Punish, deny or retaliate: Australia’s evolved approach to deterrence in the 21st century
Using the foundations provided by the DSU2020 and other previous works, MAJGEN Ryan will explore deterrence theories, their application in the 21st century and whether Australia needs to evolve its thinking and application of deterrence to secure its national interest in a more challenging security environment.
Major General Mick Ryan, AM (retired)
Mick spent 35 years in the Australian Army and had the honour of commanding soldiers at multiple levels. His operational service includes deployments to East Timor, Iraq, and southern Afghanistan, and he also served as a strategist on the United States Joint Staff in the Pentagon.
Mick has a bachelor’s degree in Asian Studies from the University of New England and is a graduate of the Australian Defence Force School of Languages. He is a Distinguished Graduate of the United States Marine Corps Command and Staff College, and a graduate of the USMC School of Advanced Warfighting. In 2012, he graduated with distinction from the Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies.
Mick has a long-standing interest in military history and strategy, advanced technologies, organizational innovation, and adaptation theory. He was inaugural President of the Defence Entrepreneurs Forum (Australia) and is a member of the Military Writers Guild. He is a keen author on the interface of military strategy, innovation, and advanced technologies, as well as how institutions can develop their intellectual edge. He has contributed to several books, including Strategy Strikes Back (2018), Why We Write (2019), On Strategy (2020) and To Boldly Go (2021) and the forthcoming With Great Power (2023). Mick has also authored major reports on military strategy, training and education that include the Ryan Review (2016) and Thinking About Strategic Thinking (2021).
On 27 February 2022, Mick retired from the Australia Army. In the same month, his book War Transformed was published by USNI Books. He is a strategy consultant, heading his own company called Mick Ryan Solutions Pty Ltd. He is also a writer, having been published in publications such as The Economist and Foreign Affairs, and is a columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald and ABC Australia.
Mick is an adjunct fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC, and a non-resident fellow of the Lowy Institute in Sydney.
His next book, White Sun War, will be published in 2023 Casemate Books. It is a fictional account of a war over Taiwan.
