Pasifika Talanoa by a traveled ITaukei Fijian

A place to share my thoughts and reflections

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  • Google’s Natadola data centre: A digital hub cannot run on empty

    There is no denying the significance of Google’s US250 million contribution to our GDP. For a small island nation, this is transformative — on paper.

    But as construction proceeds and cables land on our shores, a fundamental question remains: Is Google also investing in the water and electricity infrastructure that will keep this data centre running?

    Because without a serious commitment to upgrading these already strained utilities, this “digital hub” risks becoming a drain on a system that is already gasping for air.

    A project shrouded in questions

    Community leaders in Malomalo are demanding transparency, claiming the project proceeded without adequate consultation. Malomalo representative Emoni Rokomoce has raised concerns about cables running underground along the beach and their potential impact on marine resources and qoliqoli fishing grounds. Nadroga Navosa Resource Owners Committee representative Mosese Volavola has warned that legal action may follow, noting that resource owners understood the lease to be for tourism — not a data centre.

    The iTLTB confirmed a 25-year sublease was granted to Natadola Bay Resort Ltd (FNPF) from January 1, 2025, later assigned to Staghorn Services Pte Ltd for the Google Data Center and registered on February 23, 2026. As reported by media personalities, questions sent to FNPF, Google, EFL and WAF, remained unanswered.

    That silence is telling.

    A grid already at breaking point

    Even without Google, EFL had warned that the country faces one of its most difficult operating periods in recent years, with low water levels at Monasavu, rising fuel costs and prolonged dry conditions placing increasing pressure on power supply. Around 45 to 50 percent of electricity generation still depends on imported fuel, leaving the system vulnerable to global price shocks.

    EFL has warned of potential controlled power rationing and has already secured an interim fuel surcharge to keep the lights on. Westpac has noted that at current tariff levels, EFL would be unable to adequately fund new generation capacity, transmission upgrades or system-wide resilience. With electricity demand growing at around five percent annually, the bank warned that “outage risks rise” when tariffs are held below the cost of reliable supply.

    Hyperscale projects like Google’s facility will add to current power demands, making sustained investment in energy infrastructure crucial. But who is paying for that investment?

    Water: A resource under siege

    Fiji’s water infrastructure is no better. The Finance Minister recently acknowledged that government inherited “a critical crisis in the water sector with an aging water infrastructure, where 50 percent of the water is lost through leakage”. The Fiscal Review Committee had estimated that we require billions of dollars to upgrade water systems.

    Current assessments show that nearly one in four of our water sources are already under stress, with 16 percent at critical levels. An $8.7 billion water infrastructure strategy had been launched, acknowledging that the challenges cannot be solved within a single government term.

    Data centres are notoriously water-intensive. A 15-megawatt facility can consume 80 to 130 million gallons of water annually. Google itself reported using 4.3 billion gallons of water for cooling in 2022. While Fiji’s tropical climate may reduce some cooling demands, the facility will still require substantial water resources — resources that are already stretched thin.

    The missing piece of the puzzle

    Google has framed this project as part of its Pacific Connect Initiative, designed to make Fiji a regional digital crossroads. The facility will house data transmission servers, network equipment, backup power systems and generators. But nowhere in the public announcements is there clarity on how this facility will be powered and cooled without exacerbating our existing infrastructure deficits.

    Google is investing in fibre optic connectivity, including a terrestrial link between Suva and Natadola. It has committed to sourcing local services where possible. But has it committed a single dollar to upgrading EFL’s generation capacity? Has it pledged to fund new water treatment or distribution infrastructure?

    The answer, based on all public records, appears to be no.

    A fair question deserves an answer

    This is not an anti-development argument. Fiji needs investment, jobs and digital connectivity. The economic potential is real. But development cannot be a one-way street. If Google is going to build a facility that places additional demands on our fragile electricity grid and a stressed water system, it must also also invest in expanding and upgrading those systems.

    Westpac has noted that financing energy investments in Small Island Developing States is difficult due to high capital costs and limited economies of scale. Google is not a small player. It has the resources to fund infrastructure that would benefit not just its own facility, but the wider Fijian public.

    The government is already struggling. EFL has warned of negative cashflows from July 2026. The Water Authority is scrambling to address critical water shortages. Adding a major data centre to this equation without corresponding investment in utilities is not just irresponsible — it is unsustainable.

    The people of Malomalo deserve transparency. The people of Fiji deserve to know whether this digital future will be powered by Fijian resources, or by Fijian sacrifice.

    Google must answer: What are you investing in our water and electricity infrastructure?

    Because a data centre cannot run on promises alone.

  • The Strategic Trap: Why Zarif’s Vision Exposes the Bankruptcy of America’s Iran Policy

    For nearly five months, the United States has bombed Iran with the stated aim of neutralizing a regional adversary. Yet after thirteen consecutive nights of airstrikes, American intelligence agencies have concluded that the campaign is unlikely to force Tehran to make concessions. The war that was sold as a short “excursion” has become a strategic quagmire—and the administration, having once demanded “unconditional surrender,” has run out of ideas.

    Into this vacuum steps Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s former foreign minister, with a comprehensive vision recently published in Foreign Affairs. His argument is deceptively simple: ending the war and sustaining the peace requires a fundamental shift in regional security architecture. But buried beneath the diplomatic prose is a devastating indictment of US strategy—and a warning that Washington ignores at its peril.

    Zarif writes that the US and Israel initiated these conflicts assuming that sustained military pressure could either coerce Tehran into submission or trigger the collapse of the Islamic Republic. None of their actions—including unprecedented attacks on Iran’s political and military leadership—has forced Tehran to pivot. This miscalculation is fatal. The administration has sold the public a narrative of total victory so many times that the term has lost all meaning. If Iran has been “obliterated,” why is it still fighting? If the U.S. has won, why is it still bombing?

