Any comedy sketch that features the words 'Russian agriculture is in dire need of mechanisation' as a laugh line is good enough for this blog.

Enjoy the weekend.

It's interesting to read President Obama's remarks about the end of combat operations in Iraq in light of Peter Beinart's speech to the Lowy Institute last week. Beinart argued that the central mission of Obama's presidency is economic — to make America 'solvent' again. To do that, he has to get his country out of two expensive wars while trying to avoid looking wimpish to his Republican opponents.

There's enough in Obama's remarks to reinforce Beinart's thesis:

...our nation’s strength and influence abroad must be firmly anchored in our prosperity at home. And the bedrock of that prosperity must be a growing middle class. Unfortunately, over the last decade, we’ve not done what’s necessary to shore up the foundations of our own prosperity. We spent a trillion dollars at war, often financed by borrowing from overseas. This, in turn, has short-changed investments in our own people, and contributed to record deficits.

You can also detect it in the language Obama uses about Afghanistan:

We will disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda, while preventing Afghanistan from again serving as a base for terrorists. And because of our drawdown in Iraq, we are now able to apply the resources necessary to go on offense. In fact, over the last 19 months, nearly a dozen al Qaeda leaders -- and hundreds of al Qaeda’s extremist allies -- have been killed or captured around the world.

Within Afghanistan, I’ve ordered the deployment of additional troops who -- under the command of General David Petraeus -- are fighting to break the Taliban’s momentum. As with the surge in Iraq, these forces will be in place for a limited time to provide space for the Afghans to build their capacity and secure their own future. But, as was the case in Iraq, we can’t do for Afghans what they must ultimately do for themselves.

Notice that the word 'defeat' is only applied to al Qaeda. When it comes to the Taliban, the American mission is just to 'break its momentum'. That's immediately followed by a clear signal that the US wants to hand over to the locals. 

But as Beinart said, Obama hasn't yet laid the rhetorical groundwork for a withdrawal from Afghanistan. To do that, he needs to recast the terrorist threat, so that Americans are convinced it is safe to pull out. There's no hint of that in this speech.

Image courtesy of the White House.

A quick editorial note on the subtext that I detect in the post we published yesterday by Anna Reynolds, international adviser to Greens leader Bob Brown. 

Anna was defending Greens foreign policy against criticisms made by Shearer, Cook and to some degree myself (you can read every post in the debate here). But Anna declares early in her piece that the '750 or so words that have been allocated to me' are insufficient to rebut the arguments made in those posts, and she focuses instead on the Greens' parliamentary activism on foreign affairs.

It's not clear to me why 750 words is insufficient to even make a start at a rebuttal (Shearer's initial post was just over 600 words). And remember, this was Anna's second opportunity to address the criticisms — I also published her email last week, and on that occasion too, she chose to focus on the Greens parliamentary performance, an issue that was not raised in any of the critiques we published.

Personally, I congratulate the Greens on their parliamentary activism, and on securing Julia Gillard's agreement for a parliamentary debate on Afghanistan. But what Cook and Shearer criticised was the substance of Greens foreign policy. Those criticisms have still not been addressed.

With President Obama declaring the Iraq 'combat mission' officially over (though George Packer calls it 'a meaningless milestone, constructed almost entirely out of thin air'), this seems like a good moment for a personal reflection on the toll of war.

The voice you hear in this animation is of American Battle of the Bulge veteran Joseph Robertson.

 (H/t Daily What.)

Michael Wesley's two most recent posts have rearranged my mental furniture a little. It simply had never occurred to me that the US and Australia could wind up competing for influence in Indonesia, and that Australia might be on the losing side of such a competition.

I agree with Malcolm Cook that, were this scenario to come about, it would actually present a pretty benign picture for Australia. In fact, a future in which Australia has to deal with a strong Indonesia that is friendly to the US looks more attractive than the most obvious alternatives – a weak, fractious and poor Indonesia, or a unified and wealthy Indonesia that is hostile to the US.

