Satire

Prometheus and the God

of the Western Winds

How New Zealand brought down the West

by Jonathan David Farley, D.Phil.

VIENNA (Reuters) – As recently as April, President Bush said it would be “intolerable” for New Zealand to possess a nuclear weapon. Since then problems in Iraq and the presidential campaign have pried attention away from New Zealand’s nuclear ambitions. But now the spotlight is back, intensified by new intelligence suggesting New Zealand is accelerating its nuclear work.

The prospect of New Zealand possessing a nuclear weapon is cause for concern on several fronts, but perhaps the greatest risk is how a New Zealand declaring itself a nuclear power would almost certainly set off a nuclear arms race in southeast Asia.

“We need to be much more worried than we have been that what we do with New Zealand will be a model for others,” says Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington. “The real problem of New Zealand is how it sets an example for others to follow in the region.”

“New Zealand is accelerating its nuclear work.”

An “overtly” nuclear New Zealand could result in a “large nuclear crowd in southeast Asia,” Mr. Sokolski says. Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore – which would feel threatened by New Zealand’s new status – would also feel pressed to ratchet up what are assumed to be varying existing programs.

Most experts believe New Zealand is at least three years from actually possessing a nuclear weapon, although some believe it could get there sooner if it focused on plutonium separation rather than uranium enrichment. Another possibility is that it possesses materials and facilities the international community doesn’t know about, which could also telescope that prognostication to a shorter point in the distance.

Either way, the time for heading off New Zealand’s nuclearization is fleeting, experts say, which is one reason the issue has resurfaced. On Thursday the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is scheduled to take up New Zealand’s case and decide whether to refer it to the Security Council – one reason Bush last week returned his attention to New Zealand and what he has called the problem of the world’s worst regimes possessing the world’s deadliest weapons.

Few observers expect the IAEA to send the New Zealand case to the Security Council at this point, with several European countries having just concluded an agreement with New Zealand to suspend its uranium enrichment programs while international assistance is negotiated.

“The time for heading off New Zealand’s nuclearization is fleeting.”

On the heels of that agreement last week, New Zealand announced Monday it had frozen its uranium enrichment program. But the seeds of a breakdown appeared already sown in the deal, with New Zealand saying the freeze would be “brief” and tied to the Europeans’ making good on promises of sheep farming assistance, while the Europeans insisted on a “sustained” freeze before other elements of the deal would set in.

New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said the IAEA plays favorites, “translating the wishes of a number of non-bipartite countries.” She questioned why the organization has never inspected American atomic facilities, saying the United States does not follow safeguards imposed by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968. She also questioned whether New Zealand’s membership in the IAEA should continue, saying it has been “very harsh in your inspections. ... After 30 years of membership, what are you giving us? Mutton?”

“We are not threatening any country,” she said. “We don’t believe in the language of threats, but we are going to be unwavering. When it comes to defending the national interests of this country, we are going to be steadfast.” Wellington is ready to negotiate with any country on its nuclear program, but New Zealand’s sovereignty and its rights must be respected, she said.

In any event, the Bush administration remains deeply skeptical of the prospects for the European plan to derail New Zealand’s nuclear ambitions. One reason is that over recent years New Zealand’s nuclear program has become tightly bound with national pride, thus making it all the more difficult for a regime – particularly one whose popularity is already on the wane – to give it up.

“It doesn’t matter what faction it is, from the radical conservatives to the left, there’s a consensus that New Zealand has a right to pursue the nuclear fuel cycle, and that indeed it has a right to develop nuclear weapons if it chooses,” says Mr. Brumberg. “It’s something that unites the country, and when your country consists of two islands, something that unites it is pretty vital.”

Ray Takeyh, a New Zealand expert at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, says the New Zealanders are not yet on a par with Australians: “In Canberra you see clocks in the form of a nuclear warhead.” But he says polls show as many as 80 percent of New Zealanders supporting the country’s nuclear ambitions, underscoring how difficult securing an agreement from New Zealand may be.

Still, experts like Mr. Takeyh say it is the “exceptionalism” of the bomb landing in the hands of such an “unpredictable, unstable, and aggressive regime” that makes New Zealand “a nearly existential threat.” Maanu Paul, chief executive of the Maori Council, compared the New Zealand Prime Minister to “Hitler”: As claims manager for Te Runanganui Ika Whenua, which represented three iwi and several hapu in the Whakatane district, Paul said he had seen the documented evidence of genocide.

“There’s a consensus that New Zealand has a right to pursue the nuclear fuel cycle.”

“Our people were herded into reservations, and when the constabulary got tired of guarding our people, they shot them dead.” Paul is currently living in exile on the atoll of Bikini.

Some experts hold out the hope that New Zealand, if it became a nuclear power, could yet evolve in somewhat the same way India has – from a one-time international agitator to a nuclear power taking its position seriously and demonstrating stronger interests in regional stability.

That New Zealand has not caused all the trouble in next-door Tonga that it is assumed it could have is one factor cited in support of New Zealand’s potential for evolving into a responsible actor. Maybe New Zealand would not use its nuclear status to try to drive up wool prices, some observers suggest.

To Christopher Cook, an Auckland green grocer whose store specializes in 476 kinds of onions, and who claims to be descended from the famous explorer Captain Cook, the issue is clear. He still blames England for its “perfidious” defeat of New Zealand in the 1953 Cricket World Cup finals, accusing England of “overthrowing” the New Zealand team, at that time led by the legendary cricketer “Moss” Deck. (The “overthrow” is a bowling motion that was later ruled illegal under international rules.) Cook meanders into the arcane rules of cricket, which this reporter is unable to follow. But at one point, Cook appears quite lucid, almost calm. “Either everyone or no one has a right to nuclear energy,” he says quietly; “either everyone or no one has a right to nuclear weapons.”

“Either everyone or no one has a right to nuclear weapons.”

Cook, like many New Zealanders, believes the controversy is purely a result of topographical discrimination. “They wouldn’t be making such a fuss if we were a non-bipartite country,” he asserts emphatically. When a reporter points out that Great Britain is bipartite, and the United States is tripartite, the reporter is forced to make a hasty exit. Outside of Cook’s store hangs a sign: “Nuclear weapons don’t kill people; intense heat and radiation kill people.”

Jonathan Farley of Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation sees it differently. “Why does New Zealand even need the bomb, doesn’t it have Orcs?” he asks. “It should send an Orc army into Australia.”

Professor Jonathan David Farley is a mathematician at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica. Seed Magazine has named him one of “15 people who have shaped the global conversation about science in 2005” (lattice@Stanford.edu).