Leading defence and security strategists from America and Australia met in Canberra to discuss the future of the Australia–United States alliance with regard to defence force collaboration, nuclear disarmament, and the threat of Islamic terrorism.

The workshop was part of the Alliance 21 project run by the United States Studies Centre and looked at key challenges and opportunities for future defence and security cooperation between Australia and America, with a focus on developing policy recommendations.

Former Australian Chief of Army and Director of the National Security Institute at the University of Canberra Lieutenant General Peter Leahy was amongst the Australian participants. The US strategists who took part were:

• Professor Douglas Feith - Director of the Center for National Security Strategies at Washington DC’s Hudson Institute and former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy under George W. Bush
• Dr Michael O’Hanlon - Senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution
• Dr Patrick Cronin - Senior Director of the Asia-Pacific at the Center for a New American Security
• Dr Tom Mahnken - Jerome E. Levy Chair of Economic Geography and National Security at the US Naval War College
• Admiral Gary Roughead - Visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and former chief of US naval operations

Defence and Security was one of six themes within the Alliance 21 project led by Professor Russell Trood, with the support of Alliance 21 directors, The Honourable Robert Hill AC and Professor Geoffrey Garrett.

Alliance 21 was a three-year project funded by the Australian Government together with corporate partners. It aimed to identify challenges and opportunities facing the Australia-US Alliance in the 21st century and to develop the best strategies in response.