And yes, Michael's scenario could leave Australia in a relatively weaker position, in economic and strategic terms. But if, in return, we get a politically stable, economically vibrant near neighbour that is close to the US, wouldn't we take that offer? What matters more for Australia: to be secure, or to be important?

Hugh White and others worry about a new parity of forces in such a scenario. As Michael summarises the current position, 'Indonesia has a huge army but small naval and air forces; Australia has a small army but potent naval and air capabilities.' That disparity works for both sides, but will change as Indonesia gets stronger.

• Further to Fergus' posts on the ICC's recent offensives: yet another press release today – this time, the ICC Registrar is going to Kenya.
• US weekly The National Review examines Australia's election. (Thanks to Andrew for the link.)
• Poorly made in China: CFR's Elizabeth Economy recommends 'one of the best business books on China that I have encountered in a long time.'
• They get around: while Fergus reports below on a Chinese naval visit to Vanuatu, one of the PLA Navy's most modern frigates recently visited Myanmar.
• Lessons for Afghanistan? Reader Will suggests this new book on how peacekeeping and peacebuilding failed in Congo. The author also wrote an article on the same theme for Foreign Affairs in 2008.
• Thanks to Judah for sending me this Turkish op-ed arguing that Turkey's annual military parade undermines its democracy. Military parades have been a recurring theme on The Interpreter.
• Novelist Nick Hornby tries to make sense of the universe, and reflects on the pointlessness of whatever writing project you happen to be working on (h/t Fallows):

That's The Browser's comment on this Spiegel interview with the foreign minister of Iran. 

Although you'd be hard pressed to say that the interview actually gets better than this explosive opening exchange, the whole thing is worth a read:

SPIEGEL: Mr. Foreign Minister, you are the senior diplomat of the Islamic Republic of Iran. You represent a nation that prides itself on a cultural history stretching back more than 2,500 years. Don't you find it shameful that people are stoned to death in your country?

Manouchehr Mottaki: You come from a country that murdered millions of people during a tyrannical war, and you want to talk to me about human rights?

(BTW, nice to see a senior Iranian official acknowledging that the Holocaust did happen, even if he is using it as a rather tasteless debating tactic. Mottaki now just needs to convince his boss.)

Jim Molan's list of Afghanistan questions begins with, 'Is the war winnable?' But this strategic question ought to be preceded by a grand-strategic one: Is the war worth winning?

Here are some other questions that flow from those five words:

• What are the most important issues facing Australia in the modern world, and does our Afghanistan commitment reflect these priorities? Should our military and diplomatic focus instead be on:
  • coping with the rising powers of Asia and the relative decline of the US?
  • preparing for Australia's own relative decline against fast-growing Southeast Asian economies?
  • reinforcing and encouraging Indonesia's transition to democracy and modernity?
  • building regional and international institutions that can guard Australia against strategic shocks, whether these be economic, strategic or environmental?
• At what point should Australia stop trying to build credits with the US through troop commitments, and instead serve the alliance by counseling US restraint?
• Should Australia try to convince the US — perhaps by withdrawing our forces — that the war is a strategic sideshow and that the US ought to focus its attention on rebuilding its economic strength so that it can remain a strong Pacific power?
• Will the terrorist threat diminish noticeably if we achieve our Afghanistan war aims, or will terrorists simply migrate to other lawless territories?
• If Australia's withdrawal did lead to an increased terrorist threat, could we live with that?
• In terms of counter-terrorism, what is the opportunity cost of the Afghanistan mission? Could the resources be better used to:
  • buttress our very successful regional counter-terrorism approach, which focuses on intelligence and policing?
  • do something about Australia's diplomatic deficit, given that diplomacy has been crucial to opening doors to regional counter-terrorism cooperation?
  • improve the resilience of Australian infrastructure against terrorist strikes?

