May 18, 2015

From the 2016 New Zealand Defence White Paper to a New Wellington Declaration?

New Zealand’s military re-alignment with the United States opens us to expectations that we would support the United States should major disputes or armed conflict build up between it and China (our biggest trading partner).
October 7, 2012

New Zealand relations with US & China: Ally, Wiggler, or Constructive Broker?

The greatest value of the visit by United States’ Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta may to be to sharpen New Zealand’s appreciation of the need for coherent and constructive Asia-Pacific policy-making
April 8, 2012

China, the United States, Australia, New Zealand & Huawei

Feeling continually pressured to make choices between rival giants looks like a no win path for a small country
March 11, 2012

New Iran talks – this time with some antipodean assistance?

BBC correspondent James Reynolds says Iran nuclear issue talks in Geneva in 2010, and Istanbul in January 2011 “were essentially parallel monologues.” Could antipodean New Zealand offer some low-key but effective communication-building?
February 18, 2012

Neutral communication brokering between Asia-Pacific elephants

“The very fact of New Zealand being an anglophile outpost in Asia-Pacific makes it possible to search for strategies of niche diplomacy…. as interlocutors between Asia-Pacific and the West.” Ramesh Thakur, 1992
December 31, 2011

From US-Iran problems to a new, local-global solutions paradigm

New Zealand diplomats with nuclear-free peacemaking credentials based already in Tehran, Washington, London, and Europe could right now begin...
October 10, 2009

Welcome, Mr US Ambassador David Huebner – open letter by John Gallagher

"To the extent that there is great cultural-cum-demographic diversity in Asia and New Zealanders are not Asians, we can be equidistant from the regional fault-lines and can help in the safer management of these fault-lines." (Ramesh Thakur - Time to Befriend the Asian Tigers). How might New Zealand start to get into this kind of work?
February 16, 2009

Shovel Award: for critics of Government’s even-handed Gaza policy

A person who signs themselves as "Village Idiot" nominates for a Shovel Award those who have criticised the National government for it’s so-called lack of response to the Gaza conflict.
February 4, 2009

Ladder Award: NZ Foreign Minister’s “solutions” approach to Gaza conflict

John Gallagher nominated Mr Murray McCully, New Zealand's Foreign Minister, for a ladder award for his even-handed, solutions-oriented approach to the Gaza conflict.
January 23, 2009

Jobs need much more than a Job Summit (part two)

John Gallagher continues his blog on life after the February 2009 New Zealand Jobs Summit. This time he looks at how wider vision in this information age can keep pragmatism working for jobs and for much else besides.