Emeritus Professor Hugh White AO
and former Ambassador Bill Fisher discuss:
What our clumsy launch of AUKUS says about Australia’s ability to navigate the security environment in our region and the world
Free virtual event on Zoom
Suggested donation $20 per group
President Joe Biden called the launch of the AUKUS strategic partnership clumsy. President Emmanuel Macron said that he ‘did not think, he knows’ that Prime Minister Scott Morrison lied to him about it, as recently as three months before the announcement. The Lowy Institute reports that ‘AUKUS is just the tip of a deep and enduring divide between Australia and Indonesia over the future of power in the Indo-Pacific’. We will look not just to the clumsiness of the launch of AUKUS, but at the deeper flaws in its conception. Are nuclear submarines a good idea for Australia? Is the US really a ‘forever partner’, as the PM described it? Is the UK? The AUKUS issue provides a platform for a multi-layered discussion of Australia’s ability to navigate the security environment in our region and the world.
Please join Hugh White AO, Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies at the ANU Strategic and Defence Studies Centre and Bill Fisher, visiting Fellow at the ANU Coral Bell School of Asia-Pacific Affairs, former Australian Ambassador for Counterterrorism and former Ambassador to France, in a lively discussion on this complex and significant issue.
This is a free virtual event with a suggested donation of $20 per group (to assist us cover our fixed costs). Please register on this link or the button below so we can send you the Zoom details or contact Dianne on 0414243326 or dcassen@sydneysalon.org if you have any questions or special requests.
Speaker Bios:
Hugh White AO is Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies at ANU. His work focuses primarily on Australian strategic and defence policy, Asia-Pacific security issues, and global strategic affairs especially as they influence Australia and the Asia-Pacific. He has served as an intelligence analyst with the Office of National Assessments, as a journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald, as a senior adviser on the staff of Defence Minister Kim Beazley and Prime Minister Bob Hawke, as a senior official in the Department of Defence, where from 1995 to 2000 he was Deputy Secretary for Strategy and Intelligence, and as the first Director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
Hugh was the principal author of Australia’s 2000 Defence White Paper. His major publications include Power Shift: Australia’s future between Washington and Beijing, (2010), The China Choice: Why America should share power, (2012), Without America: Australia’s future in the New Asia (2017) and How to defend Australia (2019).
Bill Fisher was the Australian Ambassador for Counter-Terrorism until joining the ANU in 2014, where he is a visiting fellow at the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs. He was previously the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy to La Francophonie and the Francophone States of Africa.
Bill served for many years as a career diplomat with the Australia Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, most recently as Australia’s High Commissioner to Canada (2005-08). Prior, he was Ambassador to France (2000-04), Ambassador to Thailand (1997-2000), Ambassador to Israel, Consul-General in Honolulu, Charge d’Affaires in Tehran, Consul-General and Head of Post in Port Vila and in Noumea, as well as earlier postings at the Embassy in Laos and at the Mission to the United Nations in Geneva.
In Canberra, Bill’s earlier positions included First Assistant Secretary, Public Affairs Division; First Assistant Secretary, Consular Programs and Security Division; and First Assistant Secretary International Organisations and Legal Division. He was Principal Adviser, Americas and Europe Division; and Head, South Pacific Section. He also held the position of Assistant Secretary, Defence Branch of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.