Organizer: ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute

Description:

Post-Brexit, the UK reconfigured and redefined its approach towards global engagement in a landmark policy document titled Global Britain in a Competitive Age: the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy which was released in March 2021. The Integrated Review recognised that the UK’s future prosperity and security increasingly depend on developments in the Indo-Pacific, and therefore elevated the region’s strategic significance in the country’s foreign and defence policies. In this hybrid seminar, Lord Mark Sedwill will explore the strategic rationales and prospects of the UK’s Indo-Pacific ‘tilt’, the progress the country has achieved since 2021, the importance of Southeast Asia and ASEAN to the UK’s Indo-Pacific agenda and the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on London’s foreign and defence priorities.

Speaker:

Mark Sedwill, Baron Sedwill of Sherborne KCMG FRGS, is Chairman of the Atlantic Futures Forum and a cross-bench member of the House of Lords. He is a non-executive director of Rothschild & Co and of Lloyd’s of London. Lord Sedwill was Cabinet Secretary & Head of the Civil Service (2018-20), National Security Adviser (2017-20), Permanent Secretary at the Home Office (2013-17), and British Ambassador and NATO Representative in Afghanistan (2009-11). Before that he had a diplomatic and security career serving in Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Cyprus and Pakistan. Educated at St Andrews and Oxford Universities, Lord Sedwill is Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and of the Institute of Directors, President of the Special Forces Club, member of the IISS Advisory Council, Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) trustee, and Honorary Colonel in the Royal Marines. He holds other honorary positions, and is the recipient of awards and honours for national and international public service.

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