The 2012 Lowy Poll showed a whopping 81% of Australians was against the Australian government allowing foreign companies to buy Australian farmland to grow crops or farm livestock. This is also a hot button issue in Latin America, where a number of governments have legislated restrictions on foreign ownership of land.

Adrian also talks about a number of opportunities for two-way investment between Australia and Brazil in mining services, clean water and clean energy, including the production of ethanol in Australia using Brazilian know-how.

The inaugural chairman of the Council on Australian Latin America Relations and independent company director Bernard Wheelahan AM reminds us that Australia should take greater advantage of the business opportunities in the high-growth Latin American market as a prudent strategy of diversification from Asia. There is scope for the big Australian mining companies to act as national flagships over and above their commercial objectives, he says. 

Bernard also reminds us that think tanks such as the Lowy Institute should offer some strategic direction to government and business on why they would do well to invest more political and economic capital in Latin America. 

In part 1 of this video series we look at educational ties and in part 2 we consider the rise of Brazil.

Photo Peter Casamento, Casamento Photography. 

Australia's ambitions are not dissimilar, if a little more modest, as perhaps befits a country with one ninth of Brazil's population and an economy ranked 14th behind Brazil's number 6 ranking. We view ourselves as a 'middle power' and only have aspirations for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council. 

What surprised Professor Silva was how little Brazilians know about Australia, even at the elite level. A lot more work to be done here. Perhaps future Lowy polls could include a question on how Australians view Brazil.

Ronaldo Veirano, Honorary Consul of Australia in Rio de Janeiro, is confident Brazil's rise is here to stay, with successive administrations supporting solid policies of economic growth and stability, built on the platform of its return to democracy and the control of inflation. He sees a lot of scope for capitalising on common interests and strengths through economic and think tank collaboration. We were pleased to hear that, even if Professor Silva's polling reveals a low level of awareness in Brazil of Australia, Ronaldo Veirano notes that the Lowy Institute is well known in Brazil 'and the world'.

Pinera's speech at the Lowy Institute provided a vivid example of one Latin American country's determined and steady path to greater prosperity and a progressive reduction of poverty through greater engagement with the outside world. This includes an open economy, friendly investment climate and determination to invest in its people through education. 

Pinera' s speech revealed that Australia has been a role model for Chile's economic development. Chile is also now at the stage where some its social and economic policies can be a model for other developing countries; one member of the audience suggested that Chile's pension scheme would be an excellent model for Burma.

Australia and Brazil are the two largest economies in the southern hemisphere and those who think and talk about these things acknowledge that greater mutual engagement is long overdue.

Mutual lack of awareness of the opportunities remains an impediment to building closer economic and political links between Australia and Latin America. Yet more than ever we face common challenges as a consequence of the shift of economic and geo-strategic weight from the North Atlantic to Asia, dominated by China. This shift will shape our destinies, and as resource dependent economies we share the challenges of China's rise to our economies, trade and investment policies, and even our political culture.

These questions were the subject of the Melbourne Latin America Dialogue in August hosted by the University of Melbourne which attracted more than 200 local and international delegates and 60 speakers from the world of business, government, academia and science. The Lowy Institute was there and spoke to numerous delegates. What emerged from this conference and our interviews was that what unites Australia and Latin America is much greater than what divides us and that distance is preeminently psychological.

Over the next week we will post some of our interviews with the participants who provided fascinating insights into the relationship and the exciting opportunities for closer engagement between Australia and Latin America. Above is my talk with Dr Wendy Jarvie from UNSW and Dr Sean Burgess from the ANU about why Australian higher and vocational eduction should be so attractive to Latin America, and why Australia should learn more about Latin America.

Look out for our next video on Australia and Brazil from the Brazilian perspective, which includes some fascinating polling on how Brazil views its place in the world and how little Brazilians know about Australia.

Also to be posted soon is a video looking at common political and economic challenges for Australia and Latin America in China, and the need to cement the political and economic relationships between the two continents.

