The Yegiora Files

In a few weeks or months in office the new Prime Minister of PNG James Marape has shared a lot of information about his vision for a new PNG. In particular, the 'richest black Christian nation on earth' vision is ambitious. One prerequisite to becoming the richest black Christian nation on earth is to have a smart foreign policy. All states in the international system need foreign policies to guide their interaction with other states and non-state actors. But policies are secondary, the most important element is national interest. A state in the international system interact with others based on its national interest. National interest is made up of a collection of public interests. Furthermore, national interest is the self interest of a state. Rimbink Pato in the Ministerial Statement he presented to the National Parliament during his tenure as foreign minister said: "In a rapidly changing, globalizing world, foreign policy has to be kept under constant...

Does the size of a state matter in geopolitics? This is a difficult question to answer in light of the changes that we have witnessed in the world today. In particular, the nuclear threat posed by North Korea, the growth of Singapore and the rise of PNG. These three states are small in land area but project to a certain degree a huge amount of power in regional and global affairs. To answer our question, let us begin with the statement; 'the larger the state, the more powerful it is' . To prove or disprove this statement we will compare briefly the work of Hans Morgenthau and Azhar Ahmad about the concept of national power. We will also use the cases of North Korea, Singapore and PNG in our brief comparative analysis. Size is a geographical factor that we can use to measure or analyze the behaviour of a state in the regional or global political arena. Apart from size, the other geographical factors that are included in our analytical framework are: national resour...