Ashley Townshend

Ashley Townshend is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the United States Studies Centre and Senior Fellow for Indo-Pacific Security at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is the founding co-chair of the annual US-Australia Indo-Pacific Deterrence Dialogue and was the Director of Foreign Policy and Defence at the United States Studies Centre from June 2017 to June 2022.

Ashley works on international security and strategic affairs with a focus on the Indo-Pacific, including regional power dynamics, alliances and partnerships, defence strategy, US-China relations and Australian policy. A frequent contributor to the Australian and international media, Ashley’s research and analysis has appeared in leading outlets such as Foreign Policy, International Institute for Strategic Studies, War On The Rocks, TheFinancial Times, The Guardian, Australian Financial Review, Bloomberg, CNN, BBC and ABC News.

Previously, Ashley has held research and teaching positions in the Alliance 21 Program at the United States Studies Centre, the International Security Program at the Lowy Institute, the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney, the Center for Asia-Pacific Cooperation and Governance at Fudan University, the Warrior-Scholar Project at Yale University, the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University, and Pacific Friends of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. He completed his studies at the University of Oxford, Peking University, Sciences Po, Paris, and the University of Sydney where he received the University Medal.