At the beginning of 1990, the Berlin Wall had just fallen, few believed that there was any serious threat to the environment, 9/11 was just any date, the Pacific was seen largely as an idyllic and stable region and Iraq was just another Middle Eastern state.

By 2005 Iraq meant two wars; the Cold War had been replaced by the war on terror; East Timor, Bougainville, Fiji and the Solomons were all synonyms for strife and instability in the region; and sustainability, global warming and climate change were everyday topics.

New Zealand in World Affairs IV surveys the period 1990-2005, provides a record of New Zealand's major international preoccupations, describes how they were officially handled and makes assessments of how effectively the challenges were interpreted and acted upon. This authoritative collection of essays, the fourth in a series commissioned by the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, completes a survey of New Zealand's foreign relations since World War II.