New Zealand's Geopolitics and Strategic Identity — Reuben Steff

3. 3. 2026

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 Steff

Reuben 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 China

The strategic case for New Zealand to join AUKUS Pillar 2

US Foreign Policy in the Age of Trump: Drivers, Strategy and Tactics

Emerging Technologies and International Security: Machines, the State, and War

Examining the immanent dilemma of small states in the Asia-Pacific: The strategic triangle between New Zealand, the US and China

Hard Balancing in the Age of American Unipolarity: The Russian Response to US Ballistic Missile Defense during the Bush Administration (2001–2008)

Content

00:00 – Introduction: Conceptualising New Zealand’s Strategic Posture
02:03 – Geographic Isolation and the Evolution of New Zealand’s Strategic Culture
13:56 – From the South Pacific to the Indo-Pacific: Regional Order and Strategic Repositioning
18:06 – The Treaty of Waitangi and Its Implications for External Partnerships
21:47 – Strategic Autonomy, Nuclear-Free Norms, and the AUKUS Question
30:44 – Domestic Debates on Nuclear Policy and National Identity
34:21 – ANZUS (1951) in Contemporary Perspective: Alliance Politics and Strategic Recalibration
36:25 – Trans-Tasman Relations: Convergence, Friction, and Structural Asymmetry
40:38 – Economic Interdependence with China and Security Alignment with Western Partners
45:22 – Engagement with India and ASEAN: Diversification and Indo-Pacific Strategy
49:23 – The European Union and New Zealand: Trade, Norms, and Strategic Convergence
53:54 – Hedging in Practice: Small-State Strategy Amid Great-Power Competition
56:34 – The War in Ukraine and Its Implications for New Zealand’s Foreign Policy
01:01:11 – Multilateralism, Liberal Order, and China’s Parallel Institutional Architecture