Ashton Robinson’s Strategy Amidst Indifference book seminar is designed to flag the work’s overseas release. It is an opportunity to hear the book’s thesis and question the author about his argument that the southern Indian Ocean is a growing Australian strategic vulnerability.

Strategy Amidst Indifference: Australia and the Indian Ocean Islands 1803-2025 (Routledge London 2026) addresses an Australian strategic blind spot - the southern Indian Ocean. The book argues a long disregard and complacency towards this part of Australia's neighbourhood has opened strategic risk. Robinson assesses the lengthy history of Australia's indifference and flags the consequences of external power intrusion, transnational threat, derisory Australian influence and sovereign risk.

About the author
Ashton Robinson was born in Waratah, NSW, Australia and educated at the Australian National University, where he graduated with an M.A. in African History.

He had an initial career in the then Department of Foreign Affairs in Canberra. Most of his subsequent experience in government was with the Australian Defence Intelligence Organisation, the Iraq Survey Group in Baghdad and the Office of National Assessments (ONA) – part of the Australian Prime Minister’s portfolio – where he dealt with long-term strategic matters, including terrorism, transnational crime, irregular migration and Africa. His Iraq experience formed the basis of his book Meeting Saddam’s Men.

In the 1980s, Ashton published as Assistant Editor, three volumes of documents on Australian foreign policy in the 1940s. He was an occasional lecturer in History at Wollongong, Sydney and La Trobe universities in Australia and on strategic issues at the Australian Defence Force Academy and at the Australian Command and Staff College in Canberra. He has also lectured at all the Australian Defence Force single service staff colleges, the Australian Army Research Centre and at the University of Seychelles.

From 2016 to 2023 he was an Honorary Fellow in the University of Melbourne’s School of Social and Political Sciences. His research interests covered sovereign risk in Africa, financial intelligence and governance, with a focus on Seychelles. In 2023, he joined the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at ANU. He blogs for the Lowy Institute’s Interpreter.

Additional information:
Registration is required for this event. If you require accessibility accommodations or a visitor Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan please email bell.marketing@anu.edu.au. Accessible parking spaces are available around campus should you require them.

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Contact the host of Strategy Amidst Indifference: Australia’s strategic engagement with the southern Indian Ocean islands 1803-2025