The ASPI Conference Series: Strategic Vision 2020

Promoted by Australian Strategic Policy Institute

Join Stan Grant in conversation with global thought leaders, as Australia seeks to navigate the complex, post-Covid future, in ASPI’s virtual conference series, Strategic Vision 2020

The world is navigating the stormy waters of a triple crisis: a global pandemic, the looming threat of a global depression, and sustained threats to the international rule of law. 

This is a troubled world, with an incredibly complicated geostrategic outlook becoming more difficult and more complex as we seek a course into the future. There is an urgent need to find our strategic bearings, look beyond surface distractions and plan a journey to security and stability, in Australia, and globally. 

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), with support from Thales Australia, is proud to present its inaugural live, online and interactive conference: Strategic Vision 2020.

Over four weeks, Walkley Award winning journalist and author and Senior ASPI Fellow, Stan Grant, will host eleven in-depth conversations with an incredible line-up of Australian and international thought leaders. With a focus on global security and Australia’s place in the world, this conference provides an important opportunity to rethink policy settings for the post-Covid world.

Our assumptions about the shape of Australian society and the broader global order are being fundamentally challenged. Now is the time to take stock of future directions. This painful year, 2020, may prove to be the start of a new period of nation-building for Australia that rivals our heady post war years, but such success will come only from big thinking and bold policymaking.

In a recent discussion with Stan Grant for ASPI’s podcast, ‘Policy, Guns and Money’ (available here), Stan expressed his eagerness to have conversations with the diverse and impressive conference line-up and provided a great prologue for the series:

‘It's a convergence of so many things Peter. I think, you know, Coronavirus has only accelerated what was already happening in the world. I think, you look at the past 20 years or so, particularly with the United States, and as the US goes, so goes the rest of the world. 

But, from the attacks in 9/11, the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, the global financial crisis, the political polarisation of the United States set against the rise of China, increasing authoritarianism in other parts of the world, the rise of the far right as a blow back against immigration and refugees in Europe. All of these things have widened cracks that were already existing. 

I think we're really at a hinge point in history now and these are the things that I'd love to explore in the webinar series. But, this moment where we seem to be hitting the limits of liberal democracy … and a rising authoritarianism that appears increasingly sure of itself, more belligerent and more assertive, and not just in China, but in other parts of the world’.

Alongside Stan’s in-depth discussions, I will be hosting a weekly wrap session with my ASPI colleagues and guests to offer some analysis as the conference progresses to help digest the conversations with the audience.

The Conference will launch on Wednesday, 22 July with Stan Grant in conversation with two of the most significant figures in Australian politics in recent years, the Hon John Howard and the Hon Kim Beazley. 

I warmly invite you to register for the conference series and bring your questions to the live discussions as we seek to shape the best strategic future for Australia and the world.

Access to the series is free and registration for all sessions are available now at the ASPI website: here 

Peter Jennings 

Executive Director, ASPI

The ASPI conference series, Strategic Vision 2020 will run from 22 July to 14 August. Registrations are free and are now open. 

__

Speakers:

The Hon. Kim Beazley AC, Governor of Western Australia
Carl Bildt, former Prime Minister of Sweden
Dr Dino Patti Djalal, founder, Foreign Policy Community of Indonesia
Elizabeth Economy, C.V. Starr senior fellow, director for Asia Studies, Council on Foreign Relations
Christiana Figueres, former Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
Dr Robert Glasser, former special representative of the Secretary General for Disaster Risk Reduction, ASPI Visiting Fellow
Jane Halton AO PSM, Adjunct Professor at the Universities of Canberra and Sydney
The Hon. John Howard OM AC, Former Prime Minister of Australia
Bilahari Kausikan, former Permanent Secretary of Singapore’s Foreign Ministry
Major General (Ret'd) Duncan Lewis, Former Director-General, ASIO
Professor Raina MacIntyre, NHMRC Principal Research Fellow & Professor of Global Biosecurity, UNSW
The Right Hon. Sir Rabbie Namaliu KCMG CSM, former Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea
Samantha Power, former U.S Ambassador to the United Nations
Senator the Hon. Linda Reynolds CSC, Minister for Defence
Sir John Scarlett KCMG OBE, former Chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service