🚨We're hiring! 🚨 Come join the team at IISS-Asia here in Singapore as a Senior Fellow for Nuclear Arms Control, Non-Proliferation and Disarmament.

Deadline 16 April 2024. More details👇

iiss.org/en/careers/job…

Great meeting in Seoul today with Chang Ho-Jin, National Security adviser to President Yoon Suk Yeol, during which we discussed plans for the 20th anniversary IISS Manama Dialogue in #Bahrain 6-8 December 2024 and our work to establish this year a Korea Chair ⁦IISS News⁩

Great meeting in Seoul with Vice Foreign Minister Kang Insun who as a Chosun Ilbo journalist interviewed me 15 years ago. We discussed Korea’s relations with the GCC states and the vital facts/analysis that ⁦IISS News⁩ continues to generate on Korea’s security environment.

‘As a proportion of GDP, the core defence budget amounts to 1.25%, well below the global average of 1.8%’.

Meia Nouwens 温玫雅 and Fenella McGerty assess China’s spending on national defence.

All of us ⁦IISS News⁩ are proud to have been selected as recipients of this very generous donation. It will greatly strengthen our ability to generate influential work on arms control, our most long-standing ‘strategic studies’ tradition at The IISS iiss.org/press/2024/02/…

It was a real pleasure to meet 🇯🇵 Defence Minister Kihara in Tokyo today to discuss regional security matters and the upcoming IISS News Shangri-La Dialogue.

Friday is my last day at Axios, after 4 wonderful years. I'm looking for new opportunities to continue doing journalism and/or investigations related to China. Please DM with leads if you have any!

A thread of my best work at Axios over the years:

The IISS is delighted to announce that Air Marshal (Retd) Martin ‘Sammy’ Sampson CBE DSO will be appointed as the Executive Director of its Middle East office in Bahrain in May 2024. – 1/2
iiss.org/press/2024/02/…

Calling all China experts! Come join our phenomenal China Programme in London and contribute to the Institute’s original research on Chinese defence and security. Deadline 1 March 2024. More details 👇

We are pleased to announce that President of the Philippines Bongbong Marcos will deliver the Keynote Address at the 21st IISS Shangri-La Dialogue, which will take place in Singapore 31 May–2 June 2024| #SLD24 go.iiss.org/SLD24Keynote

I had a splendid meeting in Manila last December with President Marcos of the Philippines: a very substantive discussion on global security issues. We look forward to the next IISS Shangri-La Dialogue 31May - 2 June 2024. A formal announcement on the KeyNote address coming soon!

Missile arsenals are growing at an exponential rate in the Asia-Pacific region.

Read the latest IISS research paper by experts Veerle Nouwens 温丽玉, Timothy Wright, Euan Graham and Blake Herzinger:

➡ go.iiss.org/490oHDA

It feels like just yesterday that I was finishing this paper with Ben Bland and working with excellent colleagues at Chatham House Asia-Pacific and RUSI on our transatlantic dialogue project. Thanks to Philip Shetler-Jones for picking up the baton and bringing this over the line!

Republic of Singapore Navy to purchase 4 offshore patrol vessels from German shipbuilder Fassmer. As Mike Yeo 杨启铭 pointed out, it is plausibly similar to the 86m Potsdam-class presently in German Federal Police service.
mindef.gov.sg/web/portal/min…
fassmer.de/en/shipbuildin…

This was a tremendously important statement by HRH the Crown Prince and Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Bahrain. It made a huge impression on the 400 delegates gathered in the hall and will resonate much beyond it. #IISSMD23