For instance, Wolf would no doubt argue that those who strive to reduce their personal carbon footprint are well-meaning but naive, since such actions have a minuscule global impact, and in any case tend to put the emphasis on sacrifice for the greater good, which for all the reasons laid out in his column will never be a universally attractive approach to tackling the problem.

Similarly, Wolf would probably argue that grassroots political activism is also well-meaning but misplaced, since the record shows that politics will not solve this problem. When politicians are forced to choose between tackling climate change and economic growth, they always choose growth, with all its deleterious environmental consequences.

Perhaps I'm extrapolating too much from a single column, but it seems that, for Wolf, there is very little for concerned citizens to do. They just have to wait for the clean energy technology to come along that will solve the problem. Their role is to be consumers, and that's all.

So here's my question: if political activism is pointless and 'greening your lifestyle' is tokenistic and sends the wrong message about how the climate change problem will ultimately be addressed, what options are left for concerned citizens? What's the most meaningful thing an individual can do to tackle climate change? Email your suggestions to blogeditor@lowyinstitute.org.

Photo by Flickr user Kris Krug.

In round figures, DFAT's 2013/4 budget is $1.6 billion compared to AusAID's budget of $5.5 billion and Defence's $25 billion and counting. Given that diplomacy is a country's first line of defence (talk is more effective than war), we could buy more national security by diverting the cost of even a pair of Lockheed Martin F-35 semi-stealth fighters towards more professional representation abroad. But do the Canberra bean-counters see this? Certainly not, it seems in Treasury or on Russell Hill.

But how lacking in influence really is DFAT? Last week, senior officers came to Sydney and had a day of consultations at the Intercontinental Hotel with what they termed 'civil society'. On the agenda were some of Australia's key overseas concerns: Afghanistan, DPRK, the Middle East, Africa, and then workshops on key partners, including Korea, Japan, India, Indonesia and China. All sessions were well attended by members of the business community in Sydney and NGOs. Energy levels were high, a bit like Lowy luncheons but more so.

Then, also last week in Canberra, DFAT had another all-day session at Casey House with civil society, this time on what we should be aiming to achieve during the next two years as a non-permanent member of the Security Council. More high energy discussion with another crowd of NGOs (not so many business people). Very good and productive vibes everywhere. At a reception at Parliament House, Bob Carr later told us that all these meetings were an initiative of the Department, not his. The meetings are being replicated around Australia, presumably at the initiative of the Department's new Secretary, Peter Varghese.

At a separate session a couple of us had with the Deputy Secretary for Strategy at Defence at Russell Hill, he repeatedly deferred to DFAT as the people to talk to about Australia's nuclear policies.

Despite its chronic budget problems, none of this supports the contention that DFAT is out of the policy loop, or behind the policy eight ball.

When even the former Chinese Premier describes the growth model as 'unsteady, unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable', it's easy to agree that things need to change. Indisputably, there is always a challenge in transition. 

But China has often confounded its critics, avoiding foretold disasters and diverging from unsustainable paths. As already noted, the export-driven growth model has been replaced. The current-account surplus has been reduced from over 10% of GDP to 2.5%. The real exchange rate (adjusted for inflation to give a measure of international competitiveness) has appreciated by around 25% in the past five years. Comparing real wages would show an even larger adjustment of competitiveness. Despite sclerotic banks and a shambolic shadow banking sector, China has so far avoided a financial implosion.

Boosting consumption can't be done overnight (and so far the transformation has hardly registered in the macro figures, even though real wages and disposable income are both rising faster than GDP). But arranging for the population to increase its consumption seems a less daunting task than those faced by Europe (where the talk is 'austerity, from here to eternity'), the US (where taxes have to rise and social security and health-care spending have to fall), or Japan (where official debt is well over 200% of GDP and rising).

It's worth noting that this transition has been done before, famously by Japan, but more recently by Singapore, which adjusted from a similarly investment-dominated growth model. Moreover, China doesn't have to stop investing. With annual GDP growth at around 7%, China would need investment close to 30% of GDP just to keep the capital/output ratio stable, and on top of this has to narrow the huge shortfall in its capital-per-worker compared with advanced countries.

Any realistic forecaster would accept that there are many potential mis-steps ahead for China. China will have to do something about pollution, and this will be costly without adding to output. No doubt a good proportion of past investment projects wouldn't pass a rigorous cost-benefit test. But then again, neither would the Sydney Harbour Bridge, with its grossly-excessive capacity when it was built in 1930.

The missing element from the low growth narrative is that unemployment would rise, provoking a stimulatory policy response. China would extend the transition and put up with low-return investment (recall that when unemployment was the issue, Keynes was prepared to put people to work digging holes and filling them in) rather than have unemployment rise sharply. To be convincing, the low-growth scenario needs to explain why this policy response will not be effective.

