ANU College of Asia and the Pacific - Desmond Ball - CAP - ANU

Desmond Ball, BEc (Hons), PhD
Professor, Strategic & Defence Studies Centre, School of International, Political & Strategic Studies

Research interests

Australian defence; nuclear strategy; Asia-Pacific security.

Key publications

• Politics and Force Levels: The Strategic Missile Program of the Kennedy Administration, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1980.
• A Suitable Piece of Real Estate: American Installations in Australia, Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1980.
• Can Nuclear War be Controlled?, Adelphi Paper No. 169, International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, Autumn 1981.
• Targeting for Strategic Deterrence, Adelphi Paper No. 185, International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, Summer 1983.
• (ed. with Jeffrey Richelson) Strategic Nuclear Targeting, Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 1986.
• A Base for Debate: The US Satellite Station at Nurrungar, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, London and Boston, 1987.
• Pine Gap: Australia and the US Geostationary Signals Intelligence Satellite Program, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1988.
• (ed. with Helen Wilson) Strange Neighbours: The Indonesia-Australia Relationship, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1991.
• (ed.) Aborigines in the Defence of Australia, Australian National University Press, Sydney, 1991.
• Signals Intelligence in the Post-Cold War Era: Developments in the Asia-Pacific Region, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 1993.
• (with Pauline Kerr) Presumptive Engagement: Australia's Asia-Pacific Security Policy in the 1990s, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1996.
• (ed.) The Transformation of Security in the Asia/Pacific Region, Frank Cass & Co, London, 1996.
• Burma's Military Secrets: Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) from the Second World War to Civil War and Cyber Warfare, White Lotus Press, Bangkok, 1998.
• (with David Horner) Breaking the Codes: The KGB's Network in Australia, 1944-1950, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1998.
• (with Hamish McDonald) Death in Balibo, Lies in Canberra, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2000.
• The Boys in Black: The Thahan Phran (Rangers), Thailand's Para-military Border Guards (White Lotus, Bangkok, 2004).
• The Probabilities of On the Beach: Assessing 'Armageddon Scenarios' in the 21st Century, Working Paper No. 401, SDSC, May 2006.

Career highlights

Head of the Strategic & Defence Studies Centre (1984-91); personal chair in RSPAS (1987); FASSA (1986); member of the Council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) (1995-2001); Co-chairman of the Steering Committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in Asia-Pacific (CSCAP) (2000-2002).