However, the new diplomacy will look different to its 20th century predecessor, with a couple of modern (or is it 'post-modern'?) characteristics shaped by the information revolution and a much larger, more diverse number of players in the international system as a consequence of great changes to the global power balance. In the 21st century, Allan says, 'an additional dimension of public diplomacy is needed to address the publics that increasingly shape state behaviour'. 

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Extrapolating what all this means for Australian diplomacy, Allan cites a series of successful examples of our diplomacy from both sides of politics: the Cambodia Peace Plan, the East Timor intervention, APEC and the G-20. He concludes that Australian diplomacy is most successful when it:

• Is backed by careful and detailed support work, open to ideas drawn from outside government. In each of these examples, academics and think tanks had important contributions to make
• Is driven by the active engagement of ministers
• Uses our alliance relationships constructively
• Makes effective use of our long record of participation in multilateral organisations
• Builds external coalitions, especially with the region. The Indonesia relationship was important in each of these cases; South Korea was a key to success with the G20
• ...draws on all the dimensions of state power: political, military and economic

An example which does not pass this test is former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's 'Asia Pacific community', which Allan describes as 'a victim of immediate expectations' and losing sight of the time it takes to effect change in the international system. In this context (and for self-serving reasons, as I was personally involved), Allan could also have mentioned Australia's successful effort to bring to a conclusion the negotiations of an international Chemical Weapons Convention in 1992, banning an entire category of weapons of mass destruction. This took more than 20 years of negotiation in the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament.  

Allan was careful not to get into the discussion about DFAT resourcing. But you can read the definitive Lowy reports on Australia's ever-shrinking diplomatic service here (Australia's Diplomatic Deficit; Diplomatic Disrepair). And our ground-breaking work on e-diplomacy (the role of social media in public diplomacy and in prosecuting national interests) has, thanks to the use of social media, gone viral. 

Allan concludes that 'we were marginal to the diplomacy of the Cold War' but that 'we are far more central to the diplomacy of the emerging world — as the locus of power moves closer to Australia'. To succeed, we will need to be able to use all the old as well as the new tools at our disposal.  Allan's speech is a great introduction to the 'why' and 'how'.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

An 11 March 2008 NY Times article by Smith and Ferguson ('France's nuclear diplomacy') reports on the disconnect between President Sarkozy's aggressive nuclear diplomacy and the financial and technical capacity limits of AREVA to match it. The article notes that this is not an exclusively French problem. When the sale of uranium to India was first mooted by the Howard Government in 2007, the push to sell uranium was a purely political one, not encouraged by Australian uranium mining companies. Some were at pains to highlight their strict adherence to supplying in accordance with strict non-proliferation rules and guidelines, including membership of the NPT.

The lessons of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) are instructive here: the world's chemical industry understood (eventually) the advantage of showing shareholders and the public its commitment to chemical disarmament and non-proliferation, especially in light of its inadvertent contribution to Iraq's chemical weapons program. If industry was to be regulated intensively and obtrusively, there were distinct advantages to being a collaborator and ensuring that business did not contribute to chemical weapons proliferation, while at the same time having a direct say in how commercial confidentiality could be preserved. 

The 1989 Government-Industry Conference against Chemical Weapons, hosted by Australia, laid the groundwork for a successful government-industry partnership for this purpose. The conference took place in the context of the emerging global consensus that chemical weapons should be abolished altogether. This was preceded by intensive, multi-year lobbying with leading chemical companies by Australia, with some political support from partner countries. Without the chemical industry's support and collaboration, the CWC could not have come into existence. 

It is true that political support and momentum for complete nuclear disarmament is not as strong as it was for chemical weapons disarmament. That said, the features of the nuclear industry (global, integrated and closely connected to government) and the nuclear policy landscape, including concerns about safety and security, strongly favour deeper and more regular government-industry collaboration. A jointly negotiated declaration as to how that could be done would add a new dimension to the global nuclear conversation and would reinforce some of the methods of government-industry cooperation suggested above, including joint monitoring, reporting, enforcement of the rules and export controls. 

