Few people believe that any war against the entrenched Bougainville rebels and their leader, Francis Ona, would ever be winnable.

ECONOMIST: Papua New Guinea

After Japan bombed Pearl Harbour in Hawaii in December 1941, ferocious fighting on Guadalcanal (Solomon Islands) and Bougainville (PNG) brought Americans in large numbers to the islands.

ECONOMIST: America pivots on the Pacific periphery

The same vast ocean eventually brought Europeans to this glittering archipelago, among them the English navigator James Cook and the French adventurer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, who arrived in the late 1760s.

BBC: Getting in the Tahitian spirit