Somehow most countries muddle through with sub-optimal policies, bumpy transitions and more corruption and incompetence than is optimal. Doom merchants and drama queens can be wrong again and again, and then claim clairvoyance if their bottom-line forecast eventually comes to pass, for whatever reason.

Growth-sustaining reform is underway. The frustration for policy-makers everywhere is that they have to be right all the time to silence their critics. The Chinese may feel that the bar is being set higher for them than for others in a very imperfect world.

Queensland is the state that does the most business with Papua New Guinea and is at the pointy end of Australian interactions with PNG's health crisis. Campbell Newman's visit, with its focus on business, health and police cooperation will probably have more immediate practical impact for Papua New Guineans than the agreements signed by the two Prime Ministers. The memorandum signed between Premier Newman and PNG Prime Minister Peter O'Neill calls for face-to-face meetings between PNG and Queensland every six months, something that Prime Minister Gillard could not promise.

Newman's commitments on behalf of Queensland are a good thing because they serve to further broaden and deepen the relationship. They should be seen as an integral part of the bilateral relationship, even if not driven by Canberra.

To her great credit, Prime Minister Gillard seized the opportunity in Port Moresby to champion the rights of women in Papua New Guinea, raising it during her state dinner speech and announcing a PNG Women in Business initiative. As I've argued previously in these pages, the first female Australian Prime Minister has responsibility to advocate for PNG's women, who endure appalling levels of domestic violence. 

Australian women are themselves standing in solidarity with PNG women, holding events to coincide with protests by women in Papua New Guinea itself. Encouraging more Australian women politicians on both sides of politics to provide personal support, with the assistance of the aid program, to their counterparts in the PNG parliament and to aspiring women politicians could be beneficial. More regular opportunities such as these meetings of women parliamentarians would help.

Papua New Guinea also has a responsibility to build momentum in the relationship. Prime Minister O'Neill is a frequent visitor to Australia and has demonstrated he knows us well and feels comfortable being frank with the Australian Government. He needs to maintain the high level attention he's captured from Canberra by staying in regular touch with the Australian prime minister and senior ministers. O'Neill's own children study in Australia, part of the next generation of PNG's friends of Australia, and representing the Prime Minister's personal stake in the bilateral relationship.

PNG's investments in Australia total $1.8 billion, which interestingly far exceeds the amount of annual Australian aid given to PNG ($463 million). Australia is also the most popular destination for PNG students completing their tertiary studies abroad, with 1268 students from PNG studying in Australia, mostly at post-graduate level, in 2012. Leveraging these elements of the bilateral relationship will help the PNG Government strengthen its influence in Australia.

Investing in this new stage of the relationship with Australia will help PNG establish itself as a modern and reputable partner and increase opportunities for PNG to broaden its bilateral relationships with other countries.

Photo by Flickr user UN Women Asia & the Pacific.

The recent meeting between the UK prime minister and the US president was friendly but ended as two friends agreeing to disagree. Cameron wants intervention in Syria to make the situation better, while Obama is of a mind that intervention will make things worse. In some quarters of the UK press, there is growing disquiet over the UK's robust stance regarding the rebels, as this cartoon shows.

The opposition is no longer winning the information war

One thing that has assisted the recent uprisings in other Arab states is the democratisation of media; anybody could be a reporter and the state could no longer monopolise information. The same held true in Syria, and the Assad regime was particularly poor in the social media space earlier in the conflict. Some pro-government footage did appear on YouTube if you looked hard enough, but Western journalists embedded with rebel groups portrayed a picture of a violent regime using heavy weapons to kill lightly armed opposition forces. Accusations of government atrocities and unverified scenes that supported the rebel narrative dominated social media.

But something has changed these past few months, and opposition elements are increasingly being portrayed in as bad a light as the regime. Be it summary executions or the now infamous rebel mutilation of a Syrian soldier's body, footage of such atrocities is doing untold damage to the opposition's cause as audiences begin to wonder if there are any 'good guys' in the conflict. This plays into the government's narrative.

People want accountability of weapons

There are reports that the opposition is demanding the provision of serious arms before it will consider attending any talks with the regime. At the same time, there is a widely held belief, particularly in London, Paris and a number of Middle Eastern capitals, that simply by arming 'the good guys', victory is attainable. 

There are, of course, some significant problems with this line of thinking. First is the simple fact that unless the West provides people to account for the weapons at point of use (ie. inside Syria), you lose control over them as soon as you sign them across. Western governments won't provide people to do this work ,yet their constituents will demand accountability for the weapons they are paying for.

