Audrey Young: One ship short of a full friendship

John Key today begins his first visit to Washington as Prime Minister in the certain knowledge that the relationship between the US and New Zealand has been all but repaired after the anti-nuclear rift of the 1980s.

The "all-but", however, is a big one.

About as big as a US warship.

The prospect of US warships resuming visits to New Zealand ports sounds simple enough, even "desirable" as former Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer said at the weekend.

But it shows unrealistic optimism to suggest as he did, "I think it is something you could get on the agenda without too much difficulty."

Almost as easy as getting Japan to renounce whaling.

It will happen one day, but not soon.

With Mr Key being on the guest list for President Barack Obama's anti-nuclear summit in Washington, there is a sense that things have changed a great deal on the American side.

Military exercises will be resumed, full intelligence sharing has been restored, and the two sides have stopped battering each other with their arguments.

But ships visits are some time off.

They would in all likelihood not be welcomed by National. Even though such visits are possible now under the law, it would create the perception that National had "allowed it," and reneged on its anti-nuclear policy.

And Japan is as central an issue to the resumption of ship visits today as it was in the mid 1980s.

Then, the United States was adamant it would not make an exception for its New Zealand partner in the Anzus defence pact. It would not identify which vessels did and did not carry nuclear weapons.

It still doesn't say so, even when they almost certainly don't.

Japan had a policy of allowing no nuclear weapons, and an unwritten policy of not asking the US whether the warships in its ports under its own security alliance were carrying nukes.

Some of Japan's mayors were getting bolshie about having American warships in their harbours.

The US did not want Japan catching what was called what was known as "the New Zealand virus."

The Japan-United States Alliance today is a critical alliance.

Yukio Hatoyama's Democratic Party was elected to power last year on the promise of being more assertive with the United States especially in its defence relationship.

And last month an inquiry confirmed what had long been suspected - that the US and Japan's Government had a secret pact to let nuclear-armed ships in during the Cold War.

No alliance is more sensitive to the United States at present than its security pact with Japan.

It expects loyalty for the defence it offers in its security alliances.

From the US viewpoint, restoring New Zealand to the position it held before the anti-nuclear legislation ruptured the Anzus treaty would send the wrong message to Japan at the wrong time.