Pasifika Talanoa by a traveled ITaukei Fijian

A place to share my thoughts and reflections

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  • The Silly Season Has Arrived Early

    Fiji is scheduled to hold its next election latest by February 2027. That is, if it happens at all. This is not idle speculation. Events entirely outside government control may well alter that timeline entirely.

    Consider the perfect storm forming on the horizon: an ongoing Gulf war causing global energy disruptions and shortages; a Tier 1 Super El Niño predicted for 2026 with potentially devastating weather impacts; a converging crisis of drugs, HIV, and non-communicable diseases; an economic meltdown that could deliver a COVID-like shock; and the very real prospect of a State of Emergency declaration. Any one of these could destabilise electoral preparations. All of them together? That is not merely a doomsday scenario—it is a trajectory any close observer of Fiji’s political, economic, environmental and social condition, would recognise.

    Yet the deeper problem is not the external shocks. It is our collective refusal to imagine something better.

    The Western liberal democratic model grafted onto Fiji has, in my view, never been a comfortable fit. But rather than build a truly Pasifika democratic framework—one that thinks outside the imported box and looks toward a visionary future—our leaders cling to what they know. Perhaps that is unsurprising when so many of them rose to prominence in the last century. But where are our new political leaders? The 2013 Constitution does not encourage independent thinking or cultivate new talent. It is a strongman’s document, built for an autocrat at the expense of potential. To call for fresh leadership while that constitution remains immovable, is to display a certain national naivety.

    The Bose Levu Vakaturaga understands this perfectly. That is why it insists on working within the existing system to secure its autonomy. Many Fijians dismiss the Great Council of Chiefs as an outdated governance model, but they are wrong. The iTaukei remain a largely traditional population, with all the nuances of belonging that non-iTaukei either fail to grasp or are conveniently blind to. The Fiji First party tried systematically to downgrade—if not eradicate—the chiefly system and iTaukei traditions. It did not succeed. But that does not mean later iterations of that same impulse, or individuals carrying that torch, have given up. Sadly, too many urban iTaukei—whether educated or simply misguided—have bought into this notion entirely.

    And so we enter the silly season, even before the writs are issued.

    This week’s Dialogue Fiji State of the Economy debate, gave political rivals the chance to critique the government’s projections and lay out their own economic policies. But we have such short memories. The previous regime made us live in fear of speaking, of criticising, even of sneezing. Dialogue Fiji itself felt that wrath. When that regime was defeated in December 2022, the nation was euphoric. We celebrated their demise with glee. We allowed the opposition that defeated them to form a bloated coalition—but that was beside the point. The Fiji First regime was gone. We voted for change. And we got it.

    Then we were let down. The visionary, mature, experienced, caring leadership we expected never materialised. The coalition’s selfish decision to grant themselves a massive pay raise, undressed whatever political virtues they claimed. Even their truest supporters felt the disappointment.

    Since then, they have shot themselves in the foot repeatedly: the lack of experienced political advisors; the Commission of Inquiry blunder and its ongoing fallout; the cynical embrace of figures from the previous regime’s innermost circle; the absence of a functioning National Security Council or a National Security Adviser; the palpable disrespect toward the Bose Levu Vakaturaga and iTaukei aspirations. The list goes on. Yes, they have done genuine good as well. But their worst instincts have consistently outweighed their best efforts, making their achievements look lethargic and their concern feel like an afterthought. They have seemed distant, living inside their own tinted Prado bubble.

    So here we are at the beginning of the silly season: the good, the bad and the ugly.

    If we learn one thing, let it be this: we must choose our politicians wisely. Not the loudest. Not those with the flashiest social media presence or the smoothest delivery. We must choose those who actually believe in and deliver what they promise. And if they do not, we must vote for those who convince us they will.

    There are far too many wannabe politicians without the experience or professional attributes to back up their ambitions. Too many carrying baggage from previous lives that should give us all pause. That someone has a social media following does not make them a leader. We must stop being a gullible electorate and start thinking critically—about vision for our children and grandchildren, about the future of the iTaukei, our aspirations and about the future of Fiji as a nation.

    Let me return to this week’s State of the Economy dialogue. It brought together political rivals, state officials and economists to debate our economic health ahead of the national budget. They spoke about economic factors in isolation—without any discussion of the looming energy crisis, the projected Tier 1 El Niño weather pattern, the drugs and HIV and NCD crises robbing us of our next generation, or the ‘people drain’ of the PALM and NEC schemes emptying Fiji of its young population. They talked about the ‘now’. Not a single intergenerational vision for the nation was offered. All short-term thinking. No vision.

    If these are Fiji’s next political leaders, the nation is truly doomed. So I will leave you with the only question that now matters, the one that hangs over every crisis, every empty promise, every short-term calculation: Where are our next generation’s political leaders?

  • Baghdad, 2003 – Tehran, 2026: The 30‑Year Dream That Became a Quagmire

    Sitting and reflecting in my Canal Hotel office in Baghdad in early 2003, I knew the war was inevitable. Over 150,000 troops massed on Iraq’s borders. Saddam stalled with weapons inspectors, but it didn’t matter. The war came.

    A colleague shared an Algerian newspaper’s opinion piece, translated by our UN linguist. Its thesis: Why War is Inevitable. The author toured the Middle East, dismissing each nation—Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the Gulf, Saudi Arabia—with the same phrase: “nothing to write home about.” Then came Iraq. Oil, an educated workforce, two great rivers, a formidable army. The only country that could unite the Arab world against the West. Therefore, the West could not allow it to stand. The question posed: What would a post‑war Iraq look like?

    We learned in blood. Hundreds of thousands dead, trillions spent, ISIS born from the ashes.

    Now, June 2026. That same sinking feeling has curdled into bitter confirmation.