    Thomas Friedman’s recent NY Times column; which I shared below earlier, rightly grouped Trump, Netanyahu, and Putin as a triumvirate of leaders who all drank their own Kool-Aid. Putin convinced himself Ukrainians would welcome Russian rule and that Kyiv would fall in days. Trump and Netanyahu applied the same logic to Iran and Gaza. Each started a war of choice expecting quick victory; each discovered the adversary would not fold. Netanyahu has expanded the Gaza war to Lebanon, Yemen, and Syria—for him, forever war is the only option. The US, at least theoretically, seeks a negotiated settlement to pivot to the Indo-Pasifika. These objectives are incompatible, yet Washington prioritizes the counsel of Jerusalem over its own intelligence.

    Zarif’s most provocative claim concerns Israel’s role. “Israel has demonstrated repeatedly that it wants to sow chaos throughout West Asia to sustain its military dominance,” he writes. Israel’s systematic elimination of credible Iranian interlocutors, threatens to foreclose the diplomatic space that Trump’s dealmaking calculus requires. This is not mere anti-Israeli rhetoric; it reflects a genuine structural obstacle to peace.

    To break the cycle, Zarif proposes a Muslim West Asian Dialogue Association, to negotiate collective security, economic integration, and non-aggression pacts. The proposal is ambitious, even idealistic. But it rests on a truth Washington has stubbornly refused to accept: Iran cannot be bombed into submission. “Only diplomacy, a new peace agreement, and a new security framework produced by regional states and for regional states will allow the US to turn its attention elsewhere,” he writes. That line exposes the administration’s greatest vulnerability.

    Successive US administrations have shared the goal of reducing America’s long-term burden in West Asia to focus on the Indo-Pasifika. Past instruments—the 2015 nuclear deal, the Abraham Accords—were all aimed at neutralizing Iran so Washington could pivot. This war has done precisely the opposite. It has diverted strategic attention and redeployed critical weapons systems from Asian theatres. The pivot has become an empty promise. Zarif understands this irony: the US has trapped itself in a conflict it cannot win nor leave.

    The common thread binding Trump, Netanyahu, and Putin is arrogance—the refusal to acknowledge that the adversary has agency, resolve, and a stake in survival. That arrogance turns wars of choice into wars of attrition. Zarif’s vision may not be the answer—it is, after all, a proposal from an adversary seeking to preserve its regime. But dismissing it out of hand would be a strategic error. For the first time in this conflict, a senior Iranian official has offered a pathway that acknowledges US interests while insisting on Iran’s legitimate role in regional security.

    The question is not whether Iran can outlast US bombs—it will. The question is whether Washington possesses the wisdom and the courage to try something different. Until the United States recovers a sense of strategic humility and stops mistaking noise for leadership, it will remain trapped in a cycle of perpetual escalation with no exit ramp. Zarif has cracked open a door. The only question that remains is whether anyone in Washington is willing to walk through it.

  • The Illusion of Victory: Why Trump’s Iran Strategy Collapses Under Its Own Weight

    The definition of strategy is deceptively simple: patience, discipline, and an unflinching grasp of consequences. Without these, a policy is not a strategy; it is a performance. And when it comes to the Islamic Republic of Iran, the current US approach has devolved into little more than dangerous theatre—theatre that confuses allies, emboldens enemies and mocks the very concept of “winning.”

    A former colleague recently put it succinctly: Trump’s Iran policy has demonstrated the opposite of strategic thought. We see impulsive decisions that shift with the wind, discarded diplomatic channels and a blind faith in the optimistic assumption that dropping more bombs can change a nation’s civilizational calculus. Yet, as the past year has proven, war cannot validate what propaganda merely asserts.

    Consider the confusion now gripping even the administration’s most loyal supporters. When Maria Bartiromo of Fox News recently asked; in genuine bewilderment, how Iran still possesses the capability to strike Gulf nations and US bases after America had “obliterated” its military, she was voicing a crisis of credibility. The administration has sold the public a narrative of total victory so many times that the term has lost all meaning. If Iran has been “obliterated,” why is it still fighting? If the US has won, why is it still bombing?

    This is the dangerous echo chamber of body counts and strike tallies—a modern rerun of General Westmoreland and Robert McNamara in Vietnam. In that conflict, Washington quantified success by enemy casualties and sorties flown, convincing itself that arithmetic could substitute for strategy. It could not. Iran, like Vietnam, is fighting an existential threat to its civilization. When a nation believes its very survival is at stake, no amount of massive ordnance will alter its stance. Bombing only hardens the resolve; it does not change the strategic calculus of a regime that views surrender as extinction.

    The tragedy is that President Trump walked into this trap with his eyes wide open, listening to the wrong voices. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu will undoubtedly arrive in Washington with a blunt message: “You have threatened a massive strike. Now carry it out, or Iran will call your bluff, and the ‘TACO’ label—talk and cave—will become your legacy.” But this is precisely how the president fell for this war in the first place—by prioritizing the counsel of a foreign leader over the sober assessments of his own military and intelligence officials.

    Netanyahu’s strategic interests are not synonymous with America’s. He views Iran through the lens of Israel’s immediate security, which is understandable. But US strategy must be global and sustainable, not a subcontractor for regional vendettas. By outsourcing decision-making to Jerusalem rather than the Pentagon, the president has transformed a geopolitical challenge into a personal vanity project.

