On Wednesday 29 November 2006 Professor Robert O'Neill will give a lecture on "World Order and the War on Terror: Prospects and Perspectives" from 2pm.
In this lecture Professor O’Neill will give several perspectives on key international security problems, based on his personal experience as a soldier, a scholar and an adviser to governments. He offers some insights on the War on Terror from standpoints beginning with the Vietnam War. He discusses world order in the age of a single dominant power, examines the functioning of the Western Alliance in the Cold War and today, and looks critically at how governments and research institutes have worked together. He concludes by offering some approaches to reducing the major dangers of the future, from climate change to terrorism and insurgency.
Professor Robert O’Neill’s professional life has been spent in the field of international security. He began with a practical grounding through service in the Australian Regular Army, 1955-68, culminating with a year of war service in Vietnam, 1966-67. He broadened his studies by moving to the Australian National University in 1969 where he headed the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, 1971-82. He then became Director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the principal global body in this field, in London, 1982-87, before moving to Oxford as the Chichele Professor of the History of War and a Fellow of All Souls College, 1987-2001.
He established and co-directed the All Souls Foreign Policy Studies Programme, and chaired the Board of Trustees of the Imperial War Museum, the Council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and the Management Committee of the Sir Robert Menzies Centre for Australian Studies at the University of London. He was also a Director of the International Peace Academy, New York and the Ditchley Foundation, Oxfordshire. He returned to Australia in 2001, becoming Chairman of the Council of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Graduate School of Government of the University of Sydney (both to 2005) and a Director of the Lowy Institute. Since 1988 he has served on several company boards in the USA and the UK.
This meeting will take place at the IISS, Arundel House, 13-15 Arundel Street, WC2R 3DX.
Please notify Caitlin Brannan at brannan@iiss.org or tel. +44 (0)20 7395 9119 if you would like to attend. 