This piece illustrates the shallowness of the analysis regarding the weapons issues by some in the UK. The unnamed Foreign Office official cited in the article says supplying weapons to vetted groups is necessary because 'everyone except the good guys' have weapons. But later the official claims he was 'not saying that the answer to that is necessarily throwing a bunch of arms in there'.The fact that he could advocate weaponising elements of the opposition while saying that weapons were not the answer really illustrates why supplying arms to the opposition doesn't make sense.

And even if these states did provide weapons to some as yet unnamed rebel groups, there is a very strong argument that this will increase, rather than reduce, the death toll. That was the argument used by Europeans governments against the UK PM when he was all Rambo about arming the 'vetted' rebels. And this blog post with accompanying graph gives further pause for thought regarding the impact that more weapons could have on Syria. 

This excellent Foreign Policy piece gives further reasons why arming rebels hasn't worked particularly well in the past for the US, and why Obama is much more cautious on the issue than Cameron.

To some extent DFAT brings this down upon itself, both avoidably and unavoidably: avoidably since it seems to me that too many of its ministers and secretaries have not wanted to engage in the infighting that other departments see as their meat and drink. Unavoidably since both DFAT's ministers and its personnel spend so much of their time abroad, which automatically sets them apart from their fellow ministers and from the rest of the public service. There are exceptions to this generalisation, but to start justifying my comments in detail would probably be actionable.

Too often ministers have either had no heart for pushing the Department's barrow or have become so consumed with particular projects that fighting the Department's corner was something they neglected to do. When I joined what was then External Affairs in the pre-Cambrian age (1958), RG Casey was the minister and there were so few of us trainees (five) that we all spent a week in the minister's office in the first year of our training. It was during my week that Casey said to me (and my memory is clear on this quote) after complaining about the budget that 'I'm not going to argue with (Treasurer) Fadden; the man's not a gentleman.'

Of course there have been exceptions, but there has always been a tendency on the part of DFAT officers to feel that they are different — as indeed they are, in many ways. But particularly at lower levels, this sometimes exacerbates dislike and disdain among other public servants.

Photo by Flickr user R/DV/RS.

In Theory of International Politics, Waltz turned from destruction to construction and tried to do two things. First, he argued that the behaviour of states was best explained by the third 'image'. The structure of the international system, he argued, conditioned and thus explained state behaviour. Because that structure is anarchical, lacking a sovereign to make and enforce the law, cooperation between states was difficult and competition endemic.

Because the states that make up the system are equal in formal terms, but very unequal in their capabilities, being rich and strong or poor and weak or somewhere in between, they do however sometimes cooperate to balance against particularly powerful states that threaten others. Because of anarchy, states seek to maximise their power to provide for their own security; because of hierarchy, they sometime ally to maintain the balance of power.

Second, Waltz tried to show how international relations theorists ought to do their job. He argued – much to the continuing disgust of many political scientists – that theories are not built by painstakingly testing hypothesis after hypothesis. Even if a hypothesis is proved true (or at least, statistically most likely), the result, Waltz insisted, was a description, not an explanation. Theory must go further, and explain why regularities or correlations occur. 'To form a theory', he wrote, 'requires envisioning a pattern where none is visible to the naked eye.'

These arguments have provoked almost as much debate over the past thirty years as Waltz's 'structural realist' explanation of international relations. Equally controversial was his claim, made in a famous monograph published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, that more nuclear weapons 'may be better'.

This argument captured the provocative, sometime contrary, always rigorous essence of Waltz. If the advent of nuclear weapons had led to more than three decades of peace between two implacably-opposed superpowers, Waltz asked, why not let other states acquire them? Perpetual peace could be achieved not by federation, as Kant thought, but by proliferation. A few bombs each would be enough, Waltz thought, to deter even the most fervently ideological, reckless or feckless leader from attacking their neighbours.

It was this logic that drove him last year to champion – in the august pages of Foreign Affairs, no less – an Iranian bomb.

There is much in Waltz's work to disagree with, and many have dissented from his theories. But there is no questioning the power of his thinking or the sheer weight of his contribution to the field, which was truly extraordinary.

For example, in one of the chapters in the book, which emerged from another Interpreter article, I write about Rogerio Lobato, a gregarious polyglot former Minister of Interior and ex-jailbird. Despite his fall from grace, I show just how connected (and thus influential) he is by kinship and history to many in the small and tightly bound Timorese elite. This byzantine tangle of family relationships, friendships, romances, and antagonisms render the application of concepts such as 'good governance' extremely difficult.

A case involving Rogerio's niece will be a test of one central objective of Australia's development assistance: the rule of law. The woman in question, former Justice Minister Lucia Lobato, seems to be waging a campaign from inside prison to undermine the justice system over which she used to preside.