That is why Prime Minister Gillard's exhortation for greater government-industry collaboration at the Nuclear Summit in Seoul was a small but welcome step in that direction.

 

The terrible events at Fukushima just over a year ago have underscored graphically that effective nuclear governance is not just a cost of doing business, but a prerequisite for running a sustainable business. The nuclear industry and its shareholders have a stake in achieving a world free of nuclear dangers. Maintaining reputation for safety and responsibility is critical to a successful business and shareholder value.

So it could be in the boardrooms rather than the parliaments where greater accountabilities are possible in managing global nuclear risks. One might say that nuclear governance is too important to be left to governments alone. Yet institutionally, we have not really embraced this idea. For example, the Seoul security summit had a 'side event' with industry, which preceded the formal summit by several days.*

Industry sometimes takes a more conservative approach to nuclear business than governments, which push for nuclear cooperation for diplomatic and political reasons, but where this makes no sense commercially. Industry can contribute to global efforts to raise the political, financial and commercial costs of proliferation. Industry is at the front line of the development and spread of dual-use nuclear technology and has the capacity to prevent, limit or place conditions on the spread of that technology, as well as report it. It can also influence the type of nuclear technology that is developed in the future.

Industry's comparative advantage includes its knowledge of increasingly complex supply chains for hardware and technology exports and its ability to deploy such knowledge to prevent proliferation. This will be discussed at the next Nuclear Suppliers Group plenary hosted by the US in April.

Recent examples of more responsible nuclear corporate citizenship include the reactor vendor's code facilitated by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the Uranium Stewardship exercise — a cradle to grave accountability mechanism — initiated by Australia, now being managed through the World Nuclear Association.

In June 2010, the Lowy Institute undertook the most comprehensive survey yet of the global nuclear industry. Respondents showed a strong willingness to do more to prevent nuclear proliferation.

Public confidence is fundamental to the nuclear enterprise; we know that 'a nuclear incident anywhere is a nuclear incident everywhere'. The changing nuclear landscape and the integrated nature of the world's nuclear industry suggest that industry and government should develop jointly new understandings of dealing effectively with nuclear proliferation dangers, safety and security to rebuild confidence in the global nuclear project.

* I note, however, Prime Minister Gillard's intervention at the Summit: 'And third, I think we should find mechanisms to foster co-operation between governments and the private sector.'

Photo courtesy of the Nuclear Security Summit.

As global economic and strategic weight shifts to Asia, our region is increasingly vulnerable to strategic instability and nuclear tensions. Asian strategic rivalries present a real threat for nuclear proliferation and the region's insatiable appetite for energy will make Asia the main locus for growth in nuclear power, notwithstanding the Fukushima disaster.

The APNL statement contains much that is familiar. It also refreshes some good ideas, such as the proposal for an Asian Nuclear Energy Community to further regional collaboration and to promote high standards in non-proliferation, security and safety, an idea promoted by the Lowy Institute's Visiting Fellow John Carlson. John and I have frequently argued that Australia cannot be a regional or international driver of nuclear diplomacy while Australian expertise and infrastructure is on the decline. It is a deficit which needs urgent attention.

Our Nuclear Policy Centre writes regularly on Asia's nuclear future. Like the APNL and ELN networks, the Institute's nuclear policy work has received support from the Nuclear Security Project of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, co-chaired by former Senator Nunn and CNN founder Ted Turner.

In 2008 Rory Medcalf wrote on the need to build an Asian regional order based on nuclear restraint and no-first-use, and the role Australia can play. In the same year, the late Andrew Symons wrote on how to manage security and safeguards challenges arising from the expansion of nuclear energy into Southeast Asia. More recently we have run a blog debate and workshops on extended nuclear deterrence in Asia, to be published as a book in 2012. All our nuclear work can be found on the Institute's Nuclear Policy Centre page.

