Recent PhDs

  • Yusuke Ishihara

    Yusuke Ishihara is a Senior Fellow of the National Institute for Defence Studies (NIDS), Ministry of Defence, Japan. He earned both a PhD and Master of Arts in Strategic Studies from the Australian National University and Bachelor’s in Law from Keio University. He seeks to bridge Japanese and English International Relations literature and to introduce conceptual framework-based analyses into the study.

    Thesis

    • Renegotiating Japan’s postwar ‘bargains’: The transformation of Japanese foreign policy and the pluralisation of the U.S. Hegemonic Order in the 1970s

    Research Interests

    • Japan’s relations with the Asia-Pacific countries;
    • The postwar history of Japanese foreign and security affairs

    Publications

    • Ishihara, Yusuke, and Ryosuke Tanaka. “World Politics amid Great Power Competition: The Pacific and European Experiences during COVID-19.” In East Asian Strategic Review 2021, edited by Marie Izuyama, 2-52. Tokyo: National Institute for Defense Studies, 2021.
    • Ishihara, Yusuke. “Japan and the Origin of ASEAN Centrality.” Hogaku-Kenkyu (Soeya-Yoshihide-Kyoju-Taishoku-Kinengo) 94, no. 2 (2021): 471-496.
    • Ishihara, Yusuke. "Japan-Australia Security Relations and the Rise of China: Pursuing the “Bilateral-Plus” Approaches." UNISCI Discussion Papers, no. 32 (2013): 81-98.

  • Emirza Adi Syailendra

    Emirza Adi Syailendra is a Research Fellow at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre (SDSC) at the Australian National University (ANU). He completed his PhD in June 2025. His thesis examines why maritime Southeast Asian countries have continued to show restraint toward China in the post–Cold War period, despite China’s growing assertiveness in the South China Sea. Emir is developing an innovative framework to analyse the negotiation of tacit understandings that underpin this mutual restraint between China and Southeast Asia. For his research, he has conducted fieldwork in Indonesia and Malaysia, interviewing key elites.

    Thesis

    • Tacit Understandings: Explaining Maritime Southeast Asia’s Restraint towards China in the Post-Cold War Period

    Research Interests

    • Politics, culture, security, and foreign policy of Indonesia;
    • Southeast Asia-China relations;
    • Tacit understandings

    Publications

    • Syailendra, Emirza Adi. “A Non balancing Act: Explaining Indonesia’s Failure to Balance Against the Chinese Threat.” Asian Security 13, no. 3 (2017): 237-255. doi:10.1080/14799855.2017.1365489
    • Syailendra, Emirza Adi. “Inside Papua: The Police Force as Counterinsurgents in Post–Reformasi Indonesia.” Indonesia 102, (2016): 57-84.
    • Syailendra, Emirza Adi. “Under Suharto's Shadow: Jokowi and the Indonesian Military.” Foreign Affairs, Aug. 12, 2015. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/indonesia/under-suhartos-shadow

  • Ristian Atriandi Supriyanto

    Ristian Atriandi Supriyanto (he/him) is a Lecturer at the Department of International Relations at Universitas Indonesia, and a fellow with the Maritime Security Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He was a recipient of Indonesia’s LPDP Presidential Scholarship and the inaugural Indonesian fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). He completed his PhD in 2025 through the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University.

    Thesis

    • Competing over America in the Cold War: Australia-Indonesia Relations, 1945-1978

    Research Interests

    • Maritime strategy and security in theory and practice;
    • Australian, Indian, Indonesian foreign and defence policies

    Publications

    • Supriyanto, Ristian Atriandi. “Indonesia and Maritime Security Cooperation in Southeast Asia: A Study of Four Maritime Areas.” In Maritime Cooperation and Security in the Indo-Pacific Region: Essays in Memory of Sam Bateman, edited by John Bradford et al, 364-385. Leiden: Brill Nijhoff, 2022.
    • Supriyanto, Ristian Atriandi. “Indonesia and China’s Maritime Encroachment: Opportunities for Australia and the United States.” In Many Hands: Australia-U.S. Contributions to Southeast Asian Maritime Security Resilience, edited by Peter Lee, 10-14. Sydney: United States Studies Centre, 2022.
    • Supriyanto, Ristian Atriandi. “Indonesia-Singapore Maritime Security Cooperation: From ‘Reluctant’ to ‘Expansive’.” Australian Naval Review, no. 2 (2021): 85-97.
    • Till, Geoffrey, and Ristian Atriandi Supriyanto. Naval Modernisation in Southeast Asia: Problems and Prospects for Small and Medium Navies. Cham: Palgrave macmilan, 2018.
    • Laksmana, Evan, and Ristian Atriandi Supriyanto, “Abandoned at Sea: Tribunal Ruling and Indonesia’s Missing Archipelagic Foreign Policy,” Asian Politics and Policy 10, no. 2 (2018): 300-321.