Southeast Asia and the Poly-crisis: A View of Regional Geopolitics from Australia

Speaker: John Blaxland, Professor of Security and Intelligence Studies at the ANU and Former  Official Historian of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization

Moderator: Richard Yarrow, Fellow at Mossavar-Rahmani Center, HKS

Abstract: Southeast Asian states are feeling squeezed by contestation between the US and China, a spectrum of governance challenges and looming environmental catastrophe – all accelerated by the fourth industrial revolution. Meanwhile, there is more dysfunction afoot in ASEAN—Southeast Asia’s main formal macroregional group—than witnessed in decades. Australia has long been a US treaty ally, yet with its existential roots in neighbouring Asia (the “Near North” rather than “Far East”). In this talk, Dr John Blaxland from the Australian National University (ANU) will provide a “Down Under” perspective on Southeast Asia’s response to the poly-crisis and why it matters.

About the Speaker: Blaxland is Professor of International Security and Intelligence Studies and Director of the ANU North America Liaison Office. He is a former Director of the ANU Southeast Asia Institute. He is also a former military intelligence officer, Australian defence attaché to Thailand and Myanmar, and exchange officer at the US Defense Intelligence Agency. He has written several books and articles on intelligence and on Australia’s engagement in Asia, including co-writing the official history of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization. Recently, he was co-author of The US-Thai Alliance and Asian International Relations (Routledge 2021) and Revealing Secrets: An Unofficial History of Australian Signals Intelligence and the Advent of Cyber (NewSouth Publishing, 2023).