Building a global constituency is a critical element in keeping the urgent need to reduce global nuclear dangers top of mind. It's good to see that the networks of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, senior leaders in Asia and Europe and the Lowy Institute are all on the case!

Photo by Flickr user IAEA Imagebank.

These include: an Additional Protocol on India's civil nuclear facilities; a  voluntary, unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing; a policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons; working with others towards the conclusion of a multilateral fissile material cutoff treaty in the Conference on Disarmament that is universal, non-discriminatory, and verifiable; an existing, comprehensive system of national export controls and a commitment to adhere to Missile Technology Control Regime and NSG guidelines.

Japan is negotiating a civil nuclear cooperation agreement with India on this basis. A deal with Japan is crucial because major US suppliers like GE and Westinghouse, which have either Japanese owners or partners, can only do business with India if Japan does away with nuclear and high-technology export controls. These negotiations are stalled because Japan is not satisfied India is honouring the 2008 NSG conditions. News reports say that Japan intends to put more pressure on India to sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty as a condition for a nuclear cooperation agreement. The US Atomic Energy Act also requires the US to halt nuclear exports to India if it resumed nuclear testing. 

In 2011, the NSG also toughened its export conditions for sensitive enrichment and reprocessing technology needed for nuclear weapons programs ('ENR'). While nuclear suppliers in France and Russia believe this will not affect their planned nuclear cooperation with India, these additional criteria should help prevent the further proliferation of weapons making technology, a core Australian security objective.

Yes, the single greatest development putting pressure on Australia's non-proliferation policy was the nuclear cooperation agreement between India and the United States in 2006 and the subsequent decision by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in 2008 to issue a waiver for India subject to certain conditions.  Australia was a party to the NSG decision. But Australia maintains its own, additional stringent supply conditions through the bilateral safeguards agreements it concludes with customers for its uranium.

The sale of Australian uranium to India therefore has the potential to strengthen the non-proliferation regime through best practice standards and by taking the Japan and US approach. Whether an Australian government can deliver such an outcome is not certain. Had we moved earlier, we may have been able to impose tougher conditions than our Canadian and Kazakh competitors.

For the current government a change in ALP policy is just a very small, but necessary first step in this direction.

Photo by Flickr user Bigod.

Second, refusing to export uranium to India will neither prevent India from modernising its nuclear forces, nor prevent nuclear proliferation in South Asia. Plenty of countries are prepared to sell uranium to India, and the AQ Khan network, China and the DPRK have contributed to proliferation in Asia in a way which countries like Australia have been powerless to influence. To the extent that India's exclusion from official nuclear trade has had an impact, it has diverted resources away from its domestic power program. So far, India has put its military program first.

Third, Australian uranium sales to India, an NPT non-member, does not spell the death of the effectiveness of our non-proliferation practices. Australia will not be in a position to actually export uranium to India within the next five years or more because of capacity constraints and bans on uranium mining in states where the uranium is relatively easy to extract (eg. Queensland). But leaving that aside, there are opportunities to negotiate some valuable non-proliferation commitments with India in return for uranium sales, as like-minded countries such as the US and Japan are trying to do.

Australia can do so through a negotiated bilateral safeguards agreement with India, backed up by an additional framework agreement with India to reflect the international non-proliferation and arms control commitments which underpinned the 2008 Nuclear Suppliers Group decision to exempt India from its export controls. These commitments were confirmed by then Indian foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee in a statement in September 2008. Additional conditions such as halting our nuclear exports if India resumes nuclear testing should also be on the table.

In my next post I will explain how this might be done.

Photo by Flickr user truthout.org.

Indeed the market hasn't been all that keen on nuclear power – and no wonder, with the high costs, technical complexities and local politics. It's not exactly a stock-market friendly business — just ask the owners of the Tokyo Electric and Power Company!

Most operators of nuclear plants – particularly in Western countries — are listed companies. To date, Fukushima doesn't seem to be having much impact on their investment decisions, although stricter regulatory standards may eventually have some impact.