The Interpreter is knocking off early today so that the technical wizards at Twisted Pear Concepts (who are pretty good at web design too) can move us to a new server. It's not that we're having technical problems. In fact, this is a good news story — we need to move in order to accommodate growing traffic to our site.

Users won't experience any change to the site, and The Interpreter will remain online while we make the switch. Regular posting resumes on Monday.

Photo by Flickr user StephenMitchell, used under a Creative Commons license.

• How have China and India managed to grow so quickly? Industry policy, according to this article. Have at it, Hayekians and Friedmanites!
• CCTV footage of a British woman throwing a cat in a rubbish bin has made worldwide headlines. But in Malaysia, 60 babies have been found abandoned this year alone, some in dumpsters and public toilets.
• When every other form of gadgetry in our world is getting cheaper, why are military weapons becoming so much more expensive?
• Beijing shrugged: how China marked its ascent to world's no.2 economy.
• Academic censorship in Singapore: an interview with the author of Singapore: A Biography.
• Walter Russell Mead has a devastating review of IPCC head Rajendra Pachauri's new novel (yes, he's a novelist too):

The intellectual vapidity and narcissistic self satisfaction of the book is unsurpassable. Politics, science, religion: characters spout the most shopworn cliches in the apparent belief that they are uttering profound truths.

Wednesday Lowy Lunch Club members were this week joined by American foreign policy commentator Peter Beinart, a regular columnist for The Daily Beast and author of The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris.

Peter is in Australia for the Melbourne Writer's Festival and came by the Lowy Institute to talk about his new book, which argues that American foreign policy is marked by periods of extreme over-confidence, the last one ending with President George W Bush. Listen to Peter's talk here, or below, listen to a short interview in which Peter explains why Barack Obama is America's real estate agent.

Photo by Flickr user jadam, used under a Creative Commons license.

The ABC has released a teaser of tonight's episode of 'Yes, We Canberra!', the political sketch comedy show by the Chaser team:

You can follow The Interpreter's discussion of Green foreign policy here.

Posts by Andrew Shearer and Malcolm Cook on some of the more eccentric foreign and trade policy positions adopted by the Australian Greens invite comparisons with one of the most successful Green parties in the world, Germany's Alliance '90/The Greens.

The peak of the German Greens' influence came under Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, when his deputy (and foreign minister) was the Greens' leader, Joschka Fischer. It was in this period that the Greens split over foreign policy, with Fischer supporting a NATO military intervention in Kosovo. The decision to decommission all of Germany's nuclear power plants by 2020 was a significant domestic victory for the Greens.

It's worth having a look at the German Greens' manifesto. The trade and foreign policy sections look much more moderate than that offered by the Australian Greens, and might be a sign of where the Australian party heads as it becomes more mainstream (or perhaps, if it wants to become more mainstream). Yes, there are vestiges of old-school socialist internationalism in the document, but here are a few notable quotes:

• The aim of sustainable development has to be anchored in the statutes of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank and reflected in the programmes they adopt.
• We support both the enlargement of the EU and the deepening of its internal integration.
• Globalisation opens up the historic opportunity to realise the humanist ideal: human beings are viewing themselves in a worldwide context of responsibility for and solidarity with each other – and acting accordingly.
• An important step towards a more equitable global economic order is the dismantling of tariff barriers in the industrialised nations.
• A relationship with the USA that – despite all our differences and disputes – remains close and cordial, and the readiness to nurture and renew our shared agenda, will be vitally important in the twenty-first century...
• We stand by Germany’s special relationship with Israel. We are also committed to keeping open the door to Europe for Turkey.

Photo by Flickr user Jack Bloom, used under a Creative Commons license.

'Fair Game' is a new movie, to be released in November, about the Valerie Plame affair. Plame was a covert CIA officer whose name the Bush Administration allegedly leaked to the media to damage her husband, who had spoken out publicly against the Administration's Iraq WMD claims.

