The Interpreter's five most popular posts of the year.

It's been a wild ride since Rodrigo Duterte became President of the Philippines.

It started with a crowded field and there were some threatened upsets but in the end the favourite crossed the line well ahead.

The course of the civil war changed dramatically in the last 12 months.

The world was watching when Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy finally came to power.

Prakash's crimes warrant investigation and prosecution beyond merely terrorist offences.

For Asian countries, education is an effective way for a small neighbour to punch above its weight internationally.

Fillon plans to reposition France by seeking close alliances with Russia and Syria.

Problems and disagreements between the Afghan government and its international allies have impeded progress.

For those who would seek to understand Russia today, the Revolution’s unsettled legacy cannot be ignored.

Most analyses of China’s relations with South Sudan begin and end with oil, but this is far from the whole story.

By supporting disparate rebel groups, we run the risk of prolonging an immoral war; one that cannot be won.

The Ankara assassination is the most shocking but perhaps the least concerning in a perverse sort of way.

In Schelling’s view of strategy, competition was almost always mixed with cooperation.

Some time after the turn of the century the alliance gained a capital letter – like the Almighty – in some official documents.

A Corpse in the Koryo, Shadow Among Splendours, and Playing the Game.

World Bank member countries have pledged $75 billion in lending to the world’s poorest countries over the next three years.

Will the well-established independence the Fed currently enjoys come under threat from a Trump administration, with its unconventional economic ideas?

If Myanmar dares to defy the pro-dam lobby, the dream of peace, friendship and cross-border cooperation could become a reality.

DFAT's new strategy, Abe's meetings, political instability in Italy and more.

The key for the Australian Government now is shifting from seeing the internet as a tool of communications to leveraging it as a tool of foreign policy.

As the year winds down, it is time to look back on the biggest stories in the always-tense northeast Asian region.

One can only imagine President Trump’s contributions to the G20 summit next year.

The Games of Thrones-style struggle now underway between the stranded Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the enlivened Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is getting murkier by the day.

The EU’s prestige, normative standards and soft power have been relentlessly eroded by the Turkish government led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Merkel has vowed to deport many new arrivals and a bill to open deportation camps has just been passed.

A peace treaty with Russia is the holy grail of Japanese diplomacy.

Why didn’t the world’s media shift some focus onto the armed groups inside Aleppo and ask what they were achieving by being there?

The most effective thing Australia can do now is to lean in to the confused situation in Washington.

Leung’s rule completely disrupted the balance of city’s political power, as evident in the escalating scale and intensity of public protests.

The view from Tokyo on world and regional affairs at the moment is perhaps best described as sitting on the edge of a game of go.

Most attention since Tillerson emerged as favorite for State has focused on his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In the Fairfax papers yesterday, Tom Switzer poked some well-deserved fun at the Australian political commentariat's collective failure to get the Trump phenomenon right.

Rather than historical amnesia, the problem Australian prime ministers will encounter with Donald Trump is historical illiteracy.

Policy needs to seize the best options in a complex industry.

A successful digital media strategy may result in diplomats becoming less prominent.

The myth at the heart of the sentimentalist view of the alliance is it draws its strength and durability from the fundamental values and historical connections that we share rather than from a mere alignment of interests.

Renzi’s fall is destined to have repercussions in Europe for various reasons, including the stability of Italy's banking system.

What happened on The Interpreter this week?

Unfortunately, the attention that both journalists and audiences pay to Trump is (at least in part) attention unpaid elsewhere.

Hard thinking is needed, free of the emotional trammels that so often accompany the alliance debate.

Our nearest neighbours deserve further funding of Pacific-oriented ABC services.

Laos' 'success' on the Mekong could prove deeply costly for the people of Cambodia and Vietnam.

The 2011 election was a shock for the government. In response, while broadly maintaining its immigration policy, the government pursued a policy of across-the-board attention to the concerns that the election had highlighted.