The Defence White Paper and Australia’s Future in Asia: Will We Remain a Middle Power?

21 May 2009

Professor Hugh White

This year's Defence White Paper is more than a shopping list for the military.  Behind the force priorities and budget estimates lie key judgments about the kind of regional we expect to live in, and the kind of role Australia expects to play in it.  This lecture explored the underlying policy logic of the White Paper, and discussed where it might take Australia.  Will it equip Australia to remain a middle power in the Asian Century, or mark our acceptance of a future as a small power? 

Broad Topics: Asia and the Pacific

Sub-topics: Policy & Political Science

Areas: ANU College of Asia and the Pacific

Hugh White is Professor of Strategic Studies at the Australian National University and a Visiting Fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy.  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 staffs of Defence Minister Kim Beazley and Prime Minister Bob Hawke, and 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 (ASPI).  In the 1970s he studied philosophy at Melbourne and Oxford Universities.

Part of the Blake Dawson-ANU Public Lecture Series