CoveragePost
February 23, 2026
PODCAST: A View from Afar - Paul G. Buchanan: “The sad fact, though, is that the US is the center of our earthly geopolitical universe, serving as the first rock to drop in the global pond whose ripple effects are extensive, negative, and washing up in unexpected and unforeseen ways. That rock, in fact, is a black hole sucking the remnants of the rule based order into oblivion, or if not oblivion, irrelevance in a new age of power politics (might makes right, etc.). It is a dark force from which things as they exist cannot return.”
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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>
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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>
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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>
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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>
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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>
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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>
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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>
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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>
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June 8, 2023
Political scientist, and former Pentagon analyst, Dr Paul Buchanan, and Selwyn Manning analyse the question: What does the Geopolitical balancing that is taking place in the West and South-West Pacific mean for the region and the globe?
CoveragePost
May 25, 2023
PODCAST: In this the second episode of A View from Afar podcast for 2023, political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning will analyse the question: How stable is Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin’s regime?
CoveragePost
May 11, 2023
INTERACTIVE WEBCAST: Join the LIVE recording of Paul G. Buchanan and Selwyn Manning’s podcast A View from Afar at midday Thursday (New Zealand time) and Wednesday 8pm (US EDT). LIVE@MIDDAY NZ Time – 8pm US EDT – In this the first episode of A View from Afar for 2023 political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan and ... <a title="LIVE: A View from Afar – AUKUS: Should New Zealand and Other APAC Nations Join This Anglophile Security Bloc?" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2023/05/11/live-a-view-from-afar-aukus-should-new-zealand-and-other-apac-nations-join-this-anglophile-security-bloc/" aria-label="Read more about LIVE: A View from Afar – AUKUS: Should New Zealand and Other APAC Nations Join This Anglophile Security Bloc?">Read more</a>