Based on the trailer, it's hard to get exited about this one. It looks too much like a vanity project for Sean Penn, a well known Bush critic. And almost every Naomi Watts line is a cliché. Pass.

Here's something I didn't know about New York's World Trade Center towers (h/t Marginal Revolution):

(Architect Minoru) Yamasaki was following the Islamic tradition of wrapping a powerful geometric form in a dense filigree...According to Oleg Grabar, the great American scholar of Islamic art and architecture, the dense filigree of complex geometries alludes to a higher spiritual reality in Islam, and the shimmering quality of Islamic patterning relates to the veil that wraps the Qa'ba at Mecca. After the attack, Grabar spoke of how these towers related to the architecture of Islam, where "the entire surface is meaningful" and "every part is both construction and ornament." A number of designers from the Middle East agreed, describing the entire façade as a giant "mashrabiya," the tracery that fills the windows of mosques.

And there's a twist. The Bin Laden construction empire probably worked on several of Yamasaki's Saudi commissions. Hence...

Having rejected modernism and the Saudi royal family, it's no surprise that Bin Laden would turn against Yamasaki's work in particular. He must have seen how Yamasaki had clothed the World Trade Center, a monument of Western capitalism, in the raiment of Islamic spirituality.

Photos by Flickr users Jose P Isern Comas and Kevin H, used under a Creative Commons license. 

• To avoid the grasp of corrupt officials, Afghan soldiers are being paid by electronic transfer. Trouble is, most of them can't read their bank statements.
• Also on the Afghan Army, because of attrition rates, it will need to recruit 86,000 new people by next October to meet its growth target of 37,000 personnel.
• Peter Singer on an American idea: the think tank.
• The Australian Defence College's annual Chief of Defence Force Conference this year focuses on counterinsurgency. Register here.
• Uncommon wisdom about the strategic and economic significance of the Arctic.
• '(E)conomists complain all of the time that Governments never quite do what they want and if only they did things would be great. What happens then when an economist has control over his own little economy in the home?'
• To reduce harassment, Jakarta now has women-only train carriages.
• Jonah Lehrer on the psychology of power. Remind you of anyone? 

Surveys of organizations find that the vast majority of rude and inappropriate behaviors, such as the shouting of profanities, come from the offices of those with the most authority. Psychologists refer to this as the paradox of power. The very traits that helped leaders accumulate control in the first place all but disappear once they rise to power. Instead of being polite, honest and outgoing, they become impulsive, reckless and rude.

The Age's Diplomatic Editor, Daniel Flitton, says that, although winning the support of Greens and independents will be the key to whether Labor or the Liberal-National Coalition forms the new government, '(c)lose observers yesterday doubted Australia's role in the war (in Afghanistan) would be a bargaining chip'.

You could expand that to say that foreign policy generally will not be a big part of the upcoming negotiations with the independents. Alan Kohler has the best short summary I have seen on what will be the key issues. 

In fact, given that the new government is unlikely to want to cross the independents too early or too often, some areas of foreign policy controversy might simply be avoided for the whole term of government. For instance, Bob Katter's presence in a governing coalition could ensure that the next term won't be a golden age in Australian trade diplomacy. (The Greens, who have doubled their parliamentary representation and hold the balance of power in the Senate, are not exactly free trade enthusiasts either. More on the Greens' foreign policy views in an upcoming post.)

Mind you, as Kohler points out, the independents don't hold all the cards. They too have an interest in stable government, since they need to refill their coffers before fighting another election. And they won't have the staff resources to impose themselves on every piece of legislation.

'What about defence?', you ask. Again, it's not likely to come up, though here's an intriguing Katterism from last night's 7.30 Report:

Rural Australia is closing down. Ninety percent of the continent is occupied by not many more people than were here when Captain Cook arrived...(Black Jack McEwen) said, this great treasure, which is our country, I fear unless we occupy it, and develop its resources, that it will be taken off us.

