Moving out of the Anzus rut

By TRACY WATKINS - The Dominion Post

It was one of those things. The plane carrying American secretary of state Condoleezza Rice to New Zealand taxied to a stop at an unexpected spot on the tarmac.

Foreign minister Winston Peters changed course and threw his arms wide in explanation as Dr Rice met him at the bottom of the steps. It turned what might have been an ordinary photograph into an enduring image of the new era in relations between New Zealand and the United States.

US charge d'affaires Dave Keegan loved the photograph; he wasn't sure what the boss would think. "I remember taking it up to the area of the hotel where the secretary was. Because we really liked that photo. We thought 'That's the photo,' but we thought, you know, there's a little bit of emotion in that photo and diplomats are not emotional.

"So we decided to take it up and see if they accepted it and it took about five minutes longer than we had in mind. But they were really pleased with it. In fact, I remember saying to someone, 'I dont think the boss will like that' ... and then had to call back to say, 'Withdraw that comment, the boss loved it.'

"It was one of those funny things; the plane was slightly in the wrong position, so people were slightly out of position and that's what made the photo. It was very cool."

Dr Keegan arrived in New Zealand four years ago with the words of his then-boss, assistant secretary of state Chris Hill, still ringing in his ears. Boiled down, they were to leave the relationship in better shape than he found it on his arrival. Easy to say, hard to do when, relations had been shall we say stuck in a rut for two decades.

But he gets to tick the box as he heads out the door next week. He also gets to tick the box on a few personal milestones. His first marathon (Rotorua, with "one hell of a home stretch"), recording kiwi numbers at the Karori wildlife sanctuary ("I think it's one of the most remarkable things I've done since I've been here"), and an appreciation for Wellington.

"I have never enjoyed being in a place more than I've enjoyed being in Wellington. I think it's a great city and, for a city its size, it has a remarkable variety and wealth of culture."

But, professionally, what matters is that he leaves knowing "we made a difference".

When Dr Rice deliberately used the word "ally" during her stopover Down Under, he knew that moment had arrived.

"I thought her word reminded everyone of how much we'd changed. And it was one of those tipping points that you get." It was an acknowledgement that we had moved on from the baggage surrounding our former military alliance and forged a new one based on friendship and co-operation.

"When I came here we were coming out of what everyone acknowledges had been a pretty chilly period in our relationship ... but there was a growing recognition on both sides that we were involved in a lot of the same efforts, with a lot of the same objectives and we weren't really getting full value out of our efforts because we were not co-operating, we were not co-ordinating.

"I think we saw that in the Pacific, in multilateral negotiations, in trade negotiations. So it only made sense to stop and take a deep breath and say ... . 'Where are the areas we can improve?"'

New Zealand's efforts post-9/11 clearly got the US thinking about the relationship again after a long period in which it had slipped to the back of everyone's minds. New Zealand sent troops to Afghanistan, and it offered ships to help patrol the Persian Gulf as part of the proliferation security initiative "and because you were involved in it other people were all the more willing to get involved".

"But I think it was really after the election of 2005 in 2006, I think the New Zealand Government really took it on as a primary objective. Prime minister Helen Clark did it, foreign minister Peters did it. We found ourselves looking for ways to do things more closely together."

On the US side, Mr Hill and Dr Rice were the driving forces. But it is Mr Peters in particular whom he credits with convincing Dr Rice to make a rare stopover in New Zealand and an even rarer touchdown in the Pacific, for a gathering of regional leaders in Samoa.

"That was a classic case where he personally persuaded the secretary that this made sense. He said it quite directly to her, that her presence will demonstrate to Pacific leaders that the US is serious about this part of the world." It was a point he made equally forcefully back home to the then US ambassador, Bill McCormick, and others.

"I believe he said, 'She's a rock star.' I think that was the term he used. And it worked ... .the folks who do logistics said, 'We're not going to the Pacific Islands, it's not good for refuelling' ... and then the next day, I get this note that said the secretary disagreed, we're stopping at the Pacific Islands."

Dr Keegan acknowledges that matters on the domestic front were somewhat more tumultuous where they concerned Mr Peters but says that doesn't detract from his work as foreign minister.

"I recall Chris Hill ... came and talked to all of us in Bangkok. At one point in his briefing he said: 'What we always have to remember is diplomacy is personal. If the personal diplomacy works, it helps so many other things. And he looked straight at me and said 'and that's what Winston Peters was good at'.

"And that mattered. He worked at building relationships with the secretary, with others in the US government, here with us at the embassy. He understood that was the way in which you build close relationships."

That was then, this is now. The new Government, says Dr Keegan, has worked just as hard at establishing a relationship.

"We're doing the same thing. You're getting the telephone call between the president and Prime Minister [John] Key, the phone calls and meetings between Secretary [Hillary] Clinton and Foreign Minister [Murray] McCully. They're recognising, 'Hey, we have a lot of the same values, we think in a lot of the same ways.' These are bright, engaged people and they're building real rapport."

If there are any remaining stumbling blocks in the relationship (the leftover legacy of NZ's anti-nuclear legislation) then, "Frankly, I would characterise them as things that don't really affect us.

"Over the next couple of years, as we work with New Zealand and Australia, we're going to find the three of us co-operating on issues together. And I think that's going to be more and more a feature of the next few years." A 21st century version of Anzus, in other words though no one is using that label.

"One of the things we need to remember here [is] we're not going to move forward looking in the rear-view mirror," Dr Keegan says. "We have to avoid the temptation to say 'Let's go look at the old mould."'