The story begins with her mislaying her mobile phone in 2008, the phone eventually landing in the hands of Jose Belo, a crusading investigative journalist and Dili's answer to Bob Woodward. The phone contained chummy text messages between Lucia and the head of a company that won a series of contracts being tendered by her Ministry. Although probably a cause for resignation in many other parts of the world, Lobato threatened Belo with jail for defamation, a case that was eventually dropped. She remained Minister of Justice for another three years, loudly denying the allegations before her immunity from prosecution was eventually taken away.

Last year, Lobato was found guilty of pocketing money relating to the contracts. A succession of appeals were unsuccessful and she was sent to prison for five years, giving her plenty of opportunity to check out the couture of the prison guards' uniforms, the very contract which had landed her there in the first place. 

The conviction seemed a validation of the Timorese justice system's ability to try a case involving a member of the political elite. But now, only a few months into her sentence, Lobato is doing her best to cut short her prison tenure. She's written to the bishops, and an opposition MP alleged she has been calling and SMSing Timor's chief justice (you think she would have learned her lesson about mobile phones by now).

She's been rushed to hospital in Dili complaining of high blood pressure and there are reports of her needing to go to Singapore for treatment. Last week, rumours swirled on a prominent Timorese blog that her family was lobbying for her to be pardoned.

Severe allergic reaction to incarceration in Timor-Leste's jails is something of a family condition. Her uncle Rogerio himself was flown out of the country in 2007 courtesy of a Lear Jet lent by the government of Kuwait. Former president Jose Ramos Horta subsequently pardoned him.

To be sure, Lucia Lobato has, like many Timorese, led a life of almost inconceivable tragedy. She once told an interviewer that she had lost her mother and all her siblings during the occupation; they were rounded up, flown away in an Indonesian helicopter and never seen again. She was a dogged campaigner for Timorese independence for many years.

But what happens in this case will be a test of the strength of the institutions that she as Justice Minister committed herself to strengthen. Wiggling out of jail time hardly seems to square with the lofty statements attributed to her office in the 2011-2030 justice sector strategic plan:

The justice sector plays a crucial role in the efforts made to consolidate peace and stability, guarantee the Rule of Law and promote accountability and transparency. 

Were these words dreamt up just to satisfy donors or were they what she really believed?

It's too late to add these latest shenanigans to my book but there are many ways to follow the story. Jose Belo still acts as a one-man accountability machine with his boisterous Tempo Semanal newspaper and website. The Diak ka Lae blog is always thoughtful and the news aggregating website Timor Hau Nian Doben, which publishes in English, Tetun and Portuguese, is also worth checking.

Photo by Flickr user scratchpost.

More importantly, the 2008 constitution would have to be amended. Other parts of the charter are relevant, but the main obstacle to an Aung San Suu Kyi presidency is clause 59(f). Under this provision, the president cannot have any children who are the citizens of a foreign country, nor can their children's spouses be foreigners. Aung San Suu Kyi's two sons are British subjects and both are married to non-Burmese citizens. Until this clause is amended, she cannot become president — as was doubtless its intention.

Consideration is being given to amending the constitution. Aung San Suu Kyi has declined to discuss the possibility of specific changes to clause 59(f), but it is apparently a subject of debate within official circles. The Government has stated that it does not have a problem with Aung San Suu Kyi becoming president, but the majority Union Solidarity Development Party (USDP) has expressed opposition to the idea. Under the first scenario, however, more than 75% of the parliament would vote in favour of the relevant amendment, clearing the way for Aung San Suu Kyi to be a candidate.

The final step in this process would be for the president to be chosen by an electoral college consisting of members of both houses of the national parliament. Assuming the successful amendment of the constitution, and an NLD landslide in the 2015 elections, this should not present any real problems. Even if opposed by the 25% of parliament reserved for serving military officers, the NLD should have the numbers to vote Aung San Suu Kyi into the country's highest office, probably in early 2016.

The second — and possibly more likely — scenario delivers a completely different result.

The Tatmadaw has loosened its grip on national politics, but it remains the most powerful political institution in the country. The constitution guarantees it a leading role in Burma's national affairs, something Commander in Chief Min Aung Hlaing reaffirmed at the annual Armed Forces Day parade in March. Should the military leadership and its supporters in government and parliament oppose Aung San Suu Kyi's elevation, then it is difficult to see her becoming president.

The easiest way for them to prevent her candidacy would be to oppose any changes to clause 59(f) in the constitution. The legal requirement for 'more than' 75% of all MPs to vote in favour of an amendment gives the military bloc an effective veto over constitutional change.

