Associate ProfessorThomas Wilkins
Associate Professor in International Security
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
- Associate Professor in International SecurityFaculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Research projects & supervision summary
Project Opportunities
Title: Asia-Pacific and Indo-Pacific Security
Summary of opportunity:
Dr Wilkins is an expert on Asia-Pacific/Indo-Pacific security affairs, focusing on Australian and Japanese strategic and foreign policies. His conceptual research is aimed at innovating our understanding of security architecture, including alliances, strategic partnerships, and other forms of alignment, as well as international power theorising – “middle powers” and “awkward powers”. He is also highly active in security policy debates, serving as a (non-resident) Senior Fellow for the Japan Institute for International Affairs (JIIA) and Regular Contributor to the Sasakawa Peace Foundation’s InternationalInformation Network Analysis (IINA).
Opportunity synopsis:
Research interests
Dr Wilkins has a broad range of research interests spanning International Relations (IR), Strategy and Security, and Foreign Policy. His regional interests are focused on Asia-Pacific/Indo-Pacific affairs, especially alliances, alignments and security architecture, as well as the foreign and security policies of Australia, Japan, and the US.
In terms of IR theory, his focus is on forms of security alignment – alliances, strategic partnerships and minilateralism – and the “Middle Power”/“Awkward Power” concepts.
Supervision
Dr Wilkins is available to supervise on topics related to: Asia-Pacific/Indo-Pacific Security or Strategy, including regional/state foreign/security policies, plus IR theory; especially alliances and multilateralism.
RESEARCH PROJECTS & ACTIVITIES
- RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISIONA Study in National Power and its Implications for Regional, Middle, and Great Power Theory: the Cases of Italy, Japan, and Australia
- RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISIONA Tale of Two Incentives: How divergent incentives, for opportunism and restraint, collectively shape state behavior
- RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISIONA Theoretical Analysis of Hedging and its Practice：Taking ASEAN Countries as Examples
- RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISIONEconomic statecraft by China, India and Japan in the Indo-Pacific through the prism of geoeconomic competition
- RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISIONInnovation in Alliances and Partnerships: Public and Private Adaptation
- RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISIONPower shifts and middle power adaptation: Cold War insights for the modern strategic environment
- RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISIONSecurity Alignments in the Indo-Pacific
- RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISIONStrategic Distraction
- RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISIONStrategic Eras and Great Powers: An analysis of the dynamics of competing grand strategies between incumbent powers and rising powers from 1700 to 2022.
- RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISIONThe Return to Geopolitics in a Multipolar World
- RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISIONThe thesis title will be revised upon completion of the full literature review which is expected to be finalized by October 2025.
- RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISIONWeaponization of Space: A Strategic Estimate for the Australian Defence Force