By whom, Bob, by whom?

Photo by Flickr user ThePaperboy, used under a Creative Commons license.

In our coverage of the Australian election campaign, The Interpreter may have erred in assuming that international readers grasped the nuances of our political landscape as well as Australian readers do.

So just to retrospectively cover that line of criticism, here's an explanatory animated video from some crazy Taiwanese news service. (Thanks to Danielle for the link.)

Oh, and in case foreign readers were interested in the actual result, Australia has a hung parliament. More soon on the implications for Australia's place in the world.

Professor Robert Sutter, from the Asian Studies Department at Georgetown University, is visiting Australia, and he detects a deep concern about China in our national mood.

In his Wednesday lunch address to the Lowy Insitute, Professor Sutter gave his reasons for thinking that there are some big constraints on the growth of China's regional influence. Listen here, or get the highlights of his speech from the interview below.

Many of my colleagues have pointed out that foreign affairs, defence and foreign aid have barely figured in this election campaign. That is true, and it is regrettable.

But Graeme Dobell made the slightly broader point yesterday that the world has barely intruded on the campaign. It has been an intensely local affair. And not just on the issues, but in the tactics adopted by the two parties, which have been fixated on a handful of marginal seats. The BBC's man in Australia, Nick Bryant, calls it 'the narrowing of Australian politics'.

It's also true, as Graeme pointed out, that where the world has intruded into the election — immigration, border protection — it has been not been in ways that reinforce our self-image as an open and outward-looking nation.

But there's one possible exception that might lift slightly this sense that Australia is turning inward: the debate over the National Broadband Network. After all, high speed internet is already one of the major ways that Australians interact with the world, and its influence is only going to grow. My sense is that Australians get this and are genuinely interested in what the two parties are offering. If the NBN debate is a surrogate for a broader discussion about globalisation, maybe Australians are showing that they want more of it.

Photo by Flickr user transCam, used under a Creative Commons license.

When it comes to the subject of US cultural imperialism, I'm far less depressed and fatalistic than many.

First of all, it's not like the world is being force-fed American culture — one reason American popular and high culture is globally pervasive is because so much of it is so very good. Then there's the fact that globalisation, while a US-led phenomenon, has not led inexorably or solely to Americanisation, and has not necessarily crowded out other cultures. In fact, in some cases globalisation has given other cultures more room for expression. And last, there are huge areas of global culture over which America has negligible influence, as the last FIFA World Cup ought to demonstrate.

All of that said, I have to admit I did wince when I saw this new McDonald's promotion: 

I reckon anyone who grew up reading the adventures of Asterix & Obelix would feel the same way. The full story of this questionable commercial collaboration is here. (H/t Daily What.)

• As foreshadowed by Rory on Monday, the new edition of the Pentagon's Chinese military power report has been released.
• Via the Daily Dish, some stunning colour photos of Depression-era America.
• Straight talk about Iran: 'The nuke nerds...have failed to contribute effectively to the Iran policy conversation.'
• The NBN promises faster broadband speeds within Australia, but can it overcome Australia's slow overseas connections?
• I'm two days late to this, but here's a good piece by The Age's Dan Flitton on AusAID, which hands out grants to pressure groups that urge government to give more money to...AusAID.
• Journalist and Asia File blogger Ben Bland recommends this Al Jazeera feature on the 18 year-old Indonesian man who blew himself up in the Jakarta Marriott hotel last July.

What's not to love about the internet?

Here's a mashup of Michael Jackson's Beat It with old footage of what looks like a Chinese PLA choir singing patriotic songs. (Thanks to Lowy intern Monty Pounder for the find.)

Here are the details, via the Wall Street Journal:

MOSCOW—The Medvedev administration plans to include attack helicopters in an expanded arms package for Iran, swelling the size of the proposed deal to as much as US$60 billion over 10 years, according to officials familiar with the matter.

