23 July 2014
Strategic defence expert, Prof Hugh White delivers Annual Hawke Lecture
The University of South Australia’s Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre is proud to present a new speaker for the 2014 Annual Hawke lecture following Air Chief Marshall Angus Houston’s emergency posting to the Ukraine in the wake on the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17.
Professor of Strategic Studies in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University, Prof Hugh White will deliver an important examination of how our experience of WWI continues to offer lessons about our place in the world.
The lecture will be held on Tuesday August 5 at the Adelaide Town Hall from 6pm.
One hundred years since the commencement of WWI, Prof White says it is important to explore new and broader aspects of the repercussions of that conflict.
“WWI was an immense and somewhat incomprehensible struggle and our participation in that war changed our country forever,” Prof White says.
“In the 100 years since that war we have thought a lot about what the experience taught us about ourselves, but I’m keen to explore what WWI taught us about the rest of the world and our place in it.
“As we move through what has been dubbed the Asian Century, which would seem far removed from Eurocentric focus of the 20th century, there are threads of the past that can teach us about the risks and challenges we confront now.
“What might appear to be entirely new geo-political terrain, may in fact be informed by the echoes of our past conflicts.”
Prof White is a leading researcher in Australian strategic and defence policy and regional and global security issues affecting Australia.
He has been an intelligence analyst, a journalist, a senior advisor to Kim Beazley and Bob Hawke, a senior official in the Defence Department, and the first Director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
His recent publications include the Quarterly Essay Power Shift: Australia's future between Washington and Beijing and The China Choice: Why America should share power.
This is a free public lecture. To secure your seat please book online at www.hawkecentre.unisa.edu.au
Media contact: Michèle Nardelli office: 08 8302 0966 mobile: 0418 823 673 email: Michele.nardelli@unisa.edu.au
