The last time I gave any thought to Kuwait, it was 1991 and I was a cadet reporter on The Herald Sun taking dictation copy over the phone from our reporter in the Middle East.

Operation Desert Storm had just launched to expel occupying Iraqi troops. A US-led coalition of 20 countries had amassed a 900,000-strong force to pound Iraqi command and control targets.

Within a month, Kuwait was liberated and the country became, for me, an ever distant memory of just another troubled player in that bloody fractious part of the world.

So, 26 years later, when I was asked by the Walkley Foundation to join a study tour of the tiny Gulf state, curiosity prevailed.

What was life like for a population wedged between Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq? How did Kuwait marry its strict adherence to Islam with its commitment to the coalition forces and the War on Terror?

More than anything, I wanted to know what Muslims in the Middle East thought about the fevered talk of banning Muslim migration to countries like Australia and the United States.

I'm still puzzled as to why I was so surprised by Kuwait's stunning architecture, thriving commercial district and women's rights, says Emma Alberici. ( ABC News: Emma Alberici )

Since Australia helped free Kuwait from Saddam Hussein, the two nations have developed a close and enduring friendship.

The country, with a population of just four million spread across a land mass roughly a quarter of the size of Tasmania, is our biggest export market for live sheep and one of our top 20 foreign investors.

Remarkably, we sell more to Kuwait than we do to Italy or Mexico.

Camp Arifjan, south of Kuwait City, is home to a key coalition military base, where 25 of our special forces soldiers are training for their role in the fight against ISIS.

The Kuwaiti regime is proud of its participation in the global war on terror but is quiet about its strategic involvement lest it invite another retaliatory strike the likes of the 2015 suicide bombing that killed 27 people at the Kuwait Mosque.

The contradiction at the heart of modern Kuwait

There's also a sensitivity that comes from having two members of the 50-strong Parliament who are fundamentalists, openly supportive of the brutal efforts to impose a caliphate across the region.

In theory, the parliamentary system in Kuwait has no political groupings or parties, but in practice, like-minded individuals work together to achieve common goals.

Such is the contradiction at the heart of modern Kuwait: progressive ambitions wrapped in the often suffocating cloak of Islam.

This Muslim nation is challenging the notion that "advanced" and "Western" are interchangeable terms when it comes to economic, social and political development.

Emma Alberici joins her delegation at dinner in a traditional Kuwait souk. ( ABC News: Emma Alberici )

Disconcerting geography aside (intending visitors note: it's a one hour drive from Kuwait City to the Iraq border), Kuwait was nothing like the image I'd created in my narrow mind.

I'm still puzzled as to why I was so surprised by its stunning architecture, its thriving commercial district, press freedom and sophistication in business, politics, culture and women's rights.

To some relief, it turns out my ignorant assumptions are widely shared across the West, according to the acting Information Minister, Sheikh Mohammed Al-Abdullah Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah.

To placate our embarrassment over banal assumptions, Mr Al-Sabah, who is also Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs, told us of his experience studying in Britain, including six years at Eton.

His friend, Tom Parker Bowles, on noticing him packing his "boom box" to take home for the holidays, queried: "What are you taking that for? How will you plug it in?"

It turns out that even the son of the Duchess of Cornwall thought there was a chance that the people in Kuwait still lived in tents.

Women will not move forward without a nudge

The country has advanced apace in the 55 years since it was liberated from British rule.

Its National Assembly, designed by Danish architect Jorn Utzon, has been host to as many as four female MPs since women's suffrage in 2005.

The Women's Cultural and Social Society (WCSS), founded in 1963, is also now lobbying for the appointment of the country's first female judge.

A member of the Emir's family, who wished not to be named so as not to upset the conservative ruler, expressed his view to us privately that women will not move forward in Kuwaiti society without a serious nudge to overcome cultural bias.

The country would need to introduce quotas, he said, to hasten efforts to attract more women to positions of power: "The Muslim faith requires women to vote as instructed by their husbands and men still aren't comfortable with women in leadership."

Despite that, over the past decade, the Kuwaiti Parliament has managed to legislate for equal pay.

Attached to every job in Kuwait is a prescribed salary regardless of gender.

Women (75 per cent) now outnumber men at Kuwait University (25 per cent) and workforce participation among men and women is at parity.

Against an often-hostile public, the WCSS's latest projects include the opening of the country's first women's shelter for abuse victims.

But they have more choices than ever

During our visit, we're accompanied by a series of strong, confident women — most of them wearing the hijab.

They are university graduates, some with MBAs, and all with fluent English.

I ask them how they feel about the American President's attitude to Muslim migration and the fact that some politicians in Australia share the same view.

They tell me it frightens them; that they and their friends wouldn't want to visit New York or Sydney and are more comfortable holidaying in London, where they're not defined by their religion.

Emma Alberici (centre) joined a Walkley Foundation study tour of Kuwait, as a guest of the Kuwaiti embassy. ( ABC News: Emma Alberici )

They are high income-earners who travel widely. An entire generation of young Kuwaiti women are growing up with choices never afforded to their mothers but it has come at a cost to the country's migrant workers.

Every family in Kuwait has at least three — and, on average, four — domestic staff who do everything from cook meals and clean to drive and nanny.

The conditions can and are often cruel and demeaning. The wages alone are creating a group of second class citizens mostly from India and Bangladesh.

The country's stunning growth has entrenched social vulnerabilities.

Kuwaitis are now a minority in their own country.

Only one million people hold Kuwaiti passports, while the other three million are itinerate workers, migrants, refugees or stateless people.

There are now some four generations of people who've only ever lived in Kuwait but are being denied citizenship in most part to settle vague historical scores.

It's a recurrent story in the press, with some members of the Parliament agitating for reform. But they're still a minority.

There are economic vulnerabilities, too

Kuwaiti leadership is acutely aware of the folly of its over-reliance on oil. The industry accounts for more than 98 per cent of the country's vast income and provides 96 per cent of the working population with jobs.

Executive director of the Kuwait Petroleum Company (KPC) Nizar Al-Adasani is adamant that his company and the regime are committed to tackling climate change and finding ways to wean the world off fossil fuels.

Emma Alberici's delegation to Kuwait with the executive director of the Kuwait Petroleum Company, Nizar Al-Adasani (fourth from left). ( ABC News: Emma Alberici )

His words and posture are convincing and he points to KPC's decision to donate 1 per cent of its profits each year to scientific research.

This underscores the fact that, for all its challenges, Kuwait is a rich country born of wealth generated from being the world's fifth largest oil producer.

So wealthy the government can charge zero taxes and provide free education and healthcare for all. (The National Assembly is currently debating the introduction of a 5 per cent GST-style consumption tax, and a flat 15 per cent income tax to compensate for an oil price that is just a third of what it was eight years ago.)

Its generosity extends to beyond its borders, with a foreign aid budget that represents 8 per cent of GDP (26 times more generous than Australia's).

Following instructions in the scriptures of Islam, Kuwaiti families also donate the equivalent of 2.5 per cent of their gross savings and assets to local charities every year.

When I asked how that was enforced, I was told God is their policeman — at which point I was reminded that so much of this Muslim state takes its cues from Islamic teachings.

It's an alcohol-free country, dancing is forbidden in public, men can and still do take up to four wives, abortion is illegal, you can be imprisoned for being a member of the LGBTIQ community, and the current Emir Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah (like all the others before him) won't recognise the state of Israel.

There's no question Kuwait is an advanced country but it's not Western and has no aspiration to be so.

ABC broadcaster and host of Lateline Emma Alberici was a guest of the Kuwaiti embassy.