Japan risks undermining its interests in denuclearisation if it gets carried away with its stance on North Korean abductions, writes Lloyd Rhodes.

As the outcry against Myanmar’s military grows, Australia must continue to create and sustain ties on a people-to-people basis, Mish Khan writes.

Malaysia’s recent election has triggered a resurgence of old tensions regarding bilateral Water Agreements with Singapore, Tommy Sheng Hao Chai writes.

Australian aid is a heavily debated topic. How much should we give? Who decides? How do we decide?

In his most recent book, The Foreign Dilemma of Aid, Jack Corbett explores the history of foreign aid given by Australia, and looks at reasons why it’s changed.

Every year thousands of Pakistanis leave their homeland to take up arms in the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula, enlisting in the armed forces of their wealthier Islamic neighbours. Driven by historical, economic and religious forces, Pakistan is now the world’s most prolific exporter of military personnel. So what drives them to do so, and how does the phenomenon benefit Pakistan’s foreign policy?

For the first time in centuries the most powerful nation on Earth is going to be non-Western, and this has terrified policymakers from Canberra to Washington.
The almost existential panic which has characterised the response has combined an incredible capacity for self delusion with an almost impressive degree of arrogance that even our Colonial forbears would be staggered by.
Bit players like Australia have mindlessly “reaffirmed” support for the US alliance, as if it was ever in doubt, while the US itself has pursued a “Pivot to Asia” that has about as much substance as a stereotypical American meal.
Neither of these speech acts do anything to change the facts on the ground.