    For Benjamin Netanyahu, war with Iran was a 30‑year dream realised. On February 28, with the US alongside, he unleashed a full‑scale attack on the Islamic republic. He persuaded President Trump that regime change was achievable. At last, the existential threat would end.

    It has gone badly wrong.

    The Iranian regime is still firmly in place, still firing missiles. The Hormuz Strait is effectively closed. Iran has hit US bases and Gulf infrastructure—and survived retaliation. Hizbollah shells northern Israel, battles Israeli troops in Lebanon, and has forced over a million Lebanese from their homes. Israel is now bogged down in a Lebanese quagmire, on top of nearly three years of war since October 7, 2023.

    Trump now calls the shots—publicly saying, “I call all the shots. He doesn’t.” He has instructed Netanyahu, in abusive terms, to curtail the Lebanon campaign. The US president is working on a peace deal that would likely leave Iran financially stronger, with residual nuclear capability.

    Netanyahu faces an impossible choice: defy Trump and lose American weaponry and air defenses, or back down and look weak at home, in an election year.

    He has pursued a purely military solution—ignoring political and diplomatic dimensions. Assassinated leaders are replaced. Bombed populations fight harder. You cannot kill your way to security.

    The exiled crown prince, reconstruction pledges, calls for the Iranian people to rise… I have seen this script before. It was called Iraq, 2003. It ended in chaos.

    Now Israel is militarily overstretched, internationally isolated (the International Court of Justice is considering genocide accusations), and locked in a war that has achieved none of its goals. Netanyahu will likely face elections with Iran’s regime still standing, Hizbollah still fighting, and American support falling sharply.

    What strikes me most is the arrogance of repetition. In 2003, the West convinced themselves that Saddam’s removal would unleash democracy across the Middle East. Instead, they unleashed sectarian slaughter, Iranian influence, and a power vacuum that took years to partially fill. Now, the same delusion is being peddled for Iran—only this time, the United States is unwilling to pay the butcher’s bill. Trump wants victory without occupation, regime change without troops, and a peace deal that rewards the very regime he helped attack. That is not strategy. That is magical thinking.

    And what of the Israeli public? After three years of continuous war—Gaza, Lebanon, now Iran—exhaustion is setting in. The northern evacuation zones remain empty. Reservists are burning out. The economy is strained. Yet Netanyahu continues to speak of “total victory” as if it were one more airstrike away. He has silenced debate at home, branded any critic a traitor, and convinced himself that military force alone can solve political problems. It cannot. It never could.

    History did not repeat. It rhymed. And the rhyme is a dirge.

    The author of that Algerian piece asked what a post‑war Iraq would look like. We should now ask: what will a post‑war Israel look like after this 30‑year dream? I fear the answer will be just as grim.

  • The Poison Tide: Why Fiji Cannot Afford to Wait Any Longer

    The evidence is no longer circumstantial. It is no longer whispers in police stations or rumours in village halls. It is crystalline meth washing up on the shores of Moce. It is cocaine packages drifting onto the reefs of Ogea. It is a shipping captain’s desperate plea for surveillance. And it is the measured, courageous voice of the Turaga Bale na Tui Nayau, Ratu Tevita Uluilakeba Mara, telling us plainly: our present responses are not effective enough.

    Let me say what needs to be said. What the Tui Nayau said with dignity, I will say with urgency bordering on rage.

    Fiji is losing. And we are losing because we are still having the wrong conversation.

    The Pattern We Ignore

    Read carefully what is happening on the other side of the Indian Ocean. In South Africa’s rural interior, Mexican cartels have done exactly what they are now attempting in our Pasifika waters. They scouted. They tested. They found corruption. They found weak enforcement. They found isolated communities without the tools to resist. And then they built.

    Four major meth labs linked to Mexican criminals in two years. Remote farms. Protected operations. Police who “don’t see” what is happening under their noses. A game of whack-a-mole that the cartels are winning.

    The Sinaloa Cartel does not need to defeat the Fiji Navy. It only needs to find one compromised officer. One corrupt official. One village too tired, too poor, too afraid to say no. And then the poison flows.

    The Tui Nayau has seen this coming. His proposal for strengthened village by-laws, for small boats and communications equipment, for a dedicated coast guard presence in Lau waters—this is not parochialism. It is strategic foresight born of lived reality. During the 1980s and 1990s, naval patrols were routine. Now they are reactive. Medical evacuations and search-and-rescue missions. By the time we respond, the cargo is already ashore. Already distributed. Already destroying.

    What the Shipping Captain Saw

    Uluilakeba Fleet’s social media post should have been a five-alarm fire in every government ministry in Suva. Instead, I fear it was scrolled past.

    Three to five-metre swells for three weeks. Drugs dislodged from “designated secured pick-up points at sea.” Packages confirmed as cocaine by testing in Suva. An astounding number of yachts and pleasure vessels operating with apparent impunity.

    Where is the Fiji Navy? That is not a rhetorical question. That is a citizen demanding accountability.

    These yachts do not sail thousands of miles across the Pasifika for the scenery. Not all of them. Some of them are tenders to a trade that is already inside our house. And if we do not have the maritime surveillance to know which is which, then we do not have sovereignty. We have an illusion of it.

    The State of Emergency Question

    I have written this before, and I will write it until I am blue in the face or until someone in authority listens.

    The advice the Prime Minister is receiving—that a State of Emergency will scare off tourists—is not merely wrong. It is dangerously, catastrophically naive.

    Tourism is our economic driver, yes. But what kills tourism? A decisive headline saying “Fiji Gets Tough on Drugs”? Or the slow, cumulative rot of a destination where backpackers are robbed, where families feel unsafe after dark, where the word spreads on social media and international news that paradise has a needle in its arm?

