Category: Ideas & other articles

Colin James for Defence Quarterly, March issue

Foreign Minister Phil Goff says cancelling the F16 contract is just “reprioritising expenditure”. Actually, it marks a strategic shift.

Few on the left like the armed forces, which most of their persuasion associate with militarism, the instrument of aggression and oppression. They dismiss any military threat and so don’t feel they need even to see the forces as guard dogs. They are most comfortable with the armed forces as rescuers, through peacekeeping and peacemaking, a role which transforms militarism into humanitarianism. read more

Colin James for the Independent

The revolution is over — that much Richard Prebble, Bill English, Helen Clark and Jim Anderton agree on, though from very different angles. Now what?

The “what” is the deep agenda in this election. The great majority of the electorate has settled that it doesn’t want to go back to 1984 — maybe not even to 1990. But it is unsure where it wants to go from here and the big parties are jostling to draw a map. read more

Colin James on politics and economics for NZ Books millennium issue

Coming into the twentieth century, the battle for the future was between socialists and triumphalist trumpeters of a “bigger and better Britain” here at the end of the world. The route out is likely to be along some muddy “third way” avoiding radicals to left and right — or into a “new conservatism”. Visionaries have given way to pygmies. read more

Colin James for Defence Quarterly: October 1999

A funny thing happened on the way to the APEC summit. Peaceniks marched in the streets demanding war. And shortly afterwards off our warriors went, under-equipped with out-of-date gear.

The East Timor incident which was the focus of this peace-seeking warmongering highlighted an evolving defence debate which has brought us either to the verge of a major policy shift or, if not, at least at a point of sharp disagreement between amateurs and professionals. That is an unstable state of affairs. read more