The Tatmadaw's views about Aung San Suu Kyi are mixed. Past voting patterns suggest that many in the ranks support her and support the NLD's campaign for a genuine democracy. But others seem to worry that she plans to reduce defence spending, dismantle the apparatus that has sustained the armed forces for decades, remove the protections granted by the constitution and deny them their guardianship role. Some officers are reportedly also concerned about her closeness to foreign powers and her past readiness to use them to support her domestic political agenda, for example by imposing economic sanctions.

Other presidential candidates are likely also to play a role. Despite poor health, Thein Sein may seek a second term. Another contender could be Shwe Mann, Chairman of the USDP and Speaker of the lower house. Tatmadaw chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing may also throw his hat into the ring. As former or serving generals, all three would probably be considered safer bets by the armed forces hierarchy than a civilian democrat leading a fractious and inexperienced party which has been highly critical of the former military government and its carefully crafted constitution.

All this is known to Aung San Suu Kyi. It has probably been with such issues in mind that she has publicly acknowledged the Tatmadaw's important political role and its autonomy in military affairs. While calling for constitutional amendments to strengthen democracy in Burma, she has tried to reassure the armed forces leadership that she does not pose a threat to their interests. This has alienated some of her supporters but, if she manages to win the Tatmadaw's trust, it would maintain the momentum of the current reform program and possibly help open the path to the presidency.

Rumours are swirling around Burma at present about various deals that would permit the relevant part of the constitution to be amended prior to the national elections. However, 2015 is still a long way off, and such an outcome is far from certain. Aung San Suu Kyi becoming president, and leading a government and a parliament dominated by the NLD, is not a prospect that everyone in Burma looks upon favourably. Over the next two years, the only guarantee is that there will be more than a few people working hard to prevent that from happening.

China's military muscle, the impact of its aid and its loans, its investment and its diplomatic leverage are commonly mentioned by analysts and officials interested in China's role in the region, who also speculate that China has geo-strategic ambitions in the Pacific Islands. Writings on China's influence in the Pacific Islands can be found here, here, here, here, here and at the Lowy Institute itself.

Yet a review of the three main elements of China's engagement with the region – trade and investment, aid, and diplomatic and military ties – provide a weak case for the argument that China is challenging Australia's dominance.

China is the region's second largest bilateral trading partner, but at US$2 billion, the value of its two-way trade is only about one-third of the value of Australia's trade with the region. Chinese investors are competing in, not dominating, an increasingly crowded business environment, which includes investors from Australia, New Zealand, the US, France, Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea, the Philippines and Japan. Australian investment in Papua New Guinea alone is worth just over A$16 billion, almost as much as Australia's investment in China itself.

China's aid program to the region has attracted significant attention, not least at the Lowy Institute itself, which published four reports on Chinese aid in the Pacific Islands from 2008 to 2011. But my report, which draws on new research conducted by Lowy Institute Research Associate Philippa Brant for her published PhD, shows that China is only the fifth-largest donor in the region. 

The complexities surrounding the various agencies charged with delivering China's aid make it difficult to extract accurate annual records, so looking at five-year totals of expenditure is more likely to give an accurate representation of China's expenditure. A comparison with OECD donors over the 2006-2011 period shows that Australia is by far the lead donor in the region, disbursing US$4.8 billion over five years, followed by the US (US$1.27 billion), New Zealand (US$899.3 million), Japan (US$868.8 million), China (US$850 million), France (US$718 million) and EU institutions (US$595.8 million). Australia devotes 23% of its aid to the region compared with China's 4%.

China has invested in its diplomatic network in the Pacific and wined and dined Pacific leaders. But in a competitive vote-buying environment, there is no evidence that China's diplomats are any more successful in persuading Pacific Island governments to support China's international policies than the diplomats of other countries seeking Pacific Island votes in the UN or elsewhere.

China's military assistance to the region is limited to the provision of uniforms and non-lethal equipment and the refurbishment of barracks for the defence forces of Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Tonga. This pales in comparison to the A$53 million Australia spends on defence cooperation with Pacific Islands and the A$130 million spent on operations securing the neighbourhood.

China is engaged in economic competition in the region and there are undoubtedly significant benefits on offer for Pacific Islands countries from their close proximity to the global centre of economic gravity. Impressive GDP growth rates in Melanesian countries over the last five to ten years is testament to that. But there are also risks to absorbing a rapid rise of economic interest from China and other Asian countries; debt distress and a crowding out of local small business are two.

Australia's dominant role in the region is not under threat from China. Rather than speculating on China's future ambitions, Australia's priority should be to assist Pacific Island countries to maximise the economic benefits of China's new role, while helping to minimise the negative consequences that flow from some of China's commercial and development activities in the region. Australia's new strategic partnership with China could offer an opportunity to have more constructive conversations with China about our region.

Photo by Flickr user Ostrosky Photos.

The Government will achieve savings of $88.4 million over six years...from a temporary reduction in Canberra-based positions in 2013-14...

This is on top of the 100 or more positions cut last year.*

Looking at the actual numbers (which always conceal a complex array of factors like foreign exchange movements, parameter adjustments for overseas inflation and so on), the overall departmental budget will increase by $32 million to $1.698 billion, less than $1 billion of which is provided by government appropriations, and over $300 million of which was left over from the previous year's appropriations. The increase – 1.9% — is less than CPI. By comparison, Australia's development assistance budget will hit $5.6 billion this year and we will spend $25 billion on defence. 

Foreign Minister Bob Carr gets irritable every time a commentator questions him on the 'parlous state' of DFAT's budget. 'The adjective parlous should be discarded, repudiated, torn up, stamped on', he told reporters in Canberra. Having duly done as instructed, I need another word for the state of DFAT's resourcing and the level of attention given to it by government. 'Perilous' might do.

* Clarification: although staff numbers will be temporarily reduced in Canberra in 2013-14, overall staffing levels (ASL) will rise by 57 positions during the same FY.

Photo by Flickr user Halans.

The Council meets behind closed doors and formal decisions are made through consensus. No voting takes place. Sticky issues like that of China's role are discussed in smaller groups of diplomats and ministers. China, an ad hoc observer since 2009, has lobbied hard to win support for its application. All five Nordic countries have publicly endorsed Beijing's application. Where Washington stands on the issue of permanent observers is unclear.

As a major power, China views as natural its participation in discussions about future Arctic governance structures. Chinese scholars have started to refer to China as a 'near-Arctic state' and an 'Arctic stakeholder' in an effort to emphasise that the melting ice will have a profound effect on countries that are not Arctic states. The effects of global warming on the Arctic environment will indeed affect agriculture in countries like China and potentially transform global shipping routes.

Then there are the energy and mineral resources under the Arctic seabed. Widely varying estimates of these deposits abound, as do exaggerated predictions of their accessibility. The identifiable resources are located within state borders or the universally agreed upon 200-nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone of the coastal states and thus not subject to dispute.

Only some years ago few people had ever even heard of the Arctic Council. It is not a formal international organisation with a firm legal charter. Rather, it is an intergovernmental forum, established in 1996, to enhance cooperation on environmental issues and the rights of indigenous peoples. To date, the Arctic Council has agreed on one binding accord, on search and rescue. Another one is expected to be announced in Kiruna.

The hype about China's permanent observer bid is far-fetched. It's not as if the Arctic Council has far-flung powers. Swedish Arctic Ambassador Gustaf Lind's comment at a gathering of Arctic experts last November is telling: one of the achievements of the Sweden's two-year Arctic Council chairmanship has been to ensure that document pages are now numbered.

The hype reflects two anxieties. Or, to quote Dr Kristian Kristensen of the University of Copenhagen, twin fears are feeding each other. China evokes anxiety because no one knows what kind of power China will evolve into over the coming decades. And there is uncertainty and anxiety about the consequences of the melting Arctic ice.

Rejecting China's desire to participate as an observer in discussions pertaining to the Arctic future is not a sensible approach. As I have argued, Arctic Council member states can both protect their own interests and support permanent observer status for China and others. By backing China's application, Arctic Council members would give up little in the way of direct influence on Arctic matters, while benefiting from substantial discussions with Beijing to better understand its Arctic intentions. Furthermore, engaging China more deeply in Arctic Council activities will encourage Beijing to pay serious attention to legitimate environmental concerns pertaining to shipping and possible resource exploration in the fragile Arctic environment.

Photo by Flickr user NASA Goddard Photo and Video.

The degree of participation by the victim in the reparation cost is determined by their responsibility for causing the mishap in the first place, though the Consular Law acknowledges that in almost all cases, the victims cannot reimburse the state for 100% of expenses because such cost is often impossible to compute exactly and is normally too high for most victims.

What does this mean in practice? Even though the new law is not on the books yet, the aforementioned case of the young Zurich Police Force couple was used as an application. The authorities first determined the level of financial compensation in this particular case, taking into account the degree of carelessness (high) and a realistic look at the actual and future financial situation of the couple (rather low). They were given the choice of either paying SFR 10,000 each or else doing voluntary work in the form of public seminars about avoiding unnecessary risks when traveling.

Many saw this as getting off very lightly. But in the words of a former colleague from the Swiss MFA who accompanied the couple in their swing through Swiss civic forums, it did force them to face their painful memories of falling prey to local hijackers and then being sold to a Taliban group which terrorised them repeatedly with mock executions during the complicated negotiations leading to their release.

