The event will feature a keynote address by US Marine Corps Colonel Grant Newsham (ret), a leading expert on foreign political warfare. The keynote will be followed by a Q&A session.

Areas of interest

• The nature and impact of foreign influence operations on Taiwan, the Pacific Islands and Australia
• How to counter-influence operations in the Indo Pacific

Registration

If you want to join the event; please register by 27 August 2023 using your full name and professional email address.

Note that this event will be held in person only.

Speaker

Colonel Newsham is a retired US Marine Colonel and was the first US Marine Liaison Officer to the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force. In that role he was instrumental in developing Japan’s amphibious warfare capability. Mr. Newsham previously served as the reserve G2 (intelligence) and G5 (plans and policy) at Marine Forces Pacific Headquarters in Honolulu covering the entire Asia/Pacific region, and also served on two occasions as the US Marine Attaché, US Embassy Tokyo.

Mr. Newsham lived in Tokyo for twenty years and worked for over a decade as an executive director at a Western investment bank and for a major American high-tech firm. He is also a former US Foreign Service Officer – with work covering a number of regions – including East and South Asia, and specializing in insurgency, counter-insurgency, and commercial matters.

Mr. Newsham is also an attorney with experience in international trade and public international law. He was selected to join the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Organized Crime in 2011-2012, and was once the co-chair of the District of Columbia Bar’s International Trade Committee.

Mr. Newsham has been participating in Track 2 dialogues involving Taiwan and India for a number of years. He also speaks regularly at a variety of forums on Asian defense, economic, and political matters, and has published many articles on these topics in a range of periodicals such as Asia Times, The National Interest, USNI Proceedings, The Diplomat, Christian Science Monitor, Sankei Shimbun, and Kyodo News.