Peter J. Dean is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Indo-Pacific Security Initiative in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. Dean is an international award-winning author who specializes in Australian and US strategy in the Indo-Pacific, the Australia-New Zealand-United States (ANZUS) Alliance, Australian strategic policy, and military operations. He has published eight books, with a further two in press, as well as a plethora of journal articles, book chapters, policy papers, and commentaries. He joined the University of Western Australia (UWA) in 2018 and was made Chair of Defence Studies in 2020 and Director of the UWA Defence Security Institute in 2021.

Dean was formerly a Fulbright fellow and an Endeavour research scholar in Australia-United States alliance studies. He is a nonresident senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Australian, New Zealand, and Pacific Studies, and he was formerly a nonresident fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC. Before joining UWA, Peter was a scholar at the Strategic & Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University (ANU). Throughout his career—including his fourteen years as a member of the Royal Australian Army (Reserve) with postings to infantry units, Special Forces Command, and Training Command—he has developed extensive contacts throughout the Australian Defence Force and broader defense community. Peter spent eight years teaching strategy, military operations, and Australian defense policy at the Australian Command and Staff College during his time at the ANU.  His most recent work has been focused on maritime security issues in the Indian Ocean, the development of amphibious warfare and sovereign defense capabilities in the Indo-Pacific.