In the first two decades of the 21st century, the “shift to Asia” has increasingly placed the Asia-Pacific and Indo-Pacific regions at the centre of world affairs. This course assesses the challenges facing Australia, New Zealand and the Commonwealth nations of the Pacific in adapting to the emergence of China and India as great powers and the relative decline of their traditional allies, the United States and the United Kingdom, tempted by protectionism and unilateralism abroad and troubled by crises in democracy at home. The “age of geopolitical transition” encompasses issues that at once impact and exceed the resources of nation-states, not least climate change, which threatens the very existence of low-lying small island states and places all in the front line of the global environmental disorder.