At first glance, the differences between the two candidates for president of the United States in 2012, President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney, are striking. Each candidate is doing his best to emphasise these differences. Most commentators have drawn sharp distinctions between the two candidates on foreign policy. Global perceptions of the two men...

With China becoming a far more effective player in the United Nations, this paper describes how China conducts itself in New York and the positions it takes on issues such as peacekeeping, Iran and North Korea. The author, Michael Fullilove lays out these approaches on what he calls a ‘stakeholder spectrum’. China is not yet...

This paper makes the case that Australia's bid for the Security Council is both prudent and popular, and refutes the various arguments that have been made against the bid. Image: Riacale / Flickr

A good deal of copy has been written about the Australia-US alliance over the past decade, but almost all of it, naturally enough, described the alliance as it developed under the stewardship of conservative leaders in Washington and Canberra. Now the alliance is in the hands of a Democratic president and a Labor prime minister...

In this Perspective, Dr Michael Fullilove, who is currently based at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, looks ahead to President-elect Barack Obama's inaugural address on 20 January. Obama is an unusually gifted writer and speaker with an old-fashioned attachment to speeches, who will likely address his vision for US foreign policy in his address...