Forty years ago, New Zealand denied a US nuclear-armed warship–USS Buchanan–entry into its waters based on legislation that prohibited nukes on its territory. The incident incensed Washington and set off a feud between the two allies that would go on for decades.
The US Navy deployed several tactical nuclear weapons, in line with the ‘New Look’ policy of the Eisenhower administration in 1955 that emphasized that nuclear weapons were necessary to fight and prevail in a conflict in the absence of significant conventional forces.
Throughout the Cold War, US Navy warships and submarines routinely sailed the world, bristling with tactical nukes. These weapons were carried by battleships, cruisers, destroyers, frigates, aircraft carriers, attack submarines, ballistic missile submarines, and supply ships.
They were purportedly carried aboard these vessels during port visits, freedom of navigation demonstrations, spy missions, and naval drills.
However, there were some countries allied to the United States that were against the idea of having nuclear weapons on their territory during peacetime. The US took an interesting position when it decided that it would neither acknowledge nor deny the existence of nuclear weapons anywhere—a position that soon became a policy.
The ambiguity around the presence of nukes, nonetheless, meant that goodwill port visits turned into diplomatic spats as host countries protested against the flagrant violation of nuclear bans imposed by them.
One such country was New Zealand, a close ally of the US at the time and a signatory to the Australia, New Zealand, and United States Security Treaty (ANZUS Treaty) 1951, which was signed to secure the two Pacific states.
When New Zealand Said No To US Warship’s Entry
New Zealand has had a consistent position on nuclear weapons since 1945, when nuclear weapons were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. This opposition was officially communicated when the country voted in favor of the removal of nuclear weapons from state arsenals in the first-ever United Nations General Assembly Resolution in 1946.
During the 1960s and 1970s, with Western countries conducting nuclear testing in the Pacific, New Zealand’s opposition to nuclear weapons and nuclear tests grew stronger.
After a sustained campaign against nukes, the country proclaimed itself ‘nuclear-free’ in 1984 under the leadership of David Lange. At that time, the New Zealand government announced its decision to ban ships that were either nuclear-powered or -armed.
However, this did not sit well with the United States, whose deterrence and power projection against the former Soviet Union depended on nuclear weapons.
The US decided to send a warship to New Zealand to test the resolve of the government against allowing nuclear weapons. Before this, some nuclear-free countries had allowed US warships to enter their territories based on the US position of neither confirming nor denying the presence of nukes.
New Zealand, however, was not going to relent.
The US reportedly requested the New Zealand government to allow a visit by the guided-missile destroyer USS Buchanan, which was commissioned into the US Navy in 1962.
New Zealand was skeptical because it suspected that the destroyer was carrying a nuclear depth bomb (deployed mainly for anti-submarine warfare). So, on 4 February 1985, when USS Buchanan refused to confirm that it had no nuclear weapons onboard, it was denied entry by New Zealand.
According to an excerpt from New Zealand History, “The Americans assessed that it might slip under the political radar. ‘Near-uncertainty was not now enough for us,’ Lange recalled. ‘Whatever the truth of its armaments, its arrival in New Zealand would be seen as a surrender by the government.’ He had hoped the Americans would offer to send a less ambiguous vessel, but it was the Buchanan or nothing.”
In a matter of days, Washington degraded political and diplomatic relations with New Zealand and cut off its open military and intelligence exchanges. And while the ANZUS treaty’s framework remained intact, US Secretary of State George Schultz confirmed that the US would no longer uphold its security guarantee to New Zealand.
“With bipartisan support in Congress, the US ceased all joint naval exercises and intelligence sharing with New Zealand, and President Reagan stated that he could no longer afford the country a special relationship as enjoyed by other allies,” wrote Wilson Centre.
As per the Federation of American Scientists, the intention behind the treatment of New Zealand was to discourage other significant allies from enacting similar anti-nuclear laws. For instance, if Australia decided to adopt a similar legislation, it would cost the US its footing in the Indian Ocean—a risk it was unwilling to take at the time.
A National Security Council report later stated that New Zealand’s denial of the entry to USS Buchanan could encourage the Soviet Union to “promote disunity among our allies and wait out further successes by other anti-nuclear groups around the world, rather than to negotiate arms reductions.”
Unfazed by the US reaction, New Zealand adopted the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act in 1987. However, the New Zealand government clarified that it was strictly anti-nuclear, not anti-American.
Amid growing global discontent with nuclear weapons and with the Soviet Union about to disintegrate, the United States finally decided to remove nuclear weapons from its naval forces.
In a primetime televised speech on September 27, 1991, President George H.W. Bush declared that the United States would unilaterally remove all non-strategic nuclear weapons from its naval forces, bring them all home, and destroy a large number of them.
The President also affirmed that warships will not carry nuclear weapons on overseas deployments. The offloading was reportedly completed by mid-1992.
Two years later, the Bill Clinton administration’s 1994 Nuclear Posture Review determined that surface ships would not be permitted to launch nuclear missiles. The report mandated that nuclear Tomahawk land-attack sea-launched cruise missiles (TLAM/N) be stored on land and only deployed to specific submarines.
Several years later, in 2010, the Barack Obama administration retired the TLAM/N 2010, bringing an end to decades of nuclear weapons deployments on land-based naval air stations, ships, and attack submarines.
Notably, since the summer of 1992, the United States has only carried nuclear weapons at sea aboard strategic submarines equipped with long-range ballistic missiles, a trend expected to continue at least until the 2080s.
Having said that, George H.W. Bush’s announcement of 1991 had little impact on the US-New Zealand relationship in the immediate aftermath.
US-New Zealand Revival Of Ties
US-New Zealand relations started to improve in the early 2000s, as demonstrated by New Zealand’s deployment of special troops to support the US-led war in Afghanistan in 2001 and a detachment of military engineers to support the US campaign in Iraq in 2003.
However, the main push for reconciliation came under Barack Obama and his pivot to Asia strategy. Hillary Clinton, who was then secretary of state, visited New Zealand shortly after the Obama administration declared its rebalancing plans and urged “a new focus on practical cooperation in the Pacific region.”
It, nevertheless, took some time to restore ties. According to the US State Department, the United States and New Zealand signed the Wellington Declaration in 2010, reaffirming close ties between the two countries and outlining future practical cooperation.
The U.S.-New Zealand relationship was almost fully normalized in June 2014 when the HMNZS Canterbury docked at the American naval facility in Hawaii for the popular multi-national Rim of the Pacific military drills.
“HMNZS Canterbury’s docking at Pearl Harbor marks the first time in 30 years since a New Zealand ship berthed at a US naval base for RIMPAC. It is a tangible sign of the warmth of our relationship with the US,” the former New Zealand Defence Minister Jonathan Coleman said in a statement.
However, the US Navy did not return to New Zealand until 2016, when Washington accepted an invitation from New Zealand to send a ship to the country on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Royal New Zealand Navy in November 2016.
The USS Sampson became the first ship to visit the country after about 30 years.
At the time, the Navy had not changed its policy of neither denouncing nor accepting the presence of nuclear weapons. However, it was common knowledge that the US Navy had not deployed nukes aboard surface combatants for several decades, making it easier for the NZ Navy to work around the issue.
While New Zealand still vehemently opposes nuclear weapons, the diplomatic ties between the United States and New Zealand are no longer strained by the nuclear arms prohibition. According to the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the United States and New Zealand have a long-standing and close partnership and are close strategic partners.
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