Foreign policy making has long been thought of as an activity that should take place as much as possible in isolation from the passions and controversies of domestic politics. Writers on statecraft have cautioned against involving the passions of the public in the delicate practice of diplomacy, and have regularly counselled the futility of trying to explain the complexities of foreign affairs to the society on whose behalf it is made. In the course of his commentary on Democracy in America, Tocqueville observed that “foreign politics demand scarcely any of those qualities which a democracy possesses; and they require, on the contrary, the perfect use of almost all those faculties in which it is deficient”. The qualities to which he was referring were the ability to maintain control of a complex undertaking; to persevere with a given policy; to ensure the secrecy of decisions and actions; and to be patient in awaiting the consequences of a decision. Consequently, for Tocqueville, foreign policy should be left to “aristocrats”, who remained above the democratic political process. A more recent Australian view was expressed by a former Secretary of the Department of External Affairs, Sir Alan Watt, who wrote, “any private citizen who is sufficiently confident of his own opinions to tell a government precisely what it should do from day to day demonstrates not only his courage but also his rashness and perhaps his vanity”.