How do we know when we are at war?
In this Lowy Institute perspective, former Australian Chief of Army Peter Leahy argues that Australia needs greater civilian engagement if it is to have a chance of prevailing in counter-insurgency warfare. His recommendations include parliamentary ratification of military deployments and a reset of military-media relations, including the appointment of an ombudsman to improve responsible media access to operational information.
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| The Pacific: back on the Australian Government's agenda? |
Wednesday Lunch at Lowy - Panel presentations The 41st Pacific Island Forum leaders meeting will be held in Port Vila from 4 August 2010. Australia is the outgoing chair of the Forum.
In the lead up to the meeting the Lowy Institute convened a panel of diverse Pacific commentators and experts from...
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| THE PARTY: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers |
Distinguished Speaker Series - Richard McGregor Over the last thirty years, China has emerged as a major political and economic power on the international stage, and the pace of this growth has been astonishing. Though China's presence in the global arena continues to grow rapidly, the most remarkable part...
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| Afghanistan - Australia's commitment |
Distinguished Speaker Series - Senator John Faulkner presentation On Friday 16 July, Australia's Defence Minister, Senator John Faulkner, spoke at the Lowy Institute to discuss Australia's commitment and contribution to the ISAF effort in Afghanistan, in the context of Australian strategic objectives, operational...
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| Yemen: Fulcrum in an Arc of Crisis |
Wednesday Lunch at Lowy - Philip Eliason presentation Yemen's growing internal crises and linkages to international terrorism have captured the attention of the international community. Yemen's position at the crossroads of international trade and in a region already bedevilled by piracy and instability are...
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Flying the flag, not the coop
In an opinion piece in the Canberra Times, Research Associate Raoul Heinrichs argues that Australia can achieve its alliance management objectives in Afghanistan without risking Australian lives, and that Australian forces should be subject to more restrictive limits on the kinds of tasks they perform.
Canberra Times, 18 July 2010, p. 9
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A new mind-set for exchange rates
Lowy Institute Visiting Fellow Stephen Grenville has published an article entitled 'A new mind-set for exchange rates' in the first issue for 2010 of Agenda: A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform (Volume 17 - Issue 1).
The article is available at: http://epress.anu.edu.au/agenda/017/pdf/mindset.pdf
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Confronting the Crisis of International Climate Policy
Copenhagen failed to produce an agreement on climate change commensurate with the scale of the problem, highlighting the fundamental weaknesses in the existing UN framework. Progress on a new agreement is agonisingly slow. Weightier commitments by the major emitters are necessary, but calls for ‘greater ambition’ ignore the structural problems embedded in the institutions, processes and policy models of the UN climate regime.
This study proposes an international framework based on carbon prices rather than emissions targets. Under a price-based international framework, countries would undertake to implement specified actions and policies. Those policies should then be converted into an internationally standardised form of economy wide ‘carbon price equivalent’, with each country pledging/negotiating to implement a starting carbon price equivalent policy along with a schedule of real annual price increases.
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More finesse needed in Tony Abbott's foreign policy
In the Australian Financial Review on 27 July 2010, Michael Fullilove critiqued the foreign policies of Opposition Leader Tony Abbott.
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Moving Australia forward
 At the Lowy Institute on Tuesday 6 July, the Prime Minister of Australia, the Hon. Julia Gillard, gave her first major policy speech as prime minister.
Her presentation can be heard here:
Moving Australia forward - MP3 (13MB)
Her speech is also available for download.
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IMF needs to be more than just Santa Claus
In an Economic Briefing in The Australian Financial Review, Lowy Institute Visiting Fellow Stephen Grenville writes that Europe's insolvent states must be handled strictly.
Australian Financial Review, 19 July 2010, p. 27
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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy - Green, McKibbin & Picker presentation
After an extraordinary build-up, the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference spectacularly failed to produce an international response commensurate with the scale of the climate change issue - and there seems little prospect of an agreement in the near term. This Wednesday Lowy Lunch launched a new Lowy Policy Brief that charts an alternative course for delivering an international agreement on climate change that will commence genuine reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
Their presentation can be heard here:
Confronting the crisis of international climate policy - MP3 (21MB)
The publication can be downloaded here:
Publication download
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Food for Thought - Michael Wesley presentation
 Mineral resources play a role in international affairs that far outweighs the attention paid to the sector by policy makers and strategic thinkers. Modern societies are becoming ever more dependent on mineral resources but increasingly less self-sufficient in their production, making access to stable and reasonably priced resources central to their functioning. And yet there is little awareness of the general dynamics, trends and forces governing the global production and trade in strategic resources. Developing such an awareness is particularly important for Australians, given our continent’s rich endowment in many of the resources that the global economy needs.
Watch a video of this presentation by clicking the photo above.
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Writing a new chapter
In this opinion piece in The Times of India, Lowy Institute program director and India expert Rory Medcalf looks at what the sudden rise of Julia Gillard as Prime Minister might mean for Australia-India relations, including the vexed issue of uranium sales.