    The president’s compulsion for public pronouncements has only exacerbated the damage. Strategy thrives in silence; it dies on social media. By telegraphing every move, every threat and every frustration, the administration has surrendered the element of surprise and ceded the narrative to Tehran. Iran’s leadership knows that the bluster is louder than the bombs. They have learned to wait Washington out, understanding that America’s attention span is shorter than their missile range.

    Now, the United States is left with an uncomfortable truth: the president has run out of ideas. He has applied maximum pressure without a maximum plan. He has bombed his way to a stalemate and declared it a victory so many times that even his own base is beginning to doubt the scoreboard.

    Strategy requires patience—the willingness to endure stalemate while building a coalition. It requires discipline—the restraint to keep your powder dry and your options open. And it requires a clear understanding of consequences—the wisdom to know that military force is a scalpel, not a sledgehammer, and that even a scalpel leaves scars that can last for generations.

    Trump’s approach to Iran has demonstrated the opposite of all these virtues. Until the United States recovers a sense of strategic humility—and stops mistaking noise for leadership—it will remain trapped in a cycle of perpetual escalation with no exit ramp. The question is not whether Iran can outlast US bombs; it is whether America has the wisdom to realize it is bombing itself into irrelevance.

  • The Roots We Must Lay in Fijian Soil

    This Greek proverb finds its most urgent home in the Pasifika: “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” In Rewa, we plant not just any tree—we plant vutu and mangrove shoots, knowing it takes decades for their roots to grip the shore and hold back the rising sea. The saying is not abstract philosophy; it is survival.

    Yet today, we stand at a precarious crossroads. We are a nation blessed with the largest ocean territory in the Pasifika, a vibrant Vanua, and a cultural compass that has always pointed toward the next seven generations. But we are behaving like tourists in our own future—spending our natural capital, debating the next budget cycle, and treating the rising tides as tomorrow’s problem.

    This is where the Bose Levu Vakaturaga is reclaiming its moral gravity—not as a political relic or ceremonial ornament, but as the conscience of our intergenerational covenant. The BLV’s true vision is not about the politics of the present; it is about the custodianship of iTaukei heritage, of land and sea, for those who will inherit these islands in 2100 and beyond.

    In Fijian tradition, a chief does not own the land; the chief is the land’s voice. That voice must speak not for the voters of 2026, but for the children who will wade through saltwater flooding their villages in 2050. We have already moved Vunidogoloa. Our coastlines are eroding. The shade we must plant is not a leafy canopy—it is a robust blue economy, resilient infrastructure, and mangroves standing as natural seawalls.

    The uncomfortable truth is that planting requires sacrifice. Saying no to short-term extraction—overfishing our qoliqoli, approving mining leases that poison our aquifers, or building luxury resorts on unstable shores just for immediate foreign currency. It means investing in renewable energy and climate-resilient schools, even when the treasury is strained and the returns are decades away.

    The BLV, embodying chiefly wisdom, is uniquely placed to transcend partisan noise. Its vision must echo veilomani—compassion that extends beyond the self. When our chiefs gather in the valenibose, they represent not just their Vanua, but the unborn who will bear the weight of their choices. That is the truest definition of a chief: one who carries the burden of a future they will never witness.

    We cannot afford to be a nation of tenants. We have grown too accustomed to imported goods, diesel generators, and quick fixes. Yet our ancestors built intricate water systems, navigated vast oceans without GPS, and sustained the land for centuries. They planted the shade we sit under today. What are we planting?

    The irony is that the BLV was founded on this exact philosophy—to unite the islands, settle disputes and ensure cultural continuity across turbulent times. To remain relevant, it is pivoting from the ceremonial to the existential. It must champion a Marshall Plan for our children: massive investment in mangrove restoration, marine protected areas, and sustainable agriculture—even if the shade only benefits our grandchildren. This is not theoretical; the recently completed Bose Ni Yasana o Rewa deliberated at length on precisely this in Lokia village.

    Let us be honest. Global emissions will not cease tomorrow. The seas will keep rising. But the measure of our greatness lies not in how we react to the crisis, but in how courageously we prepare before it arrives.

    The chiefs—men and women of the BLV, all our provincial Bose Ni Yasana, and all our elders—hold the seeds. They possess the moral authority to speak uncomfortable truths: that the quick buck is a mirage, that true wealth is a reef teeming with fish, and that a shoreline holds firm only when we stop poisoning it—the Suva industrial dirty-water outlets; bleeding into Rewa’s foreshores, stand as a stark reminder of the price of neglect.

    Let us plant the mangroves. Let us build the seawalls. Let us embed climate resilience into our very constitution. We may never sit in that shade. But if we act rightly, our grandchildren will sit under it, laugh under it, and raise their own children under it. They will not remember our names, but they will remember our courage.

    That is the only legacy worth leaving in the sands of the Pasifika. Vinaka vakalevu to the ancestors who planted for us. Now, it is our turn to dig.

  • Peace Isn’t the Goal—It’s the Threat. That’s Why the UN Lost.

    We watch the daily horrors from Gaza, the smoldering fields of Ukraine, the collapsing cities of Sudan, and the endless insurgencies across the Sahel with a sense of tragic inevitability. We treat these as geopolitical accidents—the result of bad leaders, historical grudges, or ethnic fractures. But what if we are looking at the map upside down? What if these fires aren’t collateral damage, but the very fuel keeping the engine of global power running?

    There is a chilling logic underpinning the global military-industrial complex: peace is a bankruptcy trigger. When the world rests, the war machine starves. The Cold War was never merely a defensive posture; it was a calculated protection racket—a permanent state of manufactured fear designed to justify bottomless defense budgets, purge progressive movements, and cement a ruling class that answers to shareholders, not citizens.

