Analysing AUKUS: Implications for Australia and its region.

This event is online only. After registering, you will receive a link before 11am on the day of the event. All times are AEST (Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne).

Australia has a new partnership with the United States and the United Kingdom. What does this mean for Australia and its region?

Speakers:

Professor Nick Bisley FAIIA, La Trobe University

Dr Maria Rost Rublee, Monash University

Dr Van Jackson, Victoria University of Wellington

Dr Benjamin Zala, The Australian National University

Moderated by Dr Bryce Wakefield, AIIA National Executive Director

Professor Nick Bisley FAIIA is the Dean and Head of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor of International Relations at La Trobe University. His research and teaching expertise is in Asia's international relations, great power politics and Australian foreign and defence policy. Nick is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs and the Secretary of the Council of Australasian Deans of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities. Nick is a member of the advisory board of China Matters and a member of the Council for Security and Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific and served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Australian Journal of International Affairs between 2013 and 2018, the country's oldest scholarly journal in the field of International Relations. He has been a Senior Research Associate of the International Institute of Strategic Studies and a Visiting Fellow at the East West-Center in Washington DC. Nick is the author of many works on international relations, including Issues in 21st Century World Politics, 3rd Edition (Palgrave, 2017), Great Powers in the Changing International Order (Lynne Rienner, 2012), and Building Asia's Security (IISS/Routledge, 2009, Adelphi No. 408). He regularly contributes to and is quoted in national and international media including The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, CNN and Time Magazine.

Dr Maria Rost Rublee is an Associate Professor of International Relations at Monash University, Chair of the International Security Studies Taskforce on Diversity, and President of Women in International Security–Australia. She is an international relations scholar whose work interrogates the social construction of national security, including nuclear politics, maritime security, and diversity in security studies.  Her current projects include survey experiments and nuclear politics, lived experiences of security studies scholars, and examination of sea militias in the South China Sea.  Dr. Rublee’s work has been supported by the Australian Department of Defence, the Canadian Department of National Defence, the United States Institute of Peace, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Japan Foundation, among others.  Her work has been published in a variety of international journals, including Security Studies, Survival, European Journal of Public Policy, Contemporary Security Policy, International Studies Review, and Comparative Political Studies.  Dr. Rublee’s book, Nonproliferation Norms:  Why States Choose Nuclear Restraint, received the Alexander George Book Award for best book in political psychology, awarded by the International Society for Political Psychology. She is past Chair of the International Security Studies Section of ISA, an editorial board member of International Affairs, Contemporary Security Policy and the Nonproliferation Review, and a former editor of International Studies Perspectives.  She received her Ph.D. from George Washington University. 

Dr Van Jackson joined Victoria University of Wellington in 2017 as a Senior Lecturer in International Relations. He also holds policy research appointments as a Distinguished Fellow with the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada; as the Defence & Strategy Fellow with the Centre for Strategic Studies; as an Adjunct Senior Fellow with the Center for a New American Security; and as a Senior Associate Fellow with the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Nonproliferation & Disarmament. Van’s research broadly concerns the politics of U.S. foreign policy, Asia-Pacific security, and the theory and practice of grand strategy. He is the author of dozens of journal articles, book chapters, and policy reports, as well as two books with Cambridge University Press: On the Brink: Trump, Kim, and the Threat of Nuclear War (2018), and Rival Reputations: Coercion and Credibility in US-North Korea Relations (2016). His third book, forthcoming with Yale University Press, is titled Pacific Power Paradox: American Statecraft and the Fate of the Asian Peace. Prior to joining Victoria, Van taught courses on Asian security, U.S. foreign policy, and Korea and Japan at Georgetown University, Hawaii Pacific University, the Catholic University of America, and the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies. His research has been funded by the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Academy of Korean Studies, and the Council on Foreign Relations, and he has held policy research appointments with the Center for a New American Security, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and Pacific Forum CSIS. Before becoming a scholar, Van was a practitioner of U.S. foreign and defense policy, serving in several positions in the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense from 2009-2014, as well as the U.S. Air Force, from 2000-2006. During the 2020 US presidential election, he was an unpaid foreign policy adviser to multiple presidential campaigns.

Dr Benjamin Zala is a Research Fellow in the Department of International Relations at the Australian National University. His work focuses on theoretical and historical approaches to the politics of the great powers and the management of nuclear weapons. His work has been published in journals such as Review of International Studies, Pacific Review, Cooperation and Conflict, Journal of Global Security Studies, Third World Quarterly, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and The Nonproliferation Review. He has also published in media outlets and blogs such as The Straits Times, the Sydney Morning Herald, The Interpreter, and East Asia Forum. Before joining ANU in 2016, Ben worked in the UK at the University of Leicester, the Oxford Research Group, and Chatham House. He received his PhD from the University of Birmingham and is a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy. He is on the editorial board of the journal, Global Change, Peace & Security. In 2018-2019 Ben was a Stanton Junior Faculty Nuclear Security Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.  

Dr Bryce Wakefield (moderator) is the national executive director of the Australian Institute of International Affairs and a visiting fellow at the Australian National University. He has lived, worked and researched in the United States, Japan, Europe and New Zealand. He trained as a political scientist with particular expertise in International Relations and the international affairs of East Asia.

From 2008 to 2012 Bryce was the associate responsible for Northeast Asian programs at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. In this role, he was responsible for conceiving, designing and organising around 60 events in Washington, including policy briefings in the U.S. Congress, on political issues in Australia, Taiwan, North and South Korea and Japan. 

From 2012 to 2018, he was a tenured lecturer of area studies and international relations at Leiden University in the Netherlands.  During his time as a university academic he also delivered training, induction and briefing sessions for Dutch and international diplomats in the Hague and in Japan. Bryce lived in Japan from 1998 to 2004 and earned his master’s degree from Osaka University’s School of International Public Policy. He earned his PhD in political studies from the University of Auckland.