Times of India, 15 July 2010
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Sino-American relations: the state of play
For the first time in 20 years, the relationship with China played almost no part in the American Presidential election of 2008. President Obama has forged a low-key, pragmatic relationship with Beijing, but has not seen much success in building a workable "G2" that so many have called for. China kept Obama's visit to Washington in late 2009 deliberately low-key, and has refused to co-operate on the value of its currency, pressuring North Korea and Iran, or acting on global warming. Recently Washington has angered Beijing over Obama's meeting with the Dalai Lama and selling arms to Taiwan. Suisheng Zhao, one of the world pre-eminent watchers of the Sino-American relationship, explored the thinking underpinning the current relationship, and the dynamics driving the evolution of the relationship.
The conversation can be heard here:
Sino-American relations - MP3 (20MB)
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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy - Professor Simon Evenett
On Tuesday, 29 June 2010, the Wednesday Lowy Lunch Club provided an opportunity to hear from one of the world’s leading experts on the international trading system, Professor Simon Evenett. Professor Evenett discussed the commercial policy and trade strategies of the United States, Europe, and the emerging economic powers.
His presentation can be heard here:
The Commercial Policy and Trade Strategies of the World’s Leading Economic Powers - MP3 (21MB)
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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy - Mark Thirlwell presentation
At the Wednesday Lowy Lunch on 23 June, Mark Thirlwell, Director of the Institute’s International Economy program, discussed the entanglement of international economics, geopolitics and security, and assessed whether we are headed for a new age of geo-economics.
His presentation can be heard here:
The return of geo-economics - MP3 (22MB)
A video of this presentation is available in our Video Library.
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Advancing Innovative Development and Aid Strategies in the Asia-Pacific: Accelerating the Millennium Development Goals
The Lowy Institute hosted a conference titled Advancing Innovative Development and Aid Strategies in the Asia-Pacific: Accelerating the Millennium Development Goals in Sydney from 16 to 18 June 2010. The Institute brought together key decision makers from government, civil society, multilateral and country donors, and the private sector with an interest in the Asia-Pacific region. The aim of the conference was to stimulate greater international interest in the Asia-Pacific, and enhance the quality of debate around how to accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the region. Further, the conference discussed how aid contributes to development in the region.
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Distinguished Speaker Series - Dr Charles Ferguson presentation
On 21 June, the Lowy Institute held a lecture by the President of the Federation of American Scientists, Dr Charles Ferguson, as part of its Distinguished Speaker Series. Dr Ferguson examined the links between civil nuclear energy and nuclear weapons proliferation. In light of the growing number of states which have signed peaceful nuclear energy cooperation deals, the lecture focused on the increasing risks of an attack upon, or sabotage of, civil nuclear facilities. Dr Ferguson was in Australia as a guest of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and this event was supported by the Lowy Institute’s partnership with the Nuclear Security Project of the Nuclear Threat Initiative.
His presentation can be heard here:
Potential security consequences of the nuclear energy revival - MP3 (20MB)
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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy - Minar Pimple presentation
At the Wednesday Lowy Lunch Club on 16 June, distinguished international speaker Minar Pimple addressed the Club on the important question of how well the Asia-Pacific region is doing in achieving the Millennium Development Goals and what role we and broader civil society can play in helping to achieve this ambitious agenda to tackle extreme poverty, adopted by world leaders at the United Nations in 2000.
His presentation can be heard here:
The Millennium Development Goals in Asia and the Pacific - MP3 (19MB)
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Will the Afghan government's reintegration and reconciliation efforts bring peace to Afghanistan?
The West Asia Program is a launching a new series of occasional papers entitled ‘Afghan Voices’. The goal of this series is to inject a range of Afghan views into the discussion of issues surrounding the international community’s intervention in Afghanistan.
The series is edited by Dr Susanne Schmeidl, co-founder of The Liaison Office (TLO) in Afghanistan. She has worked on Afghanistan since 2000 and managed the Swisspeace office in Kabul between 2002 and 2005.
In the first paper in the series, Wazhma Frogh examines, against the background of the recent ‘Peace Jirga’, the highly contentious issues of reintegration and reconciliation with the insurgency. She argues that unless the Afghan government enagages in a more comprehensive and sustainable effort to address the various cause of conflict in Afghanistan than it is currently undertaking, the prospects for a real and enduring peace and security will remain dim.
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Power and choice: Asian security futures
Recent events in the seas off South Korea and Japan emphasise the fragility of Asia’s security order and the strains the region’s changing power distribution are placing on it. A new major Lowy Institute Asia Security Project report, 'Power and Choice: Asian Security Futures', analyses the likely security futures for Asia and Australia and recommends steps countries should take to ensure growing regional competition does not lead to conflict. This report was made possible by the generous support for the Project by the MacArthur Foundation.
A copy of the report, launched by Dennis Richardson, AO, the Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on 1 June, can be downloaded here.
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