    Today, we have graduated from that blueprint. We no longer have one Cold War; we have a dozen simmering proxy fronts. And as we scan the globe, it becomes brutally clear: the United Nations is no longer the arbiter of international law. It is a spectator, rendered obsolete by an entity far more powerful—the global military-industrial complex (MIC). This is a profit mandate disguised as a security doctrine.

    The Arithmetic of Armed Peace

    Why does the Sahel burn? Why do the goldfields of Sudan become graveyards? Why does weapons traffic flow seamlessly into the Sudan, regardless of which faction holds the territory? The answer is arithmetic. Global arms sales rise year-over-year, even when conflict zones shift. The MIC operates on a business model that requires a baseline of “armed peace”—a perpetual high-tension state where governments are terrified to cut spending on missile systems, drones, and surveillance technology.

    When we watch the siege of Gaza or the trench warfare in Ukraine, we aren’t just watching strategy; we are watching research and development in real-time. Every new counter-drone system tested, every advanced missile deployed, is a live commercial. The suffering is the cost of doing business, and the dividends are paid out to defense contractors across multiple continents.

    Peace—true, stable, permanent peace—would decimate this ecosystem. It would expose the absurdity of trillion-dollar budgets in a world lacking clean water and adequate healthcare. That is a threat the MIC simply cannot allow.

    The United Nations: A Hostage, Not a Hegemon

    This is why the UN Security Council has become a theater of the absurd. While diplomats posture with vetoes, the real power brokers are the lobbyists and corporate boards who ensure that the P5 nations remain the world’s top five arms exporters. How can the UN effectively negotiate a ceasefire in Ukraine when the American defense industry sits on a multi-year backlog of artillery orders? How can it broker peace in Yemen when the signatories are actively buying the bombs used to level hospitals?

    The UN operates on a 20th-century framework of state sovereignty. But the MIC operates transnationally—it does not care about borders, only about access. “Security assistance” is often just a polite term for “corporate welfare.” When the UN calls for a humanitarian pause, the MIC calls for a production surge. The former issues statements; the latter issues quarterly dividends. In that clash of interests, the stock market will always beat the General Assembly.

    The Ideology of Fear

    To maintain dominance, the MIC weaponizes ideology. We are told we must choose sides—democracy versus autocracy, freedom versus terror. But these binaries are smokescreens, serving to rally domestic populations into accepting austerity at home and endless warfare abroad. If we stopped viewing conflicts through “good vs. evil” and started viewing them through “supply chain vs. demand,” the picture shifts. The Sahel is not just a fight against jihadism; it is a battle for uranium and gold routes. Sudan is not merely tribal conflict; it is a battleground for Gulf-backed militias vying for strategic ports, all while private military contractors cash in.

    By framing every conflict as an existential threat to the “Western way of life,” the MIC silences domestic dissent—stoking tribal animosities through 24-hour news cycles, ensuring the public demands more security, more drones, and more troops.

    Breaking the Cycle

    What would it take to relegate war to history? It requires dismantling the economic dependency on conflict—encouraging Global South nations to stop trading blood for aid and instead pursue regional integration that makes war too costly to finance. Most urgently, we must stop treating war coverage as news and start treating it as an exposé of a corrupt corporate boardroom.

    The MIC is more influential than the UN because we allow it to be. We have outsourced our morality to defense contractors and our safety to generals who retire onto corporate boards. Peace is not impossible; it is merely unprofitable. As long as we confuse “national security” with “corporate solvency,” we will continue to watch the world burn—not because we lack diplomatic tools to stop it, but because the greatest economic power on earth has a vested interest in the flames. The question is no longer “How do we stop this war?” It is, “How do we starve the beast that profits from them all?”

  • The People, Not Procedure, Are Fiji’s Supreme Authority

    The constitutional debate currently gripping our nation has produced a familiar refrain from certain quarters: that the 2013 Constitution can only be changed according to its own internal rules, and that any attempt to do otherwise is legally illegitimate. This argument; however elegant in its formalism, rests on a fundamental error. It confuses the mechanism of constitutional change with the source of constitutional authority. In a democracy, that source is not a document—it is the sovereign people.

    The 2013 Constitution’s Original Sin

    Let us begin with an inconvenient truth that procedural purists prefer to ignore: the 2013 Constitution was never ratified by the Fijian people. It was imposed by decree under a military regime, without parliamentary approval and without any referendum. As one submission to the courts put it, the 2013 Constitution “was imposed and did not embody the will and sovereignty of the people of Fiji.”

    This is not a fringe view. Former Chief Justice Daniel Fatiaki, who now chairs the Electoral Law Reform Commission, has been remarkably candid about the document’s democratic deficits. He has described the electoral system embedded in the 2013 Constitution as “ridiculous and almost unintelligible”—an imported system that “needed to be completely overhauled and replaced.” He has questioned how a nation of almost one million citizens could be “straitjacketed into a single all-embracing constituency,” and where is the “fairness and voter equality” in a system that allows MPs “with a few hundred votes to enter Parliament ahead of other more representative candidates who received thousands of votes?”

    Fatiaki has also been scathing about the broader constitutional order. He has called it a “tragedy” that Fiji was ruled by decrees, noting that “in any democratic government, the laws are made by Parliament for the people,” while “a decree reflects nothing but the authoritarian dictatorship that instituted it.” The 2013 Constitution, in his view, remains a “major constraint” on genuine reform.

    If the document’s own legitimacy is compromised from its inception, on what moral or legal ground can its authors now claim that it must be treated as sacred and unalterable except through its own flawed mechanisms?