    Tourists are not fools. They will forgive a temporary, targeted, visible crackdown on criminal networks. They will not forgive a government that lets the poison spread because it was afraid of a bad quarterly report.

    Consider also the wider context. The turmoil in the Persian Gulf is already driving up airline tickets and hotel rates. An external slowdown in travel is coming whether we act or not. So why not use this window—while global attention is fragmented, while competitors are also struggling—to do what Fiji desperately needs? To clean house. To send a signal. To say: we are serious.

    A State of Emergency is not a panic button. Used wisely—with precision, with sunset clauses, with a focus on intelligence-led operations rather than blanket restrictions—it is a scalpel. It cuts out the cancer without killing the patient.

    The Existential Threats Are Converging

    I have said before that Fiji faces three existential threats: the drug crisis, HIV, and the impending energy crisis.

    They are not separate. They are the same fire burning in different rooms.

    The drug trade brings money. Money corrupts. Corruption compromises our health system, our police, our borders. Compromised borders let in more drugs. More drugs fuel addiction. Addiction fuels the spread of HIV through shared needles, through the sex trade that follows the narcotics economy, through the collapse of family structures that once protected our youth.

    This is not alarmism. This is epidemiology. This is criminology. This is what every country that walked this road before us has learned at unbearable cost.

    The Tui Nayau’s proposal for empowered village constabularies, for communication equipment and fuel, for a genuine partnership between the Vanua and the state—this is the only model that works. Because the state cannot be everywhere. But a grandmother in a village on Moce who knows every boat, every stranger, every change in the rhythm of her community? She is surveillance that no cartel can evade.

    Unless she has no radio. Unless she has no boat. Unless she has been told, by years of neglect, that no one in Suva cares what she sees.

    What “Start in Jerusalem” Means

    Real leaders start where the fire is hottest. They start in Jerusalem.

    Jerusalem is not Suva. It is not the Cabinet room. It is not the Tourism Fiji boardroom.

    Jerusalem is Lau. It is the child on Moala who finds a floating package and does not know what it contains. It is the young iTaukei man offered a sum of money that would feed his family for a month, asked only to “watch” a boat. It is the police post on an outer island with no fuel for patrols, no working radio, no backup for hours or days.

    Start there. Not with a press release. With boats. With fuel. With authority for village constables to act. With a coast guard presence that is sustained, not symbolic. With a State of Emergency that targets the networks, not the symptoms.

    The Cost of Delay

    South Africa did not wake up one morning with Mexican cartels operating four major meth labs on its soil. It happened slowly. One compromised official at a time. One isolated farm at a time. One prosecution that fell apart because a witness was “unavailable” at a time.

    The Tui Nayau is telling us that the same pattern is visible in our waters. He is offering partnership. He is offering the Vanua as a first line of defense. He is asking for the tools to protect his people.

    What possible justification is there for denying him?

    If we wait until the drugs are in every secondary school in Viti Levu, until our HIV rates rival the worst in the Pasifika, until a tourist is murdered in a deal gone wrong, until the ABC and the BBC run the story we cannot outrun—then no State of Emergency will save us. No PR campaign will restore us. No apology will bring back what we lost.

    A Challenge to the National Security Council

    The Tui Nayau is right. The National Security Council must take responsibility for this crisis. It cannot remain a coordinating body that produces reports. It must become a command structure that produces results.

    The Prime Minister must consider to do three things immediately:

    First, accept the Tui Nayau’s proposal in full. Not a pilot project. Not a feasibility study. Implementation. Boats, radios, fuel, training, authority. Now.

    Second, declare a targeted, temporary State of Emergency focused exclusively on maritime drug trafficking and the corruption that enables it. Sunset it in six months. Make it renewable only on evidence of results.

    Third, request immediate technical assistance from partners like the Australian Federal Police, the DEA, and the New Zealand Customs Service—not for them to do the work, but to help Fiji build the intelligence capability we desperately lack.

    The Generation at Stake

    Tourism will come back. Resorts can be rebuilt. Reputations can be restored. But a generation lost to addiction and criminal networks? That is permanent.

    Every young Fijian pulled into this trade is not a statistic. They are someone’s son. Someone’s daughter. Someone’s hope for a future that is not defined by poison, by needles, by the slow death of everything their ancestors built.

    The sea has long sustained our people, the Tui Nayau said. It must not be allowed to deliver poison to our children.

    We stand ready to assist, he said. We ask in turn to be given the means to do so.

    He has done his part. He has spoken with courage and clarity.

    Now the question is whether the rest of us—the Prime Minister, the National Security Council, Parliament, every Fijian who reads these words—will do ours.

    The tide is rising. Not the salt tide. The poison tide.

    We can act now. Or we can explain later to our grandchildren why we did nothing while the sea brought ruin to their shores.

    Choose.

  • Borrowed Time – Tough Choices Fiji Can’t Keep Putting Off

    While President Trump insists “talks with Iran are going well,” the US attacked a fuel tanker near Kharg Island. Iran retaliated against targets in Bahrain and Kuwait. The Strait of Hormuz remains shut. And here in Fiji, we are beginning to feel the painful threshold of the coming fossil fuel crisis.

    Trump lives in a Washington bubble where words still matter. But Hormuz doesn’t negotiate. Oil tankers burn or sit idle. The only thing that will reopen that strait is an Iranian decision—not a White House press release. And certainly not an Israeli foreign minister’s spin about a war that Israel nudged the US into, selling it as a quickie. But quickies never provide any satisfaction.

    For Fiji and the Pasifika, this is no longer a foreign war. It is a domestic energy emergency.

    Our Pasifika neighbours face the same vulnerability. No regional fuel reserves, no strategic buffer. If shipping lanes are disrupted further, the entire Blue Pasifika feels the pain together. But Fiji, as the regional hub, must lead. Not with speeches, but with action.

