is supposed to be a secret.
As usual our clever politicians who know SFA about anything but getting votes with lies and false promises thing they have the answer and that is.
TaDA! Force the productive working people to fund lots and lots of their clever ideas that will not work because these people have no practical knowledge, experience or answers and have don’t even know the questions.
They can’t even manage to survey a reef without sinking the ship because they forgot to turn off the autopilot and increased the power to be able to crash it harder.
But that’s ok because someone might of learned what that illuminated button does and what’s a few more millions or billions that we don’t have anyway? Heck, let’s just borrow spend and waste some more on flash new toys for the DEI military they’s and them’s to play with.
After all who cares when it’s OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY and you can take as much as you like because they are too dumb to say NO!
God defend New Zealand because those bright sparks in Wellington can’t and there is no rational evidence that it is likely to happen anyway.
Reminds me of how snapping my fingers keeps the elephants away because there ain’t any elephants.
No Minister 
Now that the topic of New Zealand’s defense has come to the fore again, I am seeing more and more posts like this, some on substacks I don’t care to pay to comment on, so I will place my thoughts here.
This particular piece is so poorly thought out and so weakly argued that it’s difficult to take seriously. Apart from its various tired hobby horse riding (Covid ! Taxation is spending our money !) the argument seems to be that as we can construct a hypothetical scenario (a massive Chinese invasion) against which any New Zealand defense would be futile, therefore any New Zealand defense spending, or maybe just any increase in New Zealand defense spending, is pointless and should be abandoned.
It’s a weak argument, very weak.
As any lock can be picked or busted open, what is even the point of locking my doors and windows? I can’t stop all burglars so why even try to stop any burglars?
Defense, like any human activity, exists on a continuum. A massive technocratic empire dropping atomic warheads from orbit to incinerate entire nations would be at one end of that continuum, but something like a militiaman guarding a warehouse with a pistol or shotgun would be at the other end of it.
Once you have an organized group of armed men trained in the arts and sciences of violence you have a military that exists at some point on that continuum. If their main concern is citizens operating within national boundaries then they are Police. If their main concern is foreigners operating outside national boundaries then they are Soldiers. There are minor legal differences, but no substantial military ones, the difference is substantially semantic.
Just ask our own Minister of Police, Mark Mitchell how easily a trained man can move from the police into the military. BTW, the difference between “Mercenary” and “Soldier” is a legal, financial and semantic one not a military one, and the difference between “Security Contractor” and “Mercenary” is completely a semantic one.
You ask, “1 Who is the enemy?” and “2 Why would they want to militarily invade New Zealand?”
The short answer to 1 is ANYONE. Anyone who wishes to take what we don’t want to give them. The answer for 2 is partially “Why do they have to do it “militarily”? That term is an unreal distinction on the continuum of organized violence. Sub-national organized groups, sometimes operating from outside the nation have knocked over nations MANY times, including whole empires. The Bolsheviks knocked over the Russian empire and Triads have knocked over the Chinese empire several times, most recently in 1911.
All of them climbed the ladder from small cliques, to underground mafias, to bandit gangs, to rebel armies, to national armies. At what point did they become a “military” threat?
The answers to the questions 3,4,5 and 6 might be best illustrated by the fact that we are being invade RIGHT NOW. Our national borders are being violated and our money stolen TODAY, not once or twice but hundreds, probably thousands of times everyday. Cyber criminals in organized gangs are stealing what is probably tens of thousands of dollars form New Zealanders on a daily basis. Saying that is only a legal police matter is, as I have demonstrated, a semantic distinction not a substantial one.
Once a national government organizes a group of armed men to bust down doors, arrest or kill such men, blow up or take their stuff and if they are positioned OUTSIDE their national boundaries, then they have just organized a military invasion. That such an operation could be organized from Wellington against a group operating in a Pacific island is far from an implausible scenario.
In summary, a man with a gun is still a man with a gun, and once you have denied yourself the possibility of armed action you are reduced to the necessity of only solving your problems with pieces of paper. As Al Capone is rumored to have said,
“You get more of what you want with a kind word and a gun, than you do with just a kind word”.
I have plenty more to say on this particularly on what might be considered the “Official Military” situation of New Zealand, and will be glad to share it. But I would like to hear any feedback you, or anyone else, might have on my points so far.
Jake. I love it when people disagree with me and challenge my opinions so thanks.
God created people to be equal but Samuel Colt enabled then to be equal.
Why then are the “intellectuals”, economic Oligarchs and political elites so interested in forcing us to register our personal property when there is no evidence to indicate any intention or desire to cause any harm?
I have trouble believing that it is for our own good and not to protect themselves from the people that are exploiting and abusing with their excessive desire for more and more prestige, authority and power.
I listed some of my questions and said I was stuck on the 1st.
I still am.
I would be delighted for you to share what might be answers.
God Bless you.
Thank you for your considered and polite reply, I will try to respond in kind.
Let us examine these questions 1. Who is the enemy? and 2. Why would they want to militarily invade New Zealand?