The general public have never been all that keen on nuclear power. They have weighed up the risks and have almost always concluded that it is not for them – when asked that is.

Public support for nuclear is reasonably strong in countries which have a long history of it. Generally, the closer a person lives to a nuclear facility, the more supportive they are. While Fukushima has affected public support in the short term, it is too soon to conclude what long-term effect it will have; it could be less than that of Three Mile Island or Chernobyl. Recent successful siting exercises in Sweden and Finland for waste management facilities (which are less popular than reactors) have been based on community support, involving public consultation exercises stretching over years.

Firstly, there is the question of accidents. We know that all modern industrial processes carry dangers, some more than others. However, when human error or natural disaster causes nuclear accidents, the consequences are significant, and not just for those living in the vicinity of the plant.

This study by the OECD's Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) suggests nuclear power generation is much safer than alternative forms of energy generation.

Secondly, there is the difficulty of transporting and disposing of nuclear waste. Again, there are similar issues in other industries, but they are not in the same league as those related to the highly radioactive material from a nuclear plant.

The challenges of managing radioactive waste are much smaller than those of managing other hazardous wastes (see OECD NEA study entitled Radioactive Waste in Perspective). In particular, the hazard from radioactive wastes diminishes over time with decay, while other problematic wastes remain hazardous forever.

Thirdly, there is the potential for nuclear weapons proliferation. Civil nuclear weapons programs can be a cover for making nuclear weapons and there is the potentiality for terrorist organisations (or extremist governments) to turn stolen plutonium into bombs.

'Civil nuclear weapons programs' should presumably be 'Civil nuclear power programs'. You can't deny this – Iran is the perfect example of a country using its energy program, in particular the sensitive nuclear technology of enrichment, to do just that. But you don't need to use such technologies to generate power and you could buy fuel from an internationally controlled source. This may well be the future of nuclear supply. 

Also, weapons programs have historically been a precursor to energy programs, rather than the other way around. And if Saudi Arabia wants to counter Iran's weapons plans, it is more likely to buy nuclear weapons off the shelf than via a power program. As to terrorists stealing plutonium, Steve McIntosh noted on The Interpreter a few weeks ago that civil plutonium is no good for making weapons.

Nuclear power can't compete when it comes to both economics and the economics of environmental reform. Even with the enormous subsidies it receives nuclear power can't compete with its low or no carbon competition – renewables, cogeneration and efficiency. In 2008-2009 renewables provided half of the world's new generating capacity.

Not all energy economists agree, and with a high price on carbon, the economics of nuclear power looks more promising. Extensive work from the OECD NEA leads this agency to conclude that nuclear is more than competitive with renewables.

We don't need it to tackle climate change and we can't afford it.

Many reputable studies regarding controls on CO2 emissions show that nuclear is an essential component of the solution.

According to Geoff, nuclear power advocates fail 'to do anything about their stated preferences' which 'leads one to conclude that it has been used more as a wedge to divide the left rather than as a serious basis for energy policy'. If, as is the case in Australia, both sides of politics has declared the subject out of bounds, whom should the advocates be engaging with?

We need to understand the risks to Australia's energy future by excluding peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and the risk to Australia of declining nuclear expertise while Asia embraces nuclear energy. This question is part of the larger picture of how Australia will deal with dynamic Asia, and how we will be able to hold our own economically. The question that needs to be debated is: what are the implications for Australian energy security and future competitiveness in rapidly growing Asia if we forswear nuclear energy?

For the moment, it looks as if Australia is out of step with history and our regional circumstances. This is why it is so important for us to invest in an extended, informed, unemotional debate on this matter and not declare the science and the economics settled.

Photo by Flickr user Ivanhoe057.

Apart from the dramatic increase in thyroid cancer incidence among those exposed at a young age, and some indication of an increased leukaemia and cataract incidence among the workers, there is no clearly demonstrated increase in the incidence of solid cancers or leukaemia due to radiation in the exposed populations. Neither is there any proof of other non-malignant disorders that are related to ionizing radiation. However, there were widespread psychological reactions to the accident, which were due to fear of radiation, not to the actual radiation doses.

