Dr Thomas Wilkins is a Senior Fellow (non-resident) at the Japan Institute for International Affairs (JIIA) thinktank and Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney. He received his Doctorate in International Security from the University of Birmingham and M.Phil in Asian Studies from the University of Sydney. He has been post-doctoral fellow at the University of San Francisco and East-West Centre (Hawaii) and held government fellowships from the Japan Foundation and Japan Society for the Promotion of Sciences (JSPS). He publishes widely in leading academic journals such as The Pacific Review, Pacific Affairs and International Relations of the Asia-Pacific and his latest monograph – Security in Asia-Pacific: The Dynamics of Alignment – is published with Lynne Rienner.