Valdai Club

Emeritus Professor of strategic studies and Chairman of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at The Australian National University. He was Head of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre from 1991 to 2003. His previous positions include: Deputy Secretary of the Department of Defence, Director of the Defence Intelligence Organisation, and Head of the National Assessments Staff (National Intelligence Committee). He is the author of 5 books and 4 reports to government, as well as more than 140 academic articles and monographs about the security of the Asia-Pacific region, the US alliance, and Australia’s defence policy. He wrote the 1986 Review of Australia’s Defence Capabilities (the Dibb Report) and was the primary author of the 1987 Defence White Paper. He also published a book in 1986, which was reprinted in 1987 and had a second edition in 1988, entitled The Soviet Union: the Incomplete Superpower (London: The International Institute for Strategic Studies). At the request of the Foreign Minister, he has represented Australia at seven meetings of the ASEAN Regional Forum’s Experts and Eminent Persons Group between 2006 and 2012 with the most recent one being in Honolulu in May 2013. He was made a member of the Order of Australia in 1989 for his contribution to Australia’s defence policy and intelligence work.