The deal would be the largest overseas Russian arms sale, the officials said, though the size could change as the package is finalized, one official said...

...New details about the deal include plans to sell Iran about 70 Mi-17 helicopters and up to 60 Mi-28 attack helicopters together worth about $30 billion. That comes on top of a previously disclosed $30 billion tranche that includes 84 Sukhoi Su-30s and upgrades to older fighters in the Iranian fleet.

OK, so I've changed a few key details of the WSJ piece, which is really about a record American arms sale to Saudi Arabia.

The Atlantic has reignited the debate about the merits of pre-emptive military strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities with its latest cover story, but this huge arms deal has gone largely unremarked. Had Russia in fact made such a sale to Iran, it would be seen as incredibly counter-productive and would probably harm US-Russian relations. Even rumours of the sale of purely defensive Russian surface-to-air missiles (which would only be useful for shooting down aircraft that entered Iranian airspace) are viewed with deep concern in Washington.

Yet when Washington lands a US$60 billion arms package with Riyadh, including for 84 fighter aircraft that could strike deep into Iranian territory, does anyone take a breath to think about how this might affect the regional power balance or Tehran's threat perceptions?

Just to be clear, I'm not urging sympathy for Tehran here; just empathy. When you're contemplating war, it helps to know what the other fellow is thinking.

In his review of yesterday's foreign policy debate, Rory Medcalf noticed something odd about Foreign Minister Smith's remarks on the South China Sea:

Smith's remark that he had personally aired concerns to the PLA about China's behaviour in the South China Sea was welcome. His suggestion that these issues should be resolved bilaterally – for instance, between China and Vietnam – was not. Surely Canberra, and Labor, cannot be comfortable with the notion that weaker players should negotiate on security issues one-on-one with an increasingly powerful China, and without recourse to multilateral frameworks?

Here's what Smith actually said in the debate (from the ALP's transcript), in response to a question from Linda Mottram (emphasis added):

Our officials raised in the East Asia Summit meetings, issues about the South China Seas. We would want those issues to be resolved bilaterally between the countries concerned, China and Vietnam in particular.

And here's what Smith said in an interview with Linda Mottram immediately after the debate (again, emphasis mine): 

I've also raised with, for example, General Guo, the Vice Chair of their Central Military Commission, when he came to Australia for ministerial level defence consultations, our concern about South China Sea issues. Our officials have also raised this, as we want those issues to be resolved amicably between the countries concerned, particularly China and Vietnam, where there had been tensions.

Maybe Smith noticed his error and tried to fix it?

If you were a fan of the best-selling book, Freakonomics (here's the blog), you might enjoy the documentary too; you can watch the newly released trailer below. Freakonomics was the most successful of a wave of popular economics books that emerged this decade, and it spawned several imitators (I have a copy of Soccernomics on my desk).

Although academic economists might turn up their noses at some of these books, their popularity does reflect a healthy public curiosity about the many facets of human behaviour. I would see The Gruen Transfer (a very funny Australian TV panel show about the advertising industry) as being in broadly the same genre, and it seems to me that the popular behavioural-economics book, Nudge, is crying out for an accompanying TV series.

UPDATE: Here's the Liberal Party's foreign affairs policy document, which I understand was distributed at the debate.

It could have been so much worse. Unlike their encounter on Perth radio earlier in the campaign, the debate between Foreign Minister Stephen Smith and his shadow, Julie Bishop, was sober and mature, if not hugely enlightening or elevating. Graeme Dobell will have more detailed analysis soon, but herewith my initial thoughts:

