David Dickens is a former New Zealand defence strategist. He was deputy director (1996-2001) and then director (2001-2002) of the Centre for Strategic Studies: New Zealand.
Dickens (Born in Eketahuna, 1963), educated St Joseph's College and Chanel College Masterton, is a former soldier with the 7th Wellington and Hawkes Bay Regiment, and 2nd/1st Battalion of the Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment, and was a Ministry of Defence official (1990-1996). He is a graduate of the Royal New Zealand Air Force Senior Command and Staff College Course (1993), and has BA with First Class Honours (1989) and PhD (1996) degrees from the Victoria University of Wellington. His thesis was New Zealand and the Vietnam War: Official Policy Advice to the Government 1960-1972. [1] He visited the United States under the auspices of the United States State Department Visitor Programme in 1997 and India as a guest of the Indian Foreign Ministry in 2001. [2]
Derek Francis Quigley is a New Zealand former politician. He was a prominent member of the National Party during the late 1970s and early 1980s, and was known for his support of free-market economics and trade liberalisation. Quigley left the National Party after clashing with its leadership, and later co-founded the ACT New Zealand party.
James Christopher Belich is a New Zealand historian, known for his work on the New Zealand Wars and on New Zealand history more generally. One of his major works on the 19th-century clash between Māori and Pākehā, the revisionist study The New Zealand Wars (1986), was also published in an American edition and adapted into a television series and DVD.
The United Kingdom's Strategic Command (StratCom), previously known as Joint Forces Command (JFC), manages allocated joint capabilities from the three armed services.
The Centre for Strategic Studies: New Zealand (CSS:NZ) is an international and military affairs research centre located in Wellington, New Zealand. Jointly supported by the New Zealand Ministry of Defence, New Zealand Defence Force, New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Victoria University of Wellington, it is based in Victoria University's School of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations.
Malcolm Arthur McKinnon is a New Zealand historian and political historian. McKinnon's work largely focuses on the history of New Zealand and New Zealand's international relations. McKinnon has held a number of editorial roles, including at New Zealand International Review and as theme editor of Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand.
David Murray Horner, is an Australian military historian and academic.
Robert John O'Neill, was an Australian historian and academic. He served as the chair of the International Academic Advisory Committee at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, was director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, based in London, from 1982 to 1987, and was Chichele Professor of the History of War at the University of Oxford from 1987 to 2000.
General Kotikalapudi Venkata Krishna Rao, was a former chief of the Indian Army and a former governor of Jammu and Kashmir, Nagaland, Manipur and Tripura.
Terence Christopher O'Brien was a New Zealand diplomat. He led New Zealand in 1993 to a seat on the United Nations Security Council and played a strong role in helping to reshape New Zealand's perceptions of itself as a small but fiercely independent nation in the South Pacific.
Joel Hayward is a New Zealand-born British scholar, academic and writer. He has been listed in the 2023, 2024 and 2025 editions of The World's 500 Most Influential Muslims. He has been the Dean of the Royal Air Force College Cranwell and is now the Chief Executive of the Cambridge Muslim College in the United Kingdom.
Peter Cozens is the Director of Finance for the New Zealand Oceans Foundation.
The New Zealand Command and Staff College (NZCSC) is the premier educational institute for the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) and is located at Trentham Military Camp, Upper Hutt. The New Zealand Command and Staff College provides professional military education to New Zealand Defence Force officers which prepares officers for command and staff appointments. The college was established at Whenuapai, near Auckland, in 1950, as a school for junior officers of the RNZAF. In 2004, the college moved to its present location in Trentham Military Camp, Upper Hutt near Wellington, New Zealand. Courses follow a modular approach that incorporate the following core subjects: Communication Skills, Operational Studies, Strategic Studies, International Relations, Command, Leadership and Management. Due to the college's close association with Massey University, it is able to offer to successful graduates of the Advanced Command and Staff Course (Joint) the delivery, by Massey University's Centre for Defence and Security Studies, of 150 credits of the 180 credits required for gaining a Masters in International Security.
Strategic studies is an interdisciplinary academic field centered on the study of peace and conflict strategies, often devoting special attention to the relationship between military history, international politics, geostrategy, international diplomacy, international economics, and military power. In the scope of the studies are also subjects such as the role of intelligence, diplomacy, and international cooperation for security and defense. The subject is normally taught at the post-graduate academic or professional, usually strategic-political and strategic-military levels.
Anthony Cleland Welch OBE is a UK-based former soldier, UN official, politician and academic who has contributed to the debate on security sector reform (SSR) and post-conflict development and regeneration. Welch adheres to the view that it is not enough to merely reform the armed forces, police and justice sector. In 2006 he led the Internal Security Sector review of Kosovo (ISSR) which established the grounds for the creation of a democratically administered, civilian-led security sector in the unilaterally declared independent Republic of Kosovo. The ISSR took the unusual step of asking the population of Kosovo to have their say on what made them feel insecure and was called by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), "…one of the most ambitious and holistic efforts at SSR undertaken in recent years, both in scope and methodology.".
The Department of War Studies (DWS) is an academic department in the School of Security Studies within the Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy at King's College London in London, United Kingdom. Along with other politics and international studies units at King's College London, it ranks amongst the top places for international relations in the world. For international relations in the UK, which is taught within the War Studies Department and the Department of European & International Studies, King's ranks second nationally. The department is devoted to the multi-disciplinary study of war and diplomacy within the broad remit of international relations. It remains one of the only academic departments in the world that can be described as such.
Ashok K. Mehta is a former major general of the Indian Army, as well as a radio and television commentator and a columnist on defence and security issues. He was a founding member of the Defence Planning Staff in the Indian Ministry of Defence. He is also the elder brother of the renowned journalist and editor, Vinod Mehta. Ashok Mehta is married to journalist Aditi Phadnis.
Johannes Baptista Soedjati Djiwandono was an Indonesian political scientist who helped found the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Jakarta, one of Indonesia's leading think tanks.
Major General Louis Joseph Gardiner was a New Zealand military officer. He served as Chief of Army from 2006 to 2009, and later was the chief executive of Crimestoppers New Zealand.
Nigel Shaun Scrutton is a British biochemist and biotechnology innovator known for his work on enzyme catalysis, biophysics and synthetic biology. He is Director of the UK Future Biomanufacturing Research Hub, Director of the Fine and Speciality Chemicals Synthetic Biology Research Centre (SYNBIOCHEM), and Co-founder, Director and Chief Scientific Officer of the 'fuels-from-biology' company C3 Biotechnologies Ltd. He is Professor of Enzymology and Biophysical Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Manchester. He is former Director of the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology (MIB).
John Peter Larkindale is a former New Zealand public servant and diplomat, whose overseas postings including ambassador to the Russian Federation and high commissioner to Australia.