John Blaxland is Professor of International Security and Intelligence Studies. He is a former Head of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales, and the first Australian recipient of a US Department of Defense Minerva Research Initiative grant examining great power contestation in Southeast Asia.

PROF. JOHN BLAXLAND
Former Australian Defence Attaché to Thailand and Myanmar, Professor of International Security & Intelligence Studies at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre & ACSS Mentor
He has extensive experience in crisis response activities including as the principal intelligence staff officer (S2) for the Australian infantry brigade deployed to East Timor in September 1999, as an intelligence exchange officer in Washington DC, and as Director Joint Intelligence Operations (J2), at Headquarters Joint Operations Command. In addition he was Australia’s Defence Attaché to Thailand and Myanmar. A lead author in the three-volume official history of ASIO, John was also commissioned recently to write a multi-volume history of the Australian Signals Directorate.
John teaches undergraduate courses “STST3003: Honeypots and Overcoats: Australian Intelligence in the World” and New Colombo Plan “STST2020: Southeast Asia’s Security Choices”.