CoveragePost
January 7, 2026
Headline: Military Extortion as Coercive Diplomacy. – 36th Parallel Assessments Source: Anonymous on X.com. The lethal theatre of the absurd that has been the Trump administration’s sabre rattling performances in the Central American basin over the last few months culminated with the military attack on Venezuela and the kidnapping of its president and his wife ... <a title="Military Extortion as Coercive Diplomacy." class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2026/01/07/military-extortion-as-coercive-diplomacy/" aria-label="Read more about Military Extortion as Coercive Diplomacy.">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
July 1, 2025
Headline: Preventive versus pre-emptive strikes. – 36th Parallel Assessments Photo credit: Reuters. Conceptual clarity is important in any context but especially when it comes to international relations, foreign policy and the initiation of conflict. Recent events in the Middle East have shown once again how clarity in the use of words is often deliberately obfuscated ... <a title="Preventive versus pre-emptive strikes." class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/07/01/preventive-versus-pre-emptive-strikes/" aria-label="Read more about Preventive versus pre-emptive strikes.">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
June 29, 2025
Headline: A return to Nature. – 36th Parallel Assessments Thomas Hobbes wrote his seminal work Leviathan in 1651. In it he describes the world system as it was then as being in “a state of nature,” something that some have interpreted as anarchy. However, anarchy has order and purpose. It is not chaos. In fact, ... <a title="A return to Nature." class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/06/29/a-return-to-nature/" aria-label="Read more about A return to Nature.">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
April 20, 2024
Headline: The moment of friction. – 36th Parallel Assessments In strategic studies “friction” is a term that it is used to describe the moment when military action encounters adversary resistance. “Friction” is one of four (along with an unofficial fifth) “F’s” in military strategy, which includes force (kinetic mass), fluidity (of manoeuvre), fog (of battle) ... <a title="The moment of friction." class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2024/04/20/the-moment-of-friction/" aria-label="Read more about The moment of friction.">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
January 8, 2024
Headline: About the Houthi Red Sea Blockage. – 36th Parallel Assessments Announcement that NZ has joined with 13 other maritime trade-dependent states in warning Houthis in Yemen to cease their attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea (particularly in the Bad-el-Mandeb Strait) raises some finer points embedded in the confrontation. First, there is the ... <a title="About the Houthi Red Sea Blockage." class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2024/01/08/about-the-houthi-red-sea-blockage/" aria-label="Read more about About the Houthi Red Sea Blockage.">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
January 5, 2024
Headline: South America’s Strategic Paradox. – 36th Parallel Assessments Summary Conventional wisdom believes that increased prosperity brings with it increased security. As individual, group and national material fortunes rise, domestic crime decreases and tensions ease between States. Yet, in South America improved macroeconomic indicators derived from increased trade within and from without the region have ... <a title="South America’s Strategic Paradox." class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2024/01/05/south-americas-strategic-paradox/" aria-label="Read more about South America’s Strategic Paradox.">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
October 26, 2023
Headline: Authoritarian Realism. – 36th Parallel Assessments In International relations, realism refers to the view that States have interests and use relative power capabilities to pursue those interests in an anarchic world order lacking a superordinate power or Leviathan (that is, a condition that Hobbes referred to as the “state of nature’). Conversely, idealism refers ... <a title="Authoritarian Realism." class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2023/10/26/authoritarian-realism/" aria-label="Read more about Authoritarian Realism.">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
June 13, 2023
Headline: Geopolitical balancing in the W/SW Pacific. – 36th Parallel Assessments Last year the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Solomon Islands signed a bilateral security agreement that includes police training and port visits by Chinese security advisors and naval vessels. This includes training in “crowd control” and protection of Chinese investments in the ... <a title="Geopolitical balancing in the W/SW Pacific." class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2023/06/13/geopolitical-balancing-in-the-w-sw-pacific/" aria-label="Read more about Geopolitical balancing in the W/SW Pacific.">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
March 27, 2023
Headline: The return to Big Wars. – 36th Parallel Assessments After the Cold War the consensus among Western military strategists was that the era of Big Wars, defined as peer conflict between large states with full spectrum military technologies, was at an end, at least for the foreseeable future. The strategic emphasis shifted to so-called ... <a title="The return to Big Wars." class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2023/03/27/the-return-to-big-wars/" aria-label="Read more about The return to Big Wars.">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
November 15, 2022
Analysis by Dr Paul G. Buchanan. Is NZ foreign policy “independent?” (and related issues). – 36th Parallel Assessments For many years New Zealand elites have claimed to have an “independent” foreign policy, so much so that it has become a truism of NZ politics that transcends the partisan divide in parliament and is a shibboleth ... <a title="Is New Zealand foreign policy “independent?” (and related issues)." class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2022/11/15/is-nz-foreign-policy-independent-and-related-issues/" aria-label="Read more about Is New Zealand foreign policy “independent?” (and related issues).">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
October 9, 2022
Analysis by Dr Paul G Buchanan. Systemic Realignment and the Long Transition. – 36th Parallel Assessments The last few decades have seen a world in increasing turmoil. Technological advances, climate deterioration, sharpening domestic and international political conflict and global pandemics are just some of the hallmarks of the contemporary world moment. In this essay I ... <a title="Paul Buchanan Essay – Systemic Realignment and the Long Transition" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2022/10/09/systemic-realignment-and-the-long-transition/" aria-label="Read more about Paul Buchanan Essay – Systemic Realignment and the Long Transition">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
June 4, 2022
Headline: The PRC’s Two Level Game. – 36th Parallel Assessments, Analysis by Dr Paul G. Buchanan. Coming on the heels of the recently signed Solomon Islands-PRC bilateral economic and security agreement, the whirlwind tour of the Southwestern Pacific undertaken by PRC Foreign Minister Wang Yi has generated much concern in Canberra, Washington DC and Wellington ... <a title="The PRC’s Two Level Game." class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2022/06/04/the-prcs-two-level-game/" aria-label="Read more about The PRC’s Two Level Game.">Read more</a>