    A major newspaper warned last month that the world is on “borrowed time” because of the growing energy crisis. Seventy-six countries have already taken emergency action. Fiji isn’t on that list—yet. But if we wait until we are, only damage control will be left.

    Global oil demand is far outpacing supply. Stockpiles are draining fast. Fiji has no real fuel reserves. Our economy is fragile. Our power grid already struggles at peak times. Already, families are paying double for bus fares. Market vendors are raising prices because transport costs have exploded. Small businesses are one blackout away from closing for good.

    Government must get off its high horse. The National Security Council (NSC) should now be meeting weekly, track global oil markets, and issue binding orders. Silence right now is negligence.

    Here is what the government must consider seriously—before the crisis forces its hand:

    1. Mandatory work from home – All non‑essential public workers should work from home at least three days a week. Private sector should follow. Every car kept off the road saves fuel immediately.

    2. Cut traffic aggressively – Alternate day driving based on odd/even licence plates; bus lanes on the Suva‑Nausori corridor with cheaper fares; restrict fuel sales for non‑essential trips if shortages hit; vehicle pool mandates for government fleets, including ministers.

    3. Planned power cuts, not random chaos – EFL must prepare load shedding now. Publish a clear rotating schedule in newspapers, on social media, by SMS. Example: “Your area loses power 8am–6pm Tuesday and Thursday.” Hard, but predictable. Hospitals, water pumps, and the airport must be exempted. Predictability saves lives and food.

    4. Government must lead by example – Every ministry: AC at 24°C minimum, lights and equipment off after hours, shift work to daylight hours. You can’t ask families to sacrifice while government lights burn all night.

    5. Four‑day work week for non‑essential sectors – Work four longer days, shut down completely on the fifth. No commuting, no lights, no AC.

    Outer islands and rural areas – Fuel shipments to Vanua Levu, Taveuni, Lomaiviti, Lau, Kadavu, Yasawa, and Rotuma could become irregular. Pre‑position fuel and essentials now. Every district needs a local emergency plan, not waiting for Suva.

    Tourism – Hotels must publish backup plans. Tourists will cancel if they hear of chaos. Acting now protects jobs and foreign income.

    State of Emergency – The mix of energy, drugs, HIV, and NCD crises now calls for a State of Emergency. Not military rule, but legal power to act fast: work‑from‑home mandates, driving limits, load shedding schedules, conservation orders—without parliamentary delays. We did it for COVID. This is just as urgent.

    What ordinary Fijians can do now – Start vehicle pooling. Turn off appliances at the wall. Freeze water bottles—if power goes, they keep your fridge cold for hours. Talk to your neighbours. Community preparedness is our secret weapon.

    Beyond individual action, consider the economic ripple: every week of delayed action pushes more families into poverty. The cost of diesel for fishing boats has already doubled in some areas. If we wait for a full-blown shortage, the price of fish, root crops, and imported rice will spiral beyond reach for thousands of Fijian households. Acting now is not just about lights—it is about food security.

    The war is at a stalemate. The ceasefire shows no sign of moving to the next stage. Negotiations are checkmated. Tit‑for‑tat attacks illustrate the chaos that will return without serious goodwill on both sides. Iran has geography and time. The US has the watch and its midterm elections.

    Fiji must act like it. We are living on borrowed time. The only question is: will our government make these hard decisions before the lights are flickering and the pumps are dry?

    Act now. Because borrowed time runs out faster than anyone expects.

  • Fiji’s Silence is a Sentence: Why We Must Follow PNG’s Lead on the Porn Crisis

    We call ourselves the “Happiness Capital of the World,” yet behind our closed doors, a silent pandemic is devouring the innocence of our children. Fiji has a shameful, unspoken secret: a sexual abuse crisis so rampant that it has become normalized. And while we bury our heads in the sand, Papua New Guinea is actually doing something.

    PNG’s regulator has moved to block over 1,000 explicit websites. Love it or hate it, Port Moresby has admitted a truth Suva refuses to utter: that the fire hose of violent, hardcore pornography is fueling the epidemic of assault.

    Before we clutch our pearls about “freedom,” let’s look at the forensic evidence in our own police dockets. Just this week, “a teacher from a prominent boarding school has been convicted on six charges of rape involving students.” The court heard that he “lured them to his residence on various occasions and forced them to perform sexual acts.” This is not an outlier. This is a pattern. Year after year, the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre reports that the majority of rape victims are children. Children. Often abused by someone they trust.

    We wring our hands about discipline, about family breakdown, about alcohol. But we refuse to discuss the 24/7 online classroom teaching predators how to dehumanize, and teaching boys that violence is intimacy. Where did that teacher learn that his authority extended to his students’ bodies? We may never know. But we do know that in virtually every child sexual abuse material case prosecuted in the Pasifika, unlimited, unfiltered access to porn was the gateway. It normalizes the abnormal. It turns vulnerability into a genre.

    PNG’s move is not a silver bullet. Blocking websites is like locking a door while leaving the window open—determined users will use VPNs. And yes, the public supports it, but support is not a strategy.

    However, the courage of the move is what Fiji lacks. PNG is willing to look uncomfortable. Fiji, meanwhile, hides behind “tourism-friendly” optics and a culture of respect that too often silences victims to protect the powerful. Judge Justice Usaia Ratuvili found the complainants “to be credible witnesses” and ruled that “their evidence was consistent and reliable.” That a judge had to explicitly affirm the credibility of schoolchildren testifying against their teacher tells you everything about the wall of doubt victims face here.

    We cannot arrest our way out of this. We need prevention. And prevention means admitting that the pornography available to any Fijian child on a $50 smartphone. If a parent won’t sit their child down to talk about consent, the internet will. And the internet is teaching rape.

