felt cute, joined the Royal Australian Navy. THRILLED to share I am Head of Research for Navy over at
@SeaPowerCentre
! looking forward to enhancing maritime domain awareness, examining hybrid maritime warfare in the Indo-Pacific & the role of the Polar Regions in maritime orders.
🚨 thrilled to announce I have landed my first
@ForeignPolicy
Magazine Feature 🚨 international print fall issue to include my essay on
#Antarctic
geopolitics
I stepped off the
#academic
ladder today. will share a personal news tweet, at a later date. right now, time to reflect on my experience in Australian security & IR academia.🧵
super happy to announce I’ve joined the 🇫🇷 Ministry of Armed Forces’ Institut de recherche stratégique de l'Ecole militaire
@IRSEM1
as an Associate Researcher ✍️.
horrific gutting of Arts & Social Sciences. just last yr I co-authored a report commissioned for the Australian Office of National Intelligence (ONI) - on behalf of the National Intelligence Community (NIC) - to examine HASS sig for 🇦🇺 national intelligence sector 👇🏻
instead of getting upset abt a retired Australian male emailing a publication I wrote for to "bring to attention" the fact that I am *not* Australia's foremost Russia (nor Antarctic) expert & requesting they not publish my work anymore....🤣
officially signed with
@yalepress
💥
#Arctic
#Antarctica
+ resource insecurity (data & 🎣) + great power competition = interesting statecraft at the seams of this trinity in 100,000 words or less.
Excited to kick off the 2020's with
@Deakin
as a Lecturer in Strategic Studies with the Defence and Strategic Studies Course (DSSC) at the Australian War College
@ADC_Australia
. Time to bolster 🇦🇺 research into Arctic & Antarctic geopolitics and Russian international strategy.
Upon telling James I felt like an imposter to be Head of Navy Research at this stage of my career, James told me I am just what Navy needs today. Not convinced, I told him "I know little of the naval nuts and bolts and I am more maritime/IR" to which he smirked and said "good".
Farewell James Goldrick
James was a force for good across many areas of endeavour. For the Sea Power Centre - Australia he was an influential leader and enduring mentor. While we no longer follow in his wake, we will continue to serve in the manner James exemplified.
lessons learnt in Teamwork 88:
✅ weather / persistent fog makes High North battle harder
✅ subs will provide a decisive edge
✅ primacy of safeguarding the Atlantic link relates to NATOs presence in Norwegian waters
✅ battle for the Fjords will be the key factor in control…
TLDR: do that PhD, write books, publish articles because you genuinely want to. Don't make it your identity. If lucky enough to pay bills doing something you are passionate about, go for it. define your own version of success (the system isn't geared to) and redefine it often.
the
@EU_Commission
has selected my
#JeanMonnet
research project for funding - "EUPOLE: The EU as a global polar power". I will strategically assess the potential for the EU to be a global polar actor wrt EU identity & strategic cultures in/around/towards the
#Arctic
&
#Antarctic
8 years ago we lived in my
@anuces
office, complete with cot and powered together through the PhD. We lobbied the university to install change tables and normalised 👶🏽 in tutorials.
#Putin
is still around and you don’t fit on my desk anymore, yet, we’ve come a long way, baby. 1/
HUGE. President of the 🇷🇺
#Arctic
Social Sciences Academy charged with treason. "Mitko gave China information on research on hydro acoustics and submarine detection methods". Reminder that China & Russia are indeed competitors & far from an 'Arctic axis'
stupidly happy to announce I've signed a contract with
@BlackIncBooks
for my next book - 'How to lose a continent'. a tale of cold, hard realism in
#Antarctica
.
🎉 book launch day 🎉
#Russian
Energy Strategy in the Asia-Pacific: implications for Australia
open access & free (!) downloads because
@ANU_Press
is legendary.
👉🏻
…of sea coms foundational to Western security
✅ ASW strike forces most impressive feat is the international character possible - many units/states under one command
✅ “as confrontations in Europe winds down maintaining correct balance between deterrence and reassurance…
this
#IWD2023
🚺 I can’t offer cupcakes or a breakfast speech - but I can provide a list of epic
#Australian
women raising the bar in natsec, security & strategic studies👇🏻
THREAD: intel sources in Moscow chat to me about Putin’s frame of mind, plans & star sign. as we head into week 3 of this current iteration of the 🇷🇺🇺🇦 War: here’s a how it ends. 1/15
The Parliament of Australia has publicly published my Antarctic monograph. I studied 2 decades of hansard, parliamentary debate & inquiries to find out how Australia conceptualised Antarctica. so what drives Australian parliamentary discussion/perceptions of Antarctica? 🧵
I have decided to share a few hot tips to help others wanting to work in Australia's security academic sphere.
(also full disclosure: I plan to continue writing on Russia & on polar security issues, without permission).
“Strategy without nuclear powered submarines is the slowest route to victory. Nuclear powered submarines without strategy is the noise before defeat” - Sun Tzu
…will be main challenge facing the western alliance as a whole”
✅ a fundamentally defensive strategy that “subtly integrates initiative and the latent threat of operational offence to constrain the offensive options of a pot. attacker” matters.
THRILLLLED to announce my Edited Special Issue of
@ThePolarJournal
has dropped online (open access): "All Quiet on the Southern Front? Revisiting
#Antarctic
Competition" 🧵
Allan Gyngell - someone who saw shades of grey and dealt with it accordingly - was also a kind man with whom I shared many
@AIIANational
dinners. Allan would always want to know who I’d ruffled the feathers of (& how) since we last spoke. Vale.
one of the highlights of my career so far: chairing
@jensstoltenberg
only public event in Canberra, 🇦🇺, 2019. discussion of
#climate
as a threat multiplier has shifted to climate as a stand alone threat. great to see
@NATO
’s new Strategic Concept putting climate on the agenda.
Ottawa’s 1987 White Paper on Defense recommended that the Royal Canadian Navy acquire 12 nuclear-powered submarines capable of navigating under the ice and defending its sovereignty in the Arctic region
Australia has a particular brand of academic bullying in security studies/IR & it is something we should shine light on so it can no longer evade accountability. our 'champions of change' aren't stepping in early enough. diversity = contestation of ideas = agile security thinking
watching 20 kids smash nuggets & chips before heading out to share germs & disorder in the ball-pit as every single parent here is talking 🇷🇺 coup is def peak Canberra.
my
@ForeignAffairs
essay on Antarctic geopolitics. I have a piece forthcoming which responds to our narrow conception of 🇨🇳 activity in Antarctica - mainly a response to those who come at me for being “hawkish” but it’s really about defending their bad advice to gov over decades.
“The return of great-power competition is bringing new instability to the South Pole.” Read
@BuchananLiz
on what policymakers can do to protect Antarctica from international contests over resources:
@SeaPowerCentre
pitch fest: once a month I’ll be calling for short policy brief ideas 💡 broadly related to
#maritime
security &
#naval
strategy - Australian maritime strategy/Indo-Pac maritime security etc.
✍️ editorial support
✍️ 1500 word output
✍️ defence engagement