Could we give this new arms race a miss? By Sam Buchanan

The presence of Chinese warships in the Tasman Sea has been a great boost to cheerleaders for the new arms race. Globally and locally, there have been calls for increased military spending from the whole range of the commentariat spectrum, from academics to Donald Trump. The British Labour government just slashed its overseas aid budget in order to have money to buy more guns. Locally we are being told to increase our defence spending to two percent of GDP. We are told we’ve ‘underinvested’ in defence, and that a response is needed to the worsening ‘security situation’. Defence minister Judith Collins recently said we have to “make up for the 35 years of feeling that we’re living in this wonderful world where nothing bad could happen”. Contrary to the minister’s suggestion that we’ve been sitting on our hands, in the last 35 years we have splurged on new military gear including, but not limited to, two ANZAC frigates, a new amphibious and mi...