    It is time Fiji got serious. Not by blindly copying PNG, but by launching a national, multi-pronged war: digital literacy in every school, a public health campaign on porn’s neurological harm, and yes—regulating the digital sewage flooding our islands.

    Until we treat online explicit content as the public health hazard it is, we are not a happy country. We are a crime scene waiting to happen. The teacher from Tailevu is now a convict. How many more will follow, raised on a diet of virtual violence before committing the real thing?

    The question isn’t whether blocking 1,000 sites will save PNG. The question is: why hasn’t Fiji even tried to save one?

  • The Quiet Coup of the Middle Powers

    For three decades after the Cold War, the world grew accustomed to a simple hierarchy: the United States at the apex, a handful of great powers just below, and everyone else jostling for relevance. That era is ending—not with a summit declaration or a treaty, but with a thousand small recognitions, from Beirut to Brasília, that power is no longer what it used to be. The new geopolitics is being written not by superpowers, but by middle powers with no real power at all. And the West, along with Japan, South Korea, and India, has yet to notice.

    West Asia’s new center holds

    Consider Lebanon. Hezbollah, far from being dismantled by Israeli strikes, will emerge stronger. The militia-turned-political-force has replenished its ranks and proven it can absorb punishment while remaining a veto player in Lebanese politics. What Western analysts once dismissed as a mere proxy is now a permanent feature of the Levant’s power landscape. The Gulf monarchies, for their part, have learned a painful lesson: geography has reasserted itself, and it favors those who stay.

    Europe’s belated awakening

    Across Western Europe, a belated recognition is setting in—what Ukraine already understood two years ago. Geopolitics is no longer a game of great powers alone. Ukraine has fought a superpower to a stalemate not because it is strong, but because it understood that middle powers, armed with resilience, information warfare, and asymmetric alliances, can rewrite the rules. European leaders now speak of “strategic autonomy” and “wartime footing,” but their actions lag. They still await Washington’s permission, still assume the old transatlantic bargain holds. Ukraine knows better: middle powers must forge their own fate.

    The Global South sees clearly

    Outside the Euro-Atlantic bubble, the recognition is already complete. China understands that the unipolar moment is over—not because Beijing says so, but because it has spent a decade building parallel institutions and supply chains that bypass Western-led orders. Brazil has positioned itself as a mediator between North and South, neither accepting Western lectures nor aligning with any bloc. South Africa, through its BRICS chairmanship, has shown that a middle power can set agendas—on climate, debt, and UN reform—that great powers ignore at their peril.

    These three nations do not pretend to rival the United States or China in military or economic weight. What they possess is different: the ability to convene, to block, and to shape debate. In a fractured world, that is power enough.

    Canada’s lonely warning

    At the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year, Canada’s prime minister delivered a speech that went largely unnoticed in Washington and Tokyo. Ottawa warned that the postwar liberal order was disintegrating, that middle powers needed new coalitions, and that the old distinction between “great” and “small” had lost meaning. Canada was speaking about itself. But the audience that needed to hear it—the West’s established powers and Asia’s advanced economies—was not listening.

    Japan and South Korea remain locked in a Cold War mindset, viewing security through the lens of the US alliance and treating China as the sole strategic variable. They have not grasped that the real story is not US-China rivalry but the proliferation of autonomous actors who refuse to take sides. India, for all its talk of Vishwaguru, still acts like a rising great power, not a convener of the non-aligned. It has not yet recognized that the future belongs not to the tallest, but to the most agile.

    The transition in real time

    What does this new geopolitics look like? It looks like Iran and Türkiye shaping West Asia while Washington struggles to articulate an exit. It looks like Hezbollah surviving as a state within a state. It looks like Ukraine fighting on without NATO membership. It looks like Brazil, South Africa, and China building parallel trade systems. It looks like Canada warning of a storm no one else sees.

    The mistake of Western, Japanese, South Korean, and Indian strategists is to assume that power still resides where it always has: in arsenals, GDP figures, and treaty obligations. But the middle powers of 2026 know something their predecessors did not. In a world of interconnected crises—climate, debt, migration, pandemics—the ability to block, delay, and refuse is often more decisive than the ability to impose. The United States can still launch a war, but it cannot end one. China can still build infrastructure, but it cannot force compliance. The age of command is over. The age of veto has begun.

    No one is coming to save us

    The quiet coup of the middle powers is not an ideology or a conspiracy. It is simply the arithmetic of a multipolar world. When no single power can dominate, everyone becomes a middle power. The question is not whether this transition is happening—it is already visible from Beirut to Brasília. The question is whether the established powers will realize it before they are rendered irrelevant.

    Canada has realized it. Ukraine lives it. China, Brazil, and South Africa have built strategies around it. But Washington, Tokyo, Seoul, New Delhi, and the capitals of Western Europe still behave as if the old rules apply. They do not. The new geopolitics is being written in real time—not by superpowers, but by those who learned long ago that waiting for permission is a luxury no middle power can afford.

  • The Fall of the Old Guard and the Emergence of a New West Asian Order

    The post–World War II order is dead. What rises in its place will be shaped by conflicts still raging, diplomatic gambits still unfolding, and economic policies still being written. Nowhere is that truth more stark than in West Asia, where the Iranian regime—by sheer geographic presence and the endurance of a disciplined civilization—has survived the US-Israeli war and retains control over the Hormuz Strait.

    Less than a decade ago, Western strategists could sketch West Asia’s power map with reasonable confidence. Egypt commanded the Arab world’s political weight. Saudi Arabia and the UAE anchored the Gulf’s economic might under an American security umbrella. Iraq and Syria were containment zones for Iranian influence. Today, that map has been tossed aside. The region’s center of gravity is no longer in the Arab heartland. It sits in Ankara and Tehran. The Gulf monarchies that Washington counted on as pillars of a “rules-based” order, have been exposed as brittle dependents—caught in a conflict they did not choose and could not control.

