New Zealand's Geopolitics and Strategic Identity — Reuben Steff

In this episode, together with Dr Reuben Steff, we explore how New Zealand’s geographic isolation, colonial legacies, and small-state status have shaped a distinctive strategic culture; one that combines alliance cooperation with a persistent commitment to autonomy, non-nuclear norms, and multilateralism.Reuben SteffReuben Steff is a Senior Lecturer at Mendel University in Brno whose scholarship engages some of the most pressing questions in contemporary international relations and security. His research spans the implications of artificial intelligence for the global balance of power, the interaction between nuclear deterrence theory and ballistic missile defence within the security dilemma, New Zealand and United States foreign policy, and the dynamics of great-power competition between the United States and China. Publications:New Zealand’s Geopolitics and the US-China Competition‘Our region is now a strategic theatre’: New Zealand’s balancing response to ChinaThe strategic case for New Zealand to join AUKUS Pillar 2US Foreign Policy in the Age of Trump: Drivers, Strategy and TacticsEmerging Technologies and International Security: Machines, the State, and WarExamining the immanent dilemma of small states in the Asia-Pacific: The strategic triangle between New Zealand, the US and ChinaHard Balancing in the Age of American Unipolarity: The Russian Response to US Ballistic Missile Defense during the Bush Administration (2001–2008)Content00:00 – Introduction: Conceptualising New Zealand’s Strategic Posture02:03 – Geographic Isolation and the Evolution of New Zealand’s Strategic Culture13:56 – From the South Pacific to the Indo-Pacific: Regional Order and Strategic Repositioning18:06 – The Treaty of Waitangi and Its Implications for External Partnerships21:47 – Strategic Autonomy, Nuclear-Free Norms, and the AUKUS Question30:44 – Domestic Debates on Nuclear Policy and National Identity34:21 – ANZUS (1951) in Contemporary Perspective: Alliance Politics and Strategic Recalibration36:25 – Trans-Tasman Relations: Convergence, Friction, and Structural Asymmetry40:38 – Economic Interdependence with China and Security Alignment with Western Partners45:22 – Engagement with India and ASEAN: Diversification and Indo-Pacific Strategy49:23 – The European Union and New Zealand: Trade, Norms, and Strategic Convergence53:54 – Hedging in Practice: Small-State Strategy Amid Great-Power Competition56:34 – The War in Ukraine and Its Implications for New Zealand’s Foreign Policy01:01:11 – Multilateralism, Liberal Order, and China’s Parallel Institutional ArchitectureFollow & Further ResourcesSubstack: https://theirthinker.substack.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ir-thinker/X: https://x.com/irthinker_Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theirthinker/Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/theirthinker.bsky.socialFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/irthinkerfb Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.