    The Primacy of Popular Sovereignty

    The counter-argument to procedural formalism is simple and powerful: constitutions are instruments of the people’s will, not eternal contracts that bind future generations against their consent. The constituent power—the nation itself—is superior to any constituted power, whether that be Parliament or a constitution.

    This is not radical doctrine; it is foundational to democratic theory. When the people of Fiji speak through a referendum, they are exercising their sovereign right to give themselves a new governing framework. The Supreme Court’s August 2025 ruling, which lowered the amendment threshold to a simple majority of votes cast, implicitly recognised this principle. The Court did not entrench the 2013 Constitution; it dismantled barriers to popular expression.

    The “Amendment vs. Replacement” Distinction is Formalism

    Critics argue that the government must clarify whether it is proposing “amendments” or an entirely “new” Constitution, as if the distinction carries decisive legal weight. It does not. A comprehensive amendment is, in substance, a replacement. What matters is not the label but the process: parliamentary approval followed by a referendum where the people have the final say.

    If the people approve a new constitutional order through a free and fair referendum, no court can overturn that decision without placing itself above the sovereign will of the nation. The Supreme Court itself has previously recognised the 1997 Constitution as no longer valid because it was effectively replaced—a precedent that confirms replacement through political and popular fact is entirely possible.

    The Referendum is the Ultimate Check

    Fatiaki has highlighted the absurdity of the old 75% threshold, noting that on a roll of 100,000 voters, a referendum could theoretically fail even if 88% of those who actually turned out voted in favour. The Supreme Court’s intervention to lower this barrier was a recognition that the people’s voice must not be silenced by procedural obstacles.

    Some ask: if a referendum and election are held on the same day, which constitution governs? This is an administrative question, not a fatal legal flaw. Parliament can legislate for the new Constitution to take effect upon certification of the referendum result. The election can be conducted under the existing framework, with the new order coming into force simultaneously. Sequencing is a matter of legislative drafting, not constitutional impossibility.

    Conclusion

    Those who argue that the 2013 Constitution must be treated as a straitjacket—that the people cannot replace what was never given to them—have forgotten the first principle of democratic governance. Authority flows from the people, not from paper.

    Former Chief Justice Fatiaki has spent his career defending the rule of law. But he has also been unflinching in identifying where Fiji’s constitutional order has fallen short of democratic standards. His critique of the 2013 Constitution as imposed, unintelligible, and a constraint on genuine reform lends weight to the argument that the people of Fiji must now have their say—not as a procedural afterthought, but as the sovereign authors of their own constitutional destiny.

    The process is clear: Parliament will deliberate, and the people will decide. That is not a departure from legality. It is the very essence of it.

  • Five Months In, and Still No Answer to the Only Question That Matters

    A war that was supposed to last four to six weeks is now in its fifth month. Nightly bombings. Iranian drones striking US bases across Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan and Syria. Seventeen US service members dead. Brent crude again above $90 a barrel. And still, no end in sight.

    This is not how it was supposed to go. On March 10, Trump declared at a military ceremony: “Right from the beginning, we projected four to five weeks”. By July, that prediction had become a cruel joke. The war has now dragged on for nearly five months, with no end in sight.

    The administration has tried three strategies so far: regime change, relentless bombardment, then diplomacy. Each has come up short. Trump declared victory, signed a ceasefire, declared it “over,” bombed again, floated a 20% toll on ships using the Strait—then reversed within 24 hours. Trump appears to have put himself in a box.

    The administration’s stated aims—regime change in Tehran, ending Iran’s nuclear program, curbing its military, and reopening the Strait of Hormuz—remain unachieved. The Strait was open to free navigation before the war. Now it is a battleground. Iran has effectively closed it to shipping traffic, and Trump is fighting to restore a status quo that existed before he started the war.

    Meanwhile, the conflict has expanded dangerously. On July 17, Iran launched attacks across the Gulf region, targeting US military sites in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan, Syria, Oman and Iraq. Two US service members were killed and one remains missing after Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks in Jordan. Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei declared that America’s “repeated breaches” of the ceasefire had “laid bare a fundamental truth: the signature of the US president is utterly worthless and devoid of credibility”.

    Trump’s latest gambit—a 20% fee on all vessels transiting the Strait—lasted all of 24 hours. He abandoned it the following day. This is not strategy. This is flailing.

    Former Trump chief of staff Mick Mulvaney offered a grim assessment: “The war will continue now until the Iranians don’t want to continue in hostilities”. In other words, the end is not in American hands. It is in Tehran’s. And Tehran shows no sign of relenting.

    I learned this lesson in Afghanistan in 2009, sitting in a NATO military meeting chaired by General Stanley McChrystal. Watching American officials speak with arrogant condescension about Afghan army efforts, it became crystal clear to me: the Afghans would win that war. Not because they were stronger, but because resentment builds. The “green-on-blue” attacks started shortly after. The rest, as we all know, is history.

    The parallels are unsettling. America’s Gulf allies publicly distanced themselves before the war even began. Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan have all come under Iranian fire, caught in a crossfire they never asked for. The joint investigations and statements of solidarity continue, but the trust is fraying.

    Now, five months in, the same question haunts us: What is the endgame? POTUS still hasn’t answered. And until he does, every bomb, every death, every escalation is just more evidence that he is making this up as he goes. The Strait that was open before the war is now a war zone. The nuclear program he vowed to stop is still there. The regime he promised to topple is still standing.

