John Blaxland

John Blaxland is Professor of International Security and Intelligence Studies, he was recently appointed Official Historian of the Australian Signals Directorate and commissioned to write a two-volume history of ASD. He is a former Head of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the ANU,  is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a Fellow of the Royal Society of NSW, and the first Australian recipient of a US DoD Minerva Research Initiative grant examining great power contestation in Southeast Asia.

John holds a PhD in War Studies from the RMC of Canada, an MA in History from ANU and a BA (Hons 1) from UNSW. He is a graduate of the Royal Thai Army CSC (dux, foreign students) and the Royal Military College, Duntroon (Blamey Scholar). He has extensive experience in the intelligence community 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 HQ JOC.

In addition, he was Australia’s Defence Attaché to Thailand and Myanmar.  At ANU, he teaches undergraduate students “Honeypots and Overcoats: Australian Intelligence in the World”; and "Southeast Asia's Security Choices" New Colombo Plan Mobility Course.