Submitted by Kylie Baker on Thu, 15/07/2010 - 15:11
Biography: Before joining Griffith University in January 2010, Andrew was Associate Professor and Director of the Flinders International Asia Pacific Institute at Flinders University. Prior to taking up an academic position in 2000, Andrew worked as a strategic analyst with Australia’s Defence Intelligence Organisation as part of its North Asia and Global Issues branch. Between 2005 and 2007 he served on the Australian Foreign Minister’s National Consultative Committee for International Security Issues, and in 2007 he was a Visiting Professor at Hiroshima University. In 2009 Andrew was appointed editor-in-chief of the Australian Journal of International Affairs and is an ex officio member of the National Executive of the Australian Institute of International Affairs. He is presently Chief Investigator on an Australian Research Council Project examining Australia’s nuclear choices in the context of a rapidly evolving global nuclear marketplace, continuing weapons proliferation worldwide, and pressures resulting from climate change.
Abstract: This presentation sketches the outstanding security threats likely to confront Australia between
2010 and 2025, a fifteen year time frame that is sufficiently long-range in scope but not excessively distant as to be meaningless. It is not concerned with the various security challenges facing Australia. Threats denote approaching or imminent danger, while challenges imply a demanding situation, not a threatening one. So, for instance, the arrival of illegal refugees in Australia presents a challenge to Australia’s border security regime, but it does not constitute a threat, as in the case of a foreign state compromising Australia’s territorial sovereignty. A key contention of the presentation is that understanding the nature of change in international relations is a necessary pointer to discussing the types of threats likely to confront Australia over the next one and a half decades. This 
understanding pertains not to the surface trends in international relations, but instead to the deeper, tectonic forces in the international system that will shape Australia’s strategic circumstances. A central argument is that the dominant threats to Australia’s security for the foreseeable future will remain state-based in origin and largely (though not exclusively) a consequence of how the international system evolves. This is particularly the case in Asia, which will be the primary theatre in which long-range threats to Australia’s national security materialise. The analysis employs a framework that draws an explicit distinction between trend-based and discontinuity–based markers of change in international relations, and discusses Australia’s future security outlook over the next fifteen years within the parameters of this framework.
Presented by Professor Andrew O'Neil, Director, Griffith Asia Institute
Biography: Before joining Griffith University in January 2010, Andrew was Associate Professor and Director of the Flinders International Asia Pacific Institute at Flinders University. Prior to taking up an academic position in 2000, Andrew worked as a strategic analyst with Australia’s Defence Intelligence Organisation as part of its North Asia and Global Issues branch. Between 2005 and 2007 he served on the Australian Foreign Minister’s National Consultative Committee for International Security Issues, and in 2007 he was a Visiting Professor at Hiroshima University. In 2009 Andrew was appointed editor-in-chief of the Australian Journal of International Affairs and is an ex officio member of the National Executive of the Australian Institute of International Affairs. He is presently Chief Investigator on an Australian Research Council Project examining Australia’s nuclear choices in the context of a rapidly evolving global nuclear marketplace, continuing weapons proliferation worldwide, and pressures resulting from climate change.Abstract: This presentation sketches the outstanding security threats likely to confront Australia between
2010 and 2025, a fifteen year time frame that is sufficiently long-range in scope but not excessively distant as to be meaningless. It is not concerned with the various security challenges facing Australia. Threats denote approaching or imminent danger, while challenges imply a demanding situation, not a threatening one. So, for instance, the arrival of illegal refugees in Australia presents a challenge to Australia’s border security regime, but it does not constitute a threat, as in the case of a foreign state compromising Australia’s territorial sovereignty. A key contention of the presentation is that understanding the nature of change in international relations is a necessary pointer to discussing the types of threats likely to confront Australia over the next one and a half decades. This understanding pertains not to the surface trends in international relations, but instead to the deeper, tectonic forces in the international system that will shape Australia’s strategic circumstances. A central argument is that the dominant threats to Australia’s security for the foreseeable future will remain state-based in origin and largely (though not exclusively) a consequence of how the international system evolves. This is particularly the case in Asia, which will be the primary theatre in which long-range threats to Australia’s national security materialise. The analysis employs a framework that draws an explicit distinction between trend-based and discontinuity–based markers of change in international relations, and discusses Australia’s future security outlook over the next fifteen years within the parameters of this framework.Date and Time: Monday 23 August 2010, 12.30pm-1.30pm (light lunch will be available).
Venue: Room 5.01, Social Sciences Building (M10), Mt Gravatt campus, Griffith University, Brisbane (map)
RSVP: to k.baker@griffith.edu.au by 19 August 2010 for catering purposes
Presentation Podcast » (18.6MB 46:32)
Event start:
Mon, 23/08/2010 - 12:30 - 13:30
University node:
Griffith University
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