I will attempt to proceed with facts and logic and will (for now at least) avoid the metaphysical such as “Our enemy is Greed, Hatred, Man’s inhumanity to Man etc.)
I will also proceed with the deductive method, starting from generally agreed upon facts about the world and humans and then apply them to the specific case of New Zealand.
The reason why anyone, or indeed anything, would attack is always the same, they think they will profit from it. They make a calculation based on the perceived possible rewards and risks. If the gains seem to be greater than the costs they will attack. The gains will be greater if the target is richer and fatter, and the costs will be smaller if the target is smaller and weaker. Leave money or food just lying around and sooner or later someone or something will take it or eat it.
This also works in the inverse, when attack becomes defense and profit become avoiding a loss. That target doesn’t have to be a poor sap waiting to be robbed but could be actively coming after you. I might be legally entitled to shoot you if you draw your pistol on me, but I might also make a very rational decision and shoot you now before you have the chance to draw first.
All of this also gets calculated with time as a factor, short term and long term bonuses and penalties, according to whatever schema is used.
As for the specific New Zealand situation, I can see various possible candidates for those who may wish to attack us or those who we may wish to attack in the short medium and long term. Predictions of course becoming less accurate the further they go into the future.
I have already mentioned international criminal gangs, they are attacking us NOW and we may wish to respond by attacking them in return. If they are based in a foreign territory that would be a military attack. That’s a short term sort of deal.
In the medium term, I have often though and even commented a while back on Kiwiblog that the most likely source of an attack on New Zealand is from Australia, probably in concert with America. An unfriendly government in Wellington would be a small but significant problem to Washington and a larger problem for Canberra.
A radical and fanatical government in New Zealand is far from impossible and while the strategic locations in New Zealand aren’t worth much in themselves, it could be important to deny them to a more significant adversary (China).
Washington is well practiced in the art of “The Color Revolution”, an attack would be of that sort, no need for a “D-Day” hit the beaches sort of invasion. I made some rough calculations and speculations on Kiwiblog that such an operation could cost $USD 100 million, take maybe 20 spooks, 100 hardcore men, a few thousand local supporters, and be completed within a year.
As an aside that is sort of the scenario laid out in New Zealand film “Sleeping Dogs” (1977) based on on the book Smith’s Dream by C.K. Stead.
“New Zealand plunges into a police state as a fascist government institutes martial law after industrial disputes flare into violence “Sleeping Dogs (1977 film) – Wikipedia
The New Zealand fascist government gets support from American mercenaries to deal with the left wing rebels. Update the particulars for the 21st C and you have a far from implausible scenario. So that’s medium term.
.
Long term (and this is +25 years) I do see a low probability possibility of a Chinese and Beijing allied attack on New Zealand. But only as the last phase of WWIII that has pushed the USA and Washington allied forces back right across the Pacific.
Last Stand Fiordland ! (nice geography for a quickly improvised submarine hideout). If that scenario comes to pass we’ll all have a lot more to worry about than tariffs on dairy exports.
I have plenty more speculation on how co-operation (or otherwise) with other nations could play into all of this, but I let you digest this for now.
Peace be with you.
Thanks for those thoughts Jake and I tend to agree with most of what you have shared so kindly.
I perceive my own ideas, beliefs and opinions as a consequence of what I have experienced in my own life. That is based on our current knowledge of Neuroscience, which is not all that well developed yet.
So we are sharing the experiences of our individual lives with one another to try to see the same things with 2 different “eyes” instead of just one.
Neat.
The only way to do this rationally is to trust and respect one another to avoid the emotional fear that disagreement with one another is an attack on one another.
You seems to be able to understand this.
I dislike violence but was very good at it. because there is some kind of beast inside me that only knew the law of the jungle and fighting was kill or die. Some friends even called me The Beast that is how horrible that thing is. It scared the shit out of me and I learned to keep it from getting out by what I call feeding my good wolf. It has not been easy but I think I did fairly well because I can no longer allow myself to hate anyone and would prefer to try to understand and love them so that I can also understand and love myself.
Everything seems to me messed up and those “in charge” do not seem to know how to un-mess it. They seem to be making it worse.
We can do very little on our own but we might be able to do a lot if we get together.
The poeople in charge do not want us to get together because that is a threat to their status, wealth, authority and power over the rest of us.
I live in Christchurch. Where are you?
Maybe we can get together and try to figure this madness out?
Hello once again.
I would not like to shoot anyone ever and would not personally justify shooting someone because I thought they might shoot me.
But hey, one does what one does.
Very interesting to consider the USA and possible Australia as potential threats.
We are (but perhaps deny?) a distant part of the current “American Empire” that is threatened by the huge achievements of that nasty CCP in a short 70 or so years.
Military installations in New Zealand controlled by the USA of course, and directed at China would be a possible way of defending that empire and attacking those “nasty commies”.
It is possible that if and when the current trade and currency wars become a “real war”, those installations on the distant border of the empire would be very useful defending it and for attacking those enemies as well.
Assuming that President Trump would order it, any attack on those installation would bring on the full might of USA military supremacy to protect New Zealand and rain down death and destruction upon those inferior Chinese who are such an existential threat to the current world order.