Hopes by more affluent but reckless travelers that private insurance coverage will take care of whatever is imposed on them by the new law will be disappointed. The whole question of compensation only comes up in cases where victims carry an elevated degree of responsibility, meaning that insurers in all likelihood will refuse to pay in the first place.

Of course victims who get into their predicament abroad entirely without fault of their own will be rescued by the state without any recourse to them, just as the police doesn't charge victims of crime for any expense incurred.

Finally, the new law will also enshrine an electronic device which, similar to the Australian app Alex refers to in her paper, is already functioning. Any Swiss citizen traveling abroad can record their travel and personal data with Itineris, a hotline of the Swiss MFA.

In some cases (eg. the Japan tsunami) Itineris has already functioned, with results. However, Fukushima is an example of how desirable it is for a country to impose consular registration duties on its citizens when they depart for a longer period. Japan is normally not a high risk country for travelers, so there was relatively little data on Itineris. The large majority of potential Swiss victims of the tsunami were registered longer-term Japan residents, which helped with their tracking in the aftermath of the tsunami.

Yet there are no penalties meted out to those who don't register. In Australia, for example, the number of Swiss citizens registered is some 22,000, even though the real figure of longer term Swiss residents in Australia is probably well above 30,000.

Photo by Flickr user MJ&LM Ryan.

6. Should you offer solutions? Another toughie. Many op-eds identify a policy problem, but don't say anything about how to fix it (in fact, you could argue that op-eds have no real-world value whatsoever).

If you do want to suggest a solution to a policy problem, make sure it's practical. A dead giveaway for impractical solutions is when a writer appeals to 'political will' or 'leadership' to solve a given problem. 'Political will' is like policy fairy dust, to be sprinkled over any problem, no matter how bafflingly complex, controversial and intractable. So if your op-ed argues for urgent breakthroughs in climate change, energy security and non-proliferation, don't go on to say that 'in all these areas political will and global leadership are vital', because then we'll know you don't really have any idea how to fix these things. (BTW, that's an actual quote from a Kevin Rudd essay.)

7. If you don't know the solution to a given problem, why not try saying so?

Sometimes the most honest and helpful thing a writer can do is to acknowledge that some problems are insoluble, that life is hard and there aren’t going to be any answers, that he’s just as screwed-up and clueless as the rest of us.

8. Find a 'hook'. The obvious way to do this is to write about some current news event, which allows you to ride off the publicity which that topic is receiving. But the news media is not always right about what's important, so if you want to write about something that's not getting any media attention, you need to tell busy readers quickly and compellingly why they should care.

9. Look for a conceptual scoop. You're not a journalist, so the chances that you are going to uncover a scandal which has been hidden from the public are low. And even if you did, the story would belong on the news pages, not the opinion section.

But not all scoops are about publicising secrets. Where you as an analyst excel is in lending new meaning to facts that are in plain view. For instance, Lowy Military Fellow James Brown had a scoop in January with his discovery of a maths error in the National Security Statement. And last week in the US, New York magazine published a contrarian take on the Obama Administration's environmental record which upended the conventional wisdom. In both cases, the scoop consisted in creating new meaning from existing information rather than unearthing new facts.

10. Don't demolish straw men: look for the strongest arguments against your case, and present them fairly.

Photo by Flickr user Drew Coffman.

Cosgrove says that after a busy decade of operations overseas the ADF needs modernisation. Former Chief of the Defence Force Admiral Chris Barrie similarly expresses concern about the impact of ongoing cuts to the capability of the ADF: 'if you keep cutting into the defence budget you will inevitably lead us down the path to a second rate defence force'.

Fairfax's International Editor Peter Hartcher concludes it is a 'serious national error' to reduce defence funding to the lowest levels since World War II, and The Australian's defence editor Brendan Nicholson concludes that 'if we are going to modernise the defence force then clearly the budget will need to be increased'. But Ian McPhedran points to waste and excess still to be found in the defence budget, noting a tendency for Defence to go for 'gold-plated' solutions.   

My own view is that Australia pays too much for the military capability we have, and not nearly enough for the future military capability our government says it wants, and which we will in all likelihood need.

It's quite clear is that there is a strong consensus among defence and strategic experts about a widening gap between defence funding and defence aspirations. Two options emerge: lower government expectations about what the ADF can do in the Asian century, or increase the defence budget.

Between the bipartisan aspiration to fund defence at 2% of GDP and current levels stands a gap of approximately $7.5 billion. Neither major party is willing to invest the political capital to make up this shortfall, nor do I think there is sufficient domestic political pressure to force them to do so. But sooner or later government will have to own the consequences of what Peter Jennings calls a 'two-card trick' on defence funding.