The last sentence is important; it is the fear of radiation, rather than radiation itself, which has caused possibly the most widespread health consequences. Given that, we need to be very careful about spreading exaggerated and unscientific fears about the health effects of the low doses of radiation being experienced in Japan.

Don Higson, Fellow of the Fellow of the Australasian Radiation Protection Society has this to say:

'Ziggy Switkowski (SMH News Review, April 2-3, 2011) says "radiation-induced illnesses [at the Fukushima nuclear plant] have struck fewer than 20 emergency workers". Actually, it is fewer than 3. To be precise, two of three workers who ignored the readings of their radiation monitors and got their feet wet while wading in contaminated water. Their feet were burned by beta radiation, which could be nasty but is unlikely to be life threatening. The third worker was wearing gum boots, which protect against beta radiation but not against gamma radiation.

Altogether, a total of less than 20 workers have received radiation doses in the range 100 to 180 mSv. To put this into perspective, a dose of up to 30 mSv could be incurred from a CT scan. There is no chance of radiation sickness unless exposures reach about 1000 mSv.

Doses in the range 100 to 180 mSv cause a small risk of developing cancer after 20 or more years if the dose is incurred instantaneously (as in the atomic bomb explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki). If the dose is spread over a period of time, the risk is lower and less certain. About 25% of the population dies from cancer whether accidentally exposed to radiation or not. This rate might be increased by an additional one percent (say from 25% to 26%) for the more highly exposed workers at Fukushima'.

And finally, you can read George Monbiot's response to his critics. 

Photo by Flickr user Dancing Arethusa.

The US/India agreement and the Nuclear Suppliers Group decision to waive its supply restrictions to India was based on the view that India was a responsible player which had not proliferated to other countries, and whose support was needed to stem proliferation. Similar argument could be made for Israel, given its record of not proliferating. Even Pakistan, where the proliferation record is poor, needs to be drawn in somehow. 

Rudd's comments are also consistent with international opinion. One of the key results of the 2010 NPT Review Conference, supported by the US as well as all other NPT members, was the endorsement of a set of steps to convene a conference in 2012, under the auspices of the UN and the US, UK and Russia and to be attended by all states of the Middle East, on the establishment of a zone free of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction. 

Nuclear Weapon States, whether they are members of the NPT or not, can and do submit their peaceful nuclear facilities to IAEA safeguards. The nuclear cooperation agreement the US struck with India was premised on India submitting all its peaceful nuclear facilities to comprehensive IAEA safeguards. As imperfect as this agreement is, and noting that it has not yet been totally honoured by India, it confirms the fact that NPT membership is not a prerequisite to nuclear facilities being placed under safeguards. Even Pakistan has some of its non-military facilities subject to IAEA safeguards agreements.

In Israel, the IAEA also conducts inspections under a trilateral US/Israel/IAEA agreement whereby the IAEA verifies that nuclear material of US origin is not diverted for non-peaceful purposes. 

So while Rudd's call on Israel to submit its Dimona facility to IAEA safeguards is the first time an Australian official has made such a direct call, there is not that much distance between this statement and what Australia and most of the international community have already called for. Further, if Israel proceeds with its nuclear power plans, one would assume that it too would be called upon to submit its peaceful facilities to safeguards, including, perhaps the 'peaceful' part of the Dimona facility.

Image courtesy of IAEA.

Article VI.1 of the IAEA Statute says that the 'outgoing Board of Governors shall designate for membership on the Board the ten members most advanced in the technology of atomic energy including the production of source materials, and the member most advanced in the technology of atomic energy including the production of source materials' in eight geographical areas (North America ; Latin America; Western Europe; Eastern Europe; Africa; Middle East and South Asia; South East Asia and the Pacific; Far East).