    The war that backfired

    The US-Israeli war against Iran, supported tacitly by the GCC, was supposed to cripple Tehran’s power. Instead, it has hastened a slow-motion transition that strategists had been tracking for years: the emergence of Iran and Turkey as West Asia’s indispensable powers. Worse, the same miscalculation has diminished the Quad as a meaningful counterweight to China and accelerated Beijing’s rise as Asia’s pre‑eminent power. A war intended to restore American deterrence has done precisely the opposite.

    Let’s be clear about what was already happening before February 2026. The regional redistribution of power was visible. The Gulf states—Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE—had leveraged their hydrocarbon wealth into a model of economic integration: advanced technology, logistics, tourism, finance. That “Gulf model” offered a post‑oil future while keeping Washington invested in their security. But it rested on a fragile assumption: that American protection would remain reliable and that the Gulf could insulate itself from geopolitical storms. The war shattered both assumptions.

    As Tehran retaliated against American bases across the Gulf, the very facilities designed to shield the GCC became magnets for attack. Gulf states found themselves in a security trap—unable to join the war offensively for fear of escalation, yet unable to prevent their territory from becoming a battlefield. Their strategic restraint, born of necessity, signaled to every regional actor, that the American security guarantee is conditional at best.

    Western commentators warned that if the Iranian regime survives and retains even limited control over the Hormuz Strait, it would amount to a strategic defeat for the US, Israel, and the Gulf states. After months of war, the regime has not fallen. Tehran has demonstrated it can punish Gulf economies at will—targeting energy facilities, disrupting the Strait, launching sustained drone and missile campaigns—while Washington struggles to articulate a political endgame.

    The unintended rise

    The war’s most consequential effect has been to accelerate the ascent of Iran and Turkey as the region’s indispensable powers. For Iran, survival is victory. Despite relentless airstrikes, the regime has retained control over the Strait, through which a fifth of global oil passes. More importantly, Tehran has shown it can impose costs on the Gulf directly, forcing a reconsideration of alignment with Washington. The GCC, through their restraint, have signaled that they now view Tehran not as a regime to be eliminated but as an unavoidable permanent stakeholder in any future regional order. That is a profound shift: the Arab Gulf’s long‑term calculation now includes Iran at the table, not just as an adversary to be contained.

    Turkey’s rise has been quieter but equally significant. Ankara welcomed the ceasefire and warned against steps that would destabilize Iran, recognizing that instability in Iran would immediately sharpen Turkish anxieties about Kurdish militancy, refugee flows, and border security. By positioning itself as a stabilizing power and a diplomatic interlocutor, Turkey has enhanced its regional standing while avoiding the costs of direct involvement. In a multipolar West Asia, Ankara’s strategic autonomy—its ability to move between NATO, Russia, and regional actors—has become a valuable asset.

    The Quad’s quiet fade

    These shifts have not occurred in isolation. The same American resources consumed by the Iranian war have been drawn from the Indo‑Pasifika, with direct consequences for the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue. Since his return to the White House in 2025, President Trump has refused to participate, leaving the Quad leaderless and degrading its geostrategic value. The downgrade from a leaders’ summit to a foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi this week, was a stark indicator of waning US political commitment.

    The Quad is now diminished politically and strategically. Its erosion is not accidental; it reflects a deeper logic. China’s strategy of “managed equilibrium” seeks not to dismantle the Quad by force but to weaken its cohesion, lower its political profile, and encourage accommodation in Washington. As the US becomes preoccupied with West Asia and its European allies face their own pressures, Beijing’s diplomatic space expands. US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth’s speech at the Shangri‑La Dialogue this week—calling for “partners, not protectorates” and warning that “the era of the United States subsidising the defense of wealthy nations is over”—sounded less like a reassurance to allies than a notice of retrenchment.

    China has been quick to exploit the opening. Where the Quad has stalled, Beijing has advanced bilateral arrangements—with Indonesia, with the Gulf states, across Central Asia—that quietly extend its influence without the confrontational rhetoric of a formal alliance. The war on Iran, as Chinese state media has noted, is undermining supply‑chain resilience across the Asia‑Pasifika and exposing the contradictions in Washington’s simultaneous pursuit of two distant theaters.

    No plan, no order

    The post–World War II order has come to an end. The war in West Asia has not merely confirmed that verdict; it has written the first chapter of whatever comes next. By launching an ill‑defined campaign against Iran without a credible political endgame, Washington has accelerated the very realignments it feared: the rise of Iran and Turkey as the region’s gravitational centers; the exposure of the Gulf states’ dependence on an increasingly unreliable protector; and the quiet fading of the Quad as Asia’s preferred counterweight to China.

    The new global architecture will not be designed in Washington, Riyadh, or Jerusalem. It will be contested in the Hormuz Strait, on the Turkish‑Iranian frontier, and in the boardrooms where Gulf investors decide whether to bet on the dollar or the renminbi. Geography has reasserted itself, and the lack of strategic thinking in Western interventions has merely hastened its return. The question now is not whether the old order is gone. It is whether anyone has a plan for what replaces it.

  • Fiji Must Learn from America’s Allies: A Port Today, Tariffs Tomorrow?

    The Quad’s announcement of a new port in Fiji has been met with understandable caution by Fijians in general. But there is a deeper lesson Fiji should absorb — one that allies far larger and more powerful have learned the hard way. When the United States cannot squeeze China, it often ends up squeezing its own friends.

    Consider the case of Denmark. In January 2026, POTUS threatened to impose rising tariffs — starting at 10 percent and increasing to 25 percent by June — on eight European nations, including Denmark, over their refusal to sell Greenland. The justification was not trade but territorial ambition. Danish officials said they would not “bow down” to what they called “bullying tactics”. European Parliament froze a hard‑won EU‑US trade deal in response. Denmark, a loyal NATO ally, was punished for refusing to hand over its own territory.

