Description:

Professor John Blaxland of the Australian National University will explore how today’s strategic challenges, from great power competition to climate disruption and technological transformation, appear when viewed through an Australian lens in the Indo-Pacific.

Today, we face a spectrum of pressing global issues ranging from great power competition, looming environmental catastrophe, and an array of governance challenges, all accelerated by the effects of the fourth industrial revolution. The combination of these issues are affecting the globe, but the light casts different shadows from "down under."

Join us for a Buffett Lecture by Professor John Blaxland—a former Australian military intelligence officer and a trusted and highly regarded historian on international, military, and security affairs—on how and why gaining an Australian perspective on these global issues can benefit American scholars, students, industry leaders, and policymakers. It’s a timely opportunity to engage with the perspective of a close U.S. ally navigating the evolving poly-crisis and gain insights on how to think critically outside the U.S. perspective.

Bio

John Blaxland is Director of the Australian National University (ANU) North America Liaison Office and Professor of International Security and Intelligence Studies in the Strategic & Defence Studies Centre (SDSC), Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, College of Asia & the Pacific at ANU. A former Australian military intelligence officer, he is a trusted and highly regarded historian who has authored or co-authored over a dozen broad-ranging works on international, military, and security affairs. He is also an occasional media commentator.

John is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales, and a Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs. He is also the first Australian recipient of a US Department of Defense Minerva Research Initiative grant (2015–2018). Prior to academia, John was a military intelligence officer, serving as Chief Intelligence Staff Officer (J2) at HQ Joint Operations Command, and defense attaché to Thailand and Myanmar. He was also the brigade intelligence officer (S2) for the land component of the International Force East Timor (INTERFET). He was posted as an exchange officer at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington, D.C. (including for a deployment with 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit on USS Boxer) and was awarded a U.S. Meritorious Service Medal for his contribution. At ANU, he has served as Head of SDSC and Director of the ANU Southeast Asia Institute. He has taught "Southeast Asian Security Studies" and “Honeypots & Overcoats: Australian Intelligence in the World” and supervised several PhD students. He is also a member of the ANU Institute for Climate Energy & Disaster Solutions.

John is an Australian citizen, born in Chile. He went to school at Barker College, Sydney. He is a graduate of the Royal Military College, Duntroon (Blamey Scholar), the University of New South Wales (BA Hons. 1), the ANU (MA), the Royal Thai Army Command & Staff College (diploma), and the Royal Military College of Canada (PhD, War Studies).