Event Date: November 23, 2022 - 12:00 to 13:30
Location: FSS 4006

Presented by CIPS and The University Research Chair in Global Political Thought

In recent years, the Australian government has doubled down on its historical policy of seeking closer security ties to the United States and adopting a “tough” attitude toward China. The 2021 AUKUS agreement between Australia, the US, and the UK exemplifies this military-led approach, including a 7% increase in the 2022-2023 defence budget driven primarily by a commitment to build 8 nuclear powered submarines. These developments raise fundamental questions for Australia’s regional role. Does the AUKUS agreement and the military focus of Australian policy undervalue diplomacy and economic policy? Has AUKUS locked the new Labor government into an overly militarised and too US-centric approach to Australian foreign policy and its place in a fast-changing geopolitical environment?

The event will be in English.

Speaker:

Brendon O’Connor has a joint appointment in the US Studies Centre and in the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney. He is the author of A Political History of the American Welfare System: When Ideas have Consequences and Anti-Americanism and American Exceptionalism: Prejudice and Pride about the USA. He is the co-author of Ideologies of American Foreign Policy and How America Compares. He is currently working on two new manuscripts The Ugly American: From Jefferson to Trump and Conservative International Relations: Republican foreign policy from Reagan to Trump.

Chair:

Michael Williams, the University Research Chair in Global Political Thought and Professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa.