In defence of purpose before policy

Why governments need an organising purpose before they can decide what to spend, what to prioritise and what kind of future they are trying to create.

The response to a recent LinkedIn post I made about defence spending surprised me. In just a few days, more than 27,000 people viewed the post and quite a few took the time to comment, react or share it. Many agreed. Some strongly disagreed. What interested me most, however, was not the level of support or opposition. It was the conversation itself.

The post was prompted by comments made by US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth regarding New Zealand’s defence spending. As a former soldier, I questioned why smaller nations are being encouraged to spend more on defence while simultaneously facing growing pressures in areas such as healthcare, education, housing and environmental resilience.

What followed was a fascinating debate. Some argued that New Zealand benefits from a security umbrella largely funded by larger powers and therefore has an obligation to contribute more. Others questioned whether the actions of those same powers sometimes contribute to the instability being used to justify ever-increasing military expenditure. Many focused on the difficult trade-offs facing governments as they attempt to balance competing demands with finite resources.

As I worked my way through the comments, it became clear that defence spending was merely the catalyst for a much bigger conversation. Beneath the arguments about military budgets, alliances and geopolitics sat a more fundamental question about how governments should decide what to prioritise.
Which led me to a question that sits at the heart of almost every political debate, yet is surprisingly rarely asked: What is the purpose of government?

The question sounds deceptively simple.

Governments spend enormous amounts of time discussing policies. Defence spending. Healthcare funding. Housing affordability. Education reform. Infrastructure investment. Climate action. Taxation. Economic growth. Yet what often gets lost is the question that should come first: What is the purpose these policies are intended to serve?

Over the past two decades I have argued that organisations perform best when they are guided by a clear purpose. Purpose is not a slogan or a marketing statement, but as an organising idea that helps leaders make decisions, allocate resources, navigate competing priorities and maintain direction through uncertainty.

The same principle applies to governments. Government is not simply there to administer budgets, pass legislation or win elections. Its purpose should be to create and sustain the conditions in which citizens, communities and future generations can flourish.

Once purpose is understood in those terms, policy begins to look different. Purpose comes first. Policy follows.

Indeed, one of the great misunderstandings of modern politics is the tendency to treat policies as ends in themselves rather than as means of achieving a larger objective. The political left tends to favour certain solutions. The political right tends to favour others. The centre attempts to blend elements of both. Yet left, right and centre are not purposes. They are competing theories about how best to achieve a purpose.

Just as two business leaders may share a common objective while disagreeing about strategy, political parties may share a broad desire to improve the wellbeing of citizens while holding very different views about how to achieve it. The problem arises when ideology becomes more important than purpose.

When that happens, policies begin competing with one another for attention and resources without reference to a larger organising idea. Healthcare advocates argue for more healthcare spending. Education advocates argue for more education spending. Defence advocates argue for more defence spending. Environmental advocates argue for greater investment in climate resilience and ecological restoration. Each can make a compelling case. Yet viewed in isolation, politics risks becoming little more than a competition between worthy causes.

Purpose provides the context within which those trade-offs can be made. It shifts the conversation from what we are doing to why we are doing it.

Defence, education, infrastructure and environmental protection are not objectives in themselves. They are investments. The question is not whether each is important — they all clearly are — but how each contributes to the broader purpose a government is seeking to fulfil. Without that connection, policy risks becoming a collection of competing priorities rather than a coherent strategy for national wellbeing.

Viewed through this lens, the recent defence debate becomes particularly interesting.

As a former soldier, I understand the importance of national security, military capability and preparedness. Nations have a responsibility to protect their sovereignty, their interests and their people. The world is becoming increasingly uncertain and it would be naïve to pretend otherwise.

But if government exists to create the conditions in which citizens and communities can flourish, then the question is not simply whether defence matters. The question is how best to achieve security in service of that purpose.
For some nations, that answer may involve significant military expenditure if their purpose is to project power, preserve strategic dominance or shape the international order. For others, geography, relationships, diplomacy, trade, development assistance, international cooperation and regional influence may deliver greater security relative to the resources invested.

Defence capability remains important. But it becomes one tool among many. The objective is not military strength for its own sake. The objective is national flourishing. This distinction matters because nations must constantly decide where to allocate scarce resources. As I indicated in my LinkedIn post, every dollar spent in one area is unavailable elsewhere.

The challenge therefore is not deciding whether defence matters, but determining the appropriate contribution defence should make relative to healthcare, education, housing, infrastructure, environmental stewardship and economic resilience in pursuit of a common purpose.

There is, however, another dimension to the discussion. Purpose is not only useful for helping governments decide what to do; it also helps them decide whose objectives they are serving.

In an increasingly interconnected world, nations are constantly influenced by allies, trading partners, international institutions and geopolitical realities. That is entirely normal. Yet before committing scarce resources, governments have a responsibility to ask whether the policies they pursue primarily serve their own purpose or help advance the purpose of others.

This is not an argument against alliances or international cooperation. On the contrary, purpose becomes even more important when nations work together. Countries that understand their own objectives are far better placed to build effective partnerships while remaining true to their own interests, responsibilities and long-term aspirations.

This, too, is a question of governance because good governance requires clarity of purpose before commitment of resources.

In business, organisations often lose their way when purpose becomes unclear and strategy becomes disconnected from it. The same, it seems, happens to nations.

Without a coherent organising purpose that aligns decisions, priorities and resources in service of a shared vision, governments risk becoming collections of policies rather than architects of a future.