Australia is the only designated member for the South East Asia and Pacific region. That seat relies upon our production of source material (uranium) and our nuclear research infrastructure, and upon the fact that none of our neighbours have nuclear power. Losing our seat will not depend on the 'whim' of our South East Asian neighbours, but on the strong likelihood that we will be overtaken by one of them. 

Having a permanent seat at the table makes it much easier to pursue non-proliferation diplomacy. Not having that seat would mean we would need work that much harder with shrinking diplomatic resources, and in particular shrinking nuclear diplomacy expertise.

Finally, it would be interesting to learn from Richard which nuclear weapons programs Australian-obligated nuclear materials has ended up in, and how.

Image courtesy of ANSTO.

 

All this at a time when nuclear power is emerging as a significant option for Southeast Asia's growing energy needs. Vietnam has plans to build eight nuclear plants, with numerous nuclear cooperation agreements in the pipeline. Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Malaysia all have nuclear power plans. In North Asia, the growth of nuclear power is impressive, with the Republic of Korea and China set to become major competitive exporters of nuclear power and know-how to our region.   

Technological innovation to enhance nuclear safety, reduce proliferation risks, minimise waste generation and improve economic performance has increased the attractiveness of nuclear energy globally. Countries with mature nuclear infrastructure (such as France and the US) are seeing lower energy costs and lower carbon emissions partly due to nuclear power.

Despite the Greens' best efforts, Australia is not likely to withdraw from the world's nuclear trade. But the entire question of Australia's very small and diminishing nuclear infrastructure has broader implications than loss of revenue or our seat at the IAEA Board of Governors.

The question of whether to export uranium or not might tick a domestic political box (for the pro and con advocates alike), but it misses the larger point of the need to understand where Australia's nuclear infrastructure is heading and the implications our declining nuclear capacity has for our national interests and international competitiveness.

Whether we are talking about deriving the full benefits from nuclear medicine to deliver cost-effective, first class health care, or nuclear forensics for national and international security, or undertaking a serious examination of the role nuclear energy might play in helping secure for Australia a reliable, clean source of base-load power to meet increased energy demands with less carbon intensity, we have not embarked on a mature debate about what Australia's nuclear future should be. 

Such a debate in Australia should be strategic and nonpartisan, taking into account our future energy needs, the investment in skills and infrastructure needed for investing in nuclear energy and the risks to our international competitiveness if we stay with the current carbon-intensive approach or take a high-cost, non-nuclear, low carbon approach to energy. The debate also needs to take into account Australia's future in a region where nuclear expertise and know-how is growing. 

Whether we are speaking about responsible uranium exports or the future of Australia's nuclear infrastructure, engagement rather than estrangement offers us the greatest opportunity for continuing to influence the global nonproliferation agenda, while ensuring we have the national capacity for deriving the full benefits which nuclear science and technology offers for health and medicine, the environment and Australian competitiveness in the world's most dynamic region.

Photo of the OPAL Research Reactor at Lucas Heights, Sydney, courtesy of ANSTO.

Western ambassadors in Vienna speculate that this may be part of a concerted Arab campaign to flood the NPT Review Conference with Middle East issues, ostensibly in revenge for the lack of action taken on Israel's nuclear capability and perceived humiliations suffered at the hands of developed countries on these matters at previous IAEA General Conferences.

A more sinister motive is also being debated. Are Middle Eastern countries setting themselves up for developing their own nuclear capacity in response to the world's failure to act on Israel's nuclear program? What is clear is that none of this public posturing is likely to influence Bibi Netanyahu in Israel or deflect the US from continued protection of Israel. And it will probably provide further diplomatic cover for Iran's nuclear activities as well as deflecting from the previous business like approach of the IAEA. The NPT's image will also be further tarnished.

Time constraints and a complex political process at home makes it unlikely that the more positive attitude of the Obama Administration towards disarmament will yield much in the way of concrete, bankable measures ahead of the NPT Review Conference. Accordingly, the diplomatic effort will need to be cranked up considerably. The US will do well to build a closer relationship with the two non-NATO nuclear weapon states, Russia and China, to encourage them to take more responsibility in international fora in the interests of the integrity of the international nonproliferation architecture. 

