Dan O'Brien

@TrevorJ24567534 Thanks Trevor. The alignment is worrying

Hi Dan - I created that table by cross checking NZ Defense and Security policies and actions against the key themes within the US Nat. Security Strategy paper issued last year. I wanted to get an sense in aggregate of the extent of NZ’s alignment. The last column- alignment grading somewhat subjective but hopefully does reflect the more quantitative inventory of NZ actions in the middle column. The topic obviously worthy of much deeper analysis but I wanted to create something succinct for X posting.

🧵1/2 Looking at recent New Zealand actions in the light of the Nov 2025 US National Security paper it's clear we are becoming increasingly ensnared in this quagmire. The (NSS) paper is very explicit about access to critical minerals and US willingness to "use economic tools to align incentives...especially with those countries that depend on us most and therefore over which we have the most leverage" and the need for "sole source contracts for (US) companies" rnz.co.nz/news/national/…

@TrevorJ24567534 Where is this document sourced from? Who wrote this? How misguided, and subservient.

🧵2/2 New Zealand demonstrating increasing alignment with declared US security interests - at what cost?

Despite our distance from Europe and North America, a psychology of dependency on North Atlantic thinking persists in many quarters in New Zealand - when it comes to foreign policy, interests, values, and concepts of security. Read more here: open.substack.com/pub/diplospher…

@TrevorJ24567534 Terence O'Brien (2016) "Itinerant small country leaders moreover need be particularly alert to condescension by the powerful with their capacity to flatter and patronise guests otherwise considered inconsequential."

J Collins in her happy place ….

@carlworker NZ officialdom will have a bevy of documents to rewrite. Wonder what verbal gymnastics they'll engage this time to prop up their rapidly disintegrating world view..

MFAT alert: another instance of Asia-Pacific, not Indo-Pacific!

@carlworker @TrevorJ24567534 It's a familiar story. When will they be held accountable?

@TrevorJ24567534 No.

“Taken together, these inconsistencies muddy the policy intent of the move and likely create headaches in Canberra and Wellington. One particularly affected area would be joint policing initiatives. Australian and New Zealand police work with their Chinese counterparts across several crime themes. For example, Taskforce Blaze—a standing operation between the Australian Federal Police and the Chinese National Narcotics Control Commission—has seized 28 tonnes of illicit drugs and precursors since its inception in 2015. For its part, New Zealand Police has a host of formal and informal arrangements with China, including a working group on law enforcement cooperation. The framing of the (FBI) office as a geostrategic initiative to counter Chinese influence could challenge such arrangements. Police cooperation is often conditional on cordial relations between the respective governments.” Comment: Clearly a big stuff up by spooks minister Collins who sat on the US intention to go ahead for two months without sharing with the wiser police minister or PM. According to this analysis, the result is a net negative for law enforcement cooperation. Not exactly well played.

@carlworker @MCrawshawNZ @MHdeJong Indeed. What have these politico-security types achieved aside from diminishing NZ's voice and misreading the global situation time and time again? There is a systemic problem when people "fail up" like this ... and take FP positions without political debate

@MCrawshawNZ @MHdeJong With Peters, Collins, Luxon and current MFAT, Defence and DPMC leaderships setting the tone, not surprising that any internal balanced analysis is effectively stifled. Unlikely to be career enhancing.

Pity we’re not seeing this level of balanced analysis in NZ wrt our foreign policy positions. Publicly, or privately from what one can see from ⁦@MHdeJong⁩’s OIAed material. theage.com.au/politics/feder…

@RnaudBertrand Super pic! & Greetings. Are you giving any talks while here in Paris by chance? Your notes on varied world topics are most lucid ..

Hello from our family to yours!

As a big river swimming fan, and being in Paris today, I had to try it: swimming in the Seine river, which is now possible since the 5th of July. Honestly pretty cool experience, in all meanings of the word since the water is a refreshing 23C. They have 3 sites and we tried the "Grenelle" one, very close to the Eiffel tower. The water quality is frankly not bad, I saw many fishes in the water, and it feels quite clean, I even put my head under the water as you can see on the video.

@NewZealandMFA Appeasement

New Zealand is watching events in the Middle East closely and continues to call for diplomacy and dialogue.   New Zealand is a strong supporter of the international rules-based system and has a long history of advocating for nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. New Zealand has consistently opposed Iran’s nuclear programme, along with many other countries. Iran cannot be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.   In that context, we note the United States’ decision to undertake targeted attacks aimed at degrading Iran’s nuclear capabilities. We also acknowledge the US statement to the UN Security Council that it was acting in collective self-defence consistent with the UN Charter.   New Zealand strongly supports all efforts at diplomacy. We urge all parties to return to talks. An enduring and sustainable solution depends on de-escalation and diplomacy.   Getting New Zealanders out of the crisis zone safely remains an absolute priority. -WP

@Tasmanviews @carlworker Of course, it is rank double standards. Do as I say, not as I do. Net effect is their words lose their meaning. Macron especially guilty having just railed against double standards at a talk in Singapore.