    Trump may be reluctant to escalate given the war’s unpopularity, rising energy prices, and the risks to US forces. His approval rating has fallen to 34%, returning to the lowest level of his second term. But backing down in the face of Iranian defiance could add to Tehran’s sense of leverage. He is trapped.

    As one analyst put it, “This has turned into a war of attrition, and wars of attrition tend to go on for a long, long period of time”. The question is not whether Trump can start this war. He already has. The question is whether he can end it—or whether he has simply added another chapter to America’s long, sad history of Middle Eastern quagmires.

  • Caught in the Headlights: Fiji’s Interplay of Sport and State

    As the world hurtles toward Monday’s footballing apotheosis—Lionel Messi’s Argentina facing Lamine Yamal’s Spain in the 2026 World Cup final—we are invited to witness the beautiful passing of a torch. The maestro against his heir apparent. A narrative of continuity, of grace handed down through generations.

    Yet here in Fiji, as we glance from that global spectacle back to our own patch of earth, we see a different story—not of succession, but of paralysis. The Flying Fijians, stunned by Wales and battered by England, now face Scotland in a Rugby Nations Championship clash, that feels less like a redemption arc and more like a diagnostic test for our national psyche. And in the corridors of power, our government must soon weigh the Constitutional Review Commission’s recommendations, the spectre of a referendum, and the urgent pressures of security, social challenges and a spiralling drug epidemic. It appears equally frozen. The metaphor is inescapable: both our rugby team and our political landscape are caught in the headlights, unsure of their next move.

    A genealogical parallel

    This is not mere rhetoric. The exhilaration of the 1987 Rugby World Cup came on the heels of the 1987 coup—two seismic events that, for better or worse, fused sport and politics into our modern consciousness. For many iTaukei, the coup delivered a sense of political vindication; the World Cup, held months later, promised a corresponding triumph on the global stage. That promise evaporated in the cruelest fashion when Severo Koroduadua dropped the ball with the try-line begging against France. It was not just a lost quarter-final; it was a dropped national destiny. That single moment taught us that success is never assured, that even the surest hands can betray the heart.

    Nearly forty years on, Fiji has ascended to Tier I status—a long-sought recognition of our rugby pedigree. Yet the last two weeks have revealed a team that plays not with the free‑flowing bilibili of old, but with the stiff shoulders of men overthinking every pass. They are not being outmuscled; they are being out‑thought, out‑psychologised. They are playing like a nation that has forgotten what it stands for.

    Government, too, in the glare

    This is precisely the condition of our government today. The Constitutional Review Commission will deliver its findings next month, and Cabinet must decide: hold a National Referendum first, amend then hold elections or hold the referendum simultaneously with elections to save money and amend after? These are not technical questions; they are existential. To hold a referendum and amend before elections, may delay elections beyond constitutional mandates. To hold elections and referendum concurrently—then amend afterwards—risks accusations of self‑preservation.

    Meanwhile, inflation gnaws at household budgets, social tensions simmer, and our security agencies are overwhelmed by a growing drugs trade. The government, like our rugby team, possesses the formal tools of power—the players, the policies, the mandate—but is it paralysed by the sheer multiplicity of urgent choices? Every pass is a political minefield; every kick for touch alienates someone.

    The BLV’s bold submission

    Into this fraught space steps the Bose Levu Vakaturaga. Reinstated in 2023 after being disbanded in 2012, the BLV submitted sweeping proposals to the Commission: giving the Council power to appoint the President and Vice‑President, reserving the name “Fijian” exclusively for iTaukei, repealing the secular State clause, deleting references to “gender” and “sexual orientation” from equality provisions, and enshrining the 1874 Deed of Cession within the Constitution. It also calls for stronger legal protections for iTaukei proprietary rights and formal recognition of customary laws and governance structures.

    These proposals have sparked fierce debate. Civil society organisations express grave concern that they could undermine equality and social cohesion. Yet the BLV’s vision is not merely about entrenching privilege. Its advocates argue the institution can provide moral grounding, restorative wisdom and a connection to values predating any written constitution—a stabilising influence that modern democracies, operating on electoral cycles rather than intergenerational timeframes, struggle to supply.

    Two mirrors of indecision

    What makes this cocktail volatile is not that politics and rugby should remain separate—they never have in Fiji—but that we have allowed both arenas to become mirrors of each other’s indecision. In 1987, the coup and the World Cup were emotionally concurrent, but they moved in opposite directions: one was an assertion of will (however divisive), the other a heartbreaking lesson in fragility. Today, both our sport and our state exhibit the same symptom: a loss of narrative.

    The Flying Fijians no longer know whether they are the happy warriors of Oceania or the clinical professionals of Super Rugby and the European circuit. Caught between identities, they play hesitantly, reactively—inviting pressure. Similarly, our political leadership cannot decide whether it is the revolutionary vanguard of indigenous rights, the technocratic manager of a multicultural state, or the broker of a post‑ethnic social contract. Trying to be all three, it becomes none. The BLV’s submission forces this tension into sharp relief: should traditional authority be constitutionally entrenched; as the majority of iTaukei demand, or should the 2013 Constitution’s secular, egalitarian framework—however imperfect—remain paramount?

    A way out of the glare

    Yet paralysis is not permanent—it is transitional. For the rugby team, the answer is not more tactical diagrams but a return to first principles: trust, instinct, and collective responsibility. Argentina’s “wolf pack” ethos is not about individual brilliance; it is about hunting as one, moving not because they see the full field but because they trust the man beside them.

