“Are we all realists now?” New Zealand’s Geopolitics and the US-China Competition

History has returned! Two wars are underway on the Eurasian landmass and fears abound that a third could break out in the Indo-Pacific as the US-China great power competition intensifies. This takes place against the backdrop of a new multipolar (dis)order and a fractured international security landscape, with Washington solidifying a largely liberal democratic security order that is at odds with a deepening China-Russia security partnership. These dynamics are undermining the post-1945 rules-based system critical to New Zealand’s security and prosperity.

How does New Zealand interrelate with this global epic, and how is our government responding? What does it mean for our immediate region, the South Pacific? And why should we even care? This presentation addresses these questions and charges that we must first understand New Zealand’s fundamental geopolitical reality, the imperatives that flow from it, and then consider our options going forward.

About Reuben Steff

Dr Reuben Steff is Senior Lecturer of Geopolitics and International Relations at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. Prior to his time in academia, he spent 2.5 years working on international security issues in the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

His research includes Great Power Competition, emerging technologies, nuclear deterrence theory, and New Zealand geopolitics. He has multiple journal publications, including ‘“Our region is now a strategic theatre”: New Zealand’s balancing response to China’ (Pacific Review, 2024). He has authored four books, including: Emerging Technologies and International Security: Machines, the State and War (Routledge, 2020) and his forthcoming volume is New Zealand’s Geopolitics in the US-China Great Power Competition (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024).

He regularly participates in policy development processes, attends roundtables on international security issues, and participates in track 1.5 and track 2 dialogues.