@carlworker They’ve all drunk the same Israeli cool aid. Macron, Mertz, Starmer, Van de Leyen. Who will be next I wonder?

Not impressive.

@NZhunt3r @StephenJacobi @TradeWorksNZ It would be an interesting analysis to quantify the economic opportunity cost, speculatively, of this government's ambivalent approach to China to date. What could have been ... ?

@StephenJacobi @TradeWorksNZ It’s long overdue as his government is unfortunately not China friendly. Just need to look at the drop in visa numbers and reduce number of flights as one example.

Good to hear PM Luxon is visiting China next week - high time for this visit to NZ’s largest trading partner @TradeWorksNZ

@carlworker Needed to be said. Peters disingenuous. NZ flying mightily close to the sun. Question begs how we got there when clearly out of step with today's world.

High-powered former political leaders write letter to Luxon on China | The Post thepost.co.nz/politics/36071…

@carlworker Questions still very much remain on military dimension of Rocketlab USA & NZ involvement. @ollieneas points in N&S 2021 still relevant northandsouth.co.nz/2021/03/14/roc…

Disconcerting and revealing to see a recently retired top US military officer join Rocket Lab’s Corporate Board. Wikipedia: “Nina Marion Armagno is a retired United States Space Force lieutenant general who served as the first director of staff of the United States Space Force from 2020 to 2023.“

@carlworker Yes it appears those political security types are affected by a black & white threat mentality, which is out of whack with today's world, and NZ's place in it. Stuck in some bygone era.

The leadership for this needs to remain with the Prime Minister, supported by his able and experienced Trade Minister, and drawing on our wider brains trust of top former NZ trade policy architects and negotiators. It absolutely must not be allowed to be stymied by our Foreign Minister and his coterie of hawkish political security types in MFAT who don’t really understand trade and economics and who are always seeing adversaries and risks everywhere.

This is exactly the role that NZ is equipped and qualified to play. Not railing against anything, but pitching strongly in favour of an approach that has helped lift the world to new heights over recent decades and, if better supported and managed, remains the solution and not the problem.

@carlworker Sounds like a small circle in Wellington have a bad case of "groupthink", wonder what the antidote is? It seems in other times, leadership encouraged fresh ideas rnz.co.nz/national/progr…

I suspect there are issues at a number of levels. One is an apparent de facto interpretation of the Coalition agreement that the foreign minister has the right to do whatever he likes with the foreign affairs portfolio, facilitating indulgence in pet nostalgia projects like promoting even closer US ties without concern for wider or longer term trade offs. (Not sure if that is systemic, but the person concerned certainly is a master of gaming MMP in order to get in such a position). Another is a long-standing MFAT preference for staffing its top positions with staff groomed through repeated postings in places like Washington, Canberra and London (finished off by a soft Asian posting to give supposed Asia cred) - all committed Kool-Aid quaffers. The same crowd tend to populate top policy jobs in DPMC and Defence. By the time they get to the top, they have spent a lot of time reading highly polished and subjective offerings from our 5 Eyes partners. If you read enough of it, you start believing it. This is certainly a systemic issue and would benefit from examination by an objective outside eye at some point.

Rumour has it that there is still no date settled for the Prime Minister’s visit to China. It would appear that matching the PM’s and the Premier’s diaries is proving challenging although you would think that in the circumstances, the PM might want to consider showing a bit more priority and flexibility to accommodate Chinese offers. If he misses May/June as appears possible, the northern summer break then intervenes, and in the premium autumn visit season of Sep-Nov, all the world’s leaders will be trying to get to Beijing, with the Chinese leadership due to hold an important Party Plenum to approve the new Five Year Plan. Our PM has left it dangerously late to pay a first visit to our most important trade partner.

@carlworker The public deserves transparency, is there a systemic problem with the advice being given?

Those who have been advising him on his external priorities have some serious explaining to do in light of latest developments. It looks like gross incompetence.

@Robert_Patman Courageous article when many stay silent. Kudos.

New Zealand and Gaza: Confronting and not confronting the unspeakable thespinoff.co.nz/politics/17-03…

@mattcollinsuk @lovable In my Cursor vibe coding app experiment last week I started on Mon with 150 lines of hand-written code, and by Fri had 10x that (can't be bothered trying to read it!) Refactoring should perhaps be the default behaviour, at least suggested

@distantKiwi @lovable Yeah, I think there's an interesting UX choice in this -- they could instead have done the refactoring without asking. Or not done it and not suggested it. In this case I liked being asked about it. Maybe the ideal is for it to learn your taste and then not need to ask much.

Coding agents are getting serious now. (Maybe they don't like being associated with 'vibe coding.') [Interesting to see this, @lovable!]

@mattcollinsuk @lovable It is a good user flow, but wonder if it is a Q of just your taste, or also the agent's own taste re: its context window. x.com/IndieHackers/s…