It is high time for China to come out of the shadows, and time for developing countries which support a strong nonproliferation system, such as in Africa, to receive the benefits of more focused nuclear technical cooperation. Intense diplomacy in capitals is needed, and there is not much time.

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

* This passage originally referred to 'a record 16 delegations absenting themselves to avoid voting.' This was an editorial error.

McNamara would have been encouraged by Obama’s 5 April Prague speech. He died on the day Presidents Obama and Medvedev agreed to resume negotiations on significant cuts to their nuclear arsenals following more than a decade of corrosive stalemate which has weakened the fabric of the international nuclear non-proliferation regime. 

McNamara was a highly influential figure during the period of rising American global power where international security was dominated by transatlantic tensions and the threat of mutually assured destruction between the two major nuclear armed states.  As the global centre of power shifts to Asia and the nuclear landscape becomes increasingly complicated, the task of nuclear disarmament goes far beyond the US/Russian negotiations. Both leaders have rightly acknowledged that their negotiations are a first step in a broader effort intended to reduce the threat of such weapons drastically and to prevent their further spread to unstable regions. The need to broaden the effort is almost upon us, as nuclear proliferation shifts to Asia.

For members of the Commission and its Advisory Board, those few days in Washington were memorable: to hear on successive days the heartbreaking testimony of members of the hibakusha and then the emphatic interventions in favour of nuclear disarmament by McNamara (who started public life analysing US bombers' efficiency and effectiveness for forces commanded by Major General Curtis LeMay, who directed the firebombing and atomic bombing campaign against Japan in 1945) was a unique experience.

Martine Letts is a member of the Advisory Board of the ICNND.

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

International security voices are still overwhelmingly male because the analytical frameworks have changed little since the time of ancient political theory and the conceptual frameworks favoured by women tend to be more focussed on conflict resolution, development and gender-based approaches.

If that is so, then there is a structural bias with respect to the way women think about security which does not suit the way the world is organised and analysed. A lot less public space is made for these kinds of approaches in the media, the think tank world and even in academia because security studies still tend to focus on the state as the basic unit, with war and peace between states and various muscular and less muscular versions of International Relations theory all linked to the great game being played out between great, emerging and waning powers.

Security scholars look at issues such as democracy, economic security, ideology, ethnicity and national identity as factors which impact on security within and between states. By and large that also corresponds to the way the world is organised. So the traditional tools of analysis seem a more secure platform from which to start than a gender- or rights-based approach which many states and their leaders will not understand and which may appear woolly or soft. 

In Australia, female scholars like Coral Bell are the exception that proves the rule, but it is not evident who her successors will be. And of course Coral Bell speaks in classic IR tongues. 

Here in the Lowy Institute we have a colleague who has often been heard to remark that they only way intractable international problems end up being resolved is through war. History suggests that the facts support his bleak conclusion. More recent evidence might, however, steer thinking in another direction. For an interesting take on the impact of the security of states and the security of women I refer you to an article (thanks Fergus Hanson for drawing my attention to this) published in the most recent edition of International Security which provides some great evidence-based food for thought about these issues.

As for the Institute itself, 34 of the 63 Lowy interns we have had so far are women. A number of them have been recruited into Defence and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, some have gone on to further academic study in international relations and some continue to work with us. So the basis is being laid for new female voices in this debate. 

We like to keep in touch with our Intern Alumni, and occasionally publicise what they have done since leaving the Institute. Here are just a couple of examples: Allison Spies (pictured here on duty in Afghanistan) is representing Australia in the Middle East. Fiona Cunningham is our latest intern to commence working part time with us on nuclear non-proliferation issues. I can highly recommend the paper she and I wrote for the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND) on government-industry cooperation in managing nuclear proliferation risks (I am a member of the ICNND Advisory Board).