Every student of game theory knows that madness can have its advantages. If your enemy believes you will retaliate, regardless of the cost to yourself, they may think twice before crossing you. 

Thomas Schelling explained it in his 1960 Cold War opus, The Strategy of Conflict. A rational person, watching Soviet missiles arc over the horizon, might hesitate before pushing the launch button. But deterrence works best when you’ve precommitted—when you've signalled that you will retaliate, no matter what. 

I don’t normally like to brag about my whakapapa, but Schelling is my academic grandfather—my dissertation supervisor’s supervisor. And his work is relevant again. 
New Zealand has no nuclear arsenal. 

But we have something almost as terrifying. 

For years, the government of New Zealand has been pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into James Cameron’s Avatar films. Two hundred million dollars so far. And more are coming. 

It seems absurd. No sane country would subsidise films with such beautiful graphics and such aggressively terrible plots. 

No sane country indeed. But maybe one that’s crazy like a fox – as intrepid Twitter strategic analyst @nzsd has hinted. 

New Zealand has been quietly amassing a strategic Avatar stockpile, diverting funds that might otherwise have gone into futile attempts at naval defence. The films released so far, like nuclear tests, are mere demonstration of our destructive potential. 

If China really wanted to invade New Zealand, the largest navy we could possibly build would barely slow them down.  

We can’t count on the Americans to save us. They’ve already threatened to invade Canada and who knows if we’re on their list too.  

And on the economic front, Canada continues to block our dairy exports, despite having signed a trade agreement that supposedly forbids it. And high American tariffs on New Zealand goods seem inevitable. 

Ordinary economic retaliation is impossible. No tariff we impose could plausibly deter them. 

But what if New Zealand, in response, unleashed another subsidised Avatar sequel? 

Hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of Avatar films, each worse than the last, broadcast over RocketLab-launched satellites in geostationary orbit over Washington, Beijing, and Ottawa. 

Avatar 5 is already in production. Avatar 6 could be greenlit at a moment’s notice. 

We have Avatar films, and we’re not afraid to use them. 

It is the only sane explanation for subsidising those gawdawful movies.