    The government, too, must rediscover its pack mentality. The constitutional question cannot be solved by avoidance; it must be confronted with a clear sequence and transparent rationale. If the people are the ultimate arbiters, then schedule the referendum with a fixed date and let elections follow—not as a threat, but as a natural rhythm. The BLV’s proposals, whatever one thinks of them, deserve open debate, not deferred oblivion. The security, social, and economic pressures will not fade while we deliberate; they will only intensify. Action—even imperfect action—breaks the spell of the headlights.

    The long view

    In the end, Messi and Yamal will give us a spectacle of clarity—two geniuses who know exactly who they are and what they are playing for. Fiji, by contrast, is still writing its own script for this generation and the next. As the BLV’s vision insists—the stewardship of the long view—we must ask whether we are capable of thinking beyond the next electoral cycle or the next rugby fixture.

    The Flying Fijians against Scotland tonight is not merely a rugby match; it is a public rehearsal for national resolve. And the political decisions of the coming months will be the final act of that rehearsal. We have dropped the ball before—in 1987, and in many elections since. But dropping the ball is not the tragedy; the tragedy is refusing to pick it up again.

    Whether on the field or in the parliamentary chamber, Fiji must decide: are we the nation that freezes in the glare, or the one that, squinting against the light, finally steps forward into the unknown? The world watches Messi; Fiji must watch itself. And then, at last, move.

  • The Eight Days Are Telling Us Something. Are We Listening?

    This week, the Fiji Meteorological Service issued a Strong Wind Alert for Fiji. Fresh to strong southeast winds were expected from Wednesday, 15 July, before gradually turning easterly from Sunday, 19 July.

    On its own, this is unremarkable. It is the dry season. The southeast trades blow.

    But these wind events are occurring closer together than normal. And that may be a red flag we cannot afford to ignore—not just for Fiji, but across the Pasifika.

    Local mariners know these winds as Bogi Walu—literally, “eight nights”. Typically, these stronger winds—20 to 25 knots, sometimes gusting 30—last for a week and a day. It is the kind of knowledge that kept our seafarers safe and our farmers prepared, long before weather satellites and climate models.

    But here is what is different: these eight-day winds are no longer just seasonal background noise. They are appearing more frequently, more intensely, and closer together than the patterns our elders once knew.

    The reason may be the Super El Niño now bearing down on the Pasifika.

    On 12 June, the World Meteorological Organization declared that an El Niño event was underway. For Fiji, this means significantly drier-than-normal conditions through the end of the year. Below-normal rainfall is expected from now through September, persisting into the final quarter. The impacts could be severe: prolonged dry spells, pressure on electricity supply, significant strain on agriculture, water shortages, and added stress on food security and livelihoods.

    SPREP Director General Sefanaia Nawadra put it plainly: “Knowledge empowers, and preparation essential.” He urged families to conserve water, invest in water tanks, and prepare now. Farmers were advised to adjust planting schedules and use drought-resistant crops.

    But Fiji is only one part of the Pasifika. The question we must ask—urgently, collectively—is whether all our island nations are ready.

    The answer, across the region, is deeply uneven.

    Solomon Islands has been warned that it faces a more severe threat than the devastating 1997–1998 event. Experts estimate that the current event could result in declines of more than 30 percent in agriculture and primary exports, and reductions of more than 40 percent in freshwater availability in Honiara and other centres. The warning is stark: “business-as-usual, reactive responses are insufficient.”

    Papua New Guinea is bracing for what could be “possibly the worst in human history”, with millions facing increased risks of hunger, poverty and disease due to El Niño-related droughts, erratic rainfall and frost.

    Tonga has declared that El Niño conditions are now in force, with meteorologists warning of increased drought risk, reduced rainfall and a potentially more active tropical cyclone season.

    Vanuatu faces prolonged dry conditions that could impact local crops, leading to lower food production and higher market prices.

    Solomon Water is already urging customers to begin conserving water, warning that temporary water rationing could be introduced if water sources continue to decline.

    And Fiji? Nearly one in four water sources are already under stress ahead of forecast El Niño conditions. The government insists that existing measures will suffice. But when asked about new El Niño-specific measures, officials acknowledge that contingency measures—including greater reliance on generators—would be considered should water levels decline significantly. Not “are in place.” “Would be considered.”

    —

    The Pasifika has built a genuinely new layer of regional climate architecture in recent years: the Pacific Resilience Facility, new partnership mechanisms, and deeper engagement from partners like India. As the Devpolicy Blog observes, El Niño’s arrival on top of an already-activated emergency mechanism gives that architecture “something concrete to be tested against”.

    But is the Pasifika ready to access and deploy these resources effectively? Are our national disaster management offices adequately funded and staffed? Are our communities receiving timely, actionable information in languages they understand? Are our leaders treating this as the existential threat it is—or as just another weather pattern to be managed with existing budgets?

    The Bogi Walu is traditional knowledge that thinks in patterns, not election cycles. It watches the winds, the bees, the breadfruit trees, the breaking waves. It plans for the long haul because survival depends on it. Across the region, the story is similar: short-term thinking, reactive responses, and a reluctance to invest in preparedness before the crisis arrives.

    The Super El Niño is not coming. It is here. And if the eight-day winds are coming closer together, that is not a curiosity. It is a warning.

    The question is not whether any single government has a plan. The question is whether our political leaders have the political will to act with the urgency this moment demands—not for the next election, but for the next generation.

    Our ancestors read the winds and prepared. Are we reading the signs?

  • The Missile and the Message: A Pasifika View

    On July 6, 2026, as Australia and Fiji signed the Ocean of Peace Alliance in Suva, China launched a submarine-launched ballistic missile from a submerged submarine into the South Pasifika.