With such great protection it only seems sensible to get into the game and help that reality TV character from The Apprentice fire China before it gets too big for its shoes. After all, China has been ripping New Zealand off for decades by dumping all that cheap junk here and destroying our local manufacturing industries. it is time to get even by imposing some whapping tariffs as well arming up.
Surely that is what will also make New Zealand great again? Or am I perhaps missing something because I am so dumb?
For What It’s Worth :
1- The enemy is ourselves, and our inbuilt tendency to evil.
2- Military invasion being the soft option compared to guerrila conversion of the local population to the “approved” way of thinking and action (newthink). To eliminate the hold-out thinkers who still have a definition for evil.
3- Require people to be tolerant of thinking and behavior that deviates from that which has been demonstrated and reasoned to be “good”, until the newthink gains ctitical mass to apply social and practical pressure (coercion).
4- Words, longwinded evasive circular commentaries which redefine old words and concepts in such a nice way that logical debate becomes avoidable. Then coercion, theft, invasion, parallel society.
5- A source of truth outside of human construct. A source of conviction that genuine love (Greek: Agape) is stronger than evil. An understanding that there is a supernatural component (even a basis) to this measurable universe.
6- Destruction and humiliation of the old think enemy (us) is always required to demonstrate the superiority of the newthink, and prevent old think from resurging.
See also: Tribal based societies, Palestinian problem, collapse of empires.Further on 5- The development of physical weapons and the strategy and tactics to use them is probably secondary to the willingness of the population to recognise the enemy and endure the hardships of all-out battle against the enemy. See also: Afghan insurgents, Burmese resistance tribes, Islam-think, Socialist-think.
The Reason for the Season is The source of truth outside of human construct. A demonstration that Love will do what it takes to provide a way of escape from evil. Satisfying both Justice and Mercy. The remaining choice is individual to ourselves. The solution to point 1- .
Cheers, Walnutter.
Thanks for that.
Lots of good stuff for me to process.
I agree that we must defend our borders, freedom, people and way of life from enemies within and without our nation and have not been doing it very well.
Allowing our citizens to be divided into so many opposing, hostile and hateful tribal identity groups is the worst thing we could be doing.
Politics 101 is the strategy called DIVIDE, CONQUER AND RULE. Perhaps that is why we are our own worst enemy?
I listed some of my questions and admitted that I was stuck on the 1st one.
When I post these thoughts of mine, I am actually looking for and welcoming those who disagree to say so and provide me with their thoughts so I m ight be able to learn more.
Thanks for doing that
It seems to me that what you are talking about is spiritual, psychic or metaphysical warfare, which I agree is a very real thing. New Zealand’s metaphysical defense is probably even weaker than its physical defenses. Ships take days to cross the Pacific, aircraft hours and both are very expensive, ideas can cross the whole world in a fraction of a second and are transmitted essentially for free. Say what you like about the physical strength of the average Kiwi, and it is probably rather good, but we have never been a nation of great thinkers.
Virtually our entire culture has been imported and the average Kiwi and also our leaders will swallow whatever is fashionable without tasting or chewing first.
Hi Jake. What I think I am trying to do is understand what the heck is going on with our species, how we got to such a dangerous stage in our evolution, what it might lead to and what we ordinary people can do to make things better for ourselves and one another.
Of course I do not have the answers and even if I did the “authorities” would not listen to me anyway.
IMO, most of us just want to live together harmoniously and help one another along so that we, our families and our species will survive.
Few of us want to hate, fight and kill one another. Those who do should be gotten rid of because they are like cancer cells in the greater “organism” we call our species.
Those cancer cells seem to be preparing for a war with weapons of mass destruction that could destroy everything that our species has achieved and our species as well.
I am a bit worried about that.
So what you are talking about is The Problem of Evil. That’s a very real one, very broad and very deep, so this probably isn’t the best forum to discuss it.
Except to say my position could be summarized as, humans are omnivores, so we must develop the ability to be both herbivores AND carnivores. Sorry if that sounds a bit obscure, but I believe that destruction, death and even killing are not inherently evil.
Heraclitus said;
“War is the Father of All and the King of All, and some he makes Gods, and some he makes Men, and some men he makes Free and some men he makes Slaves”.
There is a war going on, its been going on for as long as the world has been spinning and we must be armed, physically and metaphysically.
The best resource that I have found for a long time on the question of evil is “Political Ponerology” by the Polish psychiatrist Andrzej Łobaczewski.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_ponerology
He starts from a political, psychological and sociological position but the concepts soon move into spiritual or metaphysical territory.
Here is an excellent Substack by Harrison Koehli dedicated to Łobaczewski’s work and the concept of human evil.
https://ponerology.substack.com/
You could jump in at any point, but it might be best to start at the beginning. I comment over there sometimes so we could pick up this thread over there.
Thanks for that Paul, but I am a long way out of NZ right now and I don’t know when I will be back. I guess we can pick up the conversation on another thread. Try and check out the “Political Ponerology” I mentioned above, it’s good although very dark stuff.