    Or look at Taiwan. In 2025, Washington imposed a 20 percent tariff on most Taiwanese exports. The eventual trade deal — finalized in early 2026 — required Taiwan to invest a staggering $250 billion in US chip, AI, and energy production in exchange for a tariff cut to 15 percent. Taiwan got a modest reduction; the US got a quarter‑trillion dollars of investment. The island was strong‑armed into paying for its own “protection”.

    This pattern extends across the board. In April 2025, Trump’s reciprocal tariffs hit 15 key trade partners, including Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, India and Germany. The result, as the Lowy Institute noted, is that “allies are done waiting for America to grow up”. A former US trade official put it bluntly: “Wielding tariffs against allies and adversaries alike, will make the United States less well‑off — and less secure”.

    Why does this matter for Fiji? Because the Quad port is not charity. It is a geostrategic investment designed to counter China’s influence in the Pasifika. The US and its partners are spending money on Fiji for their own reasons — not ours. And as the examples above show, when US strategic interests shift, allies are often left holding the bill.

    Fiji already got a preview. In April 2025, the US imposed a 32 percent reciprocal tariff on Fijian goods before reducing it to 15 percent after direct negotiation. It took frantic diplomacy just to halve the rate. The message was unmistakable: even our largest export market is willing to weaponise trade against a small Pasifika nation.

    So what should Fiji do? We should be grateful for nothing and strategic about everything. We should welcome infrastructure investment — from Quad or China or anyone else — but only on terms that keep ownership, control and economic benefits firmly in Fijian hands. We should treat the Quad port as a transaction, not an alliance. And we should remember: the US has shown that it treats its allies the same way it treats its adversaries — as leverage.

    We must watch what America does, not what it says. Because when the great powers compete, it is the small nations that pay the price — unless we learn to play the game first. Why should government not insist that the US first ;fit all tariffs on Fiji before government c considers any Quad port?

  • A Highway Too Long Delayed: How Fiji Could Play Its Cards Right

    n October 2022, with Fiji’s debt mounting and an election looming, Economy Minister Aiyaz Sayed‑Khaiyum floated a bold idea: a $1.5 billion Suva‑Nadi freeway, plus a $100 million Nadi‑Lautoka four‑lane road. He envisioned a 107‑kilometre tollway with a 110 km/h speed limit, cutting the commute to one hour. Land values in the interior would rise. Lives would become easier.

    The reaction from all political parties was swift and dismissive: election gimmick. Too expensive. Wrong timing.

    But look at that proposal again today. It wasn’t a gimmick. It was intergenerational visionary thinking – exactly the kind we now praise the current coalition government for, albeit in other sectors. The same government investing millions in aging water infrastructure and drafting a Water Sector Strategy 2050. The same government pushing EFL toward nearly 100% renewable electricity by 2035, moving off imported fossil fuels.

    So let us pause and give credit where it is due: the coalition government has embraced strategic, long‑term projects. But it has conspicuously stayed silent on highways – the very arteries that every Fijian and every business uses every day.

    The Roads We Have, and the Roads We Deserve

    Anyone who has travelled the Queen’s Road or King’s Road since independence knows the truth: traffic has outgrown the asphalt. What was once a leisurely drive from Suva to Nadi is now a grinding crawl through bottlenecks, potholes, and overloaded single lanes. Every Christmas, every Diwali, the caravans of frustration stretch for kilometres.

    We have had fifty years to build upon our highways in Viti Levu. Successive governments – of all stripes – chose not to. No use crying over spilt milk. But the consequence is clear: our economy bleeds time and fuel in traffic, and our people pay the price.

    The Quad Port: A Geopolitical Chess Move

    Now comes the news Tuesday evening from New Delhi. The Quad – Australia, India, Japan, and the United States – has committed to building a deep‑sea port in Fiji. The language is careful: “trusted and resilient infrastructure,” “port infrastructure and associated activities.” But everyone knows what this is. It is dual‑purpose, meant to counter China’s growing infrastructural influence in Fiji and the wider Pasifika.

    No local announcement. No parliamentary debate. No public consultation. Decisions about Fijian sovereignty, announced by foreign ministers who answer to Washington, Canberra, Tokyo, and New Delhi – not to the people of Lautoka or Suva.

    And yet, we need infrastructure. We need ports. We need roads. So the question is not whether to accept help. The question is: who decides, and on what terms?

    A Radical Proposal: Play Both Ends Against the Middle

    Let me suggest something unconventional – something that would require nerve, diplomatic skill, and a clear vision of Fiji’s self‑interest.

    Instead of passively accepting the Quad’s port (and whatever strings are attached), the Fiji government should turn the tables. It should approach both the Quad and China and say:

    “You both want influence in the Pasifika. You both talk about infrastructure. Here is a project that every Fijian will use, every single day: the Suva‑Nadi toll highway. $1.5 billion. 107 kilometres. Four lanes, built to last 50 years. Whoever puts forward the best offer – lowest cost, fewest conditions, fastest construction – gets the contract. Or better, you can co‑finance it. But Fiji will own it.”

    This would be a geopolitical masterstroke. A massive infrastructure coup. And I am not naïve about who is best positioned to deliver.

    Why China Would Rise to the Challenge

    China has the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Silk Road economic vision. It has built thousands of kilometres of highways, railways, ports, and bridges across Asia, Africa, and Latin America – often faster and cheaper than any Western competitor. Chinese state‑owned enterprises have experience with large‑scale toll roads in challenging terrain. Importantly, China’s approach in the Pasifika, so far, has been characterised by no political strings attached – infrastructure for infrastructure’s sake.