    Much of the commentary since has framed this test as a direct response to the Australia-Fiji treaty—an attempt to intimidate Fiji and undermine Australia’s regional partnerships. From this perspective, the test “backfired.” Australia’s firm response and Fiji’s continued commitment to the treaty represent a victory.

    This narrative is comforting. It allows Australian policymakers and commentators to frame the event as a contest they have already won. But comfort is not strategy—and misreading an opponent’s intentions is the first step toward strategic failure.

    The Global Geopolitical Calculus

    Let us consider the broader strategic context.

    China watched the Iran war like a classroom. The conflict provided Beijing with the most detailed operational assessment of US missile defense in modern history. What China learned was sobering for Washington: the US expended 290 of its 360 THAAD interceptors, and after the most intensive American bombing campaign in two decades, 90 percent of Iranian underground missile facilities remained operational.

    These were not abstract statistics. They were lessons. And on July 6, China demonstrated what it had learned.

    The JL-3 missile test is a game-changer. With an estimated range of 10,000 to 12,000 kilometers, it can be launched from a submerged submarine in Chinese coastal waters and place a warhead on any major American target. Unlike land-based missiles that can be found by satellite, a submerged missile submarine guarantees retaliation even after absorbing a first strike.

    China has just publicly demonstrated it now possesses the survivable second-strike capability that makes a country impossible to coerce.

    That message was aimed squarely at Washington—not at Suva, not at Canberra.

    The Pasifika as a Border

    The prevailing narrative frames the test as a failed attempt to intimidate Fiji and undermine the Australia-Fiji treaty. This assumes that China views Fiji—or even Australia—as its primary strategic concern. It does not.

    China’s strategic focus remains on the United States: on the broader competition for regional and global influence. The Pasifika nations matter to Beijing primarily insofar as they contribute to that larger contest. Fiji’s value to China is not strategic in the sense of military basing or power projection; it is diplomatic and economic. Fiji is a vote at the United Nations. Fiji is a voice in Pacific forums. Fiji is a partner in development.

    The missile test was not about changing Fiji’s behavior. It was about changing US calculus. It was a reminder that the Pasifika is no longer a Western lake.

    The Australian Miscalculation

    Australia’s interpretation of the test reveals a deeper miscalculation. Canberra sees the Pasifika through the lens of its own strategic competition with China. It assumes that others see the world the same way. Fiji, in this view, must choose sides—and the Ocean of Peace Alliance is a victory for Australia in that contest.

    But Fiji does not see the world the same way.

    Fiji sits at the intersection of competing civilizational models. The liberal international order championed by the West offers a vision of rules, institutions, and universal values. The alternative vision championed by Beijing offers sovereignty, non-interference, and respect for national paths. Fiji has historically maintained relationships with both—not because it is indecisive, but because its national interest requires it to engage with all powers that can contribute to its security and development.

    From this perspective, the missile test does not change Fiji’s calculus. Fiji still needs security partnerships, and Australia offers the most credible security partnership in the region. Fiji still needs economic partnerships, and China offers significant investment and trade. Fiji still needs to navigate between giants, and that requires skill, not alignment.

    The Danger of Self-Centered Thinking

    The framing of the test as a “backfire” reveals something important about Australia’s strategic culture: it tends to see itself as the center of events that are not about it.

    This is understandable. Australia has long been the dominant power in the Southwest Pasifika. It has historically seen the region as its backyard, and it has assumed that other powers—including China—view the region through the same lens. When China acts in the Pasifika, Australia interprets it as a challenge to Australian primacy.

    But China does not see the Pasifika as Australia’s backyard. It sees it as a theater in a global competition. The missile test was not about Fiji. It was not about Australia. It was about demonstrating capability against the United States in a domain where its superiority has long been assumed.

    The interpretation of the test as a “backfire” is comforting, but it is also misleading. It suggests that Australia can somehow prevail in a contest with China through diplomatic posturing and regional treaties. It suggests that Fiji’s commitment to the Ocean of Peace Alliance represents a strategic victory.

    But strategic victories are not measured by treaties alone. They are measured by capabilities, credibility, and the ability to protect one’s interests in a dangerous world. The missile test was a reminder that Australia’s strategic environment is changing in ways that Canberra cannot control—and cannot wish away.

    Fiji’s Path Forward

    For Fiji, the missile test changes nothing—and everything.

    It changes nothing because Fiji’s fundamental challenge remains the same: we are a small nation navigating between giants. We must build our capabilities, maintain our relationships, and protect our sovereignty. The Ocean of Peace Alliance is a tool in that effort—not a victory, not a surrender, but a practical choice based on our assessment of what serves our national interest.

    But it changes everything because the strategic landscape has shifted beneath our feet. The US is no longer the only power with a credible second-strike capability. The Pasifika is no longer a Western lake. The choices facing Fiji are no longer simply about which great power to align with; they are about how to build resilience in a world where great power competition is increasingly unrestrained.

    The question is not whether China’s test “backfired.” The better question is whether our interpretation of the test reflects a clear-eyed understanding of the world as it is, or a comfortable illusion about a world that no longer exists.

    A Broader View

    The questions every Fijian should be asking are these: Did Fiji negotiate the best possible agreement? Will this treaty strengthen Fiji’s resilience? Will ordinary Fijians feel the benefits?

    These are the right questions. They are questions about outcomes, not about alliances. They are questions about Fiji’s future, not about Australia’s strategic position.

    The missile test should not distract us from those questions. It should remind us that the world is changing—and that Fiji must navigate those changes with skill, patience, and a clear-eyed understanding of our own interests.

    China’s test was not about Fiji. But its message landed on our shores nonetheless. The question is whether we will understand that message—and whether we will act on it.