All around us, military spending is up. Are our neighbours arming for superpower confrontation over territory and influence? What does this mean for the peace and prosperity of Australia and our region?

Dr Bates Gill is Professor of Asia Pacific Strategic Studies with the Australian National University Strategic and Defence Studies Centre and one of the world's leading experts on Asia-Pacific security issues, especially with regard to China. From 2007 to 2012 he served as Director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the world's most respected nongovernment authority on the global arms trade. Over his 30-year career, he has authored and edited numerous books and other publications on arms trade and proliferation issues, including Chinese Arms Transfers (Praeger), Arms, Transparency and Security in Southeast Asia (Oxford University Press), China's Arms Acquisitions from Abroad (Oxford University Press), and Governing the Bomb: Civilian Control and Democratic Accountability of Nuclear Weapons.

Sheryn Lee is an Associate Lecturer at the Department of Security Studies and Criminology, Macquarie University. She is also completing her doctoral dissertation on arms racing in the Asia-Pacific at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, the Australian National University. She was previously a non-resident WSD-Handa Fellow at Pacific Forum, Center for Strategic and International Studies, and holds an AM in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania, where she was a Benjamin Franklin Fellow and Mumford Fellow. She was also a Robert O'Neill scholar at the International Institute of Strategic Studies-Asia in Singapore.

Peter Hartcher is a leading Australian journalist and author. He is the political editor and international editor for The Sydney Morning Herald, a visiting fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy and a political commentator for Sky News television. He has been writing about power and politics, war and peace, booms and busts for more than 30 years. His latest book is The Adolescent Country.

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