    Moreover, China has “its heart in the right place” regarding what is genuinely good for the country – not just for geopolitical positioning. The BRI, for all the Western criticism, has delivered tangible assets that local populations use every day. A Suva‑Nadi toll freeway would be exactly that kind of asset.

    Would China pick up the challenge – and the tab? I am pretty sure they would. Not out of charity, but because demonstrating that China can deliver transformative infrastructure where the Quad talks about “resilience” is a strategic win Beijing would find hard to resist.

    The Quad’s Port vs. China’s Highway

    Let us be honest: a deep‑sea port in Fiji is primarily about maritime security, naval logistics, and great power competition. It may have civilian spillovers, but its centre of gravity is strategic. That is not necessarily bad – but it is not what ordinary Fijians wake up worrying about.

    A Suva‑Nadi highway, by contrast, is about daily life. It is about the mother rushing her sick child to the Colonial War Memorial Hospital. The farmer getting produce to market before it spoils. The tourism worker reaching the resorts on time. It is about decongesting our towns and unlocking land value in Nadroga, Navosa, Serua, and Namosi.

    Which one is truly “trusted and resilient infrastructure” for the Fijian people?

    A Final Word

    We have a rare chance here. The Quad wants a port. China wants influence. Fiji needs a highway. Instead of being a passive venue for other people’s rivalries, we can be an active architect of our own development.

    Let the Quad build its deep‑sea port – with proper transparency, local consultation, and a clear agreement that it serves Fiji’s interests first. And let China build the Suva‑Nadi freeway. Or let them both contribute. But let it be Fiji that decides.

    The spilt milk of fifty years of neglected roads cannot be reclaimed. But the next fifty years can be paved – literally. And if we play our cards right, that pavement might just be laid by the very competitors who now circle our shores, each hoping to win our favour.

    Let them compete. We will build.

  • The Civilizational Blind Spot: How the US and Israel Miscalculated Iran

    The war with Iran was sold as a quick decapitation—a replay of Venezuela, where a brittle regime would crumble under the first real shock. Instead, it became a strategic catastrophe. The US and Israel believed they were targeting a government. They discovered, too late, that they were confronting a civilization.

    Iran is one of the oldest, most resilient civilizations in human history. The Persians have fought wars for three thousand years, survived invading hordes, and revived every time. This insight—obvious to any student of history—was entirely absent from US and Israeli war planning.

    The False Analogy: Iran as Venezuela

    Weeks before the conflict, Netanyahu briefed Trump on a promise: a quick, easy war. Decapitate the leadership, the regime collapses, victory declared. Trump bought it. The premise was that Iran was a hollow shell like Venezuela. But Venezuela is a 19th-century nation-state. Iran is heir to Cyrus the Great and millennia of resistance. No invader has ever erased Persia.

    When decapitation strikes failed, Washington was surprised. Instead of weakening, Iran gained a powerful burst of energy. A civilization under existential threat does not send armies into hopeless battles. It strikes the global economy’s jugular: the Hormuz Strait.

    The Strait That Broke the War

    Iran had warned for years it could close the strait. The US and Israel bombed nuclear facilities while leaving this obvious lever unaddressed. Within days, Iran imposed de facto control. Oil prices spiked. Suddenly, Trump’s overriding concern—November’s midterm elections—became Iran’s primary bargaining chip. Iran is not waiting for a military knockout. It is waiting for an electoral clock.

    The Unraveling Alliance

    The US and Israel are no longer in unison. Trump, facing domestic pressure, desperately wants an off-ramp before November. Israel insists on finishing the job but cannot. This war is fundamentally between Iran and Israel. The US was dragged in by undue Israeli influence and, Washington embraced the Venezuela fallacy. You cannot decapitate a civilization. You can only bleed against it.

    Businessmen Negotiators

    The final insult: Trump appointed businessmen Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff as negotiators. Their expertise is real estate, not Persian history or Shiite theology. They expected to out-haggle Iran. Instead, Iran holds the upper hand—because when a civilization feels existentially threatened, it does not negotiate from weakness. It waits. It plays the long game.

    As one seasoned observer put it: “Any other country would have surrendered from day one. Iranians didn’t surrender. In fact, they retaliated very strongly.” That is not bravado. That is three thousand years of muscle memory.

    Conclusion: The Cost of Forgetting History, Felt Even Here

    The US and Israel launched this war believing Iran would fold like a house of cards. Instead, Iran closed the Hormuz Strait, kept its economy afloat, and forced Washington to beg for a way out. The magnitude is undeniable: a civilization was underestimated, and the global order is paying the price.

    But this price is not paid only in Washington or Tel Aviv. Even here in Fiji—thousands of miles from the Persian Gulf—we are already feeling the direct effects, and we will continue to feel them long after the fighting ends. The closure of the Hormuz Strait has sent energy costs soaring. Imported goods, from food to fuel to manufactured basics, have become dramatically more expensive. Inflation presses down on every Fijian household. Our small island economy, already vulnerable to global shocks, has no shield against a war we did not choose and cannot influence.

    This should be a wake-up call. The era of stable fossil energy flowing through chokepoints controlled by distant powers is over—at least for now. It is time for Fiji to look seriously at alternative energy sources, as China has shown. Beijing understood years ago that strategic vulnerability follows the oil tanker. Today, China leads the world in renewable energy—not out of environmental idealism, but out of hard-nosed strategic, visionary calculation. Fiji can learn from that. What we lack is the political will to accelerate the transition.

    The Iran war has reminded every nation without its own oil fields of a simple truth: when great powers clash over civilization and empire, small countries get crushed by the wake. The only defense is resilience. And for Fiji, resilience means less reliance on fossil fuel. The Americans and Israelis miscalculated Persia. Let us not miscalculate our own future. The war will end. The lesson should not.