• Julie Bishop's strangely halting delivery of her opening address betrayed some nervousness, which can easily be forgiven. Less easy to excuse was the discursive 'laundry list' nature of her address, which somehow contrived to mention the Square Kilometre Array before it got to our great power relationships.
• By contrast, Stephen Smith's opening sketched a historical and theoretical context for his Government's approach to foreign policy. Smith even rose to the challenge set by Rory yesterday by describing the tectonic power shifts occurring in the region. Very polished.
• With the opening statements out of the way came the first question from the media, and it was on...asylum seekers and boats. Groan.
• OK, off to a bad start, but there's time to recover with the second media question, which is about...Wikileaks? Really? Is this a press conference?
• Now we get to aid, on which Julie Bishop made a major announcement. More on that in Graeme Dobell's coverage.
• Linda Mottram's question criticises both parties for saying too little about China (quoting Rory Medcalf's blog post); Stephen Smith throws it right back at the media by saying he is pleased to be getting his first question on that topic.
• The next question is on who will be the foreign minister in a new government. Bishop has found her range by this point, with some strong answers on foreign aid and China, and she has a politically devastating line against Smith and Labor, about how no-one's job seems to be safe. Smith will not be foreign minister in a new Labor Government, she says, and Smith's response is tame.
• In his closing statement, Smith gave Tony Abbott's 'Anglosphere' theme a workout. Here's Michael Wesley on that topic, from this morning.
• Finally, a note on Afghanistan, and a major own goal from Smith, who says that Australia is there as part of international efforts to 'stare down' Islamist terrorism. It should be perfectly clear that, if the job of foreign minister involves 'staring down' anything, Julie Bishop is by far the stronger candidate.

Articles about the ways resource constraints (oil, gas, water) will transform the global scene are pretty common. And we're all familiar with debates about the use of technology (solar, wind, the electrification of motor transport) to overcome such shortages.

Here's an article that appeared in November last year (which I've only recently discovered via the marvellous Browser) that ticks both those boxes, but is on a subject seldom associated with transformative international trends: meat. Specifically, it answers the question: 'what are the implications of 'in-vitro meat', which could allow us to cheaply and easily grow meat in labs rather than raising animals?'

For one thing, it would bring economic upheaval. Australia is not mentioned, but you get the idea:

The switch to In-Vitro Meat will pummel the finances of nations that survive on live animal industries. Many of the world leaders in massacred meat (USA, China, Brazil) have diversified incomes, but Argentina will bellow when its delicious beef is defeated. New Zealand will bleat when its lamb sales are shorn. And ocean-harvesting Vietnam and Iceland will have to fish for new vocations. Industries peripherally dependent on meat sales, like leather, dairy and wool, will also be slaughtered.

Then there are the environmental, public health and urban planning considerations, and the article also has a list of further reading. More here.

Photo by Flickr user Ferran, used under a Creative Commons license.

In response to an earlier post in which I mentioned tomorrow's foreign policy election debate, reader Andrew Robertson alerts me to the fact that Foreign Minister Stephen Smith and Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop have already gone head-to-head in this campaign. On 3 August they debated for 20 minutes on ABC Radio in Perth.

Thanks Andrew, I had missed this, though as you suggested in your email, I wasn't missing much. Foreign policy is barely raised, and the tone of the debate is petty and small-minded. It's not a good sign for tomorrow.

What I'll be looking for tomorrow is whether Smith and Bishop can rise to the challenge Rory sets out in his post below. Australia faces some huge challenges in a region that is changing rapidly. I want to know how our two major parties plan to navigate that change.

Over at News Limited's Punch blog, Leo Shanahan lists eight issues we've heard nothing about in this election campaign. Foreign policy is on Shanahan's list, though that may change temporarily tomorrow, when the Foreign Affairs debate is staged at the National Press Club. Graeme Dobell and others will cover the event for The Interpreter.  

Given how much government spending goes to defence, it probably also deserves to be on Shanahan's list. Then again, if you scan this pie chart from the 2010-11 budget documents ('Where taxpayer money is spent'), you could argue that a number of these spending areas have received very little scrutiny.

Still, it's reassuring that our leaders are giving the asylum-seeker issue a real work-over. Neglected topic, that.