Soft power, hard risks: how politicising army biculturalism weakens NZ’s Pacific credibility

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Abstract

An article examining how the New Zealand government’s unprecedented political intervention into the army’s bicultural doctrine risks Aotearoa’s credibility as a trusted Pacific security partner. I argue that what has been framed as correcting ideological hijacking is, in practice, a partisan intrusion that sacrifices one of Aotearoa’s most effective strategic assets for domestic political gain.

Citation

Jayden Evett. 2026. “Soft power, hard risks: how politicising army biculturalism weakens NZ’s Pacific credibility.” Pacific Wayfinder, March 26. https://hdl.handle.net/1885/733713482

@article{evett2026a,
    title = "Soft power, hard risks: how politicising army biculturalism weakens NZ’s Pacific credibility",
    author = "Jayden Evett", 
    journal = "Pacific Wayfinder",
    year = "2026",
    month = "March",
    day = "26",
    url = "https://pacificsecurity.net/blog/soft-power-hard-risks-how-politicising-army-biculturalism-weakens-nzs-pacific-credibility/"