The Defence in Depth video series has been produced by Lowy Institute interns Dougal Robinson and Nirupam Gupta.

Indonesia illustrates the issues. Its energy subsidy, calculated as the difference between the domestic price and the international market price, is now nearly 4% of GDP and accounts for over 20% of budget expenditure, about the same as what's spent on education. Petrol costs less than 50c a litre at present and even if the much-delayed increase goes ahead, this will rise to just over 60c.

Many oil producers rationalise high subsidy levels by arguing that low petrol prices distribute the nation's own wealth. However even this misguided argument doesn't fit the reality: Indonesia was a petroleum exporter until 2004 but declining domestic production (now not much more than half of peak production) and the spectacular rise in motor vehicles has changed that, and Indonesia now imports more than 20% of its petroleum needs, with this figure growing quickly. Subsidised petroleum is also used to generate electricity, with consumption growing fast as the middle class turns to air conditioning.

No matter how compelling the economic case, raising petrol prices is politically traumatic. There is some history here. One element of IMF conditionality during the 1997-8 crisis was the removal of fuel subsidies. The rise in petrol price helped trigger the huge demonstrations which led to President Soeharto's resignation in May 1998. Since then, every attempt to raise petrol prices brings the students onto the streets again.

It can be argued that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is unduly cautious, because the petrol price was raised in 2005 and 2008 without toppling his government. He is towards the end of his last presidential term, and perhaps has less reason to worry about his personal popularity. But there is substantial parliamentary opposition. The economic case has never won the day.

Indonesia is far from alone in subsidising fuel. At least on 2010 figures, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Brunei, Pakistan and Bangladesh all have larger subsidies relative to GDP. Moreover, this is not the whole story of just how underpriced petroleum is. The price should really be set high enough to allow for the negative externalities of petroleum consumption (principally the environmental damage).

What can't be disputed is that energy subsidies are a key part of an intractable longer-term global issue. Looking ahead, petroleum seems the scarcest of the energy sources. Thus it is sensible to shift demand to other sources. But if progress is made in reducing petroleum subsidies, more electricity will be produced from coal.

And overshadowing this narrative is the uncomfortable reality that the debate has not yet seriously addressed how the globe will cope with the energy demands of the countries which are now just at the start of the upward demand trajectory. If America's per capita electricity represents where the emerging countries are headed, China has a five-fold increase ahead of it and Indonesia a twenty-fold rise.

Photo by Flickr user JerryAdiguna.

But the G7 can no longer exert the same level of influence over the global economy that it did a decade ago. There was a time when the G7 was effectively the steering committee of the IMF, with regular conference calls of senior G7 finance officials deciding which countries would receive IMF loans and on what conditions. Those days have long gone.

A traditional area of policy coordination by the G7 was the management of exchange rates. For example, in 1985 there was the famous 'Plaza Accord', where coordinated intervention by advanced economies engineered a depreciation of the US dollar. March 2011 was the most recent occasion of coordinated exchange rate intervention by G7 countries. It was designed to weaken the Japanese yen, which unexpectedly been appreciating notwithstanding the expectation that a devastating earthquake would damage the economy. The intervention had a short-term impact in lowering the yen.

The situation was very different in February 2013, with concern over 'currency wars' in the wake of Japan's aggressive monetary expansion. G7 finance ministers issued a statement that was meant to signal that countries would not target a lower exchange rate in order to gain a competitive advantage. However, mixed signals were sent when some G7 officials said the statement was targeted at Japan while others said it was not. For a group that was meant to have a  record of successfully managing exchange rate movements, mixed signals caused market confusion. A clearer message on avoiding currency wars came from the meeting of G20 finance ministers on 17 February 2013. In the current environment, it is difficult to see the circumstances in which the G7 will again engage in coordinated exchange rate intervention.

One positive aspect of the recent meeting is that it was described as an informal gathering with no communiqué. As I noted in my post about writing better communiques, if there is nothing to say, don't say anything.

A continuing informal dialogue between G7 finance ministers can be useful. The focus should be on domestic policies, and there is much to discuss. For example, the US had signaled it would tell Germany to do more to revive growth. It would have been valuable if the US and Europe also discussed the need for greater consistency in implementing banking reforms. Chancellor Osborne said G7 ministers agreed to target tax evasion and called on the OECD to examine possible changes to transfer pricing rules. But this cannot be advanced by the G7 alone. G20 ministers have already called on the OECD to prepare an action plan by July 2013 to combat profit shifting to avoid tax. 

The G7 is only a sub-set of the global economy. Informal meetings can be useful, but the G7 alone cannot deal with global economic issues. The continuation of G7